Slashdot Mirror
Sharing IT Problems with Executives?
dicey asks: "Later this week all of the IT department at my company (50-80 people) is having a dinner with the company President and VP/CIO. One major reason for this is so that they can get a better understanding of what is going on in IT and how it impacts the company overall. Ideally, with the ideas and sharing, these guys will have a better appreciation for us, adjust our budgets appropriately, and help us in our business.
However, many of us are wary to speak about what is going on because it will inevitably reveal problems with the company. We are worried about what we discuss coming back to our directors ultimately to bite us. I am curious what my fellow Slashdot readers have done in similar circumstances, where there is a great chance to let someone high up in your company know of problems so that they can be rectified, but whereby revealing them you may get hurt in the process."
At a large company that I worked for in the past, we had the opportunity to give criticism to the higher ups about all the things that we'd like improved etc. You know that manager of yours that in one way or another always blames his director for the hardships bestowed on your group? Well, we mentioned that during the surveys and meetings that we had. "If only the director would do this.. or that.." Well, one member of our group who'd been around for 6+ years at the company warned us that this was all a sham; not to criticize anything. Well, it did. About a week later the manager called us all into a meeting and while even shedding a tear, he told us that we were all ungreatful and that we'd get no more perks from him with him pulling his weight to get us things. 3 people quit shortly after. Tread VERY lightly and don't place blame on any singular management entity.
A carefully considered, previously agreed-upon statement would be fine, but I would cringe at anyone who would speak "off the cuff" to management. If you can approach them in the right way, you may well end up with what you need. Or at least what they think you need. Anyone in your department who has a deep-seated need to impress the brass should be given the wrong location and time for the dinner. Best of luck!
"Never pet a burning dog."
Just smile, nod and enjoy the free food. Sure, it would be nice to try and let the executives know the problems you are facing, but as the Dispair poster says, "Sometimes the best way to increse moral is to fire all the unhappy people." You aren't unhappy are you?
Seriously, you, and a large portion of the staff should discuss the idea of all suggestions being given to the exec anoymously. Try to find someway to disassociate the idea from the person. Granted this isn't perfect, but it might help some.
Necessity is the mother of invention.
Laziness is the father.
The right thing to do:
Be open and honest with the PHBs. Don't sugar-coat anything that much, and if your honest assesment of a problem doesn't please them, then you may want to start looking for another job.
The normal thing to do:
Suck up to them and blame the problems on others. That way you'll get a pay raise and your co-workers will not be held in as high regard.
I would like to think I'd do the right thing in a situation similar to yours, but I honestly don't know if I could risk my job because of an execs stupidity.
Karma: Meh (Mostly from meh.)
Send out an email to your IT staff, avoiding the managers. Let them know that a box will be made available at some accessable point, where anonymously _typed_ papers can be dropped off.
Encourage folks to not only write down the bad stuff, but write up good things as well. And always give examples and suggestions with the bad. But make sure that the examples focus on the issues, not specific people.
Deliver the box to the VP/manager/PHB and tell him it was done this way to prevent personal bias influencing the issues.
Support FSF: Stop thinking with your wallet, and think with your imagination. (cc/non-commercial)
I agree... but for a slightly different reason.
The upper management should routinely meet with all the various departments for the reasons you gave.
A lot of the problem has been that upper management has treated the IT department more like a service department than a productive part of the company.
At least where I work the trend is changing. The "top-floor" guys often meet with us over drinks or dinner. This is after we stepped up and saved them an assload of money by building a project in-house instead of buying a similiar service.
The upper level "shirts and ties" guys are learning that IT has to be part of the system now. IT requires too much financial support not to listen to the experts.
AC
I hate to be a dick about it, but this sounds eerily like what has been going on with the Finance community. Not reporting correctly. This just sounds like deceit plain and simple. People in the financial world are going to jail for not reporting correctly. Granted, your situation may not be as serious, but it certainly could be and not being honest and up front isn't going to help things one bit when a poorly built house of cards comes tumbling down. It's a bitter pill to swallow, but in the long run, honesty really is the best policy. A lot of cliches? yeah, but they are cliches for a reason.
Another poster wrote "get your resume ready". I agree. Hiding things won't make them any less of an issue later. In fact, I think these things have a way of getting bigger and worse.
Co-founder and designer at Music Nearby: http://musicnearby.com
A good admin/support person should have the ability to at his desk and goof off on his computer. When caught doing so, and asked what actual work I was doing, I point to the support hotline phone and the fact that it isn't ringing. If nothing was broken and my routine maintainance was up-to-date, the only reason why I have left to not call it a day the day is because I need to be on call in the hopefully unlikely event something causes that phone to ring.
I'm not sure how true that is.
It seems to me right now if you cut the IT labor force in half, half being the people who were truly qualified for the job they had in the dot com era, and half that wasn't. (Its probably more like 2/3 in that bucket, but whatever), 10% of the former group is finding jobs with no problem, and 10% of the latter group isn't.
The really good developers I know who have gotten laid off in the last couple months haven't been having and problems finding new work. I have a couple friends who have commented lately about how they expected it to be hard and in the process of looking started being a lot more picky, because things weren't as bad as they'd heard.
Maybe some parts of the country are different... this is the metro Boston area...
My advice? Keep your mouth shut.
Of course be careful. But there are many ways to play this. A conservative strategy is of course the safest, but it isn't necessarily the best. You have to decide what you want out of the encounter. Do you really want to spend life pussyfooting around because you might offend somebody powerful? That's no way to win respect, certainly not of senior management.
This is a chance to get noticed, and it could also be a chance to kick your career up a notch, if you are interested in that. If you just want to get through with this, then don't get noticed. If you want to change things then do get noticed.
The key in any kind of encounter like this is to understand what the other person would like to get out the encounter. Management has two functions: providing direction and removing obstacles. Basically, management ideally should be 90% shitwork and 10% leadership. Most managers know this but being human would rather spend 90% of their time doing leadership and 10% the other stuff. In other words most managers are lousy. It follows that any shitwork you can take off the boss's plate automatically makes your life easier. I'm preaching the gospen of win-win here: You should not be thinking how management can make IT's life easier, how to you each help each other get what you want?
So, what to do if you are sitting next the CEO and he starts chatting you up? It's not about what the CEO can do for you, it's what you can do for the CEO. That means knowing him probably better than you do and, harder yet, taking him (or her) more seriously than you probably do now. What are his pet issues? Conversely, what tare the things that he's spending his time dealing with he'd rather not be?
On the other hand, you can't ignore the leadership side of the equation either. What are easy ways this guy can become a hero to IT? How can he kick himself up a notch against his peers when it comes to bragging rights? What is is vision for the company and how to you fit in? That means, study the business plan, yes, even take the mission statement for a few minutes if you can manage it. If there have been press releases or if he's been quoted in the trade press know what he's about. Study the company wide internal memos. If the boss is fixated on stuff that seems superficial, remember he has to sell the company to the world, and the world is fixated on superficial stuff too. Reorient your perspective for a moment and put yourself on his side.
Of course, you may not get the chance, given the numbers, but it pays to be prepared, and have a plan. This really is too much advice to put into effect in a brief encounter. It's a lot like a job interview -- you might get lucky and get everything you need out the first encounter, but what you want to ensure is that you get asked back. That means studying the opportunity, having a rough plan of where you want to go, but being flexible to follow the boss's lead.
Or you could run like hell, which is perfectly legitimate if you'd rather keep the status quo.
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I agree with your points, but you are forgetting exactly how much management subordinates/discredits/undervalues/detests/fears us.
"IT provides a service. We know that the service must be worth something, but we understand nothing about it. If we cannot understand it, then it cannot be important, but everybody has an IT department so we better have one. But it is filled with inexperienced children who have not spent their life climbing the corporate ladder, so they cannot understand the "complexity" of the business and how it needs to improve. But we have to have them, and they make almost as much as we do so we better smile when they are around. Please, please don't let them say anything because I will feel stupid because they know all this jargon that I do not. But they do not understand business as well as management and we set the rules so we are on top and my life is worthwhile. Just do not let them speak."
The big issue is that all computer technology is just magic to management. Computers seem to help the business, but the effects usually cannot be quantified until after they are deployed. So why do it? Because all the management magazines tell them that some other company used software for something and is now saving tons of money.
We save them when they have lost that important file, but they know they would not have lost it if it was on paper. Almost everything with computers means they have to learn something new, and they hate that.
The other side is that we are often closely involved with many parts of the business. We hear the complaints from the whole company. We may not know the big picture, but most working IT people could quickly pick 5 tasks that could be cheaply improved by technology in completely non-IT departments, because they know what is frustrating the employees.
I posted a story about trying to sell a business process improvement. I believe I did it on their terms. I reminded them how many people were required to fix the bad data. I demonstrated how this system was better. I talked about how the related processes would be integrated to improve accuracy and reduce the cost across the enterprise. I did not talk about technology other than to say the current hardware could easily handle it. I got some excitement from them, but lost because THEY CANNOT JUDGE GOOD SOFTWARE FROM BAD SOFTWARE even after they use it.
I am in a special position here. They are not my only client, but I worked almost 1000 hours last year FOR THEM, and they spent more for my services than for the 60-hours-every-week IT manager (including all compensation.) I probably cost them as much as his boss, the decision-maker. I am the high-priced outside expert who has an unbroken record of delivering better than they require before any deadlines and always staying under the budget. I do business strategy consulting at other companies. They should greatly respect my opinions, but I am still "just an IT guy."
And it does not help that I look young. The white hair keeps going away when I do not work. I almost wish it would all turn white so I would look older. The "decision-maker" is only 10 years older, but has a full head of white hair. Maybe I should dye (bleach?) mine.
If you really want to get a suggestion to management, have a salesperson from another company contact them and tell them that this idea is incredible and all the other companies are doing it and they need it too. He will get much more respect than any employee, and has much more credibility than any nerd.
I spend my life entertaining my brain.