The new email is a retrograde
step and not an upgrade; life was so good with the older system. What is
happening with our IT ? The world is moving ahead and we are going backwards.
How do you expect us to be effective when we cannot even communicate with our
customers ? I don’t know what to do, probably this year again thanks to IT we
will have some unhappy customers !
I had approved the investment
almost 2 months back and you are telling me that we still have not placed
orders ? How do you expect us to work ? What is the problem ? As the Business
Head when I have given the go ahead who can challenge the decision ? Why are
you trying to save a few thousand dollars ? Do you know that the loss to
business due to this delay is in hundreds of thousands ?
These are a sampling of lunch time ranting as described by CIO friends. One
of them was a good guy, dedicated, focused, always ready to please; his team
imbibed the same ethos and worked hard, always available to the business. He
was successful in a typical way with conscious budgets and a fair set of
initiatives that kept the engine humming. Inorganic growth and lateral
expansion caught him capacity constrained which was beginning to hurt. He did
not like the lunch time discussions anymore which ended up embarrassing him
most of the time.
A long time back one of my managers gave me an interesting insight; we
all typically have our office lunch with our teams. If you look around in the
lunch room you will see a finance table, legal table, an IT group, and so on.
These groups get together automatically and enjoy shop talk and extended work
discussions over the rice, curry and bread. In open organizations there is a
reserved table for the Managers where you will find the CXOs quietly having a
meal with small talk. Most employees stay away from this table and likewise the
CXOs.
My manager who became and stayed a friend believed that the world should
not be polarized this way. He too ate at the staff canteen whatever food was
served and consciously sought new groups every day to share a meal with. Likewise
he expected all of us at C-level to break our comfort zones and network with
staff across levels and functions. The discussions though initially polite
became a tool to measure the pulse of the company. Employees warmed up to the
idea and based on their ease opened up with some of us.
Observing this through the years I realized that the behavior is
universal; birds of feather flock together. People gravitate into groups with
familiar faces and shun the relatively unknown; if they find no seat within
their groups they rather sit alone and not with another group; they did what
they did, it was automatic. I saw similar behavior in social gatherings,
networking dinners and wherever people got together. Off course there are
exceptions who love to meet new people and merge into any group easily.
Practicing what I learned whenever possible, the initially forced
experience soon made me welcome into any group. No walls went up or
conversations died when I joined a group for lunch. The connect with people
created empathy that I could use in various discussions around problems and
opportunities as well as driving change which came along with the interventions
IT created. We connected beyond work related transactions and built many
friends who light up when we meet even in a casual encounter on the streets or
a mall.
One of the answers would be that it is all about anticipating requirements,
partnering the business and being proactive in your discussions. If you are a
good CIO who is aligned to the business, and connected to the customer, blah, blah … lunches can be fun. Your
customers’ perceptions are your reality; any change takes a lot of effort and
consistency. Another view is that some people will never be satisfied whatever
you do; so don’t get impacted by all these ramblings, manage them separately
and keep going. Go and sit on another table rather than get indigestion.
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