He was technically sound and had a proven
track record creating and managing IT infrastructure in his chosen industry
across multiple entities; recently he had moved into a position of power and
influence in his new assignment and was enjoying flexing his muscles. Reaching
out to vendors and others in the industry he announced his intentions engaging
them in discussions that had most of them wanting to be part of future plans. After
spending more than two decades in the industry he had aspirations of making it
to the corner office.
The new company needed the fresh look he
brought to the table; his hands-on approach is what was required to move them
to the next level of efficiency. The company had consistently approached IT as
a necessary evil to spend only when absolutely necessary resulting in decade
old servers, geriatric laptops and desktops, and teenage neglected
applications. The management took a penny pinching view of IT budgets always
wanting to defer, delay or procrastinate on decisions after squeezing the
proverbial last drop from vendors.
His demeanor driven by professional
knowledge bordered on loud and brash, at times tended towards arrogance. To his
credit he built relationships and trust quickly with the management getting
their ear and then toeing the party line; with his ability to manage
relationships and not being disruptive to the culture, he became part of the
inner circle getting a view to the workings of the company though unable to
change the decision making inertia. So he decided to enrol external help which
he hoped would trigger positive change.
The hired external consultant provided a
reality check and direction to take which he reviewed with his internal peers.
Collectively they had a limited view which stalled progress; they knew what
needed to be done but did not know how to get started with internal buy-in.
Sliding timelines favored no one and the report finally elicited a view from
the management chastising him for not delivering what was required. The absence
of an articulated and documented expectation, it was like hitting a moving
target in the dark !
He attempted to calm ruffled feathers on both
sides though finally bowing to the management view with his subservient survival
instinct prevailing over his professional pride. Capability and self-belief is
a function of experience endorsed by past success. Professionals take a stand
with conviction driven by confidence that is built on a foundation of deep
expertise in a specific area; shallowness of bravado is quite evident when
challenged. He backed off and tentatively offered to build a bridge which would
save the situation.
Status quo dragged on for a while with
silence and no action leaving the organization in suspension and users becoming
restless after having seen a ray of hope. The company used to suboptimal
process and technology solution continued to labour with obsolete and
incomplete solutions while the industry was fast pacing ahead into a new world
of digitally enabled customer engagements. For the newbie, it was a struggle
for meaningful existence while wanting to change the outcomes he knew were
possible with some of the recommendations.
Any strategy or plan with no resources,
will, and buy-in to execute, is waste of time, effort, storage space and paper
! Contextually the difficulty was the management’s unwillingness to define what
is required while expecting not just the necessary but the best of outcomes. There
are many avenues to explore and break the deadlock, advice that coaches and
consultants can offer to overcome the situation. Conventional wisdom will
preach that the service provider to take a step backward and find a way to
resolve the stalemate.
If you were the protagonist, what would you
do ? Would you take a stand and risk losing your job ? If you were the
management, would you give up your high chair and create a tripartite agreement
on expected outcomes ? And if you were the consultant, how would you resolve
the impasse with no access to the management and dependence on IT to find a
solution ? If we analyse the situation, every stakeholder erred in the
beginning by not defining the baseline or setting detailed explicit
expectations. It’s a lose-lose scenario now !
Was the ending happy and satisfactory for
everyone ? Coming soon …
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