The Director's Cut: You are not alone!

Working in IT can be a lonely experience and at times it is easy to believe that the problems and challenges we face are unique to our departments and companies.

Combine this belief with some of our realities - internal project demands and budgetary pressures, external skill shortages and recession - and it is no wonder that stress is becoming such a major issue among IT managers and directors.

The good news, if one can call it that, is that the same issues are affecting almost everyone. The whole corporate IT industry is affected, to a greater or lesser degree, by change leadership, cost savings, skill shortages, project management and priorities, customer/supplier disputes and more.

Of even greater significance is the perception of internal IT departments, which is a crucial factor in determining their success. Such perception and attitudes are now determined as much from the overall image and profile of the IT industry as from any internal actions and policy.

CEOs need strategic answers and their impressions of our effectiveness will be tarnished by the high-profile project disasters, vendor disputes and overall meaningless terminology and gobbledegook that has infected our industry.

So much for today's reality. With technology changing faster than ever we need access to the information that will help us make the right decisions, move forward and compete. Finding such data is not easy and the search itself often leads to information overload.

No IT director is alone. No IT department works in a vacuum. All IT directors need information, answers and friends. There are specific ways of achieving this:

Form a strategic alliance with a company of a similar size to yourselves – perhaps in a different industry sector – to meet, compare progress and share problems and solutions

Make sure that you, as IT director, your CEO’s main source of information on IT issues. Encourage your CEO and business managers to attend external business/IT events – and go with them

Form strategic partnerships with your suppliers to keep track of the real information you need

Subscribe to a research organisation

Join with other directors and managers in one of the organisations furthering the interests of corporate IT.

Organisations are more networked now than they have ever been, both in the technical and human sense. People are more aware of their dependence on others for tangible support in almost all aspects of work and personal life.

The IT director in today’s world is just as dependent on the activities and tacit support of other IT directors as on his or her suppliers or business. It is no longer acceptable for them to lock themselves away and pull up the drawbridge – more answers probably lie outside than within.

IT is now a global business issue, core to the survival, growth and future of all organisations. It must be high on strategic agendas and in the minds of every CEO. By transforming our overall profile, perception and positive influence, we can help internal IT departments establish themselves where they belong - at the very heart of an organisation.

David Taylor is the author of best-selling business book The Naked Leader (www.nakedleader.com), founder of IT directors association Certus - now part of NCC/Certus - and a regular contributor to silicon.com. He can be contacted at david@nakedleader.com.

From David's blog...

In June I chaired The Economist CIO Summit in London...

Hamish Taylor, CEO of Vision Consulting UK, gave a fantastic presentation, during which he shared a lovely story about how we often underestimate the knowledge of our children. Listening to Van Morrison, Hamish’s 5-year-old son, Donald, asked what instrument was being played. It was a harmonica but how to describe that in language a 5-year-old would understand?

Hamish used as simple terms as he could muster, and the conversation proceeded:

Hamish: "It’s like a mouth-organ, where music is produced by either sucking or blowing and by moving the instrument left and right."

Donald: "Thank you dad."

Hamish: "That’s OK – why did you ask?"

Donald: "Oh no reason, really, it just sounded a bit like a harmonica."