The Directors' Cut: Opening the doors of perception

Twelve months on and I am happy to admit I was wrong. I now know that the success of your IT department depends solely on what people think of you. Perception is absolutely everything.

How have I reached this conclusion? By listening to chief executives and finance directors. By watching winners of national project and IT awards. By speaking with scores of IT directors.

Our future is now decided by what people think we do, and how they believe we do it. What we actually do is almost irrelevant. There is one proviso on this - I am assuming that everyone reading this, and leading an IT team, wants to do their best - they do not come into work with the intent of completely sabotaging their companies. Every single IT department that I know - and I know a fair number - works hard and long, has dedicated people, and is focused on success.

So, it comes down to perception. Focus on improving, or better still, transforming perception, and you will be popular, and will become the supplier of choice in your organisation. In other words, your business customers will want to use your services, rather than feel they are being forced to do so.

How can this be done, fast?

It is mission critical to make friends in key areas of your business. This may not seem fair, but it is reality, and the key is to make reality work to your advantage.

The single most powerful way to do this, and to alter and manage perception is through something I call Hidden Account Management. The success of this lies in how we are as human beings - and is linked to Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP), the global science of human behaviour. NLP tells us that as human beings how we think and feel is governed by association - the meaning something has to us. For example, if you hear a piece of music on the radio that you heard on a special night out with your first love it will immediately - and automatically - trigger feelings you had at that time.

Now let's look at the IT context. When I first started in IT, it didn't matter what our "internal customers" ("users", then, at best) thought of us, as they never saw us. Then we went through a phase of hiding when a problem happened: "The system's down - quick, under the desk". Now for the key phase in the history of IT: we became customer-focused. When anything went wrong we had to put on our training shoes and run around the building and company, saying to anyone and everyone that we met: "We have a problem. I'm sorry." Often whole armies would do this.

The effect of this, of course, was to associate the appearance of anyone from IT with a problem. The only time we would meet our internal customers was when things were going wrong.

Hidden Account Management takes these principles of NLP association and combines them with lessons we've learned, meaning we make sure our companies consistently catch us doing something right!

Here is how it works - draw up a list of the 10 or so most powerful decision makers in your company - the people in whose hands your future sits. Make sure you include Personal Assistants, and that guy in Underwriting who has been here 25 years and holds more power than his job title suggests. Then list the top 10 communicators in your department. (Numbers will depend on size of company, of course). And now for the magic - simply match each person on the left, with one on the right, and the person on the right (in your team) has one overriding aim - to make sure the person they are "managing" catches IT doing things right, time and time again.

This is, quite simply, the most powerful and proven way to raise perception in your company. A few words of warning however. It must be kept secret (hidden), rotate your people every two months, and don't use this to replace traditional Account Management, which still has a role. Account Management focuses on areas and departments, Hidden Account Management on people.

People, and what they think of us, are the key.

The active promotion of IT services, and results, is a growing priority on the IT leader's agenda. This should happen both openly and behind closed doors.

This may sound manipulative - it is. However, it is for the right reasons, and to get the right results for everyone. For years we have suffered poor perception. Now we have a way not just to reverse the trend, but to see it soar. That will buy us time, and support, to carry out our roles and achieve even more.