Changing The Story of IT

Stories matter. We use them to frame the world, and our place in it. The stories we tell ourselves give us a framework for interpreting the world around us, and for acting within it.

The same is true for what the business says about technology organizations. If the story is “IT is a necessary cost we have to pay to do business,” that leads to outcomes like:

“IT costs are too high; I need you to cut spending by 50%.”

Spending on technology is often viewed as a necessary evil: a cost that must be borne in order to operate. It is like paying rent or a mortgage: you have to pay if you want a place to live, but you never like doing so.

The IT-as-a-cost story really only has one outcome, eventually: to reduce cost. Companies will always be looking for reasons not to spend on IT.

Changing the narrative

So what is the alternative? We want the story to be something like:

“IT helps us move the needle. They are our competitive advantage.”

Why is this better? Because companies invest in the things that help them succeed. Providing solutions that offer our business competitive advantage will mean our technology organizations are seen as key contributors towards success.

As leaders, it is our job to drive this change. We have to be the catalyst, and we have to provide the consistent support and positive reinforcement so that everyone in our organization understands the narrative shift we want, and helps us make it happen.

The story also helps the team

A positive narrative is a force multiplier: the contributions of teams and team members in the organization will be larger than they have ever been. This is because people are much happier when they feel that their contributions matter. They’ll look for additional ways to add value, chasing the positive feedback they get from the response to their work. Having teams feel fulfilled in this way will have a measurable impact on employee retention as well.

How we make the change

Building this kind of reputation requires that we continually bring the business ideas and solutions that enable them to move faster, be smarter than the competition, and do things that previously were thought impossible.

To get there, we have to understand the goals of the business, and how they see themselves achieving those goals. In other words, what is the story they are trying to tell about themselves? When we figure this out, we can begin working on fitting ourselves into that narrative in ways that help advance it.

We’ll know we have made the shift when we hear things like:

“This is a tough problem, but we know you will help us solve it.”

[Next: Understanding The Narrative]