I’ve been asked to talk about the relationship between business and technology leaders. In any organization there are those teams that accomplish the mission, those that support mission accomplishment, and those teams that support the organization. All these teams are critical parts of the organization’s success. The teams that are focused on the mission have more visibility and can appear more glamorous. However, professionals understand that the success of the organization depends equally on the support teams. Looking back on my athletic career, I never touched a football during a game in either high school or college. Our running back set the single game NY State rushing record and we were ranked as one of the top teams in the State. The other linemen and I played a crucial role but we were not the stars. Pet peeve, calling receivers and backs “skill positions.”
In IT, we fill the mission and organization support roles. NYU is not here to have great IT, but great IT facilitates great research and teaching! As I told a senior leader in a meeting recently, “I’m here to make you successful.” She kind of laughed, but I truly believe that is the case. This doesn’t mean that we are order takers, doing our best to do whatever faculty, administrators, and students ask.
We have to be partners. We are the experts for the technology we are responsible for. We also must know the functions that we support. Within schools and units you must know what the mission is and how your organization best accomplishes it. You can then work collaboratively towards the best decisions on technology. You understand the technology and resource constraints, helping your stakeholders to work effectively. Security is a great example of a constraint. Faculty might not understand the ramifications of inadequately securing sensitive information. They may not understand why a security control is necessary or how best to work with it.
As a technology leader we can sometimes feel that business leaders are telling us how to do our job. They believe the answer is specific software, etc. They may get frustrated and tell you what they want when they really should be explaining their problem. Especially when they are in more senior roles this can be tricky. No one ever said leadership is easy. In cases like this you have to rely on a number of tools in your toolbox. Your ability to influence is
A while ago the saying, “yes, but” was popular. This is not a bad guideline. Personally, I always keep in mind that my role is to make others successful. Then, like the offensive tackle that I was—where I looked up from the mud to see our fullback running into the end zone—we can take great pride in the accomplishments of our faculty and graduates.