New Tagline — IT’s all about the Business

by Harwell on July 21, 2009 · 2 comments

in Announcements

I’ve changed the tagline in my blog header. It used to be “Insight for Current and Future IT Leaders.” Now it’s “Insight for Current and Future Business Leaders.” I took out the word “IT” and replaced it with the word “business.” Here’s why:

For over six years I’ve been writing about lessons I’ve learned from my business IT experience. In looking back at what I’ve written, I’ve noticed that while many of the posts come from an IT viewpoint, most of the lessons are related to the business. In some of the posts there isn’t a single mention of IT or technology. Only a few of the posts are technical in nature, and even then there are business lessons in the article.

If I look at the most common ways that IT organizations fail, most of them are due to a misunderstanding of human nature. IT organizations fail because of lack of communication or because they emphasize features of their projects instead of benefits or because the people in IT don’t set expectations appropriately. These are not IT issues — they’re people issues.

So I figured, “Why not make my tagline reflect my beliefs?” IT doesn’t succeed because of technology — it succeeds because of its contribution to the business. So the new tagline is “Insight for Current and Future Business Leaders.” This puts the emphasis where it’s needed: You can’t be an effective IT leader without being an effective business leader as well.

And the new tagline also calls attention to the fact that many of the things I write are appropriate for non-IT people as well. IT doesn’t have it’s own set of rules independent of everything else in the world. As I’ve said in my book, there is no magic in IT. So let’s not act like it.

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Tagged as: alignment, Effectiveness, Expectations, Focus, human nature, IT, Leadership, Management, Objectives, perception

{ 2 comments }

Bob Ruckle July 23, 2009 at 9:48 am

I agree that your observations are applicable to business leaders from many disciplines. Putting the em-PHA-sis on the correct syl-LA-ble is clearly one of your gifts. There has been much written over the years for business managers in general. Jack Welch speaks to business leadership in a certain way, and there is no shortage of advice for MBA’s and financial types. I think that a big part of your writing’s appeal to me has been this IT and technical management perspective. There are few business writers who understand what the intricacies of leading technical teams requires of a leader. Most of what the business community puts out there is targeting the economics of management, not the communication and people skills that you emphasize. I hope that as you evolve your writing perspective you will not lose sight of this unique facet.

Harwell July 23, 2009 at 10:48 am

Thanks for your comment, Bob. I appreciate your perspective. It would be hard for me to forget my past, so I expect that I’ll still have that IT and technical management perspective that you say you like. But I’ll ask you (and other readers) to keep me honest on this. If you see my straying too far from my roots, please remind me.

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