How to Avoid Bumping Heads Between IT and Business Managers

CIO — "Do this, do that, get it done now, and I don’t want to hear any excuses."

Ever hear these words—explicitly or implicitly—from your CEO or another CXO demanding that you either fix or implement something? They think it’s just a matter of turning a switch, but here you are on the verge of a huge project, and they don’t want to hear about it. This endeavor will take a drastic reshuffling of manpower, may necessitate money the CFO will resent spending and could require what they least want to give you, namely their cooperation and patience.

Before you go down the road of feeling victimized (even though to a certain extent you are) and make matters much worse by acting like a victim, take a deep breath, exhale and listen carefully to what I’m about to tell you.

If you’re an IT person, there are three things that are likely to be true about you: 1. You’re better with things and information than you are with people (especially where confrontations are required). 2. With regard to technology, you’re as focused on what needs to be done to make IT work as you are on what it might actually do for the business. 3. You’re most likely male.

Now consider where many top business-side executives, especially those with marketing and sales backgrounds, come from: 1. They’re better with people and information than things (Jack Welch said, "I was afraid of the Internet...because I couldn’t type."). 2. With regard to technology, they’re more focused on what they want IT to do than what needs to be done to make it work. 3. They’re most likely male too.

What is the significance of you both being male? Men will do anything to avoid humiliation. It’s the "pride" thing. (Women suffer this less because any sense of their pride is usually bludgeoned by the way their children treat them every day.) Men feel humiliated when they feel incompetent and will do almost anything to prevent that sense of incompetence from being exposed in the light of day to others and to themselves.

Men’s comfort zone is directly proportionate to their competence zone. The less competent they feel, the more uncomfortable. Nobody (CEO, CFO, COO or CIO) likes to be pulled out of their comfort zone, and they will fight it tooth and nail. Rather than feeling reassured by someone else’s competence, men often feel out of control and at the mercy of the more competent person. This is especially true for a CEO who has mistreated a CIO and now needs his help.

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