Bill Gate’s best seller on business (see below) deals with the Chairman of a company and his or her Information Technology (IT) department, especially at large corporations. Make the company’s Information organization relevant to the company builds a power base and helps to sustain the company’s competitive edge with customers.
Robert Dilenschneider, in his book “Power and Influence - -The Rules Have Changed,” terms this the requirement to “accept, adapt and accelerate - - or atrophy” within an organization. His reference here seems intertwined with most things “IT” within an organization. Ignore them or refuse to go alone with IT’s changes to the business can mean the end of a rising career. Not all IT change is positive, obviously, or timed correctly, or budgeted for well, but the power/influence player quickly learns the when’s, why’s and how’s to succeed. First, one has to become aware of the big picture. IT matters.
Neither Mr. Gates nor Mr. Dilenschneider believes it is necessary for an employee, manager or company leader to “master” any of this technology. In fact, Mr. Gates notes that if one knows too many of IT’s acronyms, you probably know too much to manage IT projects in strategic ways. You can easily become too close to technology, in a very real sense.
IT data collection and distribution to an organization’s leaders of newer, more up-to-date and customer-focused data can become powerful tools for managing and “evolving” the business positively. The opportunity for today’s leaders is leading the development of a company’s IT technologies, in new ways, for increasing productivity and profits.
Mr. Gates notes that knowledge of Information Technology areas varies WILDLY across the senior ranks of a business. For example, we all remember how many companies got their employees to start using e-mail. The President or Chairman started using email, personally. Suddenly, EVERY employee started opening their emails and using those computers that had been collecting dust in the corner of their offices. Ditto for laptops used offsite, and today’s dreaded Blackberries and smart phones with Internet capabilities. One is never free of the boss or one’s office. Power players recognize and understand the new playing board.
Mr. Gates puts it bluntly: “…the CEO must recognize the strategic importance of technology as he or she does with other important business initiatives and lead the way.” This, from the world’s richest guy.
Start with a baseline understanding of computers. Get your IT involved in committee meetings involved with core business operations. As a power play, you need to chair and manage these meetings through your contemporary knowledge of the business, your competitors and technology, Mr. Dilenschneider might say.
IT mistakes are possible, but the responsibility stays with the CEO for not properly spearheading the focus for technological applications. Standing up for and against one’s one company’s IT and Operations departments can prove both difficult and career killing (or result in huge increases in power and influence).
Mr. Dilenschneider sums it all up: “If your profession or industry has not been turned upside down yet, you can bet it’s dying or soon will be. Denial of technological realities or failure to adapt to everyday technology may mean losing your job.”
We ignore technology at our peril. Mr. Gates agrees, wholeheartedly. We’re all on the same page, here. It’s the realities of daily IMPLEMENTATION of these power and influence building skills that can elude the average bear.
Tuesday, November 6, 2007
Company vs. Personal Power, Influence
“If the 1980s were about quality and the 1990s about reengineering, then the 2000s will be about velocity,” wrote Bill Gates, unarguably the richest and most powerful man in the country, maybe the globe. (“Business @ The Speed of Thought, Using a Digital Nervous System” Bill Gates, Warner Press.)
He visualized, even a few years ago, how quickly the nature of business would change and that information access would alter our lifestyles…and consumers’ expectations of a business. In this sense, Mr. Deilenschneider seems to have gotten his message absolutely correct about the powerful being the ones who understand and use the speed of change . . . to their advantage.
Gates noted that what used to take 50 years, we do in 10, because of the flow of digital information. Every industry has been touched, affected dramatically, from real estate (Main Street) to Wall St. Numerous jobs are no longer needed. New ones go wanting. Old ones change, shrink and expand together. The influential and powerful see this large picture in their own office, on their own street and in their own family. Change. Power. Influence. They’re all tied together.
Gates terms this the Web Workstyle. The rest of us might call it digital or technological knowledge to survive and thrive at the office, while maintaining and growing one’s power base. He uses the example of the human biological nervous system, reacting automatically to stresses and strains, to a company’s nervous system that hasn’t quite figured out how to react as quickly and instinctively as it might. Management of the company’s systems takes courage and foresight.
He notes, strongly, that from the CEO on down, employees need to become comfortable with these rapid changes and new digital technologies in order to understand how they are, or could, change business processes. He divides HIS 12 key steps as ones involving “knowledge work,” “business operations,” and “commerce,” which is defines as interaction with suppliers and customers.
Mr. Gates focuses on leaders who use new technologies to streamline and modernize their business’ processes, making strategic thought an ongoing process. Mr. Dilenschneider seemingly captures these messages and translates them into ways for employees to become PERSONALLY more powerful and influential. The business should also succeed.
After all, it’s one thing for the business to do better, and an entirely different thing for an INDIVIDUAL to do better. Many a naïve employee has got the two mixed, driving the business ahead while nixing one’s own chances of success. Mr. Dilenschneider shows how to avoid this death spiral. This alone should drive readers to inspect, closely, the ideas put forth on these few pages.
He visualized, even a few years ago, how quickly the nature of business would change and that information access would alter our lifestyles…and consumers’ expectations of a business. In this sense, Mr. Deilenschneider seems to have gotten his message absolutely correct about the powerful being the ones who understand and use the speed of change . . . to their advantage.
Gates noted that what used to take 50 years, we do in 10, because of the flow of digital information. Every industry has been touched, affected dramatically, from real estate (Main Street) to Wall St. Numerous jobs are no longer needed. New ones go wanting. Old ones change, shrink and expand together. The influential and powerful see this large picture in their own office, on their own street and in their own family. Change. Power. Influence. They’re all tied together.
Gates terms this the Web Workstyle. The rest of us might call it digital or technological knowledge to survive and thrive at the office, while maintaining and growing one’s power base. He uses the example of the human biological nervous system, reacting automatically to stresses and strains, to a company’s nervous system that hasn’t quite figured out how to react as quickly and instinctively as it might. Management of the company’s systems takes courage and foresight.
He notes, strongly, that from the CEO on down, employees need to become comfortable with these rapid changes and new digital technologies in order to understand how they are, or could, change business processes. He divides HIS 12 key steps as ones involving “knowledge work,” “business operations,” and “commerce,” which is defines as interaction with suppliers and customers.
Mr. Gates focuses on leaders who use new technologies to streamline and modernize their business’ processes, making strategic thought an ongoing process. Mr. Dilenschneider seemingly captures these messages and translates them into ways for employees to become PERSONALLY more powerful and influential. The business should also succeed.
After all, it’s one thing for the business to do better, and an entirely different thing for an INDIVIDUAL to do better. Many a naïve employee has got the two mixed, driving the business ahead while nixing one’s own chances of success. Mr. Dilenschneider shows how to avoid this death spiral. This alone should drive readers to inspect, closely, the ideas put forth on these few pages.
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