Telescope: No, I don't see the emperor's clothes

BELGIUM: After a nice sumptuous supper, Jerome enjoys George’s recounting of his Father’s adventures as the ‘Three Men in a Boat’ sit down for some cigar and some chat.

George tells how his father was traveling with another fellow through Wales and how one night they stopped at a little inn, where there were some other fellows and they joined the other fellows and spent the evening with them. They had a very jolly evening and sat up late drinking, and by the time they came to go to bed, George’s father and his father’s friend were to sleep in the same room, but in different beds.

They took the candle, and went up. The candle lurched up against the wall when they got into the room and went out. They had to undress and grope into bed in the dark. This they did but instead of getting into separate beds they both climbed into the same one without knowing it — one getting in with his head at the top and the other crawling in from the opposite side of the compass and lying with his feet on the pillow.

There was silence for a moment and the George’s father said: ‘Joe!’

‘What’s the matter, Tom?’ Joe’s voice said from the other end of the bed.

‘Why, there’s a man in my bed,’ said George’s father, ‘here’s his feet on my pillow.’

‘Well, it’s an extraordinary thing, Tom,’ answered the other; ‘but I’m blest if there isn’t a man in my bed too!’

‘What are you going to do?’ asked George’s father.

‘Well, I’m going to chuck him out,’ replied Joe.

‘So am I,’ said George’s father, valiantly.

There was a brief struggle, followed by two heavy bumps on the floor, and then a rather doleful voice said: ‘I say, Tom!

'How have you got on?’

‘Well to tell you the truth, my man’s chucked me out.’

‘So’s mine! I say, I don’t think much of this inn, do you?’

When you talk to Peter, you feel the same feeling of having been so ridiculously drunk that reality has been a blur and some hollow abstract has been masquerading as reality instead. It’s easy to blame the inn, and that’s what most in the industry have been up to.

All those bromidic conferences, all the platitudes about business-IT alignment suddenly feel like some haute-couture piece of art that everyone has been admiring, only because everyone else is admiring. The big question is ‘Do you really even understand that canvas?’ ‘If not, why don’t you have the guts to question what the world is humming?’

Well, that’s how he is. He will answer a question with a bigger question. He would remind you of the brash but honest irreverence and maverick ways of Howard Roark. The way only an architect like him can talk about feeble foundations.

An entrepreneur, advisor, lecturer and writer, Peter Hinssen is more than one of Europe’s most sought-after thought leaders on the impact of technology on society and business. Peter’s first book 'Business/IT Fusion' (2008) over 5000 copies of which have been sold, shook the think tank’s pot violently by stressing on how to completely rethink and radically transform IT. 

Peter is currently involved as a coach to executives to develop future innovation perspectives, and is a board advisor on subjects related to innovation and IT. He develops executive education workshops and awareness sessions and lectures on IT Strategy and Technology & Organization future challenges at various business schools such as London Business School (UK) and TiasNimbas Business School (Netherlands), and is a visiting faculty at Antwerp Management School (Belgium).

In this really refreshing and but-I-used-to-think-‘that’- altering conversation, Peter cogently and entertainingly attacks at some Ellsworth Tooheys of the world as we talk about a lot of issues like why IT jobs are seen as a punishment, why CEOs ignore IT, commoditization, CIO-CFO equations, Carr’s prophecy, why he admires P&G, why Cloud might be used to bypass IT, SOA’s relevance and a lot more tips and questions that CIOs should ask themselves. Bet you will enjoy.

You talk and write very passionately about the very existence of business-IT alignment as the new wave. And all this intriguingly in an era where this concept is industry’s favourite chewing gum. Help us see it from your lenses.

That’s why my book attracted some controversy too. I can’t say — Yes, I see the emperor’s clothes when he is naked. Well, if I see companies that I work with, what comes up as an important factor is the question — who does an IT head report to? Most often CIOs still report to CFOs. It’s easy to understand why, because when IT started as a function in 1970s, EDP projects were all about financial data. That’s how this order emerged. But look around now. Technology has stopped being just technology. Every tech-component now connects to business projects. Today many companies are appointing business guys into IT areas, with no tech understanding whatsoever. And this is a wake-up call for CIOs to reshape their attitudes and not only their skills.

Still you feel that IT-Business alignment is a cliché?

It is more so because of the frustration that CIOs feel while aligning with business and the very pressure. They are extremely frustrated with lack of progress. Yes, the alignment talk is a new utopia. The more I talk to CIOs about this subject, the more I feel that this so called alignment rhetoric has turned IT into butlers. Treating technology in the way it is being treated now, has numbed them and taken the spirit out of IT departments.

And yet, IT is still a staff function for many. Like HR. So, the very talk of aligning it is actually insulting its core value, is that how it is?

In most companies, finance and IT are treated like a support department. That is hence, fundamentally wrong. Departmental thinking is so deeply engrained, it amazes us. Unless we change that, we would never be able to change the status —quo.

Do you know anyone who is doing it right?

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I admire P&G a lot that way. It is a shining example of how to do things differently. There are no tech-projects in today’s times. There are business projects with technological connotations is what they have understood well. They chop a problem into dimensions like IT, finance or marketing. P&G is a guiding light on how to take off departmental approach, how old mechanisms don’t work and how a fusion model is a significant step.

That reminds me of this line in your book — Alignment is a journey, not a destination.

Yes, I always believe that it’s an evolution. Cloud is also not a destination but an origin point. In essence, Cloud Computing is an evolution in IT mentality. From ‘building’ things to ‘let’s buy and customise’ to ‘let’s leverage what’s out there’ is what it leads to.

Can leveraging Clouds as revenue points be the answer for making IT more than a cost centre?

Cloud is interesting and a big opportunity. But it can also be the biggest threat. Last two years have seen it evolve from a technology issue to something else. It has escaped from the technology world and is bleeding all over the business covers. Many people think it as a way to bypass IT. They don’t need to wait for, or invest in a Siebel or Sharepoint, they think, if Cloud lets them jump on right away.

What about SOA (Service Oriented Architecture) as a mode to redesign the connections between business and IT in the new world?

If you look at SOA, it’s about architecture that allows agility and flexibility. Biggest question though is — what is the role of architecture? This is something that often resides inside the IT department. I believe in Fusion world. IT departments are being punished for transitions. Service-oriented or not, some decisions have to be still made/ discussed at the Board level. CEOs should the big architects but any talk of IT at another level makes some of them go into coma.

What do you mean?

Yes, I have seen how they can faint at the very word. I happen to also teach CEOs for some executive programmes. I get two days for taking them through the IT function. When I enter, they hate me. But after two days they get really excited. The whole technology world is now about mainstream. And they realize that things have really changed. They say — why hasn’t my CIO told me this? They wonder — Probably I have the wrong CIO. Many CIOs have lost the capacity to tell technology is a compelling story. Most of the times, it’s the attitude that they get.

I am tempted to use another well-worn-out question in this conversation about non-cliches. But is there a real threat of IT function becoming vestigial in future? Or what Nicholas Carr argues?

I have had the pleasure of working with Carr. I don’t agree with him but we both are looking at the same phenomenon, albeit from different angles. Whether it is commoditization or IT’s relevance. I fundamentally disagree while I agree with commoditization. But I think tech-enabled innovation can not become a commodity. Today, we often have the right skills but not the attitude. In many places, you will still find IT departments where there are people who love the smell of a data centre early in the morning. We can’t have the same mindset and the same intensity anymore. Yes, you have to be clever with technology but not just into technology. You need to have the power to solve, to innovate etc. It’s not about being a tech-specialist anymore. You can be a generalist. That’s probably the biggest worry for a CIO. Maintaining relevance and guiding transformation at the same time. I feel sorry for CIOs. He has to fight so many battles.

What is the biggest battle then for a CIO?

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Many CIOs are content to not get noticed. But this is not going to last for long. They will have to create a new value. Walk from ‘implementation’ mindset to ‘lead’ mindset. Changing legacy of people is the biggest problem for many CIOs.

But with so many constraints of mindset and attitudes that other functions dish out to them, how can a CIO walk in the right direction?

If I talk in terms of evolution here, the number one element of focus should be ‘people’. That’s the question I ask to them. Like — What does your team look like in three years? Is it innovation-oriented or solution-oriented? If they don’t have the answer, then any type of effort will basically fail. There’s no way that CIOs can succeed using frameworks or mechanisms. IT in many organizations still does not attract the best of talents. Its image is beaten. IT jobs still look like punishment, than like attractive spots. IT was a black hole for many companies' HR policies for quite some time. Once you are allotted a job here, you will never escape. That was how it worked. But thankfully today, there are companies like P&G, where people from business are allotted mandatory IT experience and vice versa. This is a point where old-era CIOs have to take up skills like communication, empathy, leadership etc. They may have not been part of their curriculum before, but they are imperative now.