Are Your CIO and Your Managing Partner on Speaking Terms?

by | December 28, 2004 | Articles, Cultural Considerations, Knowledge Management, Leadership, Technology strategy

You may not be familiar with the name Michael Schrage, but as an early
founder of MIT’s path-breaking Media Lab, and as a gifted writer no matter
the topic, he’s someone I read whenever I come across him.   His
latest piece is
in the elastic and forgiving form of a hypothetical, anonymous, note
from a Fortune 1000 CIO to a "trusted colleague" reciting the CIO’s recent
(perceived) mistreatment at the hands of the firm’s CEO.

As you read this, I will ask you to substitute "AmLaw 200" for "Fortune
1000" and "managing partner" for CEO.  The counts
of the indictment are as follows:

  • As soon as a system or function is buttoned down and running robustly
    and smoothly, the CEO wonders why it can’t be outsourced.
  • If the CIO proposes an initiative (CRM in Schrage’s example, substitute
    KM in our world) that actually comes in winningly on time and within
    budget, the biggest gorilla on the premises (Schrage: Sales, Us: Corporate
    Practice) gets envious and wants its own, incompatible with the "enterprise"
    system; to which the CEO responds, "let Sales have its system;
    just integrate them."
  • The CIO realizes that he has been spending too much time trying to
    do the best job possible rather than trying to do the best possible
    job as the CEO would envision it, and that the CEO inadequately understands
    technology, which is partly the CIO’s fault for failing to explain
    it.

Sound familiar?  The scary part is that Schrage leaves us
hanging; this is the dilemma, rest in peace.  Businesspeople
are at least "supposed" to understand the value of IT, whereas
lawyers generally grew up ignorant of or allergic to it, and proud
of it.  Too harsh?  Imagine putting these words into
the mouth of a senior partner at a big firm, or a CFO of a Fortune
500: "My secretary screens my emails."  Which is
more plausible?

And if it’s bad in a (median) Fortune 1000, is it better in the
AmLaw 200?  I invite those in the trenches to email me with
both horror stories and enobling tales of redemption.

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