The Wall Street Journal ran a special Journal Report section today in collaboration with MITSloan Managment Review. The feature article, How to Tap IT’s Hidden Potential focuses on the metaphorical glass wall that often exists between the IT department and the rest of an organization. Co-authors Amit Basu — Chairman of the SMU Cox school of business — and Chip Jarnagin — founder of LatticeWorks Consulting — take a look at where this divide came from and offers some thoughts on how to bridge it.
The effects of integrating IT into an organization are quite astounding. In a podcast with the Wall Street Journal Jarnagin says that “companies that commit to managing IT effectively realize 20% higher profits than other firms in their industry and realized up to 40% higher returns on their IT investments.”
The article focuses primarily on how to bridge the cultural and pyschological gaps between IT and other organizations, arguing that the solution starts with developing broad based IT literacy so that executives can think strategically about IT initiatives. From here they list six more key steps, all of which promote the notion of IT as something more than just a basic utility like electricity or plumbing, but as an important part of strategic business planning throughout the organization.
What the article doesn’t do is give specific actionable advice on how to start building those links between IT and everyone else. This isn’t surprising of course, that’s something that’s different for every company and well beyond the scope of couple-thousand-word article. But with Siemens recent overhaul of its Unified Communications offerings it might be worth looking at how UC might play a part in organizational integration, not just for the area of IT but across all departments.
A recent post on United Business Media’s blog No Jitter does a good job of summarizing the basics of this strategic move, pointing out that the migration of a number of common services from client applications to an OpenScape Unified Communications Server (UCS) will help all OpenScape products run more seamlessly. It’s another step in the increasing sophistication of UC offerings as these types of products are being adopted by more and more firms.
What makes UC such a powerful integration tool is that it encourages informal interactions that cut across the normal lines of reporting and allow for flexibility outside of clearly defined organizational structures. It promotes the sort of interactions that J.P Kotter highlighted in his well-known 1999 Havard Business Review essay “What Effective Managers Really Do.” As Kotter explains, the best managers tend to interact with more than just the direct subordinates and superiors, but instead engage in short but meaningful conversations with those from all over the organization, building large networks that help them get things done. They break down the departmental barriers, helping glue the organization together.
By creating a sort of shared digital space, mediated by IM, email, in addition to more traditional communication channels, UC encourages those kind of informal conversations, especially with those in IT who are used to approaching others as equals in online interactions. It offers managers and executives another information gathering channel that can help them connect with employees they might otherwise overlook and notice trends that might otherwise not see. UC isn’t just about presence based messaging, click to IM and call links. It’s about making sure that the conference room isn’t the only place that people from different departments meet and talk. It’s about making sure that your firm works together seamlessly, with no glass walls to hold your people back.
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