The way something is perceived is important, especially for internal IT organizations. While CIOs are fully aware of the essential value created by their teams, this value is not always obvious to stakeholders and customers. Everyone can hope that their work speaks for itself, but the reality is that IT managers must communicate about IT achievements, so that other professions can understand why and how they matter to them. In other words, they must think and act like marketers, shaping the IT message in such a way that it resonates.
The inability to effectively communicate the value of IT contributes to many frustrations that technology organizations face today, whether it is the lack of upstream involvement in the strategic decision-making process, the lack of financial support for key initiatives or low employee engagement. This even affects the perceived impact. A study by the Info-Tech Research Group established a direct correlation between overall satisfaction with information technology and satisfaction with IT communication.
Kirk Ball, executive vice-president and director of information systems of the Giant Eagle supermarket chain, points out that it is no longer possible to separate technology from the business; technology is the business. But you have to work to transform long-standing perceptions and make your organization’s value proposition tangible for all your business partners. At a recent virtual round table, Kirk Ball joined Claus T. Jensen, director of innovation at the Teledoc Health telemedicine company, Marykay Wells, CIO of the Pearson Publishing Group, and Anna Reuhl, Senior Director of Enterprise Architecture for the performance materials and coatings branch of the Dow industrialist. Together, they discussed the strategies they use to market the value of their IT organization and how they develop a marketing mindset and skills within their teams.
The message counts
Few computer scientists get out of bed saying to themselves: “I can’t wait to market technology today”. However, each member of the ISD does marketing for the IT organization every day. Each conversation leaves an impression. At the same time, the people they communicate with are bombarded with thousands of messages a day, of which they retain only a dozen. In this extremely noisy environment, every word counts. The jargon and acronyms that have no meaning for your business partners only add to the general confusion.
AdvertisingThere is nothing wrong with being passionate about the frills of an innovative new technology or the technical nuances of a cyber risk mitigation plan. But if you are not able to talk about it in a natural way that resonates with your interlocutors, it will be difficult to make yourself understood by your partners overloaded with information. Professions want to understand what they gain from it. To obtain their support for IT initiatives and establish the credibility of the CIO, it is necessary to articulate these advantages – and the consequences of the lack of technology implementation – in the context of business problems and results. “With some groups, I know that if I don’t adapt the way I speak to them and the vocabulary I use, I risk losing them in 30 seconds,” explains Kirk Ball.
Anna Reuhl’s organization at Dow also applies this multilingual approach to communication with the professions, adapting to the language to which each audience is most accustomed. “We tend to favor the language and storytelling of the industry, because it is the vernacular language of 95% of the company. And on the strategic level, we tend to use a language similar to that of research and development or innovation, “she explains. “Thus, in the field of architecture, when I am with a group that does not necessarily know what corporate architecture is, I explain it in the context of R&D and innovation. Even simple changes in the wording can make a huge difference in perceptions. Mr. Jensen gives the example of “integrated” compared to “aligned”. The words are similar, but they generate different impressions. At a broader level, many CIOs have undertaken efforts in recent years to internally reposition their organization, recognizing that the term IT has very specific connotations, which do not give a complete picture of how they promote transformation and results for the business.
What to remember? The way we name things is important – for the way others perceive us, for whether they will listen to us and even for the way we perceive ourselves.
The power of storytelling
One of the ways used by great leaders to communicate a convincing vision is to tell stories. Marykay Wells, of Pearson, remembers realizing how powerful this skill is when Andy Bird joined the company as CEO. “He came from Walt Disney International, a company where everything revolves around storytelling. It was enough to listen to him for a few months to understand how effective he was, as a leader, to communicate his vision in a way that everyone could really understand and support it, and then learn to tell his own version of the story to his teams, “explains Ms. Wells. In addition to setting an example for others, they must be provided with frameworks to help them overcome the blank page, especially because, as Kirk Ball points out, many people simply do not know how to tell a story well.
Ms. Reuhl takes an approach that should resonave with the most process-oriented IT team members. She uses a whiteboard to trace the path of the story she wants to communicate. “I start by asking myself what goal I want to achieve. How do I want the public to meet once the goal is achieved? What do we want him to think? What does he feel? What do we want him to ask? I usually make a draft that takes me from point A to point B – from where the audience is today to the result – and then I work on the content in the middle. But I always start with what I want the target audience to do at the end, “she explains. Mr. Jensen insists that the objective is paramount. “There is a difference between storytelling and telling stories. Make sure you know why you are telling the story and what you are trying to achieve so that the story conveys the message you want it to convey. The way you present the story is also important. As part of the storytelling component of the Giant Eagle Leadership Academy, participants learn to use images and data to tell the story and to use metaphors from the audience’s context to explain how technology will help them achieve their goals.