During the course of the last few years I have met quite a few IT Managers from all walks of life and I couldn’t resist sharing my observations about their psychological behaviour. This blog is a must read for anyone who has been in an IT related field and wants to read about psychology that goes behind skillful IT personnel.. Without naming anyone or hurting anyone’s feeling and yet making my point, I would like to single out those IT decision makers who think that they are doing their employer a favour by keeping things running the way they are. I am talking about the change-phobia infected managers and decision makers who are too scared to take their systems and processes to the next step in business process improvement. I term these kind of people as Breed ONE “play safe – I like the way it is”…didn’t take me anytime to get that nickname in place. As the name suggests this breed of IT personnel are the ones who are scared to make any changes to existing systems and processes as they are afraid to either lose their job or face the repercussions of any changes that they implement. 

Much wittier and proactive is the Breed 2 of IT decision makers. If you are an IT manager and reading this article, you most likely fall in this breed as it accounts for the majority of IT managers. Breed 2 managers think they are very proactive and think in the best interest of their organization, keeping themselves updated on the latest technologies. They look into new solutions to see where the world is heading and learn about every upcoming technology. Yet the ground reality remains, these kinds of managers are too scared to change the way things are done in their organizations. I applaud such managers because at least they are looking out for the best interest of their organization by keeping abreast about happenings in the rest of technology world. Unfortunately these managers are always the followers and usually miss the opportunity of being an innovator and leader. They live by the slogan “Change is good, Change is scary, scary things are not for me”

The last kind, Breed 3 are the dream IT employees of every successful organization.  Of the ones I have met, they are passionate about their job, education, knowledge and would challenge anyone relating to subject matter. They are “techy techy” yet they have a sense of business, they are passionate about processes and yet they have understanding of how people blend into processes.  Most importantly they are not reactive, they are proactive….they look down the horizon for the best interest of their organization…these heroes go a long way in their career. These people are social butterflies, blended in them are great interpersonal skills yet they are focused on their job, they mock new technologies yet they are the pioneers at adapting new technologies for their organizations.  I have realized these people are out of the box thinkers. They think of IT strategies that would protect and differentiate their organization from anyone else. They think of business as an ongoing process. They think how IT supports and enables profitability. These are strategic thinkers.  I have seen these people go way up in the org chart, and they don’t restrict themselves to IT function ….all because they think on a big scale and have a macro view of business.

As the truth holds, the best people work for the best organizations.  What breed of IT Manager or decision maker are you? One who thinks change would never happen?  The one who thinks change would happen and they will catch the tail end of it?  Or the one who says change is inevitable and they will make it happen?

Tags: Change, IT Managers, Pioneers, Proactive, Technology

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 23rd, 2008 at 3:19 pm and is filed under Management. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.