Many an organization suffers through the “silo-ing” of departments and the resultant impairment of communication and efficient business.  Working through a minefield of political liabilities is what mucks up many good faith endeavors.  But that’s largely because most people haven’t learned what criticism really is meant to be, and how it is to be used (both in its delivery and in its receipt).  When we understand the nature of criticism, we learn to value criticism.  In learning how to value and use criticism, we need to recognize constructive (or justified, valid) criticism – and destructive (or unjustified, invalid) criticism – and we need to act on criticism to effect the appropriate outcomes. 

Why address criticism here?  Let’s establish a little background:  In a field as challenging, dynamic, and high profile as IT, there is much that presents a ripe target for criticism.  At the same time, the pressures faced by Business (the business stakeholders), and their demand for quality support and services, generally means that Business has a fully stocked quiver of critical arrows.  Yet, healthy criticism is necessary to the Business-Technology Weave. Critical evaluation and communication will be ongoing.  This, paired with the challenge in creating, interpreting, and implementing a Business-driven IT strategy, makes it extremely important that we understand criticism and how to wield it.  If you’re not making effective use of criticism, then you not only lose out on the positive lever to be had in progressive business, but you allow the deployment of a negative, depressive lever.  Particularly in circumstances where we suffer divides, and have not yet achieved a proper Business-Technology Weave, there is that tendency to mount criticism from a less than fully informed perspective.  When we combine that with a natural tendency to bristle at criticism, and mix in the resultant impairments, we find that we have a “perfect storm” formula for significantly diminished returns.

We’ll continue this as a series, and we’ll examine both criticism’s potential dividing force, as well as its proper wield and yield:  That is, how to mount appropriate criticism, for contribution to solid business-IT gains.

Word comes that more than 500,000 Macintosh machines are potentially infected with a virus – one that is specifically targeting Macs:  It’s called Flashback Trojan.  The virus is a variation on one that is normally aimed at PCs – typically powered by a Microsoft (MS) Windows operating system.  The PC virus has been re-engineered to slip past typical Mac defenses.

A Finnish-based computer security firm, F-Secure, first spotted and noted the virus, followed quickly with qualification by a Russian anti-virus program vendor, Dr. Web.

“All the stuff the bad guys have learned for doing attacks in the PC world is now starting to transition to the Mac world,” according to McAfee Labs Director of Threat Intelligence Dave Marcus.

Flashback lets hackers steal passwords and financial account numbers.  Mac users are tricked into opening this specific vulnerability:  The virus’ designers have made its installation look like a routine update to Adobe Flash video viewing software.

Once upon a time, people who labored in the Mac realm had a rather smug view of security:  Macs escaped specific targeting, it seems, and nefarious malware creators seemed to concentrate their deeds to the world of the PC.  No more.  While Mac’s position in the past seemed to be that they weren’t vulnerable to PC malware (true, in a specific sense), they are now vulnerable to Mac malware – as adapted to, and specifically created for, that environment.

Malware developers concentrated on Windows PCs because they dominated the market.  This allowed Apple to claim that PCs were more prone to hacking:  True, technically, but perhaps not so much due to any particular superiority of security of operating systems; rather, merely the luck of being a smaller target.  Now that Macs are increasing in popularity, the Apple operating system is becoming a much more attractive target.

Leaders must have the skill to recognize skills in others. 

The IT field, like any, is rife with people who talk a good game.  Some walk like they talk – some don’t.  The average candidate for your IT department will appear conversant in technical matters, they will profess a belief in quality of service principles, and of course they are brought on board with high expectations.  We know that many people fall short of these expectations – in all fields and areas of endeavor.  But in cases of flat-out bad IT hires, we have an enormous drain on resources.  In the IT department, a sub-optimal hire compounds across the organization in a very detrimental way, since IT supports virtually the entire organization and almost every effort within. 

We also know how much time and effort it takes to dismiss an employee.  Often an employee must be left within a performance arena in order for us to record and document poor performance.  For IT, this is a cruel irony and a ticklish game – trying to maintain security and solid support while leaving job duties in the hands of a poor performer.  The associated inefficiencies brought about by increased oversight, double-checking, and counseling are their own drain – in addition to the lack of results.  There is also the impact to staff morale.  For these reasons, you need an IT leadership that can smoke out the true candidates worthy of hire, investment, and promotion.  

These things make it imperative for your IT leader to understand something about most areas of IT technical endeavor.  This person does not need to have a deep background in all areas or even specific areas. This person just needs to have a solid understanding of the principles that guide areas, and a good familiarity with the higher-level best practices for managing each area.  Much of the vetting of personnel falls to the managers just under the top leadership.  Therefore, top leadership needs to qualify in making those managers the best possible investment that your organization can make, as those managers groom the rest of the department.

Image credit:  digitalart

“Human history becomes more and more a race between education and catastrophe.”

     — H.G. Wells

Dear Readers:  The Business-Technology Weave blog has 800+ readers at present.  I’d like to increase readership and thought I’d ask if you’d be willing to forward BTW’s URL –

(http://itknowledgeexchange.techtarget.com/business-technology/)

- to a few colleagues and friends.  They can also simply Google “The Business-Technology Weave.”

As thanks, I’d like to recommend one of the coolest sites I’ve stumbled upon in a long time:  FutilityCloset.com.  This site is a treasure trove of fun and interesting things. In their own words, “…a collection of entertaining curiosities in history, literature, mathematics, language, art, and philosophy. Each item is self-contained and written as concisely as possible…”.  Their database has almost 6,000 items.

Check out the video “Both Sides Now,” (scroll down to it) where a Bach piece is rendered as a Möbius strip. It’s just over 3 minutes – let it get to the 1:45 minute mark – here’s where it gets really interesting.

The Quotations page is fun too.  I’ve poked through Technology, and there are more than a dozen other sections.  There’s plenty of Archives too.

Have fun!  And… if you could blast out a recommendation for The Business-Technology Weave (only to those you’d feel would benefit, of course), I would much appreciate it – how about to 10 of your closest friends and associates?

Tomorrow:  Back to business with an article regarding a top security expert’s warning about cyber-terror.  To close, here’s a great quote I picked up from FutilityCloset:

“I have never thought much of the courage of a lion tamer. Inside the cage he is at least safe from other men. There is not much harm in a lion. He has no ideals, no religion, no politics, no chivalry, no gentility; in short, no reason for destroying anything that he does not want to eat.”

       — George Bernard Shaw

Increasingly, business is conducted online.  This is generally a good thing.  Dispersed parties can weigh in efficiently – via phone conference, video conference, remote presentation, etc.  The freedom and flexibility granted by removing travel time, and in granting a virtual presence to most anyone, anywhere, was unavailable a generation ago, and is very powerful.

However, today I’m not speaking about dispersed parties – nor the simple share of communications, and files, via e-mail, the web, or central data repositories. 

I’m seeing phone conferences, even video chats and meetings, between colleagues in the same building – even on the same floor!  I don’t know if they’re in love with their technical enablements or if some of them simply need to bathe more often… or what.

I like meeting and interfacing with people on a real-world basis.  I want the face-to-face wherever possible, wherever feasible.  I don’t know about you, but I feel a lot more confident when a colleague commits to something, shakes my hand, and looks me in the eye – to say nothing of a vendor or member of some allied agency.

I remember one organization where a vendor came in-house for a meeting, whereby all attendees were in the building – but found out it was online - and sat alone in the conference room to “attend”!

I think there’s also a threshold of another sort beyond distance, efficiency, and general demand of schedules – that threshold is an assessment for the benefits of a face-to-face vs. the demands of scheduling and assembling any particular team in the flesh:  Whether a formal team, or an ad hoc one.  People tend to be a little more cordial when meeting in person; a bit more compromising and accommodating. 

When scheduling meetings, do not hesitate to put this advantage forth to the prospective participants.  If anyone squawks about showing up, you have the added advantage that you can “accidentally” step on their foot. *

On this day:  On this day in 1957, the Wham-O Company produced the first Frisbee.

* Note:  Mr. Scott does not actually advocate stepping on people’s feet.  The aforementioned action was for purposes of humor, and should not be mistaken for professional advice or guidance.

When examining The Cloud’s potential, we generally look at three basic things:

1)  Platform as a Service (PaaS);

2)  Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS); and

3)  Software as a Service (SaaS)

(Note:  for a quick overview, see my earlier post, “Cloud Computing and Security:  Forecast Cloudy?”)

But there is another, emerging, potential.  IT staff who are associated with specific elements undergoing evaluation for migration could be out of a job.  With the potential shift of resources and their management/maintenance burden to The Cloud, now is the time for in-house IT staff to at least begin a reassessment of what was a rock-solid foundation for them.  That is:  A strong job market; organizations’ requirements for full-time, in-house, highly educated and trained personnel; and a seemingly unlimited horizon to upward progression.

Whatever measure of in-house-based services and assets migrates to The Cloud, there is something IT-related that will never diminish.  It will not only remain in place, it is a clear vista to job security:  Suitable match of IT resources to business – and optimization of that match.  Virtually any business has a business-technology weave; it matters not where that technology is harbored, nor where it is maintained.  Business must understand its technical enablements and get maximum business-value from them.

There is never a “perfect” fit of any business system to business:  There is constant refinement for present demands, constant evolution to business growth and change; and the requirement to make business professionals – even the most hapless – productive within systems.  So, call it what you will:  Fit, match, delivery… you must help and support business, enabling it to understand tools, resources, content… and to understand and wield the ways to get maximum business benefit.

Particularly for the younger, more junior, folks, the savvy IT person should ask to sit in on the occasional (pure) business meeting.  Befriend a mentor in the senior executive class – confess an interest in some element of “the business” – break the mold and listen on the periphery.  Most conference rooms have chairs around the walls – those are for people like you... the network admin/manager, the HelpDesk manager, the HelpDesk staffmember, even the IT Manager/Director.  If your organization is large enough to have a CTO, CIO, etc., ask to tag along – listen to the business equation and factor in your own head where services can go in helping the “pure” business concerns.  In other words, be imaginative.

Don’t tip into a zone of diminishing returns:  In other words, you don’t want to be a nuisance – and you don’t want to cut into time that’s better spent doing your main job.  But become a business-technology weave in your value to your organization’s business:  become invaluable.  My father used to say that the graveyard was full of “indispensable” people – but become so valued that your job is absolutely secured.  Intelligent people do that. 

Be smart – get ahead of the curve, and ahead of your peers.  Now is the time.

You’ll be awfully glad you did.   

July 6th:  On this day in 1933, the 1st All-Star game was played.  The American League won 5-2 (at Chicago’s Comiskey Park).

How do we create a success culture?  How do we sustain the successful organization and make it ever more successful? 

First, we must maximize and make fully understandable these existing fundamentals in your organization: 

¨  Mission

¨  Values

¨  Beliefs

¨  Standards. 

It is not our intent here to create a business plan, to write sample mission statements, or to provide a primer about values, etc.  Your organization, and the reader, understands these things and their importance in defining and sustaining the organization and its conduct of business.  Rather, it is our duty here to re-examine the “obvious” – what reflection is there in these areas regarding success?  For, in looking at the loose standards of some of those around us, in looking at the mistake-prone organizations, or the hierarchies with their ethically challenged reputations, we realize that we have to make a conscious decision to be different. 

Those others certainly have missions, values, beliefs, and standards.  But if they see value in cutting corners, if they have a belief that inflating profits will yield positive business outcomes, if their standards are ill-defined or deliberately loose, then there is no service to the mission.  There is no true accommodation for the idea of success.  Sustained, long-term success (the only kind that counts) is achieved by being honest and in matching actions to realities.  The success culture starts with this honesty, which inspires trust, cooperation, and good faith activity.  This is critically important when Business and IT engage within the organization.  We therefore need to groom (mentor, coach, train) so that no one has to assume anything regarding the culture – they will know.  As things stand now, how many people can you scratch in your organization – querying them on matters of business culture – to yield a response with some semblance of:  “We have a culture of success”?  Try it.  If your leadership is not biasing the organization for success – what is it doing? 

Further, our stated mission, values, beliefs and standards will ensure that, if and when a gray area leads someone to wonder what a standard is, or be left to ponder what they “might get away with,” we have in place a culture that will groom them to know that excellence is the bar.  That the job, large or small, is to be done right.  They will disabuse themselves – and they will dissuade others – of any notion of entertaining an impropriety.  This is where you achieve true strength:  From the bottom up as individuals self-regulate; from the top down as example-setting, ethical leaders manage, mentor and train; and across the organization – or across organizations – as departments and agencies engage in good faith activity by virtue of solid reputations and trust.  Let’s look at some supports to this:

                            Supporting Success:   Mission; Values; Beliefs; Standards

Mission:  The idea of a mission would seem to be pretty obvious.  However, if you ask people on a random basis to articulate their organization’s mission, you may be surprised at the result.  There will be a degree of struggle in expressing the mission with accuracy and brevity.  Forget about any degree of comprehensiveness.  Even Business people can have trouble – but for support elements such as IT, there may be many people who fail to understand, or even care about, the overarching business mission. 

Every organization has a mission, and every reader’s organization has a mission statement.  The mission provides the answer as to why the organization is here.  An organization’s stated mission should include primary products and services, your service model (such as the importance of excellence, creativity, results, success, etc.), and markets.  Everyone in an organization should know what the organization’s mission is, understand it, and support it.  Remember that the mission statement is a ready handle in defining who you are – after the organization’s name, it is often the first exposure someone has to anything about your organization.  It communicates essential information to people, beginning with the people right in the organization – the employees.  It is the definition of your organization seen by clients, customers, members, prospects, potential employees, vendors, contractors, business partners, and any other interested party.  

Ensure your people know, understand, and support the mission.

Values:  A value is a belief, a principle, a quality, or a philosophy that has meaning and worth to the organization.  It also must have meaning and worth to the individual.  It is important to note that any organization will have formally defined values – but it will also have informal values. 

In recent surveys of business, the identification and implementation of values has been cited as the one of the greatest keys in the success of those organizations that thrive.  Values lead to direct action, quality of action, and appropriate treatment of people.  When looking at most successful organizations, we find that values are directly linked to their success.  For example, Sears places a high value on customer trust – in the 19^th Century, customers in rural areas enjoyed a money-back guarantee on any returned product.  Can you imagine the comfort that that sort of trust engendered when ordering from a remote organization through a catalog in those days?  Sears, unlike many companies from that era, continues to exist and thrive today…

The Marriott’s value of standardization enabled it to efficiently duplicate its standard model hotel all across the country.  People on the road experienced a welcome familiarity. 

Coca-Cola’s value of their customers’ opinion and satisfaction allowed it to quickly recover from the wrong turn that “New Coke” represented. 

Your organization has a set of values in place – make certain that those values are effective, known, and understood.  The trick is not in “having” values:  the trick is to make certain they expand and occupy every corner and crevice of your operations, your supports, your management, your products, and your services.  In the case of our Weave, we can see that business values occupy the upper, overarching agenda.  IT values need to support and help fulfill business objectives.  One of the most obvious values today is the sustaining of continuous improvement.  Generally, the identification of an important value leads to discovery, and discussion, of other supporting values:  innovation, reliability, trust, confidence, truthfulness, and so forth.  At the same time, a discussion of values needs to identify gaps, or divides, between stated organizational values, and the full employ of those values in leveraging them to the ultimate mission. 

Beliefs:  Beliefs support values.  If your organization wants to value excellence, for example, people need to believe that excellence is worth striving for, is recognized, and is rewarded.  Further, it will be believed that excellence is appreciated by the customer, client, member, etc.  Vendors will acclimate quickly to your culture of excellence, and they will partner according to their natural sense of your expectation for excellence.  Beliefs yield confidence and trust (desirable values in and of themselves).  When people believe that others engage in good faith, and that the organization itself behaves in, and supports, good faith, we build value.  We begin to build a collective mental acceptance of truths, and conviction in them.  Again, think about defining your culture through mission, values, beliefs and standards:  don’t let it default to something you don’t want.  Beliefs directly support your mission. 

An important belief is that an organization is a team, rather than a collected set of competing silos; each complete with their own selfish agendas, competition for resources, negative belief-set, and poor expectations of the other “silos.”  By extension, allied organizations that have been tasked with a common mission must acquire the belief that they are a team in order to be at their united best.  Consider what your organization believes – truly believes.  Is your organization’s belief-set acceptable to you?  Consider the beliefs that you would like to instill in your organization, and the reality necessary to emplace and sustain those beliefs.

Standards:  A standard is a requirement, a level, or a degree of something.  Standards define and guide conduct.  They set benchmarks in the performance of systems and people.  They help to provide comparisons and measures in order to evaluate levels of things that lead to success.  Standards help to measure ‘success’ itself. 

Harboring a respect for standards is a value.  You value a degree, or level, of performance from employees – and from yourself.  You must meet and hopefully exceed a standard in order to certify the value of that performance.  Overall, your organization has a requirement of conduct – the level of conduct you require is a standard.  We manage and perform according to standards.

Standards should be a clear expression of our expectations:  We should know how our organization expects us to behave and interact with each other.  We should know how to resolve conflict.  We should have standards that support growth and progression for the right people.  Proper standards help us to leverage “human capital” to competitive advantage. 

Standards also help us to establish commonly accepted guides to productivity and quality.  A review of standard “best practices” in any field of endeavor will present essential standards for success.  A success culture both yields, and depends on, productivity.  Efficient and effective (quality) production of anything represents success:  whether it is production of new designs, production of output goods, producing better  service, producing more satisfied customers, producing more accurate performance appraisals – these all represent success. 

In-turn, success (successful productivity) yields pride in the organization, pride in what you do, confidence in a job well done, and it yields a positive model for future success.  Consider the business traveler’s laptop as an example:  the true standard is not to issue the laptop in a timely fashion (important enough, but easily done), it is not to vet the laptop as functional (also important), but rather the standard is to meet the business traveler’s need to access the organization’s network in order to successfully accomplish online work.  If you meet the true standard, the others are met.  The ultimate standard pulls everything else up.  This is why you have to solidify in your mind, and the minds of your staff, the ultimate, true standards to be met (and as necessary, exceeded) in each task, project, and endeavor.

The identification of ultimate business standards does not mean that you don’t need checklists or interim qualifiers/standards.  Indeed true standards support and lead to the establishment of those things:  “Hmm, if BusTraveler ‘A’ has ultimate need to work from City ‘Z’, then I need to test a laptop, issue it, and certify that BusTraveler ‘A’ knows how to use it.”  Recognize here that standards beget success. 

All of these things in your success culture help you develop a winning “people strategy” – which in turn helps your organization develop an overall competitive advantage.

In your Business-Technology Weave, maker certain that both the Business and IT folks have a clear articulation of Mission, Values, Standards and Beliefs.

June 30th:  On this day in 1936 Gone with the Wind was published.

It is no use saying, “We are doing our best.”  You have got to succeed in doing what is necessary.

                         Winston Churchill

A Success Culture happens by design, not default.  Success starts with a desire, and then a will, to succeed:  a specific attitude.  When the will is strong, either in the individual or organization, then there is a belief in success – and success will be the outcome.  In building a culture of success, it is fundamental to build teams of people who know how to succeed, and thereby organizations that can succeed.

We’re not talking about success alone – for we can succeed in spite of costly mistakes; we can achieve an ultimate success after many preventable failures; we can often succeed where dumb luck plays as big a role as anything else.   We can succeed in spite of a poor culture; we can “beat the odds.”  But the odds catch up with us – and why take chances anyway?

The Business-Technology Weave is dependent on success:  Your organization deserves a proper foundational culture and the right collective attitude to maintain and advance success against the challenges of a changing world.  So – we need to succeed on an intelligently designed basis – we must commit to succeeding on the most effective and continuous basis.  We will have a lock on success.  That lock will be for anything we do:  analysis, proper fits, implementations, progressions for the future, programming, reports, policies and plans, etc.  Name it:  Anything and everything.

Define.  Or Be Defined:  When we commit to success and a culture of success, that doesn’t mean we can’t have some failures, and that we can’t make allowance for mistakes.  There is always the unforeseen, and there are always human mistakes to contend with.  What we mean here is that we don’t tolerate sloppiness, empty excuse, and ineptitude.  We tailor and maximize known practices, best practices, and emerging practices, in managing business and its supports.  We pair these practices with the kinds of people who have the will to succeed: the strength of character (possession of ethics and sense of responsibility); the care for what’s required (knowledge, preparedness, teamwork); and the desire to put forth the effort in doing what’s to be done (a willingness to work). 

Unless we shape our environment, circumstances will shape it for us.  Unless we define our culture, it will be defined for us.  Unless we make it our goal to retain positive, qualified people, we will find ourselves wafting down to lesser qualified, and less positive people.  We must plan and carefully maintain the culture as we would anything else, in order to leverage it for best business outcomes. 

Nothing manages itself and, like people, your culture deserves managing.  We must craft the Business-Technology Weave with positivity.  The success culture-positive is an enormous lever in moving things to successful conclusions – its influence and power cannot be overstated.  Why would any organization not bias everything it could toward success? 

Most importantly, when you set a bias for success, you have a primed system in place for taking on the emerging burdens, seen and unforeseen, in the Business-Technology Weave.  Rather than blinking, stumbling, or choking in the face of some challenge, your organization’s wheels go into motion.  Whether faced with exciting new challenges, or discovery of bad, you have people, teams, and methods that are identified, in place, and possessed of knowledge and confidence in doing what needs to be done.  Further, what’s done is done prudently, efficiently, and with accuracy. 

Getting there always starts with attitude… Where is your organization’s attitude?

June 28th:  On this day in 1942 the Dumont television network begins (WABD, NY).

Forty-six States have now enacted data breach notification laws, whereby businesses must contact consumers to advise when their personal data gets lost or stolen.  Laws also exist in the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands.  It’s a safe bet that the remaining States will get around to notification laws. 

Why are such laws necessary?  First and foremost:  Breaches happen.  Secondly, people wish to know – are entitled to know – when their sensitive data is compromised so that they can take action to protect themselves.  Not least, breaches are on the increase.  Why? 

Being that most data breaches originate with human error it seems likely that a combination of lack of awareness, lack of education, sloppiness and poor decisions are reasons.

High profile breaches seem to happen on a constant basis.  For some perspective, have a look at The Chronology of Data Breaches, courtesy The Privacy Rights Clearinghouse.  That’s just the high profile ones and meant to be, in the words of the PRC, “… a useful indication of the types of breaches that occur, the categories of entities that experience breaches, and the size of such breaches.”  A comprehensive listing of breaches would scare you. 

Among “new ideas” in data protection is the banning of physical transfer of data.  This seems Draconian – and where would this begin and end?  As one example:  What if you wish to walk a thumb drive across the office?  You’d better refer to the organization’s Acceptable Use policy, Security policy and any other controlling documentation.  Can you imagine the granular detail of data security policies under such constrictions? 

But doesn’t it all come down to one thing?  Care.  Care that people are trained in the proper handling of data, and subsequent exercise of care.  That is, constant awareness for what you’re doing, what you’re putting where, why, when and how. 

A fairly high-profile company recently decided to have clients verify and update sensitive information.  They decided to merge data sets with each corresponding individual e-mail account and…  Send!  You already know what happened – things got scrambled and individuals received other folk’s sensitive data.

Where were standards for testing in a test environment, for then producing an action on a limited real-world basis for assessment, and final conduct of large-scale action?  Let’s not forget solid contingency planning for the unforeseen – but prevention is key.  I believe prevention is possible, but it requires care, awareness, and education.  Constant education.

The culture of your organization helps to determine what you do, how, when, and under what circumstances.  In this century, it all boils down to eCulture – electronic culture:  Know what you’re doing with electronic data and also what that electronic data produces:  Paper and other physical records and repositories, such as tape, disk, stick, phone, laptop – indeed anything that can store and transport data from a sheet of paper on up.  Policy, education and training – control – must also include personal storage devices that people bring into the environment.  Absent appropriate safeguards:  If people can do it, they will.  

Does your organization conduct regularized training regarding data security?  Depending on the nature of your organization, its people, and its business, you may need monthly, quarterly or annual awareness training.

Don’t let your organization’s good standing get mauled by a data breach:  The fallout – the loss of trust, loss of reputation, and the reparations – can be enormous.

June 4^th:   On this day in 1896 Henry Ford took his first car, the Quadricycle, out for a test drive. 

We’ve discussed WorkOns and WorkWiths – let’s wrap this series up with the WorkFors class. 

These are the folks who “work on” you – the IT leader – and include any entity or individual who has sway over IT-business matters.  These are your direct supervision, senior management, your governance committee members, your board, and other senior players who have influence.  It also includes clients, members, and customers.  For your organization, it may include regulatory bodies or government agencies.  But the steadiest and most influential WorkFor interactions will be with those superiors in the organization itself.

For the IT leader, you must embrace the fact that many, if not most, of these people are not particularly interested in information technology.  Even when they are, they don’t have time for a lot of details.  They are not oriented to details – at least in a situational sense.  They don’t have time for details – they have people working for them that attend to those.  You for instance. 

WorkFors are big-picture players, and are focused on results.  They’ll want to hear about solutions, not problems.  They want to hear about progress.  They want to hear about productivity and efficiency.  They want to hear about success.  Keep in mind that anyone you speak to in this group, no matter how highly placed, has to report to someone too.  Their burden for delivering success is in an arena of stress that is likely greater than yours. 

In order for you to succeed, you must align your resources and methods so that you deliver consistent success to this group.  If you’re escalating problems to the WorkFors, you have not done your job effectively at the WorkWith and WorkOn levels.  You have not established your sanctions, sponsorships, and you likely have failed to make the sale (in terms of cooperation, teamplay, etc.).  Perhaps you’ve exceeded the limits of your lead.  Remember this:  If you start to sense yourself as tipping toward a “problem reporting” stance when engaging with the WorkFors, as opposed to a “success reporting” and summary style of communication, you must make immediate adjustment.  A qualified exception is your interaction with your direct supervision.  Here, you’ll iron out problems and strategies.  But even here, you must present solutions – you must have a positive answer for moving business forward. 

As you may suspect, TechnoShines can be rare in this group.  There is an overwhelming majority of TechoFinds here, and a sizable proportion of TechnoBinds.  The heavy proportion of TechnoFinds in this group works to an IT leader’s advantage, and also to any Business manager when interacting and discussing the Weave.  That’s because WorkFors rely on your knowledge and the strength of your position to pilot the organization into the future.  Once you’ve established a sound reputation with this group based on solid performance and trust, you should find very rewarding relationships.

It should be a rare situation where you go to this group to lobby for relief – but if you feel you must, or if you have a special relationship at this level whereby someone specifically wants to be kept apprised in a more detailed fashion than is usual, you must yet remember your audience.  Keep things very focused, very positive (even when reporting problems), and make certain you pose valid solutions to problems in a positive way.  Your reputation should be such that you are seen as the facilitator to progress.  Nothing is personal, everything is business.  Nothing is personal, everything is business.  It matters not how some others engage – this is your engagement, and this will be your reputation’s enhancement of your credibility. 

Those that facilitate progress will ultimately cook to the top, regardless of temporary setbacks or small, inconsequential, battles lost.  Keep that larger picture in mind when talking to the big-picture people.