Reader Q&A

Q: Can you suggest references that address the IT organization of the future and indicate how others have defined and communicated this to their teams?

A: I'm not aware of any great references for the IT organization of the future. Although researchers and academics seem to agree with Christopher Koch's statement (in "The Post-modern Manifesto", page 54) that the future IT organization will be "smaller, more distributed and dependent on a tightly integrated supply chain of vendors", there seems to be a lack of agreement as to the competitive importance of IT and the role that IT should assume vis-a-vis the business.

I think it may be most instructive to study the evolution of the financial organization within the enterprise as an indicator of how IT will evolve. Fundamentally, the roles of the two organizations are similar, and finance has figured out how to gain an increasingly more strategic, trusted adviser role while at the same time delegating day-to-day decision making and responsibility for finance throughout the organization.

Q: Stress for the workers on the bottom of the pyramid is not new. What reduces stress for the CIO is that the CIO has some control over his or her life. I can see why being called on to outsource your own work would be stressful; you're being forced to give up what control you now have. But let's not feel too sorry for the in-house IT workers. Those they are outsourcing work to are IT workers too. At least the in-house people have the security of old-fashioned jobs.

A: The point of the article isn't to feel sorry for the IT workers; it's to remind leaders of their responsibility to give people a sense of optimism for the future and an understanding of what they need to do to play a part in it. By imparting this information, they help people take back control of their work, and reduce the stress in their lives.

Susan Cramm is founder and president of California-based Valuedance, an executive coaching firm. You can e-mail feedback to susan@valuedance.com