Mirroring this approach, Loebenstein has on his executive team a direct report, Gary Carter, whose position title is general manager IT Relationships. Carter in turn oversees a team specially selected for their communication skills and empathy. This team represents IT into the internal business areas and support areas and members sit on the management teams of those operating divisions. This puts those team members at the inception and at the "heart" of discussion about the direction those operating divisions wish to take. By reporting those intentions directly back to the IT group, Loebenstein says, these people give IT a keen understanding of all parts of the business, allowing it to coordinate and respond and, where necessary, eliminate duplication.

"Sometimes we have sessions where we say: 'Hold on. If they're doing that, they're using our knowledge of the business and our knowledge of technology. We can go there and tell them that we've heard you talking about this, this and this. And by the way, here is the potential if you use this technology you could do that and that and that and that.' Not every suggestion is taken up, but the fact of the matter is that you start a collaborative dialogue," Loebenstein says.

"So when there is a project we will assemble an architect and whatever, and we will take the right people to work at that embryonic idea germination stage to help the thing along, to explore possibilities. And when a project does evolve, then you really kind of know the purpose and where everybody wants to go. When it comes time for the formal project to get approved by the investment review committee, we don't have to start from scratch and ask them what it is that they want. We're part of the business; we're integrated. It's the business and IT working together right from day one, not only when there's a project on the go.

"Of course, there's a bunch of egos in every company, especially among the group executives and what not. But if you work collaboratively it's a beautiful thing to see when it works: the idea of if they succeed, we succeed. It's as simple as that. It requires everybody to be absolutely in unison and at peak performance and that's the only recipe for success. If one link in the collaborative chain is weak or fails, the whole bloody thing falls down," he says.

The need to avoid such breakdowns is the reason a little gentle "de-nerding" can go such a very long way.

SIDEBAR: An Asperger's Link?

Could some of the more off-beam of your geeks be suffering from Asperger's syndrome, a form of autism recognized by the American Psychiatric Association as having genetic roots? Gartner research director Steve Bittinger, whose son is a sufferer and who is president of the Asperger's Syndrome Support Network in Canberra, says it may be a possibility worth considering.

It is not a new idea. A classic Wired article makes a disturbing link between programming and Asperger's.

"It's a familiar joke in the industry that many of the hardcore programmers in IT strongholds like Intel, Adobe and Silicon Graphics - coming to work early, leaving late, sucking down Big Gulps in their cubicles while they code for hours - are residing somewhere in Asperger's domain," notes the Wired article. "Kathryn Stewart, director of the Orion Academy, a high school for high-functioning kids in Moraga, California, calls Asperger's syndrome 'the engineers' disorder'. Bill Gates is regularly diagnosed in the press: His single-minded focus on technical minutiae, rocking motions and flat tone of voice are all suggestive of an adult with some trace of the disorder . . .

"Though no one has tried to convince the Valley's best and brightest to sign up for batteries of tests, the culture of the area has subtly evolved to meet the social needs of adults in high-functioning regions of the spectrum. In the geek warrens of engineering and R&D, social graces are beside the point. You can be as off-the-wall as you want to be, but if your code is bulletproof, no one's going to point out that you've been wearing the same shirt for two weeks."

Bittinger also believes many Asperger's people migrate into information technology, partly because they do not interact well socially yet can be brilliant with computers. "There are degrees," he says. "It's not black and white, there are shades of grey."

However not every person who's a bit geeky or has difficulty interacting socially has Asperger's.

How do you recognize somebody with Asperger's syndrome? Bittinger focuses on two main areas: a failure to make suitable eye contact that should be obvious, and the fact that the nature of a dialogue with a sufferer can seem a little bit odd. While such people can make an enormous contribution to the organization, he says the aim of the organization should be to identify such people's strengths and ways to work around their disability. Part of that effort involves educating co-workers.

"You're not going to fundamentally change those people and you can compensate for that disability. It is like they are blind or deaf or something. You can make compensating arrangements in the workplace, such as not putting such people into positions where they have to make a lot of interactions with customers, or in internal clients. They're not good at that.

"Managers need to be educated and that is something that I'm going to try to do. Once a manager recognizes the issue then they can start to have appropriate conversations with HR people who may be in a position to provide some disability support or whatever or to get some experts to come in and provide training. Oftentimes community-based experts like psychologists and people who work with people who have challenges can come in and provide bridging services to help educate managers and team-mates, because a lot of times Asperger's people are unable to be effective advocates for themselves.

"But never make the mistake of assuming they haven't got an enormous amount to contribute to the workforce," Bittinger says. "They often are extremely bright."