Moving from Order Taker to Offer Maker

1. Moving from Order Taker to Offer Maker October 2010 SIM Detroit Chapter Meeting Ken Faw, Program Team Member

2. Closing out 2010 (Today was originally our late October session) 4-Nov Detroit CIO Executive SummitThe Henry, Autograph Collection (formerly Ritz-Carlton, Dearborn) 17-Dec Holiday Networking Event

3. Planned for 2011 25-Jan China isn't going away… 22-Feb Rise of the Marketing Technologist 29-Mar Why you need to know aboutEnterprise Web 2.0 26-Apr The Economy, Redux(Fed Detroit Chief Economist) 26-May Midwest Technology Leaders

4. Order Taker to Offer Maker???What This Session is Not… • This is not a talk about • “Keep-the-lights-on” versus “innovation” • “Business enabler” versus “business partner” • “Doing more with less” • Governance and steering committees • IT portfolio management or budgeting • Business and IT alignment • What is an “order taker”, anyway? • You can go back to the jargon after tonight • This talk is about you, how you may think, and how you may be viewed by your peers and subordinates

5. So What are We Talking About??? • In linguistics, orders and offers are what are called “speech acts” • An order is a type of request(along with invitations, commands, etc.) • An offer is a type of promise • The initiator is different, but fulfillment is performed by the same person • That means to initiate offers requires us to think differently about our “place” in a relationship

6. More than Alignment …achieving superior growth and profit require more than simply aligning the business with IT. Rather, the CIO must also drive mobilization (preparing the organization and understanding details of the strategy) and execution – 3rd Annual Digital IQ Study,Diamond Management &Technology Consultants

7. On “Order Takers” • First of all, they are everywhere • Clerks • Wait staff • Disc jockeys • Military personnel • Anyone who responds to requests (an “order” is a type of request) • …which is pretty much all of us!

8. The Order Taker’s Greatest Value • Think of the most common “order takers” you see in the market (clerks, wait staff, etc.) • They are valuable, even indispensible, in the economy • Do you value them highly? • Would you sign your check over to them? • Do you expect them to make more than you do? • An order taker’s greatest value depends on the requests other people make of them1 1We commonly call those “other people” leaders.

9. IT Cultural Extremes • Take on all requests (order takers who say “yes”) • But we have limited capacity to fulfill • Everybody gets tired, for the sake of customer service • Every unfulfilled request breaks trust, and there seems no way to win • Demand management (order takers who say “no”) • Requests overwhelm us, so we prioritize (as we must do) • Unaddressed demand does not go away, and cannot really be “managed”… but we feel justified in this philosophy • Those whose demand is not met also lose trust

10. An Offer is a Conditional Promise • I promise this… if you promise that in return • Offers increase the value of a transaction because they expand the capacityof the person accepting • If you make me an offer, I did not have to design and formulate the request or my conditions of satisfaction • I just have to decide that the promise you are making me is worth it… • And because it is your promise, I do not have to micromanage you in the delivery… • They dramatically lower my costs, and I still get the help that I need

11. Designing Offers Background – biological, linguistic Midground – social, historical, Selves Foreground Concerns Breakdowns Horizons of time Criteria and standards for assessment Always, already existing commitments Always, already existing traditions, customs, habits, practices Always, already existing products and services This structure was invented by The Aji Network, within which the Speaker is a student and member

12. The “Space” to Make an Offer • We will always have to accept and fulfill the requests of others • …or eventually (if not immediately) we suffer • For identities of greater trust and value, we must also notice the “space” to make offers • The space exists where you notice concerns or breakdowns not addressed • You have to also be looking to make a promise

13. The Offer not Requested… [Doug Caddell, CIO, Foley & Lardner] looked for a way to help his [2,600] tech-skeptical lawyers understand what IT could do for the business, adopting the credo “Build it and hope to hell they will come.” So, without any formal buy-in, IT developed new Web-based revenue-enhancing systems it knew could benefit the business. [Says Caddell, ]“I knew if we didn’t do it, we’d just be running Exchange servers and managing document management systems forever.” – CIO, 8/6/2007

14. “Trust” in the Context of Offers • When we accept the requests of others, we are obligated to keep them • If we don’t fulfill our obligations, they become threats to us • People will eventually “trust” us NOT to fulfill for them • When we make promises, we have the opportunity to keep them • Consistently and recurrently delivering on our promises builds trust • If there is a trust issue between business and IT… • We are either not making valuable promises, or • We are not delivering on them • Many business/IT issues are resolved by starting to keep promises

15. Some Axioms About Offers • Offers that we do not (or cannot) notice do not exist for us • Think of your marketing customers who take care of their own issues… and we never know we could have helped • Offers that we do not care about cannot be valuable to us (they are irrelevant) • Would we be concerned about pervasive ungoverned spreadsheets if they did not cause us problems? • Offers that are obvious cannot be highly-valuable • They can be sought out as needed, and priced as commodities

16. Implications • If you want to make offers and increase your value… • Listen for concerns, breakdowns, horizons of time, etc. • And be ready to make promises • If you want to expand your capacity through the help of your team… • They have to know your concerns, breakdowns, horizons of time, etc. • …and they have to notice the space to make offers • …and they must also assess autonomy to make them

17. Relative to Career and Organization • Offers are “money”, which is fundamental economics • They are all that we transact with • We often trade offers for currency, because our grocer, our gas station and our mortgage bank don’t need our IT help • The more valuable our offers, the more valuable we are • The more valuable the offers of our organizations, the more valuable our organizations are • If we were truly taking care of our businesses’ concerns, breakdowns, etc., how could IT be “misaligned”? • Most IT alignment efforts can be described in new offers

18. Checking In… • What are the differences between taking others’ requests and making your own offers? • Fundamentally, what does it mean to you to make a promise? • Is it harder than just fulfilling requests? • Does that explain why it might be more valuable? • What would it take to make a fundamental shift to look for promises you can make day-to-day? • Do you accept that “offers are money”?

19. Questions? Ken Faw 248-872-2338 kfaw@comcast.net