The future is built one task at a time. Ideally, each task, while supremely relevant to the problem at hand, is consistent with a multistep trek to a shared and explicitly articulated end state. In uncertain times, many IT tasks-at-hand are not solidly connected to future end points.
At WestJet, McKesson, and KeySpan, CIO Cheryl Smith, author of The Day Before IT Transformation, ensured every system put into production and every piece of code deployed was architected to last and be consistent with a future seven years hence.
Lou Gerstner, former CEO at IBM, will never escape from futurist purgatory. In 1993, the former McKinsey consultant did irreparable damage to CIOs trying to prepare their organizations for a future of perpetual technological change. He did so by stating that the future is “All about execution.”
With those three words IT was doomed to slog through an all-too frequently recurring do-loop of soul-destroying and value-delaying whack-a-mole now-ism. Many IT organizations are locked in a narrative that is all action and no plot. Our industry lacks a compelling vision of where we want to end up.
To be clear, I am not against “execution.” It is what is being executed (i.e., the IT task at hand) that I am concerned about. Details are important — something the engravers of Pope Francis’ tomb seem to have forgotten when they mismanaged the kerning of the Pope’s 10-letter gravestone (“F R A NCISC VS”). We sometimes miss the forest for the trees.
Managing future-informed first steps — i.e., ensuring that what you are doing now is consistent with where you ultimately want to get to — is essential to building a better future.
We need a better vision
The “vision thing” has become a metonym used to describe a leader’s failure to incorporate future concerns into task-at-hand actions.
There was a time when CEOs at major solution providers supplied vision and inspiration on where we were heading. The sic “futures” being articulated from the podia at major tech conferences today lack authenticity. Most importantly they do not reflect the needs and priorities of real people who work in real IT.
In a world where technology allows deeper and cheaper connectivity, top-of-the-house executives at solution providers have never been more out of touch with the lived experience of their customers. The vendor CEOs, their direct reports, and their first-levels live in a bubble that has little to do with the reality being lived by the world’s CIOs.
I suggest each major vendor draft a statement reflecting their understanding of the causes, contexts, and conditions facing each and every one of their customers. Wouldn’t it be interesting to ask your key suppliers for specifics regarding how they see your future?
Have you ever asked your primary solution provider to give you a breakdown of how they spend their marketing budget? Millions are spent on things that “Just don’t matter” to working CIOs. The world would be a much better place if we had fewer slogans and more conversations.
Reclaiming the narrative of ‘next’
Who is the generational voice for the Age of AI? Is it Jensen Huang, CEO at Nvidia; Sam Altman, CEO at OpenAI; Marc Andreessen, co-founder of venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz; or Elon Musk, at Tesla, SpaceX, and xAI? Who has laid out a future you can believe in, a future you want to live in?
Does the CEO at your major tech supplier understand what matters most to you and your organization?
The futurist agenda has been hijacked from focusing on the semi-immediate “what comes next.” The narrative of “next” has devolved into a pursuit of far-reaching and less than relevant utopias.
Adam Becker has written an antidote to technology vision overreach in his book More Everything Forever: AI Overlords, Space Empires and Silicon Valley’s Crusade to Control the Fate of Humanity. He suggests we need to get over our “ideology of technological salvation” and focus on making the world a better place tomorrow — not 100 years from now.
As a futurist I can share some hard-learned lessons on how to think about the years to come. You are not going to be 100% correct. Tech vendors, who are always betting on the future, don’t always get things right. In May 2011 Microsoft invested $8.5 billion in Skype, a pioneer in Internet phone calls. Fourteen years later, Microsoft officially shut down the service which in its heyday had become a verb describing connectivity, as in “Let’s Skype.”
The future may be 100% unpredictable but you can make investments now that are directionally correct.
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Read More from This Article: The great IT disconnect: Vendor visions of the future vs. IT’s task at hand
Source: News