Thread by @swardley

X : Any chance we can meet for coffee?
Me : Virtual or in person?
X : In person.
Me : Whereabouts?
X : I'll be in London next month.
Me : Ok, A coffee shop in London Hythe.
X : Where's that.
Me : About 70 miles away.
X : Something a bit more local?
Me : Hythe is local ... to me.

X : Ok, virtual?
Me : Sure. What's up anyway?
X : I need to pick your brain on how to bring IT and the business closer together?
Me : Easy. You put IT in charge. It's a lot faster for engineers to learn about business than it is for business to learn about engineering.

X : There's a lot to learn about business.
Me : No there isn't, it's mostly story telling. Engineers won't have any issue with finance & law, most will know how to build teams and the strategy / leadership parts of business are mostly snake oil ... it's not like engineering.

In fact, find yourself an engineering manager who runs a large guild in an MMORPG (i.e. WoW, EVE online) and they'll have had the best leadership training there is ... they'll run circles around your MBAs.

X : You're only saying that because you came from an engineering background.
Me : Actually, I'm a scientist who got into finance and then into management and finally got into engineering. I come from the business side first and it's mostly storytelling, BS and meme copying.

I might have learned how to code as a kid but I was selling real estate, trading on financial futures and building teams of cutthroat sales people long before I wrote any commercial code. Business is not hard to start, it's just hard to do well. Engineering is hard to start.

And it's precisely because Engineering is hard to start that you take your engineers and teach them business. That's the fastest way of getting these groups together with a common understanding.
X : What are the business leaders supposed to do.
Me : Milk with two sugars?

X : Seriously?
Me : Nah, I'm pulling your leg. You'll need some to lift the veil not just make the tea. The single largest problem is not learning about business, it's confidence. You'll find some IT groups have been ... well, abused for decades. This creates three problems ...

First you need to instil confidence. Second you need to lift the veil so they see what business really is. Lastly you need to cope with the angry reaction that almost inevitably follows. Keep that in mind and you'll be ok.

X : Why anger?
Me : Find an engineering manager who has spent a decade of listening to "what the business needs", "business leads, IT follows" and stick them in the back of boardroom to listen. First words they'll say after often won't be pretty. Nothing like lifting the veil.

... why do you think with "digital transformation" there is a lot of politics, positioning and power grabs happening. There are factional issues at play here, a real repainting of engineering into two groups - a boring old "IT" group and a cool "business" coding group ...

... there is fear in some quarters that IT will take over. Been kicking off for a decade now.
X : It shouldn't be IT vs Business. It's all business.
Me : The correct translation is "It shouldn't be IT vs Business. It's all business except the IT bit which should know its place".

X : I don't understand.
Me : The people saying "It shouldn't be IT vs Business. It's all business." are mostly on the business side and what they usually mean is "Show me some magic and then get back under the stairs".

X : Are you anti-business?
Me : Quite the opposite. I just happen to know the difference between the illusion and reality of business. People don't tend to like challenges especially to their own power bases. The tech changes are becoming an increasing threat.

It's not just business that tech folk have been ripping up. Look at politics. Even concepts like "challenge" are different.
X : How so?
Me : Old world, challenge meant "I tell you what to do and challenge you if you don't do it". New world, it means debate around the idea ...

... it takes a very different type of leader to sit there and actually listen and learn from a junior engineer that rips to shreds your precious business idea. Concepts like challenge, communication, structure are all changing. Old table, 2011 study, it might help.

X : Do you consult?
Me : No. I research. I also teach people to map. I'm happy to chat though. However, I'm not travelling to London for a cup of coffee.

X : I disagree with the characterisation of business vs IT.
Me : Good. I will note that I didn't start it. Let us all be one, just put IT in charge.
X : Why IT?
Me : Why not IT? I thought you were arguing it's all one?
X : But IT lacks business skills.
Me : That lasted 5 seconds.

X : How to solve it?
Me : Depends upon what you're trying to solve? Reinforcing past power structures or actually adapting?
X : Adapt.
Me : Are you sure? It means more communication, more challenge, more cell based like structures, less "departments" and "empires'.

X : So, where do I start.
Me : Look at the table from 2011, ask "Are we more traditional or more new generation"
X : More traditional.
Me : Ok. So, now you need to start fixing it.
X : Yes, but how?

Me : Take the following table. Start with phase I, have a discussion internally about each component, listen to your people, mark each component - good to warning - then work to make the bits in phase I all good and then move onto phase II ... keep going.

X : Should we get outside consultants to help us?
Me : No. You need to do this internally, build up aspects of belonging, safety, communication and challenge within the company. Start the process by asking for help from your own people.

X : Any other tips?
Me : Sure, along with asking for help from and supporting your own people then you can always create the perception of an outside threat.

X : Have you ever thought of giving up research and taking a more leadership position?
Me : Corporate leadership is not my thing, I find the people politics and story telling uninteresting. So, I found a different path for particular skills.
X : What?

Me : I decided to create an army of people worldwide to take out that dreadfully overpriced strategy consultancy industry that enslaves us. My intention is to do this under their noses and for peanuts just to prove you can build a worldwide army of gifted people without money.

X : Do you think you can achieve this?
Me : No. But the mapping community can. It is growing, it is challenging, it is learning and it is talking. Leaders in that community are emerging in many places. I'm confident people will emerge that will change the world of strategy.

Me : What I learned long ago, is that leadership is like gardening. It's about creating the right conditions for structures and people to emerge in but also guiding towards an overall design. Leadership is the ultimate support role.
X : Any suggested reading?

Me : None. But I can suggest an action to start with.
X : Which is?
Me : Spend your first three months as a CEO doubling up as a receptionist. It's what I did. You'll learn bucketloads.

X : CEO as a a receptionist?
Me : Absolutely. You will learn loads.
X : A humility play?
Me : If you think it is, you're still not getting it.
X : What then?
Me : When you're lost in a company, where is the one place you often turn to for help? That's where you want to be.

X : What do you think the army of mappers should be called?
Me : Lol, I just told @abusedbits that I'd call it "The helpful legion of gifted and passionate mappers" and an hour later I see @themapirati has just added that to their site mapirati.com ... so there we are.

On the topic of Wardley mapping ...

If you want to learn, the book (I wrote this bit) is free - medium.com/wardleymaps

There's an awesome list of useful sites and events - github.com/wardley-maps-c…

and @themapirati is going to put up a list of mappers - mapirati.com

There is also #Map Camp on the 15th October in London - eventbrite.com/e/map-camp-201… - just over a month away, and there are 108 diversity tickets (£50+vat) and 14 supporter tickets left. There's also a waitlist for standard tickets. All the early birds went long ago.

X : If IT takes over surely it means the business side suffers? Aren't both needed?
Me : You're reinforcing division by implying there is something called "the business" that is distinct from IT. It's not. These are just capabilities and engineering should be in the boardroom ...

... whether you like it or not, the most successful companies, fastest growing economy (China) are mostly run by engineers. If you want to bring IT and business together then you have to break down any old political structures. So, put IT in charge and call it "the business".

X : What about business strategy?
Me : Meme copying story telling mostly based on guesswork and beating people into submission through the size of a powerpoint presentation? It's mostly a nonsense field.

X : What about culture, a critical part to business.
Me : Gosh, from business strategy to culture ... we are really wallowing in the snake oil given most companies have next to no situational awareness of their competitive landscape. I thought you'd argue marketing or finance.

X : What about marketing or finance?
Me : I don't see these as problem fields for a decent engineer to get a reasonable grounding in. Ditto HR. The weakness is more likely to be in the story telling and the confidence and skill to "sell" it. The "softer" skills ...

... which is why I say, go find that engineer who runs a large guild / corporation on WoW / EVE etc and can persuade and motivate thousands of people across the world to give up their free time to be part of it. That's what you're looking for ...

... I take the view that the final stage of any MBA should be

"Without any money, go build a guild / corporation of 5,000 motivated people worldwide giving up their free time to work for you on EVE / WoW for nothing"

Complete in 6 months, you get an MBA. Don't and you fail.

X : 5,000 is too many.
Me : Lol. Well at least we're talking about it as a test. Hell, we can even have grades of MBAs .... "By the end of your MBA, you'll be able to build a guild of 5 people without resorting to paying them" etc. Gives me a sense of its actual value.

Hmmm, I like that.

How should we evaluate an MBA?

By "how much money I will earn after?" or by "its impact on my capabilities?"

What's worth more, the MBA that enables you to build a guild online of 10 motivated people or 100 or 1,000 or 10,000?

X : I don't see why you need engineering skills to lead.
Me : You don't.
X: So why do you say put IT in charge?
Me : That's my normal reaction to any discussion that starts separating off engineering from "the business" ...

... I've spent sometime in finance but no-one ever talks to me about Finance vs Business because they see Finance as part of "the business".

When you say "IT vs Business" or even "IT working with Business" then you're making a statement that engineering isn't the business.

Engineering has as much right in the boardroom as Finance, Operations, Marketing, Sales and every other capability.

X : But what about alignment issues, how do you deal with that?
Me : Communication and challenge. Two things most organisations are notoriously bad at.

X : Our CIO doesn't have any IT / engineering experience.
Me : The tendency to put someone with "business" experience in charge. Let's us make this Sales Veep the CIO ... it'll make IT more business like. That's like making a clown the head surgeon as you want people to be happy.

X : On that argument alone you wouldn't put IT in charge as they lack business experience.
Me : Here we go again. Engineering (i.e. in this case IT) is as much "the business" as Finance, HR, Sales etc.

... would you be happy if the CEO proudly announced "I don't understand finance".
X : It's critical to the job.
Me : To leadership? No, it's just a capability you can outsource.
X : But how can you challenge what you're being told?
Me : Bingo ...

... in a world increasingly driven by technology, how can you challenge what you're told without any background in engineering / IT / tech?
X : You can outsource it to advisors.
Me : See finance, see sales, see HR ... you can outsource them all.
X : They're different.

Me : And that is your problem. You don't see that engineering / IT are as much a part of "the business" as any other capability. It's a set of skills with a relatively high barrier to entry. There is no "IT vs Business" there is just "business" folk that lack essential skills.

X : Next you'll be telling me that a CEO needs to be able to code.
Me : I don't think they need to be good at coding but in a tech driven world you can't have leaders who are afraid of technology. They need to understand in order to challenge ... ditto finance, HR, marketing etc.

You can't lead if you can't communicate and challenge. It's egotistical nonsense to believe that because you know finance that you don't need to know engineering in a tech driven world. It's like clowns going "we make people happy" and demanding to be put in charge of hospitals.

... it would be useful if people that actually ran hospitals have some medical experience. They don't have to be good doctors or surgeons or nurses but they need some experience.

Which is why, if you're trying to bring "IT and Business" together, then go find that engineering manager who has built huge guilds on WoW / EVE and has almost all the skills and capabilities that you need and then ... put them in charge.

X : Can't you find a person from business who can articulate what is needed?
Me : The problem is you're a desperately trying to find reasons for "anyone but IT" and at the same time talking about "bringing IT and the business together" whilst declaring IT is not the business.

X : This is also about messaging?
Me : It's always partially about signals you send into the organisation and about breaking existing political structures and reforming new ones. Go see the tables earlier in the thread.
X : So you'd fast track an engineering manager to the board?

Me : I'd go match further. I'd pick several engineering managers and fast track them to the board / exec positions including CEO. I'd make sure they're all gamers (as in building large guilds) but I'd still train them. Lastly, I'd make sure they were all women.

X : You didn't mention mapping?
Me : No need to. Gamers already understand the importance of situational awareness, they'll find their own way to mapping.