Lessons in IT Transformation: Technology Expert to Business Leader

Managing Perception versus Reality

I have told my team many times (to the point that they are sick of hearing it) that perception is reality. It doesn't matter what the facts are if the people in question perceive it to be something else. This is a double-edged sword that can work for you or against you.

I have seen CIOs argue with their clients regarding satisfaction with their services. They will pull out reports and quote SLA metrics (we've talked about metrics before) and try to convince their clients that things are better than they feel they are. This is a fruitless exercise because perception is a far stronger emotional tug than facts. I have also seen this work for my benefit. When we conducted our first IT scorecard survey, we got (justifiably) slammed for all the problems we were experiencing. Projects were notorious for coming in late and over budget. IT was terrible at communicating with our clients. The community felt that we were not responsive to their issues and concerns and our services were deemed unreliable. As the old joke goes, “Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?” The scores we received (on a scale of 1 to 5, where 1 is awful and 5 is outstanding) were in the high 2s and low 3s. Six months later when we administered our second scorecard survey, the scores had gone up to the high 3s and low 4s! Now don't get me wrong, we had made some important progress in starting to address key issues. But we were still very much a work in progress with much ...