Ann All spoke with Ade McCormack, the founder of Auridian, which is focused on helping organizations maximize the business return on their IT investment. He is the author of "The IT Value Stack - A Boardroom Guide to IT Leadership" (Wyle 2007) and "IT Demystified – The IT Handbook for Business Professionals." He also writes a column for the Financial Times on business-IT issues.

All: Though we've been hearing for years about the need for better alignment of IT with the overall business strategy, in your book you refer to a need for entwinement. How does entwinement differ from alignment?
McCormack: I classify three stages of evolution for the IT department. In the first one, the IT department is indifferent to the users. They see IT as a sort of "Toys R Us" department that helps the users as a side effect. The second stage is alignment, where the IT function does what it's told and is basically a well-behaved provider. Entwinement, the third stage, is essentially where the IT department is a partner in the business and drives business strategy as much as the users. I believe we need to move to entwinement.

All: Is this true for every company, or in some cases would the second stage work better?
McCormack: If you look at IT from a "let's use IT simply to manage our costs" perspective, then I think alignment is fine. But if you want innovation, you've got to allow the IT function to push back and say, "Look guys, we could be in a different business in a year's time" and for the board to say, "OK, we respect that because you're our partners, not a supplier who's got ideas above their station."

All: So is entwinement a strong competitive advantage because so few companies are in this third stage?
McCormack: Most people are not doing it; that is the norm. I was at a client's this morning, and they are on the cusp of alignment and entwinement, which is quite unusual. I think it's the way to go because as IT becomes an increasingly significant part of your cost base, you become an IT business. So those organizations that don't have an IT-centric outlook, that don't embrace IT at board level, won't have a place in the market.

All: You say that most business people don't understand what IT people are talking about, which doesn't seem to bother IT. Why isn't IT more concerned about this gap in understanding? How can IT speak more clearly to the business?
McCormack: You could argue fairly strongly that IT should run itself as a service function. And therefore, when I take my car in to be repaired, I don’t want to know the nitty-gritty mechanical details of the repair; I just want the outcome of a working car. So IT should ease up a little bit on the buzzwords and take a more service-centric approach. That doesn't happen because of a general lack of empathy skills among technologists. They can't conceptualize somebody not understanding technology the way they do. It's almost a form of autism. I am an ex-technologist, so I've had myself cured. So we need to change the DNA of the technologist to include, if you'd like, an empathy gene, or to at least be more service-oriented. They need to understand that the people they are speaking to aren't necessarily from their background. So as a service-oriented person, you should use the language of the customer. That's what needs to be done on the technology side.

But the IT department only supplies tools. It's up to the users to use those tools for business advantage. If you don't understand those tools and what those tools can do for you, then you're going to reap sub-optimal value from the IT investment. And that ultimately, at the board level, is bad governance.

All: So both sides need to work on their communication skills and meet in the middle?
McCormack: That's right. If I went to a party and announced I worked in IT, a big space would open up around it. They could use me to clear the kitchen. The IT industry has created this deserved reputation of being in their own world, watching "Star Trek" and dressing oddly. I know these are gross stereotypes — but in the norm, they're true. You meet some wonderful technologists who are charming and so on. And they get paid the very big bucks. The typical technologist is not that interested in engaging with others and often doesn't really feel part of the team. It's the same way that the person who comes around and does the cleaning doesn't feel like part of your organization. They are an ancillary worker. A lot of IT people feel they are ancillary workers, and if they get through the day without being kicked by a trader, it's a good day.

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