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G00211159

Change the Way You Think: Lead With Value,

Not Technology
Published: 21 March 2011

Analyst(s): Richard Hunter

IT professionals who lead conversations by talking about technology should

not be surprised when they're excluded from the most important
discussions. Most IT professionals already know enough to join the
conversations about value that will help them be recognized as essential
players on the enterprise team.

Key Findings

Value is about business outcomes, not technology. Leading with technology invites confusion.
Leading with outcomes invites interest.

Leading the conversation with the business outcomes that represent value is a habit that can be
learned.

Recommendations

Know which operational and financial outcomes matter in your enterprise.

Lead the conversation with those outcomes.

Once interest is established, the things that make the outcomes possible, including technology,
are fair game for discussion.

Analysis
It's rare nowadays to meet an IT professional who doesn't know what matters most to his or her
enterprise. IT professionals are generally knowledgeable about the enterprise's value proposition, its
relationships with customers, and what differentiates the enterprise from its competitors. But when
IT professionals from the CIO down talk to colleagues throughout the enterprise, often they lead the
conversation with technology. And that's a problem for everyone involved.
The idea that an IT professional leading the conversation with technology might be a problem will
undoubtedly strike many such professionals as counterintuitive. After all, isn't technology their

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business? Aren't they expected to know technology and what it can do, and to help everyone else
in the business use technology to its maximum effect? Isn't technology exactly what everyone else
in the business expects the IT team to talk about?
The answer to the last question might be yes, but if so, something has to change and not just for
the benefit of the IT professional. It's not enough for an IT professional to refer to valuable business
outcomes in a conversation with colleagues. Value must lead the conversation, because the topic
that leads is implicitly the one that matters most, and IT professionals must demonstrate that what
matters most to them is what matters most to everyone else in the business.
Of course, IT professionals are supposed to be expert in the ways of technology, just as marketing
professionals are expected to know marketing. But the IT professional, like everyone else in the
building, is there to help the business create value for its customers and itself. Technology is not
value, and a conversation that begins with technology is at least one step removed from a
conversation about the value the enterprise creates.

Value Is Outcomes, Not Technology

A recent conversation with the CIO of a healthcare organization illustrates the point. When asked
what his most important accomplishments were during his decade-plus tenure as CIO, his answer
began with a list of technologies implemented. Minutes later, he noted that he had recently
implemented systems that had increased revenue per Medicare patient by dollars per day and
more than 60% of the organization's patients were Medicare patients. The value delivered by this
initiative could be easily and accurately (not to mention impressively) calculated.
Later in the same conversation, when asked what he wanted to do next for the enterprise, he said
that he wanted to implement "predictive analytics." When asked to explain, he provided this
example: Every year, hundreds of this enterprise's elderly patients fall, with catastrophic results for
the patients, their families, the caregivers involved and the enterprise. By collecting and analyzing a
relative handful of leading indicators, this CIO was confident that he could provide accurate early
(preventive) warning for many of these incidents, with substantial personal and financial benefits for
everyone.
These conversations show two things:

This CIO has an admirably clear understanding of what matters most in his enterprise and why.

When he talks about his plans and achievements, he does not begin the conversation with the
outcomes that matter most.

But it's the outcomes that matter to his peers and colleagues throughout the enterprise. It's the
outcomes that represent value. Assume that you will talk to the head of hospital operations for this
CIO's business about the impact a new technology can have on patient care. Which of these
statements do you think will excite that executive more: "I'd like to talk to you about predictive
analytics," or "I think we can reduce the number of elderly patients who fall every year by more than
50%."

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Change IT's Habits to Change the Conversation

Most IT professionals know what outcomes matter to their businesses. Leading the conversation
with those outcomes is a habit that can be learned. Doing so positions the IT professional as a
member of the team an essential player who knows what game the team is playing and how the
team scores as opposed to the "IT guy" who only cares about machines.
IT professionals at every level can take the following steps to prepare themselves to lead the
conversation with value, not technology:
1.

Know what outcomes and performance matter most. We had a conversation with the CIO of a
luxury product manufacturing company two years ago at Gartner's Symposium/ITxpo in
Cannes. This CIO informed us that she couldn't engage the executive team in a strategic
discussion. When strategy was discussed, she was outside the room. We asked her this
question: "What percentage of the cost of one of your products, as manufactured, is accounted
for by labor?" "I don't know," she told us. "But I guess I should." Indeed. The labor cost for that
luxury product is a metric that every other member of the executive team knows by heart and
thinks about every day. If the CIO doesn't know that number, the CIO is certain to be outside
the room when strategy is discussed.

2.

Know the six top operational and six top financial metrics for every non-IT manager or executive
you work with, and why those metrics matter. Getting to this level of detail helps demonstrate
that the IT professional is really paying attention to the performance needs of business units
throughout the enterprise. "Operational" metrics are emphasized here for the simple reason that
they are too often ignored.
IT professionals, like everyone else in the enterprise, often think in terms of financials when they
think value. But anything that is material to the interests of the enterprise, quantifiable and
baselined is fair game for a value discussion.
It's common for many IT professionals to refer to such metrics as "soft" metrics. But a metric is
only soft if it's not quantifiable or baselined. There's nothing soft about order accuracy, on-time
delivery percentages, inventory turns or any other operational metric that matters to a business
unit leader. (For a handy list of these and other important operational metrics, see "The Gartner
Business Value Model: A Framework for Measuring Business Performance.") Knowing what
these metrics are, what the current level of performance is, and what changes in those metrics
imply for the fortunes of the enterprise makes discussions of value concrete and vital.

3.

Name initiatives based on outcomes, not technologies. We have seen a lot of "Project SAP"
initiatives in our time. But technology is never the point in any project the point is the
outcomes the technology is intended to enable. Naming the project after the technology has the
effect of telling the rest of the organization that the project has no connection to anything that
anyone outside IT cares about, and that's not a good way to talk about value. For example, one
CIO of a large construction company told us that the business case for the company's "Project
SAP" was that it would double the company's margins. Why, we wondered, was the initiative
not called the "Double the Margins" project? Similarly, we spoke recently with a large
healthcare organization about its electronic health records (EHR) initiative, which it referred to

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as its "EHR Project." Why was that project not given a name consistent with the outcomes that
an EHR is intended to produce, such as the "No More Medication Errors" project? The medical
professionals whose use of the system is critical to success are more likely to be enthused
about ending medication errors than they are about installing an EHR, which is entirely abstract
until they see it.
Communicating value means keeping everyone's "eyes on the prize." The prize is never
technology per se. Focus on the prize the outcome that justifies the hard work it will take to
achieve it. If that outcome is not clear, neither is the value.
4.

Practice, practice, practice. It takes time to change the way one thinks, and changing the way
one thinks is essential to changing what one says. CIOs can start the ball rolling by practicing
value conversations ones about outcomes, not technologies with their staff, and
encouraging their staff to do the same with their reports. Over time, the mind-set of the IT
organization will change, and IT personnel will be better prepared to lead with value meaning
the outcomes and performance that matter most in their conversations throughout the
enterprise.
IT professionals are more aware now than ever of what really matters in their enterprises.
Leading the conversation with technology is a habit, not a given. By changing the conversation
to lead with value, IT professionals signal that IT is an essential player on the team, playing the
same game as everyone else in the enterprise, focused on the same kind of wins. Until that
happens, IT is on the outside, and no one gets enough value from IT. When it does happen, the
groundwork has been laid for serious discussions about which initiatives offer the most
potential for improved enterprise performance for which IT can expect to get its share of the
credit as a key team player.

This research is part of a set of related research pieces. See Roundup of Gartner's Business
Intelligence Business Value Research for an overview.

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