Line Leadership


The success or failure of an organization's use of IT, however, is only partially dependent on the effectiveness of the IT organization. It is even more dependent on the capability of line managers at all levels to understand the capabilities of the IT resource and to use it effectively.

Information and information technology have become the fifth major resource available to executives for shaping an organization. Companies have managed four major resources for years: people, money, materials, and machines. But, today, information has become the source of product and process innovation and the wellspring of new businesses. IT is thus a major resource that—unlike single-purpose machines such as lathes, typewriters, and automobiles—can radically affect an organization's structure, the way it serves customers, and the way it communicates both internally and externally.

Only line managers are close enough to their business segments to see the most effective ways to utilize this resource. Only they possess the clout to embed IT into their strategies and to commit the necessary financial resources. Unless IT is included in line managers' strategy and tactics, and unless line managers can effectively understand and implement a process view of the world, the best IT organizations are almost powerless. For the past decade, we and others have pointed out that line leadership is an absolute necessity.[15] However, far too few organizations have delivered the appropriate education and training necessary for line managers to assume this responsibility.

In addition to effective planning for the use of the IT resource, line managers are also responsible for effective implementation of information technology. Although building good information systems is seldom easy, it is far easier than revamping the processes by which people work, their roles, their reward systems, the organization's accounting systems, or even the organization's structure or culture—all of which need to be altered to install today's process-based systems. About thirty years ago, Harold Leavitt emphasized that an organization's strategy, its structure, people and their roles, and its technology had to remain in balance (see figure 14.5). If any of the four variables changes, Leavitt noted, the others must also change to keep the organization balanced.[16] A decade ago, Rockart and Scott Morton added a fifth variable to the balancing act: organizational processes—not only horizontal and vertical processes but also reward processes, accounting processes, and so on.[17]

click to expand
Figure 14.5: Leavitt's Balancing Act (adjusted). Source: H. J. Leavitt, "Applied Organizational Change in Industry", Handbook of Organizations (Chicago: Rand McNally, 1965), chapter 27, and J. F. Rockart and M. Scott Morton, CISR, MIT Sloan School of Management, 1984

With this diagram in mind, it becomes painfully obvious that to implement systems successfully, line management must be heavily involved. IT management can change only one variable, the technology, in accord with a strategic or tactical change. The CIO has no power to effect the other necessary changes (in the center section of the figure)—the changes in structure, culture, processes, and people's roles—and therefore no power over the most crucial factors in an implementation process aimed at vastly improving an organization's efficiency and effectiveness. Only line management has the responsibility and power to effectively change these variables. For an organization to successfully use IT today, IT management must respond to the changing business and technology environment through effective efforts in each of the eight imperatives. However, this alone is not enough. Line management must also shoulder its twin roles of effective planning for the fifth resource and for the implementation of new IT-based processes. If it does not, all the herculean efforts that IT managers make to respond to the new environment will be in vain.

[15]Rockart 1988, Boynton, Jacobs, and Zmud 1992.

[16]Leavitt 1965.

[17]Rockart and Scott Morton 1984.




Inventing the Organizations of the 21st Century
Inventing the Organizations of the 21st Century
ISBN: 026263273X
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2005
Pages: 214

flylib.com © 2008-2017.
If you may any questions please contact us: flylib@qtcs.net