Can the IS executive really join top management?

• Author: Atkins, William
• Position: Information systems - Management Strategy

Can the IS executive really join top management?

The title of this article should perhaps be: "The Information Executive: On the Team Without a Playbook." Now what, you might ask, does that mean? If you'll bear with some sports analogies, it means that the information executive, the new kid on the team, has no fixed title, no fixed reporting responsibility, no fixed niche in a company's operations.

Most organizational playbooks are not in written form. They evolve over time, and become the informal system that makes things happen in an organization. The are influenced by culture, experience, history, and personalities.

In charge of the playbook is, of course, the coach, or the CEO. And often the coach is used to working with the organization's functional teams, for instance, accounting, engineering, manufacturing, and sales.

What happens when a new player joins the CEO's team? Typically, he or she has a hard time. The veterans have their own way of doing things, their own language, inside jokes, and traditions. In this sports context, the information executive is the rookie on the team. And he or she will face many of the same issues that any rookie faces.

Let's review some of the reasons why an information executive has a tough time making the team. First, look at the characteristics of the traditional functions. I'll call these the "special teams." These functions have been around a long time - figuratively speaking, their characteristics are etched in stone. Information systems, on the other hand, are relatively new - you'd need a pencil with a good eraser to track their characteristics.

Another reason IS has a tough time making the team is that it hasn't had a home inside the organization. It often started off as part of the controller's department. But it has also floated through finance and sometimes even into manufacturing and operations. But, today, it often reports directly to the CEO. This movement has not permitted the information systems function to establish an anchor, or a set of customs, inside the organization.

This same elusiveness is reflected in the educational underpinnings of IS. The first IS curriculum that we could find, in fact, was started in 1983. Today, there is considerable debate in the academic world about where the curriculum should be located. Some think that IS should be a separate discipline, like accounting, while others see it as an enabling tool that works across the organization and so should be taught in conjunction with a variety of majors.

The traditional functions have developed a common language - the language of business, focusing on money, time, resources, markets, and...