Applying The SOF Truths to your IT Team

In 1987 Colonel John Collins, USA (ret.) wrote the SOF Imperatives that detailed meaningful core values for our Special Operations Forces. In 2009 the Imperatives were rebranded Truths with a renewed inclusion of Truth 5. Colonel Collins was not a Special Forces Operator, neither is this article intended for an SOF warrior; this article is intended to demonstrate, just as The Truths do, it is your people that matter. You must Lead them, not manage them. Give them purpose, an example and clear vision and strategy to follow and they will be engaged, work hard, and often perform miracles.

Taking those Five Truths and relating them to Information Technology is not hard, in fact they are easily translatable, as with many other areas of business. Too often I have seen businesses large and small believe that IT is a necessary evil, or the unimaginative CIO believes that their people are simply cogs in a wheel, easily replaced or not worthy of cultivating or leading. These CIO’s are only “in it” for the short term…the term of their contract or the average corporate life expectancy, which is between 4 and 4.5 years. This is notable when compared to CEO’s, whose average tenure is 8 years. There is something there for CIO’s to learn from CEO’s, but that is for a different article.

All CIO and business leaders would do well to understand The Five Truths. I have attempted a simple translation that I hope will help in that process. I will post one each day this week. The common thread:

YOUR PEOPLE MATTER

SOF Truth 1: Humans are more important than hardware.

People – not equipment – make the critical difference. The right people, highly trained and working as a team, will accomplish the mission with the equipment available. On the other hand, the best equipment in the world cannot compensate for a lack of the right people.

IT Truth 1: Humans are More Important that Hardware

People – not computers or systems – make the critical difference. IT organizations with supportive in-front leaders, instead of a manager can accomplish amazing things, especially when there are budget challenges. The right people will always find a way; it is more often a question of Resourcefulness, not more resources that empowers success. 

The right people collaborating as a team are amazingly resourceful. You can spend all the money in the world and still have poor systems and infrastructure. As an example, I have seen a well-led team with zero money virtualize ancient Solaris machines in order to extend the life of core production systems to add a measure of resiliency and operational predictability in a fiscally austere environment. A poorly supported or apathetic team would not have had the vision, inspiration, or trust in the chain of command to even try something so exotic. Even though this team was chronically short on funding, they had a customer service satisfaction in the high 90’s. This team always “found a way”.

Lead your team, inspire them, make them your priority, and they will perform.

Tomorrow: Truth 2: Quality is better than Quantity