Dear Bob ... You've written a lot recently about the importance of IT taking a leadership role in the achievement of business change. This is exactly what I've been thinking for about the last 5 years: Shouldn't Info Services be involved in designing the (hello) INFORMATION flow of the business? It seems so obvious -- but currently I am "the computer guy" and the last person upper management thinks about when so Dear Bob …You’ve written a lot recently about the importance of IT taking a leadership role in the achievement of business change. This is exactly what I’ve been thinking for about the last 5 years:Shouldn’t Info Services be involved in designing the (hello) INFORMATION flow of the business? It seems so obvious — but currently I am “the computer guy” and the last person upper management thinks about when something really important is being decided. It was only a few months ago when my boss introduced me as the “head of data processing.” How do get the point across without coming off as a jerk or self-important idiot? I think its going to take a l o n g time to turn this ship around.– Head of what?Dear Head … The secret is akin to marketing – repeat your message over and over until their brains turn to butter.In particular, repeat the message that it’s always about business change, which means business redesign should be part of every project. So for every request for IT services you receive, ask who’s going to be responsible for the business redesign. My opinion is that you’ll be more effective by offering to help rather than suggesting (or worse, insisting) that it should be your role. “We can help,” is a far more powerful message than “You need to do …” and is lightyears ahead of the territorial, “This should be our area of responsibility.”This gives me a chance, by the way, to repeat “Springer’s Law,” named after Paul Springer, the consultant who taught it to me. Springer’s Law states that any new idea must be repeated at least seven times before it has a chance of adoption in the enterprise. And not just mind-numbing repetition, either – you have to figure out a variety of ways to express the same thought so it can connect to people with different experiential backgrounds, ways of thinking, and patterns of word use. In most companies this is a new way of looking at things. The key stakeholders aren’t going to accept it immediately, nor will they all accept it at the same moment.So keep drilling the message, and keep offering assistance. It isn’t foolproof … nothing is … but your chances should be pretty good. And once you have a couple of successes to show you’ll be off and running.– Bob ——– Technology Industry