I was browsing some articles on organizational change and came across this nice summary on Pink Elephant. The statistic that jumped out at me was that 70% of change initiatives fail. The article goes on to assert two main causes for these failures:

1. The change is not started early enough, or is not well managed during execution
2. People affected by the change are not sufficiently guided, and consequently don’t adopt or sustain the change

According to the article, “Many organizations focus on the first reason and totally ignore the second.” When I consider where IT needs work in leading change, #2 sticks out to me. So, how can I effectively guide the agency?

In my Technology Management Capstone course, one of the models I teach my students is John Kotter’s model of organizational change management, which is arguably the most famous model ever for leading an organization through change. Kotter’s book, Our Iceberg is Melting, is a classic in Industrial/Organizational Psychology. Kotter’s model consists of eight steps:

• Create a Sense of Urgency
• Build a Guiding Coalition
• Form a Strategic Vision and Initiatives
• Enlist a Volunteer Army
• Enable Action by Removing Barriers
• Generate Short-Term Wins
• Sustain Acceleration
• Institute Change

Notice that most of the work happens before the the change is instituted. Kotter’s steps are a good way to make sure that the organization has sufficient buy-in and sustainability to carry out the fast-paced changes we have to achieve in IT.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about Hanlon’s Razor. This adage states that one should never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity. I would re-frame stupidity to be ignorance that results in poor communication. Indeed, most people, when kept in the dark about an issue that may affect them, tend to attribute nefarious intentions to the poor communicator. But I’ve found that rarely are the motives iniquitous. Rather, it is far more common for the communicator to simply not realize their messaging may be poor, their plans not communicated effectively, their intentions not transparent.

This is important in many fields of human endeavor, including IT. Followup communication on incidents and service requests frequently fall victim to time poverty on both sides, confusing written (i.e., email) responses, and technical jargon. While IT strives to improve in this area, I’m perturbed that sometimes it seems as if we make little headway to make our communication better and more transparent. It is a never-ending battle.

Happily, good communication and transparency can be taught – they are skills one may learn. Recognition of the psychological issues are the first step. Assessment, process, and practice are the methods to improve them.

So, the next time you’re in a poor communication situation, don’t assume the worst. Consider that the other may simply not realize that the message is unclear or has been lost.

Misunderstandings and lethargy perhaps produce more wrong in the world than deceit and malice do. At least the latter two are certainly rarer.

Goethe. J. W. (1774). The sorrows of young werther (as translated).

Quite a few folks have told me that they were a little confused the last time they tried to show a PowerPoint display in MS Teams. Recently, the application was upgraded to allow presenters more control over presentation mode than just simply sharing their screen or PowerPoint app. This tutorial by the MS Education Team talks about this new feature and a few others that were recently released.

Welcome back to the office. Is your office phone forwarded to your mobile? Did you forget how to “un-forward it?” Here’s a refresher on how to forward and un-forward your office phone.

A recent conversation with our Chief Information Security Officer impressed upon me the importance of protecting my credit. He talked about how his social security number and other protected information were sold on the dark web which led to problems with his credit and bank accounts. He went through the process of freezing his credit reports and bank account information, which gives a layer of protection against identity theft. This prevents bad actors from opening credit accounts and taking out loans in your name. Fixing these kinds of problems after the fact can be very difficult.

According to Experian, a credit freeze, also known as a security freeze, is a tool designed to help protect you from fraud and identity theft. It limits access to your credit report unless you lift the freeze, or “thaw” your credit. Having a freeze in place won’t affect your credit scores, but it will prevent your credit report from being accessed to calculate scores unless you first lift the freeze.

So I asked Brad for more information, and he was kind enough to send me a list of steps to do this. While he was doing this to stop further compromise of his information, he stressed that proactively freezing your credit and utility accounts can prevent problems before they start.

In order to freeze your accounts, take the following steps:

• Credit Freezes
  • Freeze Your Equifax Credit Report
  • Freeze Your TransUnion Credit Report
  • Freeze Your Experian Credit Report
• Bank Freezes
  • Freeze Your ChexSystems Information
• Utility Freezes
  • Freeze Your NCTUE Consumer Information