New Year's Resolution: turning that No into a Yes!
By Keith Brooks, Social and Collaboration Practice Leader, VoiceRite

If you ever have to work with your IT staff, you may have run into the dreaded, "No, you can't do that" or the "No, we don't allow it" or some similar vein of denial the IT people use to keep your environment safe, secure and sound.

There are those who claim IT is the antithesis of getting work done. I would argue IT is looking out for you at a time when no one else will. This is not a good or bad thing, just life as we know it. You see, IT is on the hook for everything you do and they do not like getting burned.

So how do you get your IT teams to say "YES! We can do that" more?  It starts with being nice to them. Seriously.  Trust that your IT department has plans, products and solutions coming out. They have them, really. But they just may not come as fast as you'd like.

There's an app for that - it's coming out soon! Just kidding.

How to ask that question

There is no magic in this, but  phrasing your question a certain way is more likely to get you closer to the answer you want.  Let me use blogging as an example.

"Can we blog?"  Try asking this a different way. "Which blogging platform should we use?"

Leaving IT open ended questions will usually work in your favor. In our office you can blog inside IBM Lotus Domino and Notes, IBM Quickr and IBM Connections and we can push those out to the company website or portals.

Now what?

I know, it's easy for us, we are an IBM Business Partner; we live and breathe this stuff. What do you have? I am sure you have an intranet. If not, you probably have a place to store your files. You most likely have a website or two or three. What is a blog after all but an HTML page with text and some formatting?

Be sure to check if external blogging is allowed. If so, go hit Wordpress or Blogger or some other free blog site. If it is only to be used for internal people, do it in whatever way you can.

From an IT perspective, you may get an initial NO - because it is a new idea, the manager always says no, or there is a level of uncertainty about sharing information externally.  But I always ask - don't you want to share at least some information with your clients? Don't you want to help your sales staff make their quotas? And from an IT perspective again, there is the chance to break the barrier, get out and do something different in a sea of naysayers. Carpe diem, it's not just a Latin phrase from Horace.

• Be prepared to back up your request with solid reasoning and benefits.
   
• Ask open-ended questions.  Yes or No questions are likely to deliver an answer you don't want.
   
• Wear someone else's shoes for a moment.  Think, what value is in the project for the IT team?

Hoping 2013 is a productive and profitable year for all!

 

Keith Books is the Social and Collaboration Practice Leader for Voicerite, an IBM Premier Business Partner. Keith has spoken at SugarCon, Lotusphere, the View Admin conferences and other industry events on subjects around messaging and social leadership. Keith has written articles, books and blogs around IBM products and solutions for over 20 years.

Keith is an IBM Redbooks thought leader