15.1 There is Another Way of Doing This

In the final analysis everything is just words. Unless actions back up the words, this will have been an interesting read for you, which you can either ignore, or allow to inform some areas of your thinking, or you could implement wholesale all of the suggestions outlined in the book. The choice is yours. But I changed my life s path one September in 1993 when I read a book called Stewardship by Peter Block1. I thought that this was interesting and exciting stuff, but not significantly different from the many other management books I had read over the years. But the book sat on my bookshelf and filled my office with whispers. Eventually I presented some of the ideas from the book to my management team. They lit up. We tried empowering people. We failed, but we went back to it again and again and finally changed the face of the IT department in our organisation. All because that book kept whispering to me, there is another way to do this .

There is another way to do In-house IT. The choice is yours.

15.2 So You Want to be on the Board?

About 50% of IT managers are represented on the executive team of their organisation. The way to get onto the board is to be relevant and to add value. The way to stay in a support role is to believe your job is a support role.