I was over on the Tech Republic website where 'Local Support' made a good point - it's not just the subordinate staff in a Manager's section that have a chance to educate him or her 'from below'. The IT support people have unique access to just about everyone in an organisation. In fact the only people who don't have respect for a really good IT support person would be the propeller heads in the IT specialist areas.
So what does a good IT support person 'do' with this access. Obviously you're there to help solve problems. But the access, the respect that you have allows you to 'influence' things here and there, connect people together, make a suggestion, give an opinion. All done very carefully, the more precise or 'strong' you are in your views the more likely that you'll bump into resistance (and be wrong!). And being 'wrong' means you lose the respect and the ability to influence.
Let's use an example, say a system that the staff are having a lot of trouble using (because it was badly designed). The manager is blissfully unaware of course (none of his own staff will tell him bad news), and the senior ranks of IT know but won't admit they've got a 'dog' on their hands (and after all, the support guys will 'fix it up') and if anyone has the guts to tell the Executive they won't want to know that they've just wasted a large sum of money. So who can tell the manager - well obviously the IT support guy. How? Well you could say, next time the Manager needs some support,"I can't come down now because I'm busy fixing the problems with that XXX system". Ok, but this is better: "I'll come down straight away, I have a heap of work to do with problems with that XXX system and this will be a chance to deal with them all at once.
IT support people might be the 'lowest rung' in the IT ladder, and looked down upon by folk who ought to know better . But it's not altogether a bad thing. It's not just the technology or the fact that you 'service everyone' that gives you access within the organisation but also your 'low status'. Managers and staff will confide in you because you 'don't matter' (well not in the sense of competing with them for promotion). But a cat - as they say - may look at a King, and tell him a tale or two about 'what's really going on'. And the manager (and this was the point of the post originally) might learn that it's possible to manage a section and have no idea of what's going on until he/she's told by a 'most unlikely source'.
Interesting how access to IT and trust can weild so much information power and lets face it information is power. Just look a wikipedia. Thank you for part one and I hope to see part two as good and the first installment. Can we be friends, I hate to think enemies accumulate.
Posted by: Roddy Young | June 20, 2006 at 12:43 AM