Communications Is No Fairy Tale

28
Apr
2014

Jeffrey Brandt

Everyone knows the story of "Goldilocks and the Three Bears." But few people know that little Goldilocks grew up to have a career in law firm IT management. Goldilocks worked her way up the ranks, consulting and working for law firms and then found herself as the newly minted Director of IT at the firm of Andersen & Grimm. She'd been there for a year when she uncovered a very similar problem to one she ran into as a little girl so many years ago in the forest - settling in on "just right."

This time instead of chairs being too hard, chairs too big or porridge too hot, her issue was communications. Goldilocks is not the only IT director to struggle to find the path that is "just right" between the two extremes.

Too Little

New to management, Goldilocks didn't realize how critical communications was. She was in IT, doing IT things - buying hardware and software, working IT issues, handling all the technology for the firm. She sent emails out when the system was down and talked to the partners every year when she presented the technology budget. She was flabbergasted to find out that the users were not happy with IT.  The help desk's nickname was "The Black Hole." She heard one partner commenting to another as to whether she worked for them or the partners worked for her. Users were not invested in the technology or it's use and didn't know half of the tools they could access. The final kicker was when her firm failed D. Casey Flaherty's tech audit and lost Kia Motors' business to the law firm of DLA, Watson, Siri & Wal-Mart.

Too Much

Goldilocks switched gears and over the next few months went into hyper communication mode, communicating everything she could about everything that IT was doing.  She copied everyone on every phase of every IT project. Things did not improve. Her emails ended up being thought of as internal spam. It was too much information, and all Goldilocks did was condition people to ignore her, (much like "The Boy Who Cried Wolf" who just happened to be a second cousin of Goldilocks). Her message was totally lost.

Just Right

In her next job, Goldilocks learned to reach that happy medium, the "just right" of communications. She realized that IT is there to support and enable the business of law. Technology for technology's sake is insufficient. Goldilocks started sitting in on practice meetings, learning the needs, problems and pain points of the lawyers. She tied her technology projects to the firm's strategic business plan. Goldilocks had the help desk return calls, even when they didn't have a solution to the problem yet.  She started conducting focus groups. She involved her users in system protyping and expanded pilot projects. Goldilocks was more selective in who she copied on what. She also learned that not every IT communication had to come from her, as the head of the IT group. She empowered her Lead Trainer and he was the one sending Tips of the Week. The Network Manager started sending the notices of maintenance and downtime. This time around, the users *got* her message.