Naked CIO: Meet the IT guy

We all know the IT guy - quick to criticise, slow to act. But what can be done to stop him bringing down the whole department? The Naked CIO has some advice.

There are reasons why IT often has a bad reputation within organisations. I have written increasingly about the responsibility to have a more balanced approach to business and IT within the IT department.

But there is always the IT guy - a generic term that refers to many employees within our businesses. He is most likely a guy (though could just as well be a girl) that has been in the IT department for years. More likely he occupies the same position he did when he started.

He is never motivated to do more than is required yet is always the one person within the department to complain first that he is not paid enough.

Generally he is an obstructionist and a very good one at that. He loves poking holes in innovation, change and ideas but yet never contributes to finding a solution to overcome them.

He loves having the passwords for every level of administration yet becomes very suspicious if someone else has too much access and is quick to point out the potential threat related to it. One must wonder why someone who demands the master key to every system is so overtly suspicious about others that have only a fraction of the access he does.

When asked what he is doing he is very quick to say he is working on a very complex IT problem. He is good enough to know to use technical language that supports this assertion yet there is relatively little evidence this IT guy ever significantly contributes to the development and growth of the IT department.

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He loves being cryptic in front of others, especially when servicing someone from the business. While solving or trying to solve their problem he is exceptionally talented in making the user feel like a complete idiot to the extent that the individual will be reluctant to report a problem in the future.

His initial answer to most requests is 'no' or 'it can't be done'. When either of those fails he is quick to pull the compliance or policy card as a reason that even if it could be done it won't.

Finally, because of his long tenure in the department and his intriguing characteristics, he defines the organisation's perception of IT. He is the poster child of all things wrong within IT yet he is everywhere and in every organisation.

Some of this might be harsh, however, I would bet you know this IT guy or someone remarkably like him. He is after all the old guard of IT.

While we all know him we can no longer ignore this person as a fixture of our department. We need to work to correct his behaviour. Ideally we can do this through communicating the need for new IT ideology to these individuals - and if this is not successful then through more drastic actions including termination.

Let us redefine the IT guy and rid ourselves of this negative legacy of poor performance and elitist blathering. There is no longer a place in any organisation for him.

Appeasement or complicity in not trying to change his behaviour makes us all IT guys.

What do you think? Do you know an IT guy? How do you work with or manage him? Post a comment below to share your experiences.