The Hindu Business Line : Leveraging the power of IT

With oil prices all over the place and several companies busy with first quarter results for the current financial year, most CEOs and top managers are extremely busy. Which means most young managers are sitting around in the office reading e-mail, sometimes their own, and downloading the Zidane head-butting video. Middle-level managers, less technically savvy in comparison with their younger, more dynamic juniors, are working hard at breaking the global company record at Freecell.

Excellent.

This sets things nicely for today's high profile topic of grave concern to every young manager: `leveraging corporate IT effectively' or `working around the firewall'.

Ever since Microsoft unleashed Windows on us several years ago, and we discovered Solitaire thirty minutes or so later, organisations all over the world have been equipping their employees with high power information technology infrastructure. Over the years, computers, servers, software, hardware and carpal tunnel syndrome have become an intimate part of manager lifestyles. Young managers think nothing of e-mailing colleagues for every little issue, even if the recipient shares a 6-foot by 6-foot cabin with the originator of that e-mail.

I have personally seen organisations break down operationally when their Internet connections fail. Employees then briskly walk over to the coffee machine flashing thumbs up signs to the poor Systems Manager in the server room.

So as you can see, IT is very important in organisations and it is very very important for the New Manager to know how to leverage this very very versatile resource to improve his day-to-day activities very very significantly and prevent spelling mistakes and repeated words and so on.

But first, I must tell you that knowing IT is not necessary for career success. An ex-colleague went all the way to Vice-President in my company before he discovered the `right-click' much to the joy of the company as a whole in addition to the VP himself. (He had 1,300 Excel files called `Book1' across several hundred `New Folders'.) But he was a hard worker and was in charge of HR. Since then he has zoomed ahead and is now `Joint President of HR, Strategy and Housekeeping'.

The rest of us will do well to learn the advantages of IT and use it well to propel our careers. The first advantage is the ability to make several puns and jokes with the abbreviation `IT'.

For example: "What does Michael Jackson do when his broadband stops working? He decides to `Beat IT'." Or even: "What did the secretary say when she clicked something unnecessary and wiped clean the entire company's data and hard drives? `Oops I did IT again'."

This column is just jesting. A little humour never hurt did IT? Snigger.

First of all, you must be on good terms with the IT or Systems Manager. He is the weirdly dressed guy who spends all day in the over-cold server room surrounded by monitors and technical manuals.

All that is a front though. Normally he is reading everyone else's e-mail at random, watching Kill Bill or randomly choosing a list of Web sites to block.

And being a responsible professional, he adheres to the corporate policy of `accountability' making sure he inspects each Web site exhaustively, sometimes even downloading files at random, before blocking them for the rest of the company.

You also need to make sure you have LAN access to everyone else's computer in the office. Besides the obvious entertainment benefits, ("Hey Mohan do you have any images of Priyanka Chopra wearing a red dress and black shoes in your annualreports folder? You do. What are the odds?") this can also help you find vital information before the rest of the company does. And information is power. Observe:

Boss: "Sidin good to see you. So are you nervous about this bonus meeting?"

Siding: "(Yawning) Yessir. Very."

Boss: "No need to worry. You will be pleased. So any guesses at your bonus?"

Sidin: "I am very bad at guessing sir."

Boss: "Come on. Be a sport."

Sidin: "And what if I get it right?"

Boss: "You won't. But if you do to the third place of decimal I will buy you a Skoda."

Sidin. "Ok... Hmm... 82.456 per cent of my basic pro-rata for seven months?"

Boss: "What the... "

Well done don't you think? Also, you can do smart little things like locking friends' computers moments before a key presentation, gently slipping errors into their reports and, I really think this is very important, clandestinely doctoring their resumes. The effect this can have on your colleagues is amazing.

Interviewer: "So you said you were an experienced project manager in your last job?"

Your colleague: "Yes sir."

Interviewer: "But your resume disagrees... "

Your colleague: "Err... What does it say?"

Interviewer: "Belly dancer"

Your colleague: "Oh."

Besides finding and manipulating information, IT also helps you find a lot of useful data on the Internet that can make your work a lot easier and help you score brownie points with your superiors. For example, if your boss asks you to make a detailed report on the post-liberalisation currency policies of the RBI you can intelligently use Google.

The search engine can help you find relevant information to help you with the assignment. You can find data, news stories and often complete up-to-date reports on `the post-liberalisation currency policies of the RBI' for download. The report can then be sent to your boss after you read it thoroughly, understand it deeply and then change the author's name.

So in this way, you can use IT to not only make life difficult for others, but to also make it very easy for yourself. It is important to remember that there is more to IT and computing than just Word, Powerpoint, Excel and Solitaire.

There is Pinball too.

(The writer, an alumnus of IIM-A, was a management consultant before quitting to work on a book and a full-time writing career)

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