Communication is the essence of productivity. For decades, technology professionals treated the uninitiated -- the nontechnology executives and managers -- as though they were somehow inferior to the keepers of the digitalia. But the more nontechnology executives and managers understand about technology trends, opportunities, and best practices, the better it is for them. A little knowledge is truly a dangerous thing, so it behooves us to think about how -- and what -- to communicate to these professionals. This Executive Report by Stephen J. Andriole focuses on just that: communicating the IT story by identifying trends, opportunities, and best practices in hardware, networks, data, software, and services. The communication key is to link all of these to two investment outcomes: making money and saving money. Put another way, if you want to get the attention of nontechnology executives and managers, help them do one, or both, of these things.

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Let's look at the typical IT organization: the three primary components of an IT organization include the executive, project teams (comprised of software engineers), and the managers. The typical IT structure is formed by a variety of project teams managed by one or more midlevel managers who in turn are part of a leadership team that reports to an executive-level position, such as a CIO or CEO. In this Executive Update, we will examine how coaching can be applied and can benefit each of these three components.

In my last Advisor (see "EAD: The Architecture of the Customer Experience, Part 4," 2 April 2008), I discussed the interviewing approach we use to break down and cluster into a set of experiences the many interactions customers have with companies. The qualitative phase is useful for making sure we are grounded in the customer perspective on how they think about their experiences with the company. From these sessions, we begin to understand the language customers use and the categories of thought that are relevant to them. We use this information to construct a rich survey that can be distributed more widely and more efficiently than further interviews.

Managing people is clearly becoming the most important skill of high-performance managers. By borrowing "artistic" or "aesthetic" management concepts from the performing arts community, you'll be enabled to look at leadership in an entirely different light. Don't miss this chance to explore Peter Hanke's groundbreaking ideas -- they'll inspire you to perform with an aesthetic never before imagined!