Autism and the IT Department

Definitions of autism include:

• An abnormal absorption with the self; marked by communication disorders and short attention span and an inability to treat others as people (Princeton).

• A diagnosis of abnormal self-absorption, observable in early childhood, characterised by lack of response to other humans and by limited ability or disinclination to communicate (Wiktionary).

This is a serious condition and one that tests the characters of those closely associated with autistic people.

These definitions also overlap with how the IT department in general and technologists in particular appear to users.

‘Marked self absorption’ – Many technologists struggle to talk to users in users terms. To the user it would appear that the technologist has made no allowances for the fact that the user is in fact not a virtualisation solutions architect. CIOs in the boardroom often focus on ‘projects’, downtime, data centres and the network. This is not the language of the top table.

‘Lack of response to other humans’ – Technologists often will take a reactive approach to engaging with the users. Much like a shy person at a social gathering. They won’t initiate the conversation. Consequently consultative opportunities are lost and systems are built as users requested despite the fact that the technologists can see the approach from a business and/or architectural perspective is flawed.

‘Limited ability or disinclination to communicate’ – Often help desks provide minimal information when responding to break-fix situations. This could have been a user education opportunity to help them avoid or self-manage the problem going forward. Also announcements at the eleventh hour that the new system will not go live as scheduled are quite common. Often I hear of major and very worthy IT department initiatives that are announced to the users via a one shot mail out. And that one mail shot is hidden deep within the daily flurry of emails relating to server maintenance, email management etc.

Of course there are technologists that do not exhibit these characteristics, but they may well be in an IT function that, as it were, suffers from departmental-autism. Hence the technologists concerned have to suppress their inter personal skills side to fit in.

This serious condition needs to be registered at board level. As poor communication is the prime cause of value-loss in respect of the corporate IT investment.

The condition needs to be acted upon by the HR function. As they say, the fish rots from the head downwards so the IT leadership needs to be the focus of attention. Recruitment agencies and headhunters are encouraged to take this onboard.

If this problem is not addressed the IT industry will continue to be tagged with this debilitating condition.