Establishing Relationships Can Help Risk Management Initiatives
Jessica Carroll
Managing Director, Information Technologies
USGA
If we go back about three or four years ago, I noticed a shift in what IT was all about. Traditionally IT has been the data center – locked room, nobody knows what’s going on in there, and IT just makes things work – and that’s what the users wanted. They didn’t want to know what we were about. But the world started to change and it became apparent and certainly noticeable to me that we need to be out of that data center and we need to make sure that not only does the business understand IT but that IT is sure to understand the business. I presented this concept to my boss in various conversations. We talked about this kind of environment. And he was very, very open to saying, “Why don’t we make sure that senior staff understands what you do and give you the chance to explain what the IT mission is?”
He did this in a number of different ways but there was one meeting in particular. It was a set presentation where I had a room full of the executives and I had the floor to tell them who IT is and what we do. Typically – we’re golf, so – technology’s not the most exciting thing in their world but they gave me the floor. It was a fantastic exercise in saying, here’s who we are and what we do. Here’s how we help you today but here’s where we can even go further.
So the relationship that was created during that meeting enabled us to have this long-term conversation. Even though I’m not with them every day – I don’t meet with them frequently – they know who IT is they know what our mission is, they know what we’re about. So when I bring topics to them or to my boss such as risk management, which is something that not every senior executive is going to take an immediate interest to, it’s not the most exciting topic. However, because we have that relationship established, they’re going to put more weight – and they do put more weight – behind our projects and initiatives. So when I come forward and say, “Look, we’ve really got to pay attention to this; this has serious implications for our business,” they’re interested. They’re supportive. It enables us to get somewhere with that initiative.
In this case that’s a real important win for us.