Jeff Cohn's out to reinvent IT...but creating a culture of innovation is harder than he thought

[dturchin]

Jeff Cohn is the Senior Vice President of IT at Sky Comet, a streaming video company based in Florida. He's not your typical IT leader. Jeff spent three years with the Peace Corps in Guatemala before scratching an itch for hardware to run the internal network at Ritz Carlton. He became a slave to big iron and decided he had more to offer in a leadership role so he joined Sky Comet to guide the company's technology strategy. What has happened since is a case study in why so many IT innovators are struggling to reinvent themselves.

"Programmers are hard to manage," says Jeff in a tone that's as wistful as agitated. "They hate to be corralled and wander off the reservation at every opportunity." Translation: time Jeff thought he'd spend coaching tech-noobs in halls of power has been spent managing his team and fixing small problems. He spends most of his time delivering basic services like email, apps, and WiFi. He asked for a seat at the mahogany table. In reality, all that has been tabled are his ambitions to deliver a better technology experience. When asked to describe a typical day he says "sadly, I'm shackled to the monitoring console."

We got to talking about the future of IT and how to break the cycle. Jeff had strong opinions. He said he blames himself for not silencing the screaming banshee that is his inbox. If only he was brought in earlier as a consultant he'd spend less time reacting. if only he could survey the business and establish policies rather than backpedaling to accommodate special requests he'd get ahead of the din. If only he could do what he does best.

Jeff is real and his story is the same one I hear from IT executives everywhere. Creating a culture of innovation is hard but it can be done. Take the example of a publishing company that gamified ideation by challenging each of its interns to develop a custom app the business needs. Each submission was presented to the exec committee and the winner got a full-time job offer. That's a culture that values big ideas. That's a team that rewards risk-takers. That's a company that will out-perform its peers.

Jeff's advice to me (that I plan to use liberally with attribution) was to only say no when you can also say yes. "No" is an invitation to do it anyway without permission. "Yes and here's how" is an invitation to partner. Mine back to him is to embrace consumerization and publicly reward little guys thinking big thoughts. It's like Albert Einstein said: "Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds." Jeff, mediocrity can't prevail. All of us battling IT stagnation are rooting for you to succeed.