IT Roles, Sometimes a Cultural Thing

As of this past Monday I’ve been at my present company for 17 years. Not as good as the 30 year gold watch but still an accomplishment, especially in an I.T. career field. In the last five of those 17 years my level of job satisfaction has been spiraling down, reaching the point now where I’m sincerely contemplating a change. All of this has given me pause to consider what factors led me to stay so long and what changes are leading me to leave.

The First 12 Years:

Opportunities for Growth; I started as a Senior Analysis when the company was just being established. Not only was there many new things to learn but there was also many opportunities for advancement.
Recognition of performance; Being newly established, there were numerous projects whose success provided both verbal and monetary recognition.
High personal responsibility and pride; An active role in daily activities and long term planning created a strong sense of personally responsibility.
I.T. as a critical business partner; I.T. played a critical role in business planning and was a driving force in moving the business goals forward. I.T. capabilities often helped shape the planning of future processes and goals.

The Last 5 Years:

I.T. as a service role; I.T. now comes in at the end of business process planning. This often results in the writing/creating of “silo” systems that only support vary narrow processes and requirements. No longer is I.T. viewed as enabling or driving business process advancements.
Low opportunity for growth and low recognition; With I.T. now considered a minor service organization, this has come about naturally
Low personal responsibility and pride: The personal feeling of responsibility has diminished substantially. This has become “a job.”

So why this change of focus in the last five years? As I.T. Manager I’ve considered if it is of my doing or perhaps something I’m not doing? I’ve done a lot of soul searching, self inspection, and head banging, and have come to the following conclusions.

The company I work at is a Japanese manufacturing company who has locations worldwide. About five years ago they established a North American Headquarters and began assigning Japanese associates in select functional areas which included I.T.. The purpose of these associates was given as support for North American I.T. activities and communication coordination back to Japan. Looking back I can now see that this was the beginning of a shift in the view of the role of I.T. from an American view to a Japanese view. This is part of their efforts to establish global standards…their standards. Understanding this I now also understand that it is not likely to change and that there is very little I can do to shift the overall situation.

Mind you, I’m not arguing against standardization. There is definite value in standardization. However, I don’t believe that standardization should come at the cost of innovation or that I.T. should not be an integral part of the business planning process. Granted that not all Japanese have the same concept of the role of I.T. as the ones I work with.

There could be, and maybe will be, a whole follow-on discussion of why the Japanese I’m dealing with view I.T. as they do.

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