Corporate IT is a tough place to work. The hours are notoriously long. The blame is thick and the gratitude is seldom. Business people don’t talk to you when they are happy. They only come around when they are upset. And that’s just life within the four walls of your office building.

Every once and a while, you get to go out and network, talk to a vendor, or attend a conference. Then you come to realize that your processes are out of fashion, your technology is legacy, and your skillset will soon be obsolete.

The confidence gap

I recently saw a presentation from Adam Jacob, CTO and co-founder of Chef. He gets to be a hip, Silicon Valley technologist in the fast-paced startup space surrounding the DevOps toolchain. In the halls of corporate IT, that’s rockstar status. In his Chef Conf 2018 keynote, he introduced the concept of the “confidence gap” which in his words is “the only culture problem you have.” He started off this section of his talk with this:

“Literally, every one of you that I’ve ever had a meeting with has started that meeting, or at least interrupted the meeting at some point, to apologize to me about how you’re the worst company on the planet, and everything you do is garbage.”

Yep, that about sums it up, doesn’t it? Oh, you thought you were the only one that said that. We’ll guess what, I hear paraphrased versions of that line all the time where I work too, sometimes coming out of my own mouth.

It’s what you do when you are in the presence of a technology expert, industry rockstar, or other magic-infused unicorn. You say it because you feel it. You feel it because your culture reinforces it. Eventually, you shrug your shoulders because the simple fact remains that you aren’t a technology company.

What is a technology company?

Ultimately, it’s a mindset. Supervalu says they are a grocery company. Amazon is undoubtedly a technology company, that just so happens to be entering and violently disrupting the grocery business.

Many years ago, I worked at a company called GMAC-RFC. It was a mortgage company. However, technology was so key and integral to the company execution, that people across the company often said, “we are a technology company disguised as a mortgage company.” I’m not talking about IT people. Business people said that. How do you think that made the corporate IT employees feel? How do you think it made them think, talk, and make decisions?

What’s the solution?

Being a technologist in a non-technology company is tough. Being a change-agent to make your company think and act like a technology company is even tougher. It is, however, possible. It starts right there. Do you believe it is possible? I do. Are there others that believe it’s possible? They are out there. Do you believe your team is smart enough and savvy enough to make it happen? I do. Do you believe there are enough people in the business that also see the market forces making digital transformation possible if not inevitable? I do. I know them by name.

So much rises and falls on the confidence inspired by leadership or stolen by leadership. Be the one encouraging voice your team members will hear every day. Stop apologizing for being a non-technology company. Start acting like the technology company the market demands you become.

I’d like to thank and acknowledge Adam Jacob, CTO of Chef, for the inspiration for this article. Hearing you speak was a great shot in the arm.