At a recent conference that I attended where many ERP and HRMS systems were presented and reviewed, I saw few people exercising emotional intelligence and leadership. After presentations on a variety of topics, the questions asked by prospective buyers and customers, focused on functionality of software, costs and finding answers to reassure people that software expenditures and other related costs could be controlled. Very rarely did I hear a question from potential customers related to leading a company’s performance.

If you do not tie your technology decisions to your business and human capital strategy, IT is going to manage the purchase of software as a software cost benefit exercise rather than examining how tools can be used to manage companies competitively with a view for quality of outcome.

Stephanie Overby, Senior Editor, of CIO Magazine describes this whiplash in BackSourcing Pain. This case study tangibly describes the impact of decisions at JP Morgan as a result of outsourcing that altered the lives of a workforce employed across 4 companies for “the sake of the bottom line.”

When you focus on performance, a solid IT leader will collaborate with peer leaders, to organize an information technology that serves people to have the information they need to learn what they need to do to achieve high performance.