It's the tone at the top

By Peter Williams
Whenever organisations need to change they start to talk about culture. Changing culture has been described as a polite way of telling people to do things which they don't really want to do. A less cynical view is that culture comes from the highest echelons of an organisation. It is fashionable to talk about "the tone at the top". The idea is simple. Bosses tell you explicitly and implicitly that it is important to do something and underline that desired behaviour by rewarding those who comply. If you achieve those sought after outcomes then along come the bonuses and the promotions.
The reason why the credit crunch happened is that banks went chasing market share encouraging their employees to throw money in many different ways at as many different companies as possible. They rewarded each other with eye wateringly large bonuses. Now of course such lending appears foolish. But that is hindsight after the event. The information industry has had the equivalent of the bankers' credit crunch. The digital revolution has put more information in more hands than ever before. Like the bankers enjoying their leveraged-induced bonuses so many organisations have enjoyed the benefits of a wall of usable and useful information. We saw the Promised Land in terms of harnessing modern communication technology to our advantage but we were so dazzled by the prospect that most of us failed to properly take note of the potential downside.
The series of data losses and information security breaches we have witnessed over the last few months has been the information industry equivalent on all those City deals turning bad. We can't put the genie back in the bottle in terms of uninviting the internet or web 2.0 - and anyway who wants to? However, we do have to relearn some of the basics of data and information management and security. The culture has to change to put data security and management at the top of the agenda. Information professional have to use their skills, knowledge and experience to lead by example, teaching and good practice. But that will only happen if the tone at the top says such a move is important.