Management by In-flight Magazine   We all know that horrible sinking feeling. We have all been there.   You pick up your mornings' post and somewhere in there, there is company internal transit envelope with your name in the last box. In the box above is the name of the Chief Executive. So you know exactly where it has come from. Since it doesn't say "private and confidential" on it, you pretty well rule out a pay rise or (worse) a P45, although I do know some companies where this could still happen. Nevertheless you open the envelope with a little trepidation, and out falls a ripped out page from a magazine, and on it a little yellow sticky note with those words "W should look at this".   A quick glance at the contents of the magazine page reveals your worse nightmare - here we go again, management by in-flight magazine.   It's the ultimate nightmare scenario, isn't it? The Chief Executive goes on a business trip or a foreign holiday, and you know he's going to pick up the magazine in the seat pocket in front of him. In it there is going to be an advertisement for a briefcase which doubles as a laptop computer, satellite telephone, fax system, teasmaid, and shoe polisher, whilst at the same time bristling with more security features that you would normally associate with a high budget James Bond movie. Worse yet, you know he's going to like the idea. It doesn't matter that's it's outside you're corporate buying policy, that he actually laid down, and it doesn't matter that it costs about the same as the Gross National Product of a small South American country. To make matters worse, almost always the current economic climate means that the business that you're in is staring a whacking great loss in the face. All that is immaterial - he's the Chief Executive and when he goes to meet his Non-Executive Board colleagues on the golf course, he wants to show off the latest executive toy.   So what are your tactics? First and foremost try to apply a little logic. If you know your Chief Executive has a pet hate, try to ensure that buying a device like this or dealing with a company like the one that has advertised in the magazine will bring his worse fears to the front. I know a Chief Executive who's pet hate is spending money on something that has a finite life, and cannot be used at a later date. Try the gambit of "It's a proprietary system, and so if you buy this, you won't be able to upgrade it to the latest processor in 12 months time, you'll have to buy from new". This sometimes works. If you can follow this up with something to the effect of being able to provide the same functionality (or similar) at lower cost and with more standard components then again this may be a good ploy.   Plan B is to try to emphasis where it won't fit into his life style. Maybe its too heavy, or too bulky, or it won't fit into his carefully engineered and designed desk furniture.   Plan C is simply not buying it. This is the purchasing equivalent of the accounts gambit of "the cheque is in the post". You know that if you wait long enough he'll go on a another flight and pick up another in-flight magazine, and his attention will be completely diverted from the James Bond suitcase. So therefore, all you need to do is play for time. Since all of these adverts are American based, then the routine of trying to find out how best to place the purchase order in US dollars, or looking for a UK distribution point may well buy you enough time for this. Of course this particular ploy cannot be used too often because even the dimmest of Chief Executive finally cottons on to what you're doing.   The only ultimate solution is to have the Chief Executive buy in to what you're trying to do with Information Technology within the company. Make him part of the decision making process. Even make him take some of those decisions himself, providing you've got a good enough relationship with him that you know the decision is going to be the right one! A proper relationship between the Chief Executive and his Head of IT has to involve two-way conversation.   A Chief Executive cannot just expect his IT person to come up with some good ideas that the company should look at, without that IT person being involved with some of the Executive decision making. If you don't know what the Chief Executive's ideas are, how can you be expected to put a good IT plan together. It then becomes a case of implementing technology simply for technology sake, with no business thought and therefore ultimately no business benefit.   A good Information Systems department will be doing three tasks. Firstly, they will be fixing things that are broken. Secondly, they will be enhancing or replacing existing systems, in order to cater for the current business needs of the employees. Thirdly, and in my opinion the most important, they will be working with the Board in planning the Information Technology, such that the business can take a journey along the three or five year plan of that Board to achieve the vision of where that business needs to be. It is this third element that is often missing in businesses, but it is in this third area, that requires a good solid working relationship between the Head of IT and the Chief Executive along with the rest of the Board, where the greatest business benefit can be gained from any technology invested.   Management by in-flight magazine is NOT a long term strategy for any business. It is more along the lines of what children do in the run up to Christmas.