IT is not a snowflake
We behave as if IT's problems are unique. But I suspect it's not so. I reckon other sectors wrestle with similar problems.
I bet the personnel trade magazines are predicting the demise of those heads of HR who don't totally transform their department to better service "the business";
...and the pundits in the marketing sector angst over how to communicate with "the business" in business language and avoid jargon;
...and CFO websites provide tips on how to do more for less, and gripe about GAAP bodies of knowledge not keeping up with the revolution in cloud-based costing
... and I bet they all talk about "the business". I've heard them do it.
As a thought experiment, make a global change from "HR" to "IT" in this article and see how familiar it sounds. Here, I'll do it for you:
Technology issues are top-of-mind for CEOs around the world — but their regard for the IT function remains perilously low: In a PwC study, only 34% said that IT is well prepared to capitalize on transformational trends (compared with 56% for finance).
Sadly, chief executives aren’t the only ones with this negative perception. It’s pervasive in organizations — and to make matters worse, IT practitioners have inadvertently played into it. In its “State of Human Capital” report, McKinsey found that people in IT still largely have “a support-function mindset, a low tolerance for risk, and a limited sense of strategic ‘authorship’” — all of which has led to “low status among executive peers, no budget for innovation, and a ‘zero-defects’ mentality.”
Other shared-services business units think feel and act (and are detested) in very similar ways to IT in dealing with "the business". We're not so special.
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