The best way I thought of communicating this article is through a great patience and endurance testimony of a good friend and data architect. This year we were both invited to speak at the SAP Sapphire conference. The subject we were speaking on was Strategic EIM (Enterprise Information Management).
However, as we began to pull our slide deck together he mentioned, "I have been trying to get data governance going since 2003 and I am finally getting some traction with the business and executive. It's encouraging, especially after 8 years!"
As I listened to him I nodded and smiled. I got up and drew a diagram on the whiteboard and replied "Is this what you mean? Because this is something you drew on the whiteboard in 1998. That's 13 years ago! I hate to burst your bubble, but that makes you a really old data architect."
What an example of the patience he demonstrated over 13 years. How you ask?
I worked closely and watched him over those 13 years and noticed something special about him we can all learn from.
1. The passion and love of your work
2. Never give up. Stand firm if it's the right thing to do.
3. Always be intentional to improve, promote, and influence the value of your idea whenever the opportunity arises. Over and over again and again.
4. Be objective, don't worry if you don't get your way. If it does not sink in to your audience right away then pause and consider another approach (Step 1,2,3).
His patience and endurance has has finally paid off as the corporate key executives are now bought into the idea and are undertaking a Business Transformation program in which data governance and data management are key components.
Hopefully many of us won't have to wait as long, but I think we can all testify that the "Right" things to do are never easy things to do...
Endurance and patience are always important if you want to run the EA race.
A great book I am reading you might want to consider is:
Arlene Dickinson "PERSUASION" - A New Approach to changing minds
Amazon Link: http://amzn.to/oyfLDy
