We don't have to think like CEOs to do that. But we do have to understand what executives and senior managers are thinking about. We have to know the right buzzwords to say, and the right buttons to push, when we talk to them about the value of any big IT project.

We have to understand, at least a little, why The Conference Board and the Business Roundtable matter to those business-side bosses. And if cutting head count or increasing sales is more important to them this year. And whether they're more concerned about inventory turnover or cost of goods sold. And how fast they want results.

Put bluntly, before IT can succeed at helping the business succeed, we have to know how success is defined. And that means we have to get smarter about the business than we are.

How do we do that?

Oh, we coulddo it the hard way: Get a proper business education, collect our MBAs, do thorough case studies of the company and the industry, then create IT and business strategies that will maximize whatever we think is most important to the business. In other words, we could make believe we're CEOs.