The Software Architect Elevator

Chapter 41. All I Have to Offer Is the Truth

Giving Folks the Red Pill

It’s so much more comfortable up here

Embarking on a transformation journey can be quite a dramatic, sometimes even traumatic, undertaking for many people working for traditional enterprises. Digital companies are run, or at least perceived to be run, by highly educated, 20-something digital natives who aren’t distracted by family or social life and require little to no sleep. Their employers have hardly any legacy to deal with and billions in the bank, despite offering most services to consumers for free. For IT staff who have been working in the same, traditional enterprise, following the same processes for decades, this is likely to cause a mix of fear, denial, and resentment.

Getting these folks on board for a transformation agenda is thus a delicate affair: if you are too gentle, people may not see a need to change. If you are too direct, people may panic or resent you.

Nothing But the Truth

Wringing a final reference from the movie The Matrix, when Morpheus asks Neo to choose between the red pill, which will eject him into reality, and the blue pill, which will keep him inside the illusion of the Matrix, he doesn’t describe what “reality” looks like. Morpheus merely states:

Remember: all I’m offering is the truth. Nothing more.

If he had told Neo that the truth translates into living in the confines ...