For CIOs, CTOs and technology leaders
Why IT can’t fix what the business hasn’t decided
Technology leaders are routinely handed problems that are really about meaning and ownership, and then judged when a new platform doesn’t solve them. The book, written partly from the infrastructure side, argues that IT can secure, integrate and run the data but cannot decide what it means. It gives technology leaders the case for handing meaning back to named business owners and for resisting rip-and-replace.
Kindle edition · 99 pages · a 90-minute readRead a free sample on Amazon
From the book
What the book shows
- 01
The problem bounces between IT and the business
From the infrastructure side, the book says, a platform faithfully records whatever the process hands it — mistakes included. You can run a flawless pipeline and still deliver numbers nobody trusts, because the disagreement started upstream, in the work itself.
“IT cannot fix what only the business can decide, and the business keeps escalating to IT a problem that was never technical.”
Chapter 5The Diagnostic Mirror: Why Your Data Exposes Your Business - 02
Programs drift to IT by default
When no business leader owns the meaning, responsibility slides to whoever understands the tooling. System constraints start defining business terms, and each program becomes more complex and more fragile at the same time.
“Programs also become IT-led by default, not by intent, but because business accountability is unclear.”
Chapter 6Why Transformations Often Fail Before They Start - 03
Don’t rip and replace
The book argues against the belief that one ERP and one CRM are prerequisites for AI. Systems may vary as long as they map to a shared foundation of definitions, ownership and operating structure; its closing chapter points to a semantic layer over the existing landscape rather than a multi-year consolidation.
“Technology can integrate data; only leadership can integrate meaning.”
Chapter 10Meaning, Not Machinery
Your role, as the book defines it
The book is clear that IT plays a critical role — building platforms, integrating systems, ensuring availability and security. The line it draws is about who decides what the data means, not about who matters. The leadership teams that close the divide put both views in the same room, on the same decision, and let neither win by default.
“Technology leaders enable those decisions but do not define them; the moment system constraints start dictating business meaning, the sequence has inverted.”
Questions to ask
Questions for technology leaders to bring to the executive table:
- 1Which data domains have drifted to IT by default, because no business owner was ever named?
- 2Where are system constraints quietly defining what a customer or an order means?
- 3Is any program waiting on a system consolidation that the business could start without?
- 4Are our engineers acting as referees between competing definitions instead of enablers?
- 5When the business asks for a single source of truth, do we ask back who owns the definition?
- 6Can each AI model we run be traced to a business decision and an accountable owner?
Where to start in the book
Chapter 10
Meaning, Not Machinery — meaning over machinery, and why not to rip and replace.
Chapter 11
Ownership Is a Leadership Role — what IT can and cannot own.
Chapter 14
Aligning the Leadership Team — closing the divide between IT and the business.
Kindle edition · 99 pages · a 90-minute readRead a free sample on Amazon
Also see
- Data leadersData readiness for AI isn’t enough
- Heads of AIWhy AI pilots fail to scale: six conditions
- Transformation leadersWhy transformations fail before they start
All roles: who the book is for →
About this page: our reading of Your data isn’t broken. Your operating model is. by Adam Ayres and Behrang Karimi, for CIOs, CTOs and technology leaders. The book itself is written for the leadership teams of complex enterprises. Quotes are word for word from the book; its case studies describe anonymized companies, and their results are not benchmarks.