What We Have to Fear

Computerworld - Lately I've had a troubling sense that there is a cancer growing in IT departments these days. No, I'm not talking about constrained budgets, poor alignment, hiring freezes or project failures. I'm not even talking about the growth of outsourcing and offshoring. While these issues are all real, there seems to be something even more toxic eating away at our industry.
What could possibly be more threatening to IT staffs than offshoring? Fear of offshoring.
This faceless, nameless dark terror seems to be gnawing away at the morale of IT professionals everywhere. They are filled with dread that they are witnessing a major sea change in their fortunes. It seems like the bursting of the tech bubble was more acceptable and less threatening than the prospect of offshoring. Those jobs just went away. They didn't go to some highly skilled engineers half a world away who were willing to work for less pay.
I wish I could quote Franklin Roosevelt and suggest that "we have nothing to fear but fear itself." But I can't. I'm not going to join the ITAA and the parade of economists telling us that offshoring is good for us (perhaps collectively and only in the long run) and that we should welcome it with open arms. I'm not so sure about that. Although management consultants like me are often heard chanting the "embrace change" mantra, I'm not sure that I want to snuggle up to this one.
But frankly, whether I like offshoring doesn't really matter. It's here, and it's not going away. Although the legal remedies being batted around Washington and various state capitals may slow the trend, no one can stop the relentless march of work across borders. We created IT to enhance the efficiency and mobility of labor, and it seems to be working.
But the natural and reasonable fear that this sort of metamorphosis brings seems a more immediate threat to our organizations than the change itself. Even though some estimates suggest that as many as 6% to 20% of IT jobs may eventually be moved, a relatively small percentage is directly affected by offshoring today. The fear of being on the losing end of this transformation is much more pervasive and immediately debilitating than the longer-term threat.
As a manager of a technical group, there are things that you can do to help alleviate the distractions and tensions that result from industry trends like this that are largely beyond the control of any of us.
Address the issue openly. Once