Lynne Ellyn, senior vice president and CIO at DTE Energy, doesn't mince words when she talks about the complexity and diversification of one of the largest energy companies in the U.S. With revenues of $9 billion, DTE Energy owns Detroit Edison, an electric utility with 2.2 million customers; and Michigan Consolidated Gas Co., a natural gas utility with 1.3 million customers. The company's non-utility businesses fall into four categories: power and industrial projects, unconventional gas production, coal and gas, and energy trading.

Ellyn oversees IT strategy, development, and operations for all of the DTE Energy companies. She also serves as a corporate officer and member of DTE Energy's Executive Committee.

Beginning her career as a programmer, Ellyn has been consistently recognized as an exceptional business and IT leader. In 2007, Baseline named her as one of the top 100 CIOs, and Computerworld awarded her one of the Premier 100 IT Leaders in 2005.

Enterpriseleadership.org recently sat down with Lynne Ellen to discuss how she IT creates value for an organization with both regulated and non-regulated business segments.  Here's what she has to say:

EL:  Can you give me an overview of your responsibilities and the structure of your  IT organization?

LE: I'm responsible for all IT functions among our various companies. We have two large regulated utilities, and a number of non-regulated energy businesses. We're very diversified, which is important to understand. We have everything from a regulated gas utility to a non-regulated energy trading, as well as a business that does non-conventional gas exploration and rail services. We're a complex company.

About 1,000 people report to me. IT has a centralized, but federated structure. Information officers who report to me also have a dotted line to a business unit. They are the account managers or the major representatives who sit in the staff meetings for the various business lines and broker all of the services that we provide. This model has been working extremely well for us. It keeps us online for the enterprise issues, and, at the same time, it keeps us focused on the local issues of the various and diverse businesses. This model helps us to live in the paradox between local issues and enterprise issues.

EL: What is  the company's operating model?

LE: The enterprise strategy for the company consists of a balanced strategy between regulated and non-regulated businesses. We try to keep a percentage of the business being in the growth part of the business and a larger percentage being in the regulated side. More recently, we've actually pulled off some of our growth businesses.  We create them, help them to grow up, then monetize them, and reinvest in some other growth strategy energy business.

Our strong core foundation of the company has been in the gas and electric company that services Southeastern Michigan. That's a regulated strategy. It's a highly political type of business of interest to the state and the regulators. That's a good part of our business.  On the other side of the business, we're interested in growth, niche energy markets and eventually harvesting that growth by monetizing those businesses as they reach a certain level.

EL: How does our  enterprise architecture align with the company's operating  model?

LE: To bring together all of the different kinds of financial models in the company, we went through a large process to consolidate all of that on SAP. Another big piece of the business focuses on how we run plants and operational areas.  We consolidated them into a product now owned by IBM called Maximo.  We put two large things together to underline the normal flow of information from work to financial accounting.

EL: What  specific technology platforms have you standardized on?

LE: When you look at desktops, we're consolidated around Dell PCs, Citrix servers, and Wyse thin client devices. People connect to the network through either a PC or a thin client.  We're moving more aggressively toward thin client devices because of the better cost ratio.  At the server end, we largely have IBM servers. We also have HP, Dell, and some of our legacy on Sun. We don't have mainframes any more.

EL: What is the status of the automated metering system?

LE: We're early in the process (working our way through the vendor selection process and pilots) for an automated metering infrastructure. That's a very critical utility-specify strategy. It's an irrelevant strategy for the non-regulated businesses.

EL: Given the nature of the  business, how do you go about deciding what business process improvements you  make?

LE: At the enterprise level, we have just completed a huge business process reengineering around finance, accounting, supply chain management, work management, and HR. These processes cut across every single entity. They are common corporate processes carried out on common platforms. We need at that level to optimize the enterprise, not to optimize each individual unit.  At the individual unit, at a business process reengineering level, we'll look at what is necessary in order to optimize that particular business unit, and then those business units would fund those business-specific activities. If we're going to refresh the software and hardware architecture for energy trading, then we'll look for funding by  energy trading. We'd approach that process engineering within the context of that business. That's part of our governance model.

EL: How does your governance model work at the  corporate level to begin that process?

LE: For things of corporate interest, we have a steering function composed of the senior vice presidents and vice presidents. We'd be making those decisions collaboratively. For an investment in security or document management, I would in the past put together a business case and take it to the executive committee, which includes the president and the CFO. I sit on the executive committee. At a senior leadership level an investment like that would go through the corporate capital funding process, just like an investment in a plant. The corporate governance model would be in operation for any corporate or enterprise sort of project. The governance model allows for the heads of business units to make the decision of what they would be funding in order to meet their business objectives. This process fits very nicely with my own model that the business decides what gets done. IT, for IT activities, decides what is the most effective way to do that. IT decides how and the business units decide what gets done.  Together we deliver those results for their business.

EL:  How are you  building the next generation enterprise?

LE: I read this term and various people's definition of it. We haven't stated a strategy moving to the next generation enterprise.  Instead, we've looked at the need for the business, to be both in control and to be responsive to what, for us, is an intention to be dynamic in our businesses, especially the way we go about doing things.

You can use many ways to get to the same intersection. May be the intersection is this thing people are labeling the next generation enterprise. The way we're going about that is to look very specifically at the need of the corporation to be flexible, to be agile, to be in control, and to be interconnected and collaborative for corporate issues. From that, we're engineering our activities to meet those goals.

EL: Is speed,  the ability to execute on things, something you have to improve  upon?

LE: We are working on that issue in a variety of ways. Our business always faces a challenge it comes to large and complex things, like a new automated meter reading system, a rollout of a totally SCADA infrastructure, or the rollout of something like SAP across 100 legal entities. Speed is a relative issue in that case. Those aren't projects one can rush through. However, we have at any one time 50 to 75 projects going on. Only a few of them have that type of magnitude.

At the level of local projects, medium size projects, we've deployed a very, agile and collaborative process that is really quite speedy. Unfortunately, it has created one slight problem.  Once business units experience the agile method, they start asking why everything can't be like that. So again, we need to achieve some balance between things that have local importance and things that have enterprise importance.

EL:  Where is the company with renewable energy initiatives and what is IT doing to  be green?

LE: Our company has many renewal energy initiatives. We recently rolled out something called GreenCurrents current where our electric customers can elect some part of their utility bill to go to renewable energy sources. The corporation is working on aggressive strategies in that regard. In IT, we've been on a multi-year journey of virtualizing our data centers and only doing business with hardware providers where they recover and recycle the components. We had been on that path within IT for the green data center for a couple of years. Our industry has a ways to go in this area. I would put our results up against anybody's so far.

EL: What do you get from  your relationship with the Cutter Consortium?

LE: It has been a great relationship because Cutter has a consortium list of who's who in IT consulting. I also write for Cutter. I can call any of these people and essentially get free advice or a free perspective.  I also like participating in the trends council via monthly calls about the articles we plan to write. We get together a couple of days a year. Interacting directly with the likes of Rob Austin and Ken Orr has been great. CIOs have many industry research sources to select from, whether it's the Conference Board or the Gartner Group. Every time I compare what everyone else might offer to me, I have some flavor of that in dealing with Cutter.

Author: Elizabeth M. Ferrarini - She is a technology writer  from Boston, Massachusetts. Reach her at elizabethferrarini@yahoo.com.

One of the world's most influential living management thinkers, Charles Handy, who is 75 years old, has year-after-year been listed alongside business experts including Peter Drucker and Tom Peters in the prestigious Thinkers 50 list.  His views on management and life have inspired others for decades. In his latest book Myself and Other More Important Matters, this best selling author of books, including The Age of Unreason and The Elephant and the Flea, shares his special blend of wisdom, giving readers uncommon insight into business and careers.

After a career as an economist at Shell International, Handy ran the first graduate school business program in London. He was a full professor at the London Business School. He also served as Warden of St. George's House in Windsor Castle, a private conference and study center concerned with ethics and values in society. Many British know Handy for this 'Thoughts for Today' on the BBC's Radio Today program.  His articles have appeared in the Harvard Business Review.

Enterpriseleadership.org recently spoke with Charles Handy to discuss everything from how the corporation of the future will look like to what does it really mean to manage.  Here's what he had to say:

EL: In your book, Myself, you write that people say they manage something when they're really coping with it.  So what does it mean to manage? 

CH: In English, if you ask someone if he or she has managed all right today, you don't actually mean that the person went around motivating people and drawing up strategy plans and so forth. You mean did you get by or did you cope. That's the interesting thing.  Applied to people, manage doesn't have a nice connotation. For instance, transport managers don't think of themselves as managing people, but managing the transport function. People don't like to think of themselves as being managed because they associate it with being manipulated or controlled. They liked to be led. In some industries, such as the film business, people who look after others don't have the title of manager. They're called agents, partners, or directors. I try to avoid the word.  People in companies get by.

EL: People have called you the European equivalent of Peter Drucker.  How do any of your beliefs about management differ from Drucker's?

CH: I'm pleased by it. I don't think my beliefs about management differ from his.  Whenever I've had nice insight about something, I'd discover that Drucker had the same insight five years earlier. That always irritated me. We thought along similar lines. We talked not just about the organization and what goes on inside it, but we also talked a lot about society. We're both social philosophers as well as organizational thinkers. That's the similarity. Of course, some things divided us. He was more accepting of the North American capitalism model. I find it a bit cruel and greedy. He wrote more books and they continue to sell better than mine.

EL: Why do you consider yourself a social  philosopher?  Why do you take issue with people calling you a management  guru?   

CH: I don't want anyone calling me a management guru, which I find an irritating expression. Peter Drucker once said they only call you a guru because Americans can't spell management theorist. I have a broader perspective than most so-called management gurus. I'm interested in the way work defines our lives and the way organizations define work. I'm interested in looking at the kinds of lives we've all been leading and the kinds of the values we bring to those lives. That's all tied up with work and organizations. I'm speculating about what's life all about.

EL:  How do you feel about people who run their lives by technology?

CH: It's great if it's your servant. The danger is that it seduces you. In turn, you spend your time surfing the Web trying to find some bit of fascinating information. It's not a good thing. You wind up letting the computer start to run your life.  Computers control organizations, which is also very dangerous. George Orwell's 1984 presented the grime scenario of people being watched by devices similar to computers.

EL: What were some of the valuable lessons you learned in Borneo during your management apprenticeship with Royal Dutch Shell?              

CH: In those days, Borneo was a primitive place. The country had only 30 miles of road. You got around by boat or tiny airplanes. It was scary at times. However, one important event stands out. When I got there, I learned that we had no telephone line to the head office in Singapore. In those days, we didn't have any email or anything like that. If I wanted to communicate with my boss, I had to write him a letter. The letter took a week to get there, and my boss took a week to get back to me. I quickly realized I was on my own. If I made a mistake, I could correct it. No one needed to know I made a mistake. I didn't have to endure the disgrace of being reprimanded for something I did wrong. I also had a very loyal staff.  I, however, learned from my mistakes. That's what worries me about computers. You can't make mistakes without people knowing about them. It's difficult for people to learn from their mistakes. You learn by experimenting and experiments don't always work.

EL: What first inspired you  to create a graduate school for Britain’s managers? 

CH: When I left Shell in the mid 1960's, I was looking for something to do. The longest formal program for any manager included one day. Can you believe that? I concluded that Britain had three occupations that didn't require decent people to have any formal training or formal education. These occupations included being a politician, a parent, or a manager. We couldn't do anything about being politicians or about parenting. We could do something about being a manager. I noticed that the armed services provided formal training for many of its top jobs. People attended a staff college for one year.  No other organizations provided anything close to this. I discovered that the London Business School wanted to offer a one-year Sloan program. I introduced myself to the principal who was looking for someone to run the program. After I got the job, I went to the U.S. to learn how business schools operated and then returned to London.

EL: In 2007 in Boston, at the Summit on the Future of the Corporation, you gave a historical perspective on the evolution of the corporation, its purpose and its future design. Can you briefly describe the future design of the corporation?

CH: When I joined Shell, it was one big company. The future organizational structure of the corporation will resemble a spread eagle. It's a federated structure.  It will consist of a collection of different entities, some wholly owned. These entities will fan out across the world to provide a global reach. They can't be totally controlled from the center. The corps of people in the middle will provide the strategic direction of the corporation. They will also decide how money will get spent, and select who will run each business bit. The bits will have to be largely independent and autonomous. That's a new kind of challenge because you just can't tell people what to do in a federated organization. You have to negotiate things. You also need to have some type of constitution that protects the rights of the different bits of the organization.

EL:Isn't this  structure going to be difficult for people to cope  with?

CH: Yes! Managing will become difficult. You'll need to manage by values.  People will need to have a sense of what's the right thing to do and what direction they should go in. Technology will help enormously because it will keep people in touch with each other. The great thing is not to let them take away your being a master. People are going to have to rely more on their own initiative. No one at the center of these spread eagle things can tell you what to do. They're probably on the other side of the world. And you've never met them.

EL: In Myself you talk a lot about people needing to adapt the mindset of an independent agent.  Will this attitude work better in the organizational structure you described?

CH: Absolutely! Each unit of the organization will have its core staff. However, these units will increasingly use independents and smaller operating companies to help do their task. These organizations need to be incredibly flexible in this world because it is changing so fast. If you try to employee everybody to do everything you want them to do, you're stuck with these people. They might not be the right people and might not be able to change fast enough. You might need extra resources, which you can't afford because you've stuck with the old ones. It makes sense to have partners around the place. Some of these partners don't need an office or to be put on the company's pension scheme. You can easily get rid of them when you no longer need them.

EL: One of the quotes attributed to you is "Profit is secondary to their real purpose, which is to make a difference in the world." Can you explain this further?

CH: Most of the enlightened businesses would agree with this. A pharmaceutical company might perceive its mission to be curing sick or be providing medicine for needy people about the world. They, of course, have to make a profit because they have to pay dividends to investors. They have to make money to invest in the future.  You feel energized and excited if you're working in an organization, and if you're feeling you're doing something useful, not just working for the shareholders. I wouldn't want to wake up in the morning and say, 'I'm going to make some shareholder richer today.' I'd rather wake up and know I've customers whose demands I need to meet.  I really wanted to make a difference in my little world in Borneo. I wanted people to have a good life.

EL: Are there any companies or entrepreneurs whom you admire?

CH: Every time I mention a company I like, it runs into trouble.  I'd rather not comment. I do, however, admire Richard Branson, He set out to do something better than other people were doing it. He started an airline. He hated being treated like cattle when he traveled. He wanted his airline to treat people as people. He had to make money to keep it going. Making a difference underscores all the stuff he does.

EL: How do you stay active in management today?

CH: I act as a coach to people in business. I have this interesting process. People who've read my books, can call us when they are in London. If I'm going to be free the next morning, they are welcome to join my wife and I for breakfast at our home in Putney from 8:30 to 9:30. We've had everyone from religious monks to young people who want to test their ideas for a business.

Author: Elizabeth M. Ferrarini - She is a technology writer  from Boston, Massachusetts. Reach her at elizabethferrarini@yahoo.com.