How leaders separate hype from real business value

David Zey Gerry Pitt

January 26, 2026

If you’ve been leading a business long enough, you start to recognize patterns – new vendors arrive with new language; slide decks get more polished; acronyms multiply; and the message is always some variation of the same idea: “What you really need right now is this.”

Sometimes “this” is digital transformation; sometimes it’s modernization; and sometimes it’s cyber hygiene, AI, cloud-first or whatever phrase is currently having a moment.

We’ve seen this movie many times from the CTO seat, from the CIO seat and from the vCIO seat.

The names change, the logos change and the pressure stays the same.

This column, the fourth in a series on discernment in business technology decisions, is geared toward leaders who don’t need more technology vocabulary.

You already have that.

What you need is clarity.

Not skepticism just to be contrary, not hesitation toward innovation – but the sharpness to tell the difference between real value and a buzzword dressed as truth.

Most technology mistakes don’t happen because leaders chose the “wrong” tool.

They happen because leaders were rushed into decisions by language that sounded strategic but wasn’t operational.

The buzzword factory problem

Technology itself isn’t the enemy.

Most of what’s being sold today does work.

The problem starts when language gets ahead of substance and when momentum replaces judgment.

Over time, the industry reliably renames familiar work:

• Server refreshes become modernization
• Patch management and MFA become cyber hygiene
• Process cleanup becomes digital transformation
• Scripting becomes hyperautomation
• Reporting becomes advanced analytics
• Moving the same systems to someone else’s data center becomes cloud-first

None of these are bad initiatives.

In fact, most organizations need to do many of them.

The issue is when leaders are sold the term as if it guarantees the outcome, or worse, when the term itself becomes the business case.

Discernment principle:

If the proposal sounds inevitable but can’t be explained concretely, you’re being marketed to, not advised.

Why this hits SMBs harder than enterprises

Large enterprises can oftentimes afford to experiment.

They can absorb mistakes, spread risk and wait out missteps.

SMBs don’t have that luxury.

When a Fortune 500 company buys the wrong platform, it becomes a “learning initiative.”
When an SMB does, it becomes:

• Shelfware no one wants to talk about
• Workarounds layered on top of the “solution”
• A multi-year budget constraint
• Quiet erosion of confidence in leadership decisions

That’s why SMB leaders are so often sold urgency instead of clarity:

• “Everyone your size is doing this.”
•  “This is table stakes now.”
• “You don’t want to fall behind.”

Those statements aren’t always false, but they’re rarely sufficient.

Discernment tip:

If no one can clearly explain what breaks if you wait six months, the urgency is probably manufactured.

Digital transformation: A useful idea turned dangerous shortcut

“Digital transformation” started as a legitimate concept.

It acknowledged something important: technology initiatives fail when organizations ignore process, people and accountability.

But over time, the phrase became a shortcut.

In many boardrooms, “digital transformation” quietly means:

• Processes were never clearly defined
• Ownership is fragmented
• Metrics aren’t aligned
• Technology is expected to force discipline leadership hasn’t

Transformation doesn’t fail because the idea is flawed – it fails because it’s undefined, under-owned and over-promised.

Discernment means forcing translation before approval, not after disappointment.

Discernment tip:

If you transform something that’s broken, you just get a more expensive version of broken.

Cyber hygiene: Necessary, unsexy and often misunderstood

Another phrase leaders hear constantly is cyber hygiene.

It sounds modern, proactive and like something new.

In practice, cyber hygiene usually means:

• Identity controls that are actually enforced
• Systems patched on time
• Backups tested, not just reported
• Administrative access restricted and reviewed
• Monitoring that someone is accountable for

This is not cutting-edge security – it’s baseline operational maturity.

Calling it cyber hygiene doesn’t make it innovative – it just makes it easier to sell and easier to assume it’s “handled.”

The danger isn’t the work – it’s assuming that buying a labeled solution eliminates risk without verifying that the fundamentals are consistently executed.

AI and automation: Speeding up whatever you already are

Few terms create more excitement or less clarity than “AI-powered.”

In many organizations, AI is positioned as a shortcut around unresolved questions:

• Who owns the decision?
• What happens when the output is wrong?
• Where does judgment still matter?

Here’s the uncomfortable truth:

Automation doesn’t fix confusion – it amplifies it.

If decision rights are unclear, AI makes confusion faster.
If incentives are misaligned, AI scales the misalignment.

Discernment doesn’t require leaders to understand algorithms.

It requires them to understand responsibility, accountability and success criteria before anything is automated.

Value-driven IT vs. language-driven IT

After enough cycles, you can tell which one you’re dealing with within the first few conversations.

Value-driven discussions focus on:

• A specific business problem
• Clear measures of success
• What changes and what intentionally doesn’t
• Tradeoffs, risks and constraints
• What this initiative replaces

Language-driven discussions focus on:

• Trends and buzzwords
• Platforms and roadmaps
• “Future-proofing”
• Market momentum
• Fear of missing out

Discernment principle:

When urgency is emotional instead of operational, slow the decision down.

The executive skill that matters most: Translation

This is where leadership earns its keep.

Every buzzword should be translated into a plain business sentence:

• Digital transformation – Which process improves and by how much?
• Modernization – What becomes cheaper, faster, safer or simpler?
• Cyber hygiene – Which risks are reduced, and which remain?
• AI-powered – What decision improves and who owns it?
• Cloud-first – What flexibility do we gain and what do we trade?

If that translation can’t be stated clearly without marketing language, the initiative isn’t ready.

That isn’t being negative – it’s protecting the business.

Seven discernment questions that protect leaders

Before approving any initiative, vendor-led or internal, leaders should insist on answers to these seven questions:

1. What problem are we actually solving?

• Not “modernization.” Something that causes real friction today.

2. What happens if we do nothing?

• If nothing meaningful breaks, urgency needs to be reconsidered.

3. How will success be measured?

• Cost, time, risk, quality, customer impact?

4. What changes for our people?

• Tools that don’t change behavior don’t change outcomes.

5. What does this replace?

• If it replaces nothing, it adds complexity.

6. Where does this typically fail?

• Credible partners answer this without deflection.

7. Who owns the outcome?

• A named business leader, not just IT.

These questions don’t slow innovation.
They prevent expensive distractions.

A simple boardroom reality check

Before the next proposal is approved, try this exercise:

• Ask for the value explanation without slides
• Ask for one comparable organization
• Ask what they would not recommend
• Ask what stays broken if you wait

The clarity, or discomfort, will tell you whether you’re evaluating substance or packaging.

Governance: How discernment becomes repeatable

Organizations that consistently avoid hype aren’t smarter.

They’re more disciplined and commit to the following:

• Reviewing initiatives against business outcomes, not activity
• Stopping projects that don’t show progress
• Documenting lessons learned
• Rewarding clarity over enthusiasm

Governance isn’t administrative overhead – it’s the mechanism that transforms discernment into a repeatable discipline.

The vCIO perspective: Why this matters

After enough cycles, you stop being impressed by new terms.

You start asking better questions.

The organizations that win long-term aren’t the most modern.
They’re the most intentional, they don’t chase trends, they let trends earn trust, they don’t buy language and they buy outcomes.

Final thought: Buy results, not vocabulary

Buzzwords aren’t the enemy – unexamined assumptions are.

Technology rarely fails because the idea was bad.

It fails because leaders were sold confidence instead of clarity.

The companies that endure aren’t the ones with the newest platforms.

They’re the ones with the strongest discernment.

They translate pressure into perspective, vocabulary into value and momentum into measured action.

And that discipline, more than any acronym, framework or platform, is what actually moves a business forward.