Christopher Koch writes a blog for CIO magazine that usually has some good ideas in it. One part of a recent entry struck me, and I added my own input.

Think of information as food and think of the business as starving and think of IT as controlling who gets the food. Now you can see why there's so much emotion in the relationship [between IT and business in an organization].
- Koch's IT Strategy, Go Ape

I've been in a handful of small organizations and worked within IT in a variety of ways, and it can be difficult to rebuild a good relationship between IT and business when things have been sour. If information is the food of the apes in an organization, I can see where IT can improve the relationship by giving business better and more useful information. In my organization, management and users are always more impressed with access to new information or information presented in better ways than they are impressed with new technology alone. When IT pulls back into its corner and business's only experience with IT is when IT is snippy about a problem that business has caused or wants resolved, business sees IT has keeping things hidden and making it seem as though IT is somehow magical and not possible for business to understand. Being open with business while providing avenues to access information is what will win the hearts and minds of the people in the business side of an organization.

It's a rather basic view of how to do IT well, but I think it holds some wisdom for how to approach IT management.