Contrast this with Gregorc's theory that abstract random learners listen to others, bring harmony to group situations, establish healthy relationships with others, and focus on the issues at hand. They learn best when they are in a personalized environment, given broad or general guidelines, and able to participate in group activities. It's difficult for these types of learners to explain or justify their feelings, have competition, work with dictatorial or authoritarian personalities, and concentrate on one thing at a time.

While Spivey and Karnes don't expect to change CFOs into abstract random learners, or IT experts into concrete sequential ones, they do consider it critical to enlighten leaders in each camp about each the thought processes of the other. For instance, they are making a presentation to the in June about how IT thinks -- and thus, how to work best with them for a positive outcome.

The duo feels that taking finance and IT out of their siloed comfort zones, and putting them in situations where they need to be deliberately respectful of each other, will eliminate strife in the long run. If a CFO pushes an IT head to adopt cloud-based computing, rather than caving, for example, IT could rebut, saying that the company just got internal infrastructure up to speed with Sarbanes-Oxley and other compliance mandates, and that moving to the cloud will unravel that.

"This is where knowing how each other's mind works, and each other's language, would help solve problems," Spivey says.