If you spend any time at all reading IT trade journals and websites, you’ve no doubt heard about the NoSQL movement. In a nutshell, NoSQL databases (also called post-relational databases) are a variety of loosely grouped means of storing data without requiring the SQL language. Of course, we’ve had non-relational databases far longer than we’ve had actual relational databases. Anyone who’s used products like IBM’s Lotus Notes can point to a popular non-relational database. However, part and parcel of the NoSQL movement is the idea that the data repositories can horizontally scale with ease, since they’re used as the underpinnings of a website. For that reason, NoSQL is strongly associated with web applications, since websites have a history of starting small and going “viral,” exhibiting explosive growth after word gets out. [READ MORE]
In a past post , I talked about the work of Dr. William Cohen, a renowned expert on leadership. In Dr. Cohen’s work, he describes eight frequently recurring characteristics among excellent leaders, one of which is “absolute integrity”.
However, this characteristic got pushback from several readers. The general thread seemed to be “You either have integrity or you don’t. It’s not something that can be learned”. So let’s take a step back and examine the idea of whether integrity can be learned.
I think that some of the pushback that I got about learning integrity comes from people who group integrity into the same set of characteristics as “sense of humor” or “artistic flare”. When we look at most adults, either they have those traits or they don’t. But even with these innate traits, although you can’t just sit down in a classroom and learn to have a sense of humor at 45 years old, can’t they also be learned in some form or another? After all, most children start out with a ready ability to laugh and a happy willingness to smear paint and scribble crayons on a slip of paper. At some point in their lives, they internalize a portion of those experiences into their personalities. I think, by extension, that integrity falls into the same general category. It’s learned at a young age and, if malformed prior to adulthood, is unlikely to change. It is unlikely to change, but that doesn’t mean that it cannot.
In some ways, I think the question of whether integrity can be learned also entails an understanding of what the word “integrity” means. In some cases, we might have an internal definition of a particular word, like integrity, which doesn’t match what other people or even the dictionary says the word means. In this case, according to dictionary.com, integrity is the steadfast adherence to a strict moral or ethical code. My own personal connotation for the word integrity means steadfast adherence to a strict moral or ethical code when no one is watching or holding you to account. In other words, you have integrity when you behave morally whether or not anyone is watching.
The opposite of integrity, in my mind, is “situational ethics”. Situational ethics is the concept that the situation dictates what your ethic parameters should be. I might be trustworthy today with money because I’m not having any money problems, but tomorrow – well, that’s another day.
Many a person entrusted with money has used situational ethics to rationalize lifting a few dollars out of the money drawer when no one was paying attention. “I’m broke and I really need this money to buy medicine,” they might think. In contrast, a person with high integrity could be trusted with that same money drawer when left alone, despite their personal money problems, just as if the boss was standing right beside them. Similarly, a sales person without much integrity might tell a boldfaced lie to get a customer to buy a product, knowing that their product doesn’t do what the customer needs. The sales person thinks to himself “I have to make quota or else I’ll be punished, after all”. On the other hand, a sales person with integrity will honestly tell the customer about the limitations of their product though that might risk losing the sale.
People who do not have a lot of integrity will often remain set in their ways. However, there are two scenarios that can help them learn to exhibit integrity. The first, and much more dramatic way to learn integrity, is the crisis. When we encounter a person without much integrity, it’s pretty common to hear on-lookers say “Oh my, he’s going to have to learn the hard way”. The hard way is usually a very public and painful crisis. There are many examples of people who’ve had to learn integrity the hard way. Two good examples are John Dean and Charles “Chuck” Colson. Dean and Colson were operatives for President Richard Nixon, counted among the most scheming and conniving of Nixon’s Watergate lieutenants. After their exposure and fall, both men have demonstrated complete reversals of their moral compasses. You can read more about their interesting lives on Wikipedia.
The second scenario that people learn to exhibit integrity is to willingly operate in a mode of “transparency”. Of course, many business processes are designed to be transparent so that management can hold individuals responsible for their actions. And as a result, many people without much innate integrity will try to skirt those business processes; for example, all the systems put in place to thwart shoplifting and “shrinkage” in retails sales. However, many leaders intentionally put systems in place so that they’re never even faced with the temptation of compromising their integrity. For example, the famous American evangelist Billy Graham never allowed himself to be alone with any woman besides his wife. This was not because he felt he couldn’t be trusted alone with temptation, but simply because he wanted to insure that he was always able to give a full accounting of his behavior towards women in a positive light.
You could argue that it was because Graham already had high integrity that he put such a process in place – and I would agree with you. However, many leaders, knowing their own limitations and internal struggles, frequently put measures in place to make their actions and behaviors more transparent thereby raising their level of integrity. This helps them uphold their ideal level of integrity through accountability. I once knew a business leader who was terrible about communicating with his team. He was closed-lipped and inscrutable. When he did speak, it was usually in negative tones that frequently demoralized his team. The good news though was that he knew this was not where he wanted to be. So he eventually put a system in place where one of his senior team members essentially became his “speechwriter”, double checking his emails and helping him prepare his public speaking engagements. He wanted to do better, knew his limitations, and put measure in place to closely examine those areas where he might succumb to his natural but counterproductive impulses .
Accountability processes are one reason why businesses publish a lot more information than the
average person cares about. PASS, for example, publishes both their financial information and meeting minutes to demonstrate both the priorities of the organization and that the leadership of the organization is behaving in the best interest of the membership. In a situation like this, transparency – in and of itself – helps cultivate integrity.
So what are your thoughts on integrity? Is it unlearnable? Have any great stories where someone in your experience demonstrated great integrity or had to go through some major ordeals to learn it? I’d like to hear more!
And as always, your comments and thoughts are appreciated.
After the misery that was 2009, most of the SQL Server users I talk to are happy that 2010 started in languid fashion. Not that there isn’t a lot of work to do; on the contrary, there’s more work than ever. However, the long hours and multiple projects of 2009, compounded by freezes in all levels of spending, raised the general stress level to unhealthy heights. With the new year, stress levels dropped significantly, and many IT leaders see signs of improving prospects. What does that bode for 2010? I have a couple of predictions, though I doubt they’ll surprise many people. [READ MORE]
I’m frequently asked the following paraphrased question:
I’d been happily plugging away in my job as a {DBA/Dev/Terminator/Warp Drive Engineer} for several years, when I applied for the manager position. I was surprised and thrilled when I got the job! But now that I’ve been in the job for a while, I find that no one on the team is thrilled with me. I know that I made a lot of changes. But they were all for the good of the team. What should I do to reconnect with my team and rebuild my friendships?
A common theme in this series, “Plays Well With Others”, is that the skills responsible for your success as a database professional have little in common with success as a leader and manager. And this scenario is a classic example. It’s especially important to our situation because the solution to this problem is entirely people-oriented and has nothing to do with all those great SQL Server skills you’ve developed over the years.
It's not always comedy
First of all, if you haven’t already, avail yourself of the excellent and time-tested Blanchard’s Leadership and the One Minute Manager as well as The One Minute Manager, both by Kenneth Blanchard. Management and leadership books churn through the bookstores as quickly late night talk shows on NBC have lately. But this book has proven its worth over the years and its advice still holds up well.
Next, recognize that most management hassles can be defeated or at least deflated by publicly getting in front of them. In a sense, the best way to solve this kind of problem is a bit of proactive damage control. So instead of launching into a bunch of new initiatives and changes for the team (especially the kind that reduce a former teammates’ power or privilege), announce that you’re considering a bunch of changes. You don’t have to be specific about your plans, but don’t be intentionally vague or evasive either. Further explain that some of the changes may be uncomfortable, but you’re convinced they’ll make the team much more productive and return greater value to the enterprise.
Ask everyone on the team for input and ideas of their own within the next X number of weeks while you formulate your plans. It’s very possible that you might 1) get ideas from team members that exactly matches what you’d planned to do, and 2) get new ideas you never thought of but would like to add to the mix or even put higher in priority. Be sure to thank everyone who steps up to the conversation (or email thread).
Now, it’s time to book some one-on-one time across the team and have the “tough talks” well in advance and in private with those who might be on the losing end of your changes. Also, invite suggestions about how to best go forward. You might be surprised by their team spirit. By treating everyone with empathy and dignity, you might turn one of these potential grumblers into a reliable “wingman”. On the other hand, arguments are quite likely so explain that the changes are non-negotiable, but reiterate their contribution and value to the team.
By handling this situation with foresight, you send several messages. The first and strongest message is that you are the leader. This might not be comfortable for your friends or even to you. But it’s extremely important to establish this role early on. And by handling the situation with dignity, you demonstrate that you have credibility, which makes strengthens you in a sort of positive-feedback loop.
If it’s too late to establish your “street cred” and you’ve already fumbled the early stages of the transition to leadership, you can still recover. But as the old saying goes, an ounce of protection is worth a pound of prevention. Usually in a situation like this, you should implement a goal-setting and planning session with the entire team. Explain that the objective is to collaboratively define the goals and objectives of the team and to adjust team responsibilities, processes, and duties to best accomplish those goals. Personally, you should remember the purpose of the meeting is, primarily, to get everyone on the team knows buy-in to your vision of “success” for the team and, secondarily, firmly establish your position as leader. It might take as much as half a day to hammer this down.
Prepare ahead of time. Make sure that your changes mesh with management’s goals for your team. Ensure that you and YOUR boss are on the same page about what characteristics would mark a team as “successful”. If you have some extremely strong willed team members or are expecting outright conflict, you may need to conduct your goal-setting session as a one-on-one series of meetings rather than a single meeting for the entire team. Schedule a conference room (with a white board) and appoint an official scribe to record the details of the meeting. Encourage a lot of brainstorming during the meeting. Make sure to discuss these topics:
What are we here for? A comprehensive list of team goals that characterize the team as “successful”. Be sure to project top management’s view of success to the team since you might be the only one who fully understands what management expects, plus you can contradict any false notions held by team members.
What do we do daily? The bulk of daily duties and processes performed by the team (before your changes) put in place to try to meet the goals in topic 1.
What could we do better? List any changes you put in place, as well as solicit ideas from the team. Accommodate good ideas from the team, but not at the expense of meeting the enterprise goals. Explain to the team that the goals of topic 1, as well as duties and processes of topic 2, are a sort of “contract” with the enterprise. These are the things that the enterprise uses to evaluate whether you’re all successful or not.
What did we decide? Explain that, as the leader, you’re interested in maximizing the contribution of the entire team. This might mean that the best solutions for the team are not always what each individual prefers. Reinforce that everyone on the team has part-ownership in the team contract. Express confidence in the team that they can make the changes especially effect and thank each one for their contribution and efforts.
At the conclusion of the meeting, you should now have buy-in from everyone on the team and a strong consensus on expectations. Going forward, you can use the “contract” agreed to by you and your team as the basis for evaluating performance and, if needed, for correcting underperformance.
So, after all of that, does that mean you’re still the buddy of the guy in the cube next to you? Chances are good that you and your cube-mates can stay buddies, if that’s your main goal. Just be mindful that most peer-to-peer relationships do change when one of the peers is promoted to be the boss of the other. However, you can avoid these relationship issues by clearly and explicitly defining everyone’s role and then getting explicit, verbal (or written) confirmation that you and your workmates are in agreement.
On this vblog entry on www.sqlserverpedia.com I describe and discuss the Microsfot MCP (Master Certification Program). I hope this helps anyone that is interested in this program. Enjoy and I look forward to your feedback!
One fall semester many years ago, I was a university freshman. Actually, I was anything but “fresh.” I was dumb enough to think that 8 a.m. was a wonderful time to attend Economics 101. After staying up until the wee hours most every night, the “dismal science” took on more than one meaning as I set my clock just early enough to get to class on time. Along with 30 other very naïve classmates, I staggered into class and did my bleary-eyed best to focus on the lessons at hand. There were lots of Greek compound words and lots of graphs.
Graphs Don't Always Help Explain The Situation
I learned, for example, that the word economics derives from the Greek “oikonomikos,” which means, approximately, “death by slidedecks” and, specifically, “house” (oikos) and “management” (mikos). I barely survived the experience and never took an 8 a.m. class again. Imagine my surprise, then, when a lesson I’d learned (and promptly forgotten) all those years ago jumped back into my consciousness late last year. [READ MORE]
Last week, I talked about one of the worst type of management scenarios to work under – the micromanager. Now, let’s take that conversation from the “Dark Side” into the light to talk about great leaders.
To say that Dr. William Cohen knows a few things about leadership is approximately the same as saying that Moby Dick was a fish. Not only was Cohen a former Air Force major general, university president, and business leader, but he has many degrees (including a PhD) and even holds several engineering patents. One of the many books authored by Dr. Cohen is the 1998 Best Business Book of the Year, The Stuff of Heroes, also considered by many to be one of the ten best leadership books of all times.
If you’ve ever had a desire to lead, I recommend reading this book. But even if you never read it, Dr. Cohen’s lessons are intriguing. Even a quick list, like I’m presenting here, offers a lot of practical advice. This summary can’t do Dr. Cohen’s material justice, but here are the main behaviors of extraordinary leaders, as revealed by his research:
Maintain absolute integrity.
Know your stuff.
Declare your expectations.
Show uncommon commitment.
Expect positive results.
Take care of your people.
Put duty before self.
Get out in front.
A common cliché these days is that someone is “a born leader”. The better adage is that leaders are made, not born. Consider the eight behaviors above. Which of those behaviors require innate ability and are not something that can be learned? None of them! In fact, closer inspection of the eight behaviors of excellent leaders shows pretty clearly, at least in my mind, that each behavior results from a conscious decision on the part of the leader to behave in a certain way.
In effect, great leaders are constantly mindful that they are scrutinized by the teams which they lead, are committed to those teams and the results they deliver. Whereas poor leaders spend lots of time thinking about what their teams can do for them, great leaders think about what they can do to make their teams produce better results.
We could spend more than one article on each of these eight behaviors. (And we actually can, if popular demand takes us in that direction). So take a few moments and think about both the great and the terrible leaders in your experience. Compare their behavior to Dr. Cohen’s checklist. How do they come out? I’ll bet that they are probably doing a good job of exhibiting the eight behaviors of excellent leaders. Now that you’ve thought about it – share your thoughts! Send me your emails with examples of excellent leadership in action or, sometimes even better, share your stories of leadership train crashes!
If you don’t have the opportunity to lays hands on Dr. Cohen’s book, at least look up his web site and read more there. I’d start with his recommendations for 30 Vital Actions for Leaders at http://www.stuffofheroes.com/30_vital_leadership_actions.htm and then explore from there.
And as always, your comments and thoughts are appreciated.
I was once asked what I thought Microsoft’s overall product trajectory for SQL Server was, in light of Oracle’s rather obvious trajectory of acquiring multiple application vendors who will, in turn, deploy more and more of their applications to the Oracle database platform. To be honest, I had a little difficulty perceiving a clear and concise strategy statement for the sort of work going on in Redmond. I could see a lot of great features being developed. And I knew the SQL Server development team had developed a lot of new “plumbing” with each new release – features like Service Broker and Extended Events and exponentially more robust capabilities in the Analysis Services product lines. But the strategy itself was veiled and, since Microsoft wasn’t explicitly telling us what the grand strategy was, I had difficulty putting my finger on it. [READ MORE]
Need to troubleshoot SQL Server 2005 memory settings? Not sure where to look to measure SQL 2000 memory pressure? Kevin lays out your options in today’s podcast.
You can view this video in higher quality or your favorite portable formats at:
Imagine you’re working on a new project. It’s an important project and its success will be a big win for the organization. You were chosen for the job because of your competency, skill, and effectiveness. You get things like this done all the time and have a track record for pulling it off. Now that the project is underway, you’re finding that trust and support you need from management is absent. Instead, you’ve got a micromanaging boss, who’s put so many additional requirements on your for reporting, meetings, and whatever their favorite nit-picking happens to be that management is actually an impediment to successfully completing the project!
Bad bosses are the suck
The bad news is that this happens to all of us at some time or another. In fact, it’s so common that exit interviews show that nearly one in three professionals have changed jobs to escape micromanaging or unreasonable bosses. The good news is that you can survive and even prosper under this sort of “boss behaving badly” scenario.
The WHY of Micromanaging
The first step towards surviving a micromanager is to understand why they are micromanaging. There are three main reasons that bosses micromanage:
It’s Not the Boss, It’s You: A little people-watching should reveal to you whether the manager acts this way with everyone on the team or whether it’s just you. Yes – it actually is possible that you’re the only one (or a part of small number of people) in a larger team that are getting the “breathing down your neck” treatment from the boss. If this is the case, you’re probably perceived as not meeting the standards of professionalism where you work. I had one colleague complain about being micromanaged by our mutual boss, while never seeming to realize that she left early both for lunch and at the end of the day and seemed to arrive late most mornings and when returning from lunch. On top of that , the quality of her work was mediocre on her best days and was frequently late. Sadly – some people need to be micromanaged or the manager might never get an honest day’s work out of them.
Bad bosses make the team less effective, not more effective
It’s the Boss, and They Know It: This second sort of boss is probably the worst kind that you’ll ever worked for in my professional career (stints at fast-food places as a teenager excluded). This sort of boss revels in being the boss. They don’t really care if you’re good at what you do or if the team is particularly successful (though they don’t want their team to become an abject failure since this puts them in jeopardy with their own boss). Instead, this boss is most interested in the exercise of power and might do things like require undue approval, frequent reports and status meetings, and frequent revisions to the work you’re doing. This sort of micromanaging boss is also prone to publicly disciplining their subordinates. There’s seldom much you can do to make this work environment better and, almost always, the team experiences high turnover – losing most members with 24-36 months.
It’s the Boss, and They DON’T Know It: This final type of boss is one that you can work with. And if they’re otherwise a rational and reasonable person, someone you can probably prosper with. In this case, the micromanaging boss is unconsciously motivated by fear and anxiety. At some point in their past, they failed miserably due to some situation that went out of their control. Now that they’re in charge, they’ll do everything in their power (subconsciously or not) to make sure they never experience that again usually by micromanaging everyone on their team.
If the scenario is about your work behavior, then fix that first. Don’t give a micromanaging boss any excuse to watch you like a hungry hawk by being surfing the Internet, hanging out at the water cooler, or not being timely. If the scenario is about a boss who uses micromanagement as a means of exercising power, simply get out of that team as soon as possible. But what about the third scenario?
Anxiety Manifested as Micromanaging
So what are the tips and tricks needed to get past the boss who micromanages due to a subconscious but exaggerated sense of anxiety? Again, the good news here is that by properly understanding what keeps these bosses up at night, you can answer those needs out of your own initiative thereby giving them good cause to loosen their grip on your every move and show some trust in your talents.
Prioritize: Micromanagers tend to change priorities on the fly because they get caught up in specific, very granular details on a project. They’re notorious for trying to add a multitude of tiny changes that, when taken as a whole, double the amount of effort. However, the granular details are usually unimportant to the success of the project. So it’s your job to keep the micromanager’s eyes on the prize and not focused on the minutia.
Communicate frequently about progress on the project in general (see below).
Send ad hoc emails summarizing any changes in scope and your understanding of the boss’ expectations regarding those changes. Make sure that you also estimate a change in scope to the teams overall ability to meet its objectives. One big change or lots of small changes are equally likely to derail a project or make a team ineffective. Make sure that you explain that sort of impact in your recap email.
It’s even more important to provide recap emails if a scope change comes out of a verbal exchange. Verbal exchanges, after all, don’t have a paper trail if there’s ever a dispute.
Develop a shorthand or code for prioritizing work that makes sense to you both. Any time the micromanager tries to pile on too much work or make too many changes, make sure that they rate such work on a scale of importance. It doesn’t matter what the scale is, 5-stars or 5-alarms for urgent, as long as you both agree. If you have 30 low-priority action items on your list and 1 top-priority item, you both already know which one you should be working on.
Perhaps most importantly, use the micromanager’s nit-pickiness to renegotiate priorities to your advantage. If they ask for such big changes that it impacts the project deadlines or ask for so many small changes that you can’t make any forward progress, don’t say “Yes, I can do that”. Instead, any time they suggest more than a very minor change, tell them “I can do that, but only if one of these other changes drops of the list. Which of these do you want me to put on the backburner?” They’ll feel engaged and see your own level of engagement and dedication to the project as a positive.
As an add-on to reprioritizing, you must put double-emphasis on any action items that you need from them. In a sense, you should micromanage them! By making clear where you need their help to make the project a success, you keep their eyes on the big goal. Plus, by forcing them to refocus on their own responsibilities, you gain a little extra space to get your work done without them constantly looking over your shoulder.
Overcommunicate: Micromanagers, whether they’ll admit it or not, are afraid of not knowing what’s going on. You can conquer the micromanager’s need to be constantly “up in your stuff” by providing them timely updates on your projects and activities.
Provide email updates more often than you might normally like, a couple times per week at least. The emails should not only detail progress on the project, but also provide a steady stream of reassurances that you’re on track regarding timelines and that you’re aware of the importance of the project. This alone will go a long way towards quelling their inner anxieties.
Make sure that they call meetings that accomplish a specific goal: deciding on an important strategy, setting the priority on a bunch of work orders, anything but mere status updates. Status meetings are a huge waste of time. Everyone at the table waits and wastes 50 minutes in a 60 minute meeting, since each person talks in turn and usually try to hard to make themselves look good in the process.
Don’t hide behind email. We have many types of communication available, each with their own degree of intimacy and immediacy. Email is distant. If things aren’t going well or your own stress-levels are going through the roof, sit down with the micromanager for a talk. If you’re not geographically close, ask for a phone call. It’s easy to turn a blind eye to an IM and to procrastinate on an email. But an in-person meeting sets a very different tone.
During this conversation, remind the manager that you’re there to make their projects (and by extension, them) a success and that “administrivia” has reached a level where it’s impeding your ability to engender their success.
You might want to appeal to their sense of propriety – every business relationship is an implicit contract (if not an explicit one). That means both parties have certain responsibilities. The agreement between superior and subordinate is “you do want I ask and I’ll try to make that as easy for you as possible”. You can appeal to the micromanager’s ingrained desire to keep an agreement by gently showing where their side of the agreement has gone off course. Demonstrate how much work you’ve accomplished using your email paper trail as evidence, then use the same evidence to show the degree of unneeded or additional work heaped on you. Refocus the micromanager on the project goals and deadlines, and then point out that there’s simply too much micromanaging, er, work required to meet the deadline. In a sense, you’re steering them to the decision that you want them to make – more trust to get things done, a little less ad hoc reports, fewer boring and unproductive meetings.
Use inclusive pronouns like “we” and “us” to set a collaborative and consensual tone, something like “We’ve got way too much on our plate to get all of this done by the deadline. We don’t want this to be a flop. Which of these can we drop to get us back on track?”
Tenacity: Keep at it. Micromanagers act the way they do literally because of who they are. You can very likely build enough trust with a micromanaging boss to earn a few feet of breathing space and less scrupulous attention detail. But you’ll never fully escape it if you work for a micromanager. You’ll have to build attention to detail and overcommunication into your daily routine. As it says on the shampoo bottle, “lather, rinse, repeat” then get up and do it again tomorrow.
Gimme the Cliff Notes
Micromanagers make us feel untrusted and stymied by their constant need for tediously detailed and frequent updates, constant changes to minor details of our work, and overly developed attention to administrative details that really don’t matter in our daily job. But there’s hope! By proactively micromanaging the micromanager, you can build trust and earn their respect. Overcommunicate on the details of your work. Constantly seek their explicit prioritization for changes to your scope of work. Make sure that any changes are rated for importance and evaluated against the overall goals of the team. And when things get bad enough, schedule a meeting to realign project tasks and to get the project back towards accomplishing your mutual goals within a defined deadline.
