Arnie Roland, SQL Server MVP and Doer of Good Deeds
It seems like I’ve known Arnie Rowland (blog | twitter) since the dawn of time. But it’s really more like the last several years, or at least since Arnie achieved Microsoft MVP status, that I really got to know him. Arnie has also been trying to get me to speak to the user group he leads in Portland, but coordinating it has been fiendishly difficult. I hope to get out to Portland in 2011 (no promises, Arnie!!!).
One of the activities that Arnie is leading that has deeply impressed me is Project Phoenix. Described here:
…we are inviting unemployed or underemployed developers to propose a software project for a non-profit agency, school, or church. The idea is that we will provide a package of the latest software, tools, and training resources to help you improve your skills, get up to date with current technologies, gain practical experience, potentially earn a recommendation for your efforts, and in general, enjoy the feeling of accomplishing something useful for others…
I’m a big proponent of professional ethics and paying it forward in ways like this. So I wanted to discuss this further with Arnie.
Here’s a bit of our discussion…
Kevin>> Tell me about Project Phoenix. What does it hope to accomplish?
Arnie>> I appreciate the opportunity to introduce Project Phoenix to your readers. We are awarding a package that includes an MSDN Ultimate Subscription, software tools, training, and books to unemployed, or significantly underemployed, developers that propose and undertake a software project for a non-profit, school, or church. We are making one award each week of the rest of the year –more than 30 in total. The idea is to provide the recipient access to the tools needed to improve his/her skills, an opportunity to gain practical experience, the potential to earn a recommendation and/or referral –and to positively contribute to society as a form of ‘give-back’. No free lunch, just sweat equity –the kind that makes us all feel good for the effort. Additionally, one of our goals is to increase consciousness amongst IT professionals about the needs of the non-profit sector. Many agencies, schools, and churches need our help –yet their budgets often don’t allow them to fully engage with us. When they are lucky, they get half-baked solutions to try and solve the complex problems of our society. That’s just not right.
Kevin>> In what way can we help?
Arnie>> Great question Kevin. I ask your readers to help spread the word about Project Phoenix. Tell any eligible developers –heck, tell all developers you know since someone you tell may have an unemployed friend or relative. Bringing Project Phoenix to the attention of non-profits, schools, and churches will help to increase the potential that a profound solution will bubble up and out. And for those readers that are not eligible to participate in Project Phoenix because they are employed, we challenge you to ask your church, your kids’ schools, your local non-profit agencies how you can use your skills to help them with their mission. Participate in, or organize, a local ‘Give Camp’. Consider how you can give back to society some token of your appreciation for being so fortunate.
Kevin>> There are a multitude of ways to volunteer. What attracted you to Project Phoenix?
Kevin>> I had been presented with these very expensive software gifts to just hand out as I saw fit. I observed that some similar gifts were being handed out to folks that could guess what number is between 1 and 3, or some similarly lame exercise, some were handed out as ‘door prizes’ –sometimes to winners that didn’t really have any use for, or place significant value on, the gift. Some time ago, after giving out such a door prize, I was contacted by the recipient who was exploring how to gain some value, maybe a trade, or even a sell. I realized that often we in the industry were bestowing very valuable gifts to folks that just didn’t place much value on the gift. I wanted to do something different. I decided that seeking out those who clearly understood the value of the gift, and were willing to offer some of their time and effort in exchange had some potential. Tying the pieces together, I decided to create a ‘package’ of value for the recipient so that he/she was motivated to take on a real life project for a deserving non-profit, school, or church, thereby creating additional value from the participants’ efforts to learn to use new tools. Unemployed developers are quite unlikely to be able to afford the package of software, tools, books and training –yet they would most certainly gain significant value from the ‘gift’ if they used it to increase their employment opportunities.
Kevin>> I’ve written a lot about the need for IT professionals to demonstrate good ethics on a daily basis in their profession. Do you think there’s a correlation between good ethics and volunteerism?
Arnie>> Ethics is about doing the right thing. We in this industry have skills that are needed by societal agents that work diligently to better life for less fortunate members of our society. The right thing is to offer some of our time, some of our skills, to help. We need more IT professionals willing to give up a TV program, willing to give up a football or basketball game, or willing to forgo a few hours of video gaming, and go out and do the right thing.
Kevin>> Project Phoenix is great for IT professionals because it plays off of their strengths in technology. But one of the downsides of IT is that the technology often puts distance between people, for example using an email when a phone call might better serve the situation. Does Project Phoenix do anything to connect us with real, live human beings and make a difference in their lives?
Arnie>> I only wish it did. We recognize that many of the projects we award will be completed without any direct personal contact between the developer and the agency. Phone calls, emails, perhaps online meetings will be the norm. That is an unfortunate fact of life in our profession. We hope and encourage that folks receiving Project Phoenix awards will be inclined to share their experiences with others –perhaps at User Groups. However, we are helping folks that are directly interacting with their clients. If the projects we award reduce the administrative burden for those working in non-profit agencies, schools and churches, and allow them to have more direct contact with their clients –we have succeeded in increasing social benefit.
Kevin>> What would the results of doing work with Project Phoenix look like?
Arnie>> For the individual who proposed a project for a non-profit, school, or church, and was awarded, there will be the satisfaction of having completed a ‘real world’ project while learning new tools and technologies. There will be the satisfaction of knowing that their work is benefiting some organization that would not have been able to purchase the solution. There will be the potential for a recommendation from the non-profit organization. There will be something significant to offer during job interviews. And another result is that some of the projects we award will be available in Codeplex for others to build upon; the efforts of our awards may seed many additional projects.
Arnie>> We recognize that we are seeding over 30 projects, and yet there is no insurance that these projects will actually complete and be deployed. So we have created a ‘completion bonus’. In March 2011, we will be evaluating the completed and deployed projects. One of the developers and projects that we previously awarded will be featured on the TechEd 2011 website and provided a full TechEd 2011 Conference pass courtesy of the Microsoft TechEd 2011 organizers. Telerik, a vendor supplying software development tools, will cover the airfare and hotel expenses to get the winner to TechEd, as well as feature the developer on their website. We are still working out the criteria for this excellent project completion bonus.
Kevin>> What are the next steps?
Arnie>> Continue spreading the word about Project Phoenix. Participate in, or organize, a local Give Camp. Ask your local non-profits, schools, churches how you can use your skills to help them. Society improves because we all care and take action. Show your care.
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!
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.
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.
While searching for a job, the interview is your opportunity to showcase your talents and the strengths that you bring to an organization. But I have a few more random thoughts about conducting your job search that I thought were worth mentioning.
The Personal Touch
The first thought is a quick one. In our high-speed technology driven world, a personal touch still makes a difference. So be sure to send a thank you e-mail after concluding an interview, assuming you liked the company and the opportunity. There was a time when a hand-written thank you note was the appropriate response. However, current times require us to respond a bit faster than the post can deliver. So you’ll be much better served by writing a sincere note of appreciation to the interviewing officer(s). Remember, interviewing for a job is a form of competition and actions you can undertake on your part to make yourself appear to be the more considerate and thoughtful team player also make you more memorable and desirable to potential new bosses.
References are Worth Their Weight in Gold
The second thought is a bit more involved, but it boils down to the idea that your references are as close to your professional reputation as a potential employer can get. Therefore, you want to build as positive a set of referrals as you possibly can. Here are some tips – when you begin looking for a new job, be sure to let the friends and associates that you’ve listed them (or plan to list them) as references. Make sure that they understand what the job is like that you’re applying for and also make sure that they know what, out of your manifold job qualifications, are the key ones you’d like them to mention if they’re called on for a reference.
Impossible Job Search?
Also, try to select a few references from different levels of your work experience. A candidate who has several glowing referrals from coworkers is good, but a candidate who has glowing referrals from a boss (even if it was from two or three jobs in the past), some coworkers, and a subordinate or two is even better. References are seen by potential employers as a means of understanding how you’ve worked in with your team in the past. So the more perspectives on your work you can offer, the better.
Bad References are an Albatross Around Your Neck
Finally, when it comes to references, remember that YOU are in control. So never provide the names of people as references for whom you don’t know what they’ll say. Certainly, you don’t want anyone to provide scripted answers. However, you do want to know, in general terms, that Sally will be able to talk about how good you were at meeting deadlines and that Nigel will be able to vouch for the excellent process you developed to provide the company with a bulletproof disaster recovery process.
I once had a friend who we were considering hiring. I called his first reference, who was a boss from two jobs in the past, who only said that she remembered who he was but that she could not remember anything else about his job performance. Two of his references would not return my calls. And a third reference, a coworker of his, only said that he was a competent programmer who was punctual. Does this paint a good picture for my friend? Absolutely not. No one was willing to go on the record that his performance was ever anything better than mediocre. And most people, in fact, either wouldn’t respond or simply hedged. In a situation like that, you’re been better off not providing references than to provide references who are evasive or unwilling to impact their own reputation by commenting on yours.
So, to conclude, try to apply a few nice, personal touches after the interview. A quick email thanking those who interviewed you is a good start. Also, remember the importance of your references. Try to build a handful of strong references from several different levels of your professional background. Choose references that will give honest and unforced appraisals of your work while also provide good things to say about you. Checking references is one of the last hurdles in landing a new job, but also one of the most important. However, it’s also one that you are most able to control.
You’ve probably found that the prefix “lead” is a fairly common occurrence in the technology world. We have “lead developers”, “lead DBAs”, “lead architects”, and “lead consultants”. Yet, we don’t have “lead managers”, “lead directors”, or “lead VPs”. Why is that?
Well, there are probably a number of different reasons for having “lead” technologist titles depending on who you ask. For example, the HR department might say that adding “lead” to a technologist’s title justifies the better salary that the company had to pay to acquire that specific talent. The IT department chiefs might say that adding “lead” to a title is a way to designate the most experienced and skilled members of staff. While people actually holding these titles, I think, are likely to say that “lead” is in their title because they informal leaders of their respective teams. And I say informal leaders because they drive opinion and help set priorities, but very few of them, in my experience, actually have neither the outright power to hire and fire team members nor the power to grant raises, promote or demote, etc.
Compare this situation with managers, directors, and vice-presidents, all of whom have the explicit authority to hire, fire, promote, demote, and otherwise make life wonderful or miserable for their subordinates. Because their authority is explicit, there’s no need to toss in a “lead” with their title. Ironically, people in these positions are expected to manage the operation of their team but very few of them exhibit qualities of leadership (more on that in another post).
The authority inherent in these two categories of jobs, lead technologists and managers, similarly breaks down into two broad categories, influence versus authority. Management has authority. The boss can come in and simply tell you what to do. But technology leads must get things done through influence. And while authority is something invested in the manager by the company, influence is something that is earned.
So here are some tips on growing your influence in the organization. Influence is a direct outgrowth of credibility. So if you’re not yet the lead on your team but want to be, or if you are the lead and want to enhance your influence, remember these few tips:
A technologist’s credibility stems first from his or her competence with the technology. You’d better have a better than average skill with your technology. You will not be viewed as competent without it. If you’re not competent, you also aren’t credible.
An influencer is also a communicator. If you’re the silent type, or you don’t much voice your opinions, you can be the most competent person on the team but have no influence and, generally, be ignored. You’ll need to formulate opinions readily and voice them frequently. What d’you think about moving the architecture to 64-bit? If you have no opinion on the important questions, then you’re not ready to be the lead.
Be a good listener. Every technologist knows there are a dozen ways to solve a technology problem. Just because you have an opinion about how to tackle the problem doesn’t mean that the rest of the team’s opinion doesn’t matter. Give everyone a hearing and even allow team consensus to settle on the best solution.
Build up your team. Work to get the most talented people you can and then work to get them training to keep them on the cutting edge. The competence and credibility of your team enhances your own credibility.
Always be fair. Fairness heightens your credibility, which in turn leads to greater credibility. Give team mates equal time to speak their mind and don’t be arbitrary. Praise publicly and discipline privately. Never snipe a team mate or even people on other teams and, if you disagree, do so publicly but rationally and based on quantitative reasons. Going on gut feelings will reduce your credibility. And if you don’t win your argument, politely “agree to disagree” then move on. Dredging up the past also reduces your credibility.
Strongly credible lead technologists are then able to use their influence to set the course of their team, assign tasks and jobs to people, drive projects, and implement policies and procedures. Have you ever worked on a team where the team lead lacked credibility? How well did they accomplish these and other tasks they were responsible for?
These tips are just the tip of the iceberg. There are tons more ways to enhance your credibility and, in turn, your influence. If you have another story about how you built up your own or your team’s credibility, lay it on me. I always want to hear your feedback!
Of course, I’m always open to your questions about soft skill questions and will try to address them in future posts.
Peter Drucker, the Father of Modern Busines Management
November 2009 would have been the 100th birthday of famed management guru, Peter Drucker, were he alive today. Now for those of you who don’t know the name, Peter Drucker was no mere guru or simple pundit. He was in fact the father of management and universally acclaimed as the world’s greatest management thinker. Anyone who’s taken a business class, studied for an MBA, or had to deal with an IT project to build a management dashboard has been touched by Peter Drucker. If you have a spare moment, add Drucker’s Concept of the Corporation to your library.
Drucker came upon the scene at a time when management, as a discipline, was a career backwater treated like a red-headed stepchild compared to the other professions. The famed Boston Consulting Group hadn’t been founded yet and McKinsey was perhaps a decade old. A genuine intellectual who stood in the company of Keynes and Wittgenstein, he still managed to illustrate his thoughts in realistic examples taken from literature and history. And he spread his gospel in both the commercial and social sector (as an advisor to the Girl Scouts) from countries near, like USA and throughout Europe, to far, like Japan and China. Even today, his thoughts and ideas are still startlingly relevant.
One of Drucker’s most famous axioms, and I paraphrase, is If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it – what we now call metrics. In IT circles, we most often see metrics come to life as key performance indicators (KPI). KPIs are typically used to track an organizations success in reaching key strategic goals, especially towards hard-to-quantify goals. We used KPIs heavily during my presidency with PASS, and I encourage you to read more about them so that you can implement them in your organization. (Start at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Key_performance_indicator or http://management.about.com/cs/generalmanagement/a/keyperfindic.htm to find more information.)
Here’s a quick primer on KPIs, which might even be enough for you to get started. Remember, a KPI should always be derived from a strategic goal or vision of the organization. It’s a pointless exercise creating KPIs that are tied back to organizational strategy – hence the word key in the title. Rather, KPIs are intended to achieve a very specific result. But I digress. KPIs generally described by the S.M.A.R.T criteria:
SPECIFIC: The KPIs should be specific to the purposes of the organization and aligned with its corporate strategies and vision. They should balance and complement each other, not compete with or confound each other.
MEASUREABLE: A measurable KPI is one that is easy to understand, derived from sensible data points, not from complex indexes. KPIs measure the drivers of business value and are, thus, leading indicators of performance – that is, they’re good predictors of how well the organization is meeting its strategic goals. (As an example, lots of organizations have shifted from magazine based advertising, which is nearly impossible to measure its impact, to web advertising, where you can clearly tell exactly how successful the ad is based on the number of click-throughs).
ACHIEVABLE: KPIs must be owned by an individual or group who is held accountable for its outcomes, event to the point of tying compensation or incentives to their achievement. However, the KPI needs timely, actionable data so that its owner can intervene to improve performance before it’s too late to meet the target.
RELEVANT: You should have a relatively small number of high-value KPIs that focus attention, rather than many KPIs that scatter attention and energy. Your organization should also create their KPIs based on standardized rules and definitions, so that they’re intuitively understandable. KPIs can lose impact over time, they should be periodically reviewed, refreshed, and amended to remain relevant in light of the current business environment.
TIMED: KPIs also need to be context-driven according to the targets and thresholds pertinent to their managers within a specified time frame, usually with milestones at quarter-end and year-end. If, upon review, the KPI is not being met, there should be enough information to trigger a series of corrective actions or positive changes for the organization so they can meet the KPI goal.
If you can't measure it, you can't manage it.
KPIs, just by their very nature, are as much a process as anything else. Since you must constantly measure performance relative to the KPI and, upon occasion, take corrective action, the KPIs become an everyday component of your daily business processes. This strengthens your team and your entire organization. If you’re in a position to start applying KPIs or simply a set of published performance metrics in your organization, I strongly encourage you to do so. And remember, this recommendation comes not from me, but from Peter Drucker, the world’s greatest management thinker.
