In our last installment , I describe the three essential skills I felt were hallmarks of the best and most successful directors that I’ve worked with. Good directors, indeed good strategic leaders of all stripes, usually have at least one or more of these skills: strategic planning, visionary goals, and emotional intelligence. The good news about these skills, and lots of other skills that can advance your career, is that you can learn them. Many people will spend a fortune on a classroom approach to learning these sorts of skills via an MBA. If you’re a penny pincher, you can get a leg … [Read more...]
Plays Well With Others – Upsizing Your Skills With OCW
Filed Under: On-Line Resources, Opinion, Professional Development, SQLServerPedia Syndication, Strategies, Tips & Tricks Tagged With: Best Practices, Career, Goals, Plays Well With Others, Professional Development
DBTA: Getting Up to Speed on the SQL Server Social Media Scene
If you haven't paid attention to the new social media, you're doing yourself a disservice. Just as email was a game-changer in the 1980s and the internet revolutionized society in the 1990s, social media is making a huge impact on the way people work and interact today. Personally, I was skeptical about social networking until some good friends persuaded me to give it a trial run. It seemed like a great way to dither away some valuable time, but I didn't see the business value in the whole proposition until I tried it. [READ MORE] … [Read more...]
Filed Under: Cloud, DBTA, On-Line Resources, Opinion, PASS, Professional Development, SQL Server, SQLServerPedia Syndication, Tips & Tricks, Trends Tagged With: Career, DBA, Professional Development, SQLPASS, SQLSaturday, Tools, Writing
Plays Well With Others – Successful Directors versus Successful Technologists
The skills that enable a person to be a top-tier database professional have very little to do with being a successful member of a board of directors. So what skills are needed for a person to be successful on a board of directors for any large organization? Here are a handful of skills, in no particular order, that I’ve seen demonstrated by very successful directors from days past: Strategic thinking Let’s face it - technology is detail-oriented work. No database professional can be truly effective at their job if they never get the parameters correct when calling a function, can’t … [Read more...]
Filed Under: Challenges, Ethics, Governance, Opinion, PASS, Professional Development, SQLServerPedia Syndication, Strategies Tagged With: Career, Management, Plays Well With Others, Professional Development, SQLPASS
Plays Well With Others – Acing the Interview
In the past few columns, we’ve talked about how to conduct an interview and, dreadfully, how to dismiss a member of your team. I this post I would like to discuss the whole process from the candidate’s point of view. For the job candidate, an interview is your opportunity to showcase your talents and the strengths that you bring to an organization. It’s also your opportunity to demonstrate the unique talents you, as a potential team member, offer. Never forget that interviews are a form of competition, so each and every advantageous characteristic you can demonstrate to your potential … [Read more...]
Filed Under: Opinion, Professional Development, SQLServerPedia Syndication Tagged With: Professional Development
Plays Well With Others – The “Unhiring” Process
It’s not a pleasant topic to discuss. There are typically two general scenarios for involuntary separation – layoffs and termination. Layoffs entail a general reduction in work force due to a need to reduce expenses. Layoffs usually imply that those it affects were dismissed through no fault of their own and that they were otherwise good employees. Termination, on the other hand, indicates that the employee had failed to meet the expectations of the job and was otherwise incompatible with the needs of the employer. This is such an unpleasant topic that people manufacture lots of words to … [Read more...]
Filed Under: Opinion, Professional Development, SQLServerPedia Syndication Tagged With: Best Practices, Management, Plays Well With Others, Professional Development
DBTA: Is it Time for a Professional Code of Ethics for DBAs?
In my many years on the board of directors of the Professional Association for SQL Server (PASS), I frequently exhorted our members to strive for individual achievement and personal excellence. One of the best paths for many SQL Server professionals is through certification, especially if they lack years of demonstrated on-the-job experience. However, certification only paints half the picture. While it might demonstrate, at a minimum, that you passed a test (or several tests) about the database technology, it tells nothing about your standards for good conduct. [READ MORE] … [Read more...]
Filed Under: DBTA, Opinion, Professional Development, Trends Tagged With: Certification, DBTA, Professional Development, SQLPASS
Plays Well With Others – Hiring, Part 3
Fit and Finish Considering how expensive it is to bring on new people into your organization, it really pays dividends to make sure that any new hire is both a good fit for the technical requirements of the job as well as a good fit for the overall culture of the team and organization overall. In part 1 of this series, we talked about the groundwork needed to effectively bring in a new hire. Like database and application design, a little extra preparation in the beginning can save you a lot of heartache later in the process. In part 2 of the series, we talked about various styles of … [Read more...]
Filed Under: Challenges, Opinion, Professional Development, SQLServerPedia Syndication Tagged With: Best Practices, Management, Plays Well With Others, Professional Development
Plays Well With Others – Hiring, Part 2
Interview Styles and Samples There are three basic interview styles you can use when interview technologists: biographical, technical, or behavioral. Each has advantages and disadvantages. Because of this mix of pros and cons, some organizations will mix two or more of the styles, or allow different people in the organization to serially interview the candidate using different styles. We’ll cover each of these styles in a bit more detail and provide some examples of interview questions that you might use with them. BIOGRAPHICAL The biographical interview style offers the advantage of … [Read more...]
Filed Under: Opinion, Professional Development, SQLServerPedia Syndication Tagged With: Management, Plays Well With Others, Professional Development
Plays Well With Others – Hiring, Part 1
Pre-Interview Preparation As I promised in the last post , I’ll be covering hiring in greater detail over the next three installments. Today, I’m going to talk about what goes into effective hiring before the interview ever takes place. Future installments will cover the various interview styles you can choose from in some detail, to be followed by another installment on what sort of team involvement and interview format you choose. The Ideal Candidate Hiring, training, and acclimating a new person to your organization is estimated to cost anywhere from 17-32% of the position’s … [Read more...]
Filed Under: Opinion, Professional Development, SQLServerPedia Syndication Tagged With: Best Practices, Management, Plays Well With Others, Professional Development
Plays Well With Others – A Primer on Hiring
Good hiring practices are vital for any organization. As you move up in ranks, you’ll be given more influence and authority in hiring situations. Unfortunately, most organizations offer no training on how to effectively hire the best candidate nor do they have a formalized policy on how to conduct hiring. The larger your organization, the more likely it is to have a formalized hiring process and well-defined roles for HR and for the hiring manager. Even when the HR department (if it exists) is helpful and has good intentions, they often bring little to the hiring process except to weed out … [Read more...]
Filed Under: Opinion, Professional Development, SQLServerPedia Syndication Tagged With: Career, Management, Plays Well With Others, Professional Development
