Archive for February, 2012

What IT Managers Need To Do About Bad Apples On Their IT Team

Thursday, February 23rd, 2012
Image Credit
Just A Few Bad Apples Can Spoil It For Everyone Else

Just A Few Bad Apples Can Spoil It For Everyone Else

One of the most important jobs that a IT manager has to do is to manage the people that work for him or her. I’d like to be able to tell you that all of those people are going to be start performers. However, that’s not the case. Where an IT manager can run into real problems is when some of the team are bad apples – lazy, angry, or just downright incompetent. What’s an IT manager to do?

Why A Bad Apple Is Such A Big Deal

Doesn’t every IT team have a few bad apples? Isn’t that just something that a IT manager needs to learn to live with? Yes, the bad apples exist, but no that’s not something that an IT manager needs to live with – it’s too expensive.

Robert Sutton has taken a look into just how expensive bad apples can be. What he’s found is that research has shown that just a single bad apple in a group can bring the group’s overall performance down by 30-40%.

It turns out that the behaviors that a bad apple brings to the table, incompetence, anger, and laziness, are very contagious. The reason for this is well knows: Bad behaviors are stronger than good behaviors. A bad apple causes negative thoughts and feelings to occur in other members of the IT team and these last longer than any positive thoughts or feelings that they may receive from positive coworkers.

What An IT Manager Needs To Do About Bad Apples

The first thing that an IT manager needs to do is to show some leadership and make sure that bad apples don’t find their way into their IT team in the first place. The concept is simple, it’s the execution that can be hard to do.

When you are interviewing someone to come work in your IT team, they may appear to be the perfect candidate. They may have gone to a great school, worked for the best companies, and appear to have just exactly what you are looking for in an IT worker. However, they may also be a bad apple.

What you need is some way to detect that they are a bad apple before you actually hire them. One way to go about doing this is to invite them to actually come and perform tasks for your company for a day or two.

By having them perform the work that you’ll be having them do in situations that are realistic, you’ll quickly be able to evaluate their personality. You can find out if they are helpful to others and if they know when to ask for help themselves.

If a bad apple does slip by your new employee screening process, then an IT manager needs to quickly take management action. There are a number of different options that you have at your disposal. You can try warnings, coaching, and incentives. In the end, you always have the “nuclear option” available to you – physically isolating the bad apple.

Sometimes the bad apple may be one of your IT stars. No matter. The damage that a bad apple can do far outshines the value that a star brings to your IT team. Do the right thing and either transform or get rid of your bad apples. Your team will thank you for it.

What All Of This Means For You

Not all IT employees are created equal. Some are stars and some may be bad apples. An IT manager needs to take immediate action when a bad apple is detected.

A single bad apple can hold back an entire team and reduce their effectiveness. IT managers need to establish screening techniques that will prevent bad apples from being hired in the first place. If a bad apple does somehow get into the IT team, then the IT manager needs to take steps to get them to change – or to leave!

It’s always more fun for an IT manager to focus on the star performers in the IT team. However, it turns out that spotting the bad apples and making sure that they don’t get a chance to spoil things for the rest of the team will go a long way to boosting any IT dream team’s productivity!

- Dr. Jim Anderson
Blue Elephant Consulting –
Your Source For Real World IT Management Skills™

Question For You: Do you think an IT manager should even bother trying to change a bad apple or should they just be let go?

Click here to get automatic updates when The Accidental IT Leader Blog is updated.

P.S.: Free subscriptions to The Accidental IT Leader Newsletter are now available. Learn what you need to know to do the job. Subscribe now: Click Here!

What We’ll Be Talking About Next Time

Can’t an IT manager just rise above all of the politics? I mean really, with all of the technology leadership decisions that need to be made along with the business processes that need to be streamlined, can’t we all just skip the politics and get down to business? It turns out that we can’t and that means that as an IT manager you’re going to have to show some management and make sure that your dream team is good at playing the office politics game…

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Why IT Managers May Be The Company’s Biggest Security Risk

Thursday, February 16th, 2012
Image Credit Your actions may be inviting danger into the company

Your actions may be inviting danger into the company

The world is a very dangerous place. Your company has lots and lots of data on its computers that bad people would like to get their hands on. Thank goodness your company has taken care to secure every way that there is for outsiders to get into your company’s network. Oh, wait a minute. Maybe there’s one way that hasn’t been secured – you!

What We Are Doing Wrong

Over the last 30 years or so, corporations have spent untold billions of dollars to create secure corporate networks. Firewalls keep the bad guys out and strict corporate policies restrict just exactly what can be connected to the corporate network.

That’s all fine and good until you, the IT Manager, comes along. Even though you lead a team of IT professionals, for a couple of very important reasons you may be your company’s single greatest security threat. The first of these reasons is simply because you know too much. In your head is a lot of information that both hackers and your company’s competition would love to get their hands on.

This means that every action that you take online runs the risk of exposing confidential company information to the outside world. This could be as simple as when you update your LinkedIn profile with what you are currently working on to when you use your personal Gmail account while you are at work.

The second way that you may be your company’s biggest security threat is by your love of all that is new and shiny. IT Managers are notorious for being the first kids on the block to go out and buy the latest tech gadget no matter if it’s the latest iPhone or iPad. Once you have this fantastic new device and you start to use it all the time, you’ll of course bring it into work. When you do this, you run all sorts of risks.

Hanging A Sign Out

If you were a bad guy and you wanted to break into your company’s corporate network, how would you go about doing it? Considering that companies have had enough time to secure their corporate networks from people breaking in from the outside, you’d probably do the next best thing: try to break in from the inside.

You’d go about doing this by finding out who worked for the company. Then you’d engage in a little of what’s called “spear phishing”. This is when you send someone who works for the company an email that looks like it is coming from somebody else inside the company asking for usernames, passwords, nuclear launch codes, etc.

We’ve all been trained to not respond to spam emails that we get all the time. However, these spear phishing ones are a lot harder to detect because they look like they are legit. We can become a phishing target by sharing a lot of personal information on the web. LinkedIn is a prime hunting ground for those would like to do us harm – there is a lot of key information shared out there.

Doing It Ourselves

Another way that we can cause great harm to the company is when we bring our newest and shiniest electronic gadget with us to work. As the Iranians found out with their centrifuge machines, a computer from home can contain all sorts of nasty viruses and bad things.

The company has polices about what can be connected to the corporate network and what public web sites we are allowed to use while at work. As IT Manager you may believe that these rules don’t apply to you — after all, you’re part of management; however, that’s where you’d be wrong. Yes, the rules might be an inconvenience sometimes, but they were created for a reason.

Couple all of the standard threats and then add in today’s popular social media sites and you have a real problem on your hands. The fact that hackers can reach out to you via numerous social media sites means that they are just that much closer to getting into your corporate network.

What We Need To Be Doing

So clearly it’s a big scary world out there and we are not immune from taking steps to be part of the solution, not the problem. We know that we should be showing some leadership, but what should we be doing?

First off, just make it a personal rule that you’ll never email any confidential information such as user names or passwords to anyone no matter if you think that they work for the company or not. If somebody needs that information, have them come to your office and pick it up.

Next, make it a policy to never open any attachments that have been added to an email that you’ve received. This is how the bad guys get you to run code that opens up doors into your corporate network for them. Make it a habit to not open any attachments until you get into a meeting or a call where the person who you think sent it to you can confirm that they really did.

What All Of This Means For You

So now that we understand that the single greatest threat to the safety of our company’s digital assets may be us, what does all of this mean? It’s actually pretty straightforward. We need to become more responsible in how we behave.

We need to always be aware of the fact that there are people out there who are always looking for a way to break into our company’s computers. Due to our special position in the company, if we’re not careful then our actions may open a door for them to gain access to the company’s network. You need to do the right thing and set a good example for your IT dream team.

I like the newest flashy device just as much as you do. However, when it comes to keeping the company’s network safe, it appears as though we need to separate our personal life (and devices) from those that we use at work. Don’t worry – eventually all good things will find their way into our office the right way!

- Dr. Jim Anderson
Blue Elephant Consulting –
Your Source For Real World IT Management Skills™

Question For You: Can you think of a situation in which it would be appropriate for you to use your personal email as a part of your job?

Click here to get automatic updates when The Accidental IT Leader Blog is updated.

P.S.: Free subscriptions to The Accidental IT Leader Newsletter are now available. Learn what you need to know to do the job. Subscribe now: Click Here!

What We’ll Be Talking About Next Time

One of the most important jobs that a IT manager has to do is to manage the people that work for him or her. I’d like to be able to tell you that all of those people are going to be start performers. However, that’s not the case. Where an IT manager can run into real problems is when some of the team are bad apples – lazy, angry, or just downright incompetent. What’s an IT manager to do?

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IT Manager Skills: The Problem With Unhappy IT Employees Who Leave

Thursday, February 9th, 2012
If you have to leave, don't leave unhappy

If you have to leave, don't leave unhappy

In tough times, every IT manager has seen their share of IT workers leave the company. Sometimes they leave because they find a job that they think will be a better fit for them or sometimes the company tells them to leave. No matter what the cause, the one thing that you don’t want them to do is leave unhappy. I’ve got some bad news for you – that’s exactly what is happening.

Why You Don’t Want Your Employees Leaving Unhappy

A recent survey of workers who had just left their jobs revealed that more than 75% of them would not recommend the firm that they had just left to others. This could quickly turn into a big problem for IT managers.

Of course this has always been a problem. However, it has only recently become a much bigger problem. Joe Light over at the Wall Street Journal reports that back in 2008, 42% of workers who had just left their job would not recommend the firm that they had just been working for. Clearly this number has grown since then and that’s where the problem is coming from.

You might be saying to yourself “So what? They left the company and so of course they are going to have a low opinion of it.” No matter what the reason for their leaving was, if they are walking away with bad thoughts about your IT team then it’s going to make your IT recruiting efforts that much harder to do successfully.

Remember that getting the best and the brightest to come work in your IT team takes two things: you need to have a job opening and they have to be willing to work for you. Since IT workers are so well connected, potential new workers often seek out and get advice about accepting a job offer from former employees of a firm. Now do you see the problem?

The reason that former employees are so unhappy is pretty clear. During the most recent economic downturn, most IT workers feel that they got some pretty poor treatment by their IT team. The result of this is that they were left with the feeling that both the company and the IT team simply didn’t care about them. Therefore, when they leave the company, they have a low opinion about the IT team that they have just separated from.

What You Can Do To Fix This Problem

As a IT manager you need to show some leadership and accept the fact that you are always going to have employees leaving your IT team. No matter if it is because of their decision or because of a downsizing, there will be a constant outflow of former employees.

What you can do is to take steps to control how this stream of former IT workers views the company. The key is to realize that just because they’ve left the company doesn’t mean that the IT team’s relationship with them needs to end.

The most important thing that a IT manager needs to do is to make sure that you don’t lose touch with employees that have left your IT team. The reason for this is that when it comes time to find new employees, referrals from former employees can be a great way to find the best candidates.

If you are discovering that finding and hiring the right types of IT workers has become difficult, then taking the time to build a network of former IT workers might be well worth the effort. Hiring candidates that know what they are getting into means that you have a much better chance of them sticking around for the long haul.

There is a hidden benefit to taking the time to keep in touch with employees who have left the IT team. It turns out that just because somebody has left doesn’t mean that they won’t come back. Some firms have discovered that between 13-19% of the employees that leave eventually come back. It’s numbers like that that can put a smile on a IT manager’s face.

What All Of This Means For You

One of the jobs a IT manager does is to attract the best and the brightest IT workers to come work for your IT dream team — this is a key management skill. The best way to make this happen is to make sure that the “word on the street” about your company is that it’s a great place to work.

If employees are leaving your firm and they are unhappy when they walk out the door, then you’ve got a problem. They’ll tell their friends not to go to work for your company. This is going to make recruiting and hiring the best IT workers that much harder to do.

IT managers who realize this can take action to ensure that former employees are speaking well of the company by taking the time to stay in touch with high-value employees after they have left the firm. Doing this can often result in them returning or recommending the firm to their friends.

An IT team is only as good as the employees who work in it. It’s an IT manager’s job to make sure that former employees talk well of the company and ensure that recruiting future employees will be that much easier.

- Dr. Jim Anderson
Blue Elephant Consulting –
Your Source For Real World IT Management Skills™

Question For You: Do you think that a CIO should communicate directly with former employees or should someone else handle this task?

Click here to get automatic updates when The Accidental IT Leader Blog is updated.

P.S.: Free subscriptions to The Accidental IT Leader Newsletter are now available. Learn what you need to know to do the job. Subscribe now: Click Here!

What We’ll Be Talking About Next Time

The world is a very dangerous place. Your company has lots and lots of data on its computers that bad people would like to get their hands on. Thank goodness your company has taken care to secure every way that there is for outsiders to get into your company’s network. Oh, wait a minute. Maybe there’s one way that hasn’t been secured – you!

Tags: , , , , , , ,
Posted in retention | No Comments »

Dr. Jim Anderson To Speak At 16th Annual Pink Conference

Friday, February 3rd, 2012

Dr. Jim Anderson Will Speak At The 16th Annual Pink Conference

 

Dr. Jim Anderson has been asked to deliver two speeches at the 16th Annual Pink Conference. The role that Blue Elephant Consulting plays in the IT industry has been recognized as being a thought leader and the organizers of the Pink Conference have asked Dr. Anderson to share some of his insights with the conference attendees. Dr. Anderson will be delivering two speeches at the conference in Las Vegas on Monday, February 20th.

The first speech that Dr. Anderson will be giving will be giving is titled “The Secret To Knowing Where You Are Going“. In this speech Dr. Anderson will be discussing the Balanced Scorecard management technique and showing the audience how it can be applied to an IT department.

Dr. Anderson’s goal will be to build a complete IT balanced scorecard during his presentation. He’ll also be showing how a single balanced scorecard can be used to monitor a department’s performance, communicate it’s strategy, and even ensure the proper execution of its strategy.

Dr. Anderson’s second speech is called “Secrets For Getting Them To Listen“. In this speech Dr. Anderson will be covering the common mistakes that IT professionals make when they are asked to deliver a presentation.

It’s not that they don’t know the material, rather it’s how they create their presentation and how they deliver it. Dr. Anderson will address both of these issues by using his presentation to create a complete IT presentation the correct way. He’ll introduce and use the Blue Elephant Presentation System to create an effective presentation that the audience will be talking about long after the presentation is over.

You are invited to join Dr. Anderson and attend both of his presentations — all you have to do is sign up for the 16th Annual Pink Conference. Here’s the link and I hope to see you there!

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Why IT Managers Can’t Pay Attention And What To Do About It

Thursday, February 2nd, 2012
Image Credit Why Can't IT Managers just keep their minds on the task at hand?

Why Can't IT Managers just keep their minds on the task at hand?

How’s that job going IT manager? Do you find yourself and your IT team more and more often with too much to do and too few hands with which to do it? If so then maybe both of you are suffering from “IT Manager Attention Deficit Syndrome”. What can you do about it?

The Madness Of Trying To Do Too Much

So just exactly what does an IT manager do? A lot of what we are asked to take care of has to do with the routine stuff: keeping systems up, making sure that we have enough of the right kinds of IT staffing, completing IT projects, etc. It’s when we get sidetracked with the big “special projects” that our leadership can go off track.

Special projects, no matter if they are IT focused projects or company-wide projects that impact IT, can easily suck up a great deal of a IT manager’s limited time. We all know that these types of projects are important to the company in the long run; however, they are very expensive in terms of the time that they require in the short term.

What all this means is that IT managers need to learn how to live double lives. On one hand they need to keep doing what they’ve always been doing: using their management skills to make sure that the day-to-day IT department operations keep running smoothly. On the other hand, they need to make sure that each milestone of the special project is met on time and on budget. What’s an IT manager to do?

How To Keep It All In Balance

A big question that faces every IT manager is how best to keep themselves and their IT team on track given all of the work that they have to get done. One solution, of course, is to maintain a list of the various ongoing projects. This list can be used to make sure that you check on each project’s status every day.

A better solution is to realize who’s actually doing all of the work: your team. This means that you need to carve the time out of your schedule to socialize with them and let them know that you appreciate them keeping the ship running while at the same time working on the special projects.

Having meetings to allow different members of your team to update everyone on where their part of the program is at is a great idea. However, this part of the solution can be overdone. Make sure that you hold the right number of meetings – not too many and not too few. Remember that time spent in meeting is time that could be used making progress on the various projects!

What All Of This Means For You

In our hurry-up world, more and more IT managers are discovering that they have too much to do and not enough time in which to do it. What this means is that if they aren’t careful, things are going to start to get dropped.

In order to prevent this from happening, IT managers need to first detect that they have become overloaded. Once they know this, they need to take action. One thing that they can do is to take the time to let their IT dream team know that they appreciate all that they are doing for them. This will allow everyone to know that you understand that they are trying to do both their normal jobs as well as all of the IT special projects that seem to pop up.

It seems sort of counter-intuitive that the best way for a IT manager to manage too many responsibilities for himself and his team is to slow down and take time to connect with his team. However, it turns out that by doing this you can keep everyone working together and help everyone complete the things that need to be done.

- Dr. Jim Anderson
Blue Elephant Consulting –
Your Source For Real World IT Management Skills™

Question For You: What’s the best way to detect when you and your IT team have become overloaded?

Click here to get automatic updates when The Accidental IT Leader Blog is updated.

P.S.: Free subscriptions to The Accidental IT Leader Newsletter are now available. Learn what you need to know to do the job. Subscribe now: Click Here!

What We’ll Be Talking About Next Time

In tough times, every IT manager has seen their share of IT workers leave the company. Sometimes they leave because they find a job that they think will be a better fit for them or sometimes the company tells them to leave. No matter what the cause, the one thing that you don’t want them to do is leave unhappy. I’ve got some bad news for you – that’s exactly what is happening.

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Posted in decision | No Comments »