Posts Tagged ‘Boss’

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Handling A Promotion Is Something That An IT Leader Needs To Know How To Do

Thursday, July 9th, 2009

When IT Leaders Get Promoted, That Changes EverythingIt may seem a little crazy to talk about how to handle promotions during an economic downturn, but they are still happening (hey, sometimes self-promotion yields results!) Additionally, once the world economy picks up again, there will be even more of them. What’s an IT Leader who was once “one of the guys” to do when he /she is suddenly their boss?

Definitions Count

Nell Minow is the co-founder of The Corporate Library and she’s gone through this very experience. One of the lessons that she’s learned is that how you go about defining things really counts. One of the biggest changes that Minow had to go through was how she defined “we” and “they” (we ALL use these terms everyday). What she discovered was that the wider she made her definition of “we”, the better off everyone was.

Parenting Skills Help

When all of a sudden you find yourself in charge of a group of IT professionals, you may discover just like Minow did that your built-in parenting skills are going to be called on. Your interaction with your team is going to be broken into two types of activities. They will come to you and say “Look at what I did!“, and you’ll have to say “Good job – do more!” Likewise, sometimes they will come to you and say “He took my stuff!” (budget, staff, office) and you’ll have to say “Give it back.”

What To Do Right After You Are Promoted

Immediately after you are promoted, you need to have a talk with your former colleagues. Minow points out that your relationship with them has been changed and this needs to be addressed. She used this as an opportunity to say “If you have a problem, then I have a problem.” However, at the same time she told them “I refuse to be responsible for a problem that is not brought to my attention.” Minow also insists that anytime someone brings her a problem, they also have to propose a solution to it. Not just any solution, she insists that the solution must cost less than the problem!

Final Thoughts

We all love to be promoted. It’s an acknowledgement of what we’ve been able to accomplish at our job. However, every IT Leader knows that promotions change the relationships that we’ve developed with our colleagues. These changes need to be dealt with in the open in order to allow our teams to move forward. If you can do this successfully, then you will have found a way to transform yourself from an IT manager into a true leader.

Questions For You

Have you ever been promoted to be in charge of people that you used to work with? How did that affect the relationships that you had with those people? Have you ever worked for one of your colleagues who got promoted? Did they take the time to redefine your relationship? Leave me a comment and let me know what you are thinking. Click here to get automatic updates when The Accidental IT Leader Blog is updated.

What We’ll Be Talking About Next Time

It’s starting to look like the economic winter just might be getting ready to thaw. Once this happens, IT Leaders realize that they’re going to have a massive task added to their already overloaded plate – recruitment.

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Posted in promotions | No Comments »

Google’s Staffing Problems Can Teach IT Leaders A Lot

Thursday, July 2nd, 2009

Google's Having A Common Staffing Problem - Will They Be Able To Fix It?

Google's Having A Common Staffing Problem - Will They Be Able To Fix It?

If you could go to work for any company out there right now, which one would it be? A lot of us would say Google – everything that we’ve read and heard about the company makes it seem like a great place to work. However, it turns out that even Google is not immune to IT staff problems…

Google’s Staffing Problem

Google is in the middle of what is often called a “brain drain” – some of its best and brightest workers are leaving the firm to go join other companies. In the past few weeks they’ve lost Tim Armstrong who was their advertising sales boss and they’ve lost David Rosenblatt who was in charge of their display advertising. Oh, and they are losing their top engineers to Twitter and Facebook…

What’s Google Going To Do?

Google’s plan to try to stem this exodus of talent is a typical Google solution – they’re going to try and solve it by crunching numbers. Unlike many IT firms, Google has both the data and the processing power to attempt this.

Google plans on using data that they’ve collected from surveys and peer reviews in order to discover which of its employees feel underused. This may sound a little far fetched, but Edward Lawler who works at the University of Southern California says that eventually all companies will be approaching HR issues this way.

What’s Gone Wrong At Google?

Using algorithms to find unsatisfied workers is clever and all that, but clearly there is something else going on here. Interviews with former Google employees reveal some interesting things about the day-to-day practical realities of working in this high-tech Shangri-La.

Former employees reveal that people are leaving because many employees don’t feel that their efforts will make the same amount of impact as the company matures from its startup days. Compounding the problem is the fact that Google does not appear to provide much in the way of formal career planning. Often these tasks would be addressed by a company’s Human Resources (HR) department, but it appears as though Google’s HR department is viewed by many as being quite impersonal.

So What Should Google Be Doing?

As amazing as it may seem, the answer to Google’s problems is actually very simple – hard to implement, but simple to describe. What they need to do is to put their customer first. By clearly communicating to the entire company that Google exists to serve their customers, a great deal of other staffing problems will fade away.

Final Thoughts

One of Google’s biggest problems is that they have not found a way to keep their employees engaged. This isn’t surprising because Google dominates its market and so it doesn’t have any big competitors to use as a rallying cry.

Making its customers first would allow Google to focus its staff on a single goal that would extend throughout the company All of a sudden every employee would have a way to measure the value of his/her work. Once again, this wouldn’t necessarily be easy to do, but it’s the right thing to do. If you can figure out how to do this with your team, then you will have found a way to transform yourself from an IT manager into a true leader.

Questions For You

Do you think that Google’s algorithm will be able to identify those employees who might leave? Do you think that it will make mistakes? Do you think that this type of algorithm would work at your company? Do you think a customer focus would solve Google’s staffing issues? Leave me a comment and let me know what you are thinking.

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

What We’ll Be Talking About Next Time

It may seem a little crazy to talk about how to handle promotions during an economic downturn, but they are still happening (hey, sometimes self-promotion yields results!) Additionally, once the world economy picks up again, there will be even more of them. What’s an IT Leader who was once “one of the guys” to do when he /she is suddenly their boss?

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Posted in retention | 4 Comments »

Your Mother Was Right: How IT Leaders Dress For Success

Thursday, June 18th, 2009
IT Leaders Need To Dress For Success

IT Leaders Need To Dress For Success

So if you could wear anything that you wanted to work, what would it be? Would you be showing up in shorts and flip-flops? How about jeans and a T-shirt? Well why don’t you? The answer to this question is something that we normally don’t spend a lot of time thinking about, but because it can have a big impact on our careers, perhaps we should…

What, Me Worry?

The first issue that we need to tackle is trying to figure out why is there an issue in the first place. Face it, although we’ve always been told not to judge someone by the clothes that they wear, we all do it anyway.

That’s why how you go about dressing can determine how the people that you interact with perceive you while you are at work. Additionally, it can have a big impact in how you feel about your self. I almost hate to say it, but it’s true, how you dress can have an effect on your ability to get a job in the first place.

That Professional Look – For Women

I’ve done some asking around and when I opened my mouth, I got dumped on. There are too few women working in IT and this is clearly an emotionally charged topic for many of them. I listened to everyone (for quite some time if I do say so myself), and here are the top four suggestions that were brought up over and over again:

  1. Hose Rule: It turns out that pantyhose (remember them?) are still important. In today’s workplace, bare legs send the wrong message – they aren’t considered to be professional. Even if they are not required, they are required.
  2. Shoe Time: This one sorta lost me because I just don’t pay enough attention to shoes. However, smarter people than I told me that regular sandals and even open-toed shoes are generally considered to be acceptable for the workplace. However, the ultra comfortable flip-flops and toe-post sandals (what are those?) are not.
  3. Tall Patterns: Those women who are tall have a bit of a challenge especially if they work with / for shorter men – their height can make them appear overpowering. The goal here is to not emphasize what you already have – height. Instead, go with a horizontal pattern.
  4. Short Patterns: The goal here is to attempt to buy yourself some height so that you don’t have to kill yourself wearing 4″ heels all the time. The suggestion is that wearing a cropped jacket can help make your legs appear longer.

That Professional Look – For Men

Ok, so we’ve pointed out what women need to do to make the clothes that they wear to the office work for them, not against them. Now let’s see if we can do the same for men:

  1. Watch The Boss: One of the most important things that you can do is to watch what the boss wears and match him. This is especially important on so-called “casual days”.
  2. Super Dressy (Sorta): Things have changed. The #1 dressy look in the office these days is wearing a suit, but with no tie.
  3. Sports: You can’t go wrong if you wear a sport coat. The experts recommend that you go with either earth or gray tones in order to make matching with shirts easier.
  4. Pants: There always seems to be too many choices here. Stick with medium to dark worsted wool and  you can’t go wrong.

Final Thoughts

Mom was right after all – clothes do make the man / woman. Dressing well sends a message to others that says “if I care enough to take the time to dress this way, just imagine how much time I’ll take to solve your problems.” Now that’s the right message to be sending as you transform yourself from an IT manager into a true leader!

Questions For You

How much time do you spend on average each day deciding what you will wear that day? Have you ever worn something to the office that you regretted? Have you ever mis-read a boss and not dressed appropriately? Do you feel that you boss dresses appropriately? Leave me a comment and let me know what you are thinking.

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

What We’ll Be Talking About Next Time

As though the job of being a IT Leader was not hard enough, there’s also that added responsibility that you have to manage your career. With all of the turmoil of the past couple of years, it’s now more important than ever for IT Leaders to find the time to tend to this task…

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Posted in career | 2 Comments »

6 Management Suggestions To Help IT Leaders In Tough Times

Thursday, May 21st, 2009
Tough Times Call For Solid IT Leadership Skills

Tough Times Call For Solid IT Leadership Skills

Can it get any worse than it already is? Does anyone see a light at the end of the tunnel yet? Times are tough all over, and being an IT Leader right now is just about the toughest job out there. It would be all too easy to tuck your head down, turn off the lights, and not talk to anyone until this is all over. However, you are an IT Leader and you can’t do that.

In these tough times you need to overcome your base instincts and do what good managers should do – lead. As a reminder of just what that really means in these tough times, here are six things that you should be doing right now:

  1. Treat your employees as responsible adults. Yes, sometimes in these dark days they don’t seem to act that way, but they are. This means that you can’t boss them around or soothe their fears with made up half truths.
  2. Reach out. This means that tough times call for you to reach out beyond your normal contact groups and have more fingers that go deeper into the company. This is the only way that you are going to be able to discover what is REALLY going on. This is the information that you’re going to need to be able to communicate to your team.
  3. Practice emotional intelligence. It’s true that your team will perform better even under all of this fear and doubt if they believe that you really do understand and respect them. This means providing opportunities for everyone’s opinions to be heard.
  4. Be Fair: Tough times won’t last  forever and you’re going to need your team to stick around when they no longer have to. This means that when you have to do distasteful tasks like layoffs, you need to be open and honest about why certain decisions were made. Everyone may not agree with you, but at least they’ll understand why you did what you did.
  5. Open The Door Wider. Allow your employees to being more of themselves to work. Time are tough and you are going to be asking more from your remaining staff, you need to make it easier for them to balance all parts of their life.
  6. Enjoy Your Job: It is critical that you find some part of your job that brings you joy and happiness. Even in these tough times, you need to let others know that this one thing makes you very happy. Your enthusiasm will be noticed and it’s catching – you’ll bring everyone’s mood up.

How many of these six management actions are you currently doing? Are they being successful? Do you disagree with anything that’s on my list? Did I leave anything off? Leave me a comment and let me know what you are thinking.

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Posted in management | 1 Comment »

Whoops – You’ve Been Reorganized IT Leader!

Thursday, May 7th, 2009
IT Leaders Need To Take Action When A Reorganization Occurs

IT Leaders Need To Take Action When A Reorganization Occurs

So there you are, doing a great job of being the best IT Leader that you can be and all of a sudden, everything changes around you. You’ve been reorganized!

In a recession (like we are in now), reorganizations are common either before or after a layoff. Just when you though that you knew what you were supposed to be doing and what everyone else was supposed to be doing, the music plays and everything is different.

When a reorganization occurs, the worst thing that you can do is nothing. You’ve got to realize that it’s almost like starting to play a game all over again. You’re going to have to quickly adapt to this new world and as you’re doing this you are going to have to take a long hard look at the future of your job.

Eileen Gunn over at the Wall Street Journal has taken a look at what we’re supposed to do when a reorganization happens to us. She’s got some tips that just might help us out:

  • First Meetings Count: Just like a first impression, your first meeting after a reorganization can be critical. This is a time for you to be bold – ask the questions that everyone else is thinking. However be careful, your new management may not have all the answers. Don’t drill them too hard if they start grasping for answers.
  • Look Inside: This is probably the best time ever for you to sit down with yourself and do an inventory of what you bring to the new world order. You need to make sure that your skills match what your boss is looking for – if they don’t, then you are going to have to change.
  • Meet The Big Guy / Gal: If the reorganization has resulted in you having a new boss, then  you’re going to want to have some one-on-one face time with them as quickly as possible. Basically, you’re going to have to interview for your job even if they don’t ask you to do so. You need to show them what you can bring to the table so that they will know what you are capable of.
  • Deal With It: You may not be happy with the new world order that has resulted after a reorganization; however, you don’t run the world (yet). The quicker you get over feeling this way and become a valued contributor once again, the more secure your job and career will be.

Reorganizations happen for a variety of reasons and they always seem to come at the worst time – just when we almost had everything figured out. They are a part of life and these suggestions can give us the tools that we need to turn these changes from pitfalls into opportunities.

Have you been through a reorganization lately? How did you feel about where you ended up after the dust had settled? Did you change your behavior starting with the first meeting? Have you met with your new boss yet? Leave me a comment and let me know what you are thinking.

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Posted in career | No Comments »

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