Posts Tagged ‘communication’

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Turns Out That The Secret To Leading A Team From The Inside Is…

Thursday, September 29th, 2011
Image Credit Leading A Team From The Inside Requires Good Feedback Skills…

Leading A Team From The Inside Requires Good Feedback Skills…

When I work with IT Leaders who are looking for ways to get that next promotion, I tell them that they are going to need to demonstrate leadership. This is an easy thing for me to say and a very hard thing for them to do. Complicating matters even more is the fact that IT managers are finding themselves drafted onto team that they are just members of, not leaders of. What’s an IT manager to do?

The Secret Of Feedback

Here in the 21st Century you’d think that IT managers would have all of the tools available to them that they would need in order to be successful even when they are working as part of a larger team. And although this is true, if you really want to be successful you’re going to need to learn to use the most important tool of all: feedback.

So just what is this thing that we call feedback? Sure we all think that we know what it is, but do we really? Often times the IT managers that I’m working with view feedback as simply remembering to talk with their team members every so often.

Feedback is so much more than that. The key is that feedback, when done correctly, is not something that you do casually or “off the cuff”. At the same time feedback does not need to be done in a formal environment (although it can be).

Feedback is how you as a manager can provide other members of a team that you are working on with a reflection of how they are doing even if they don’t work for you. This is critical feedback because you may be the only person who can provide them with an accurate view of their job performance.

When done correctly feedback provides a mix of both encouragement and correction to your staff. You need to take the time to do things as simple as providing your fellow team members with encouragement (“”Hey, great job on that report.”) as well as suggestions for doing a better job (“Maybe next time you can tone down your voice a bit when you are presenting…”).

How To Use Feedback Correctly

Feedback is a fantastic tool for IT managers to use. It’s free, easy to use, and we are all born with the ability to do it. To manage the team that you are working on effectively, you need to learn to use this tool in a way that will allow you to get the most out of your team.

One of the most effective ways to use feedback that I’ve found is as a way to provide a gentle guiding hand to team members who may be in the process of making a poor decision. As we all know, providing guidance to team members is one a manager’s most important tasks (and one of the hardest to do).

The way that I use feedback to accomplish this is to share stories of past accomplishments. When a member of a team is facing a new challenge, having the manager sit down with the team member and use feedback to have a conversation with them about what the best way to proceed is. Saying something along the lines of “You know, I faced a similar situation like this awhile ago and what I did to solve it was…” This kind of feedback can provide the gentle nudge that is needed to keep your team members on track…

What All Of This Means For You

In the never ending quest to become better IT managers, we are all looking for ways to use our skills to manage our teams. New management fads come and go, however the ones that work are always available for us to use.

One technique that IT managers have used over and over again, is the feedback technique. You need to take the time to have a real conversation with your team members and use the feedback session to really connect with them. Additionally, you can use feedback to help team members make decisions based on situations that you’ve faced in the past.

Being an IT manager has never been an easy job. However, having the feedback technique to use makes your ability to connect with your team and keep them on the right path that much easier.

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

Question For You: How often do you think that you should try to have feedback with each employee?

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

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IT Managers Know How To Fix Problem Employees Using Feedback

Thursday, March 24th, 2011
You Just Have To Get Them To Listen To You

You Just Have To Get Them To Listen To You

IT Managers who discover that they have a problem employee on their hands need to move quickly to solve their problem. The trick is determining just exactly what you need to do. Sure you could fire them, but then you’d have to go through all of the effort of going out and finding their replacement. It sure seems like coming up with a way to transform a problem employee into a good employee is what you should be looking for.

How To Use The Feedback Technique

You would think that using the feedback technique would be pretty straightforward, right? I mean it’s just sitting down with your problem employee and telling them what they are doing wrong. How hard could that be to do?

If that was all that there was to using the feedback technique, this would be a very short article. It turns out that there is more. The simple fact is that in order for feedback to be successful, you as an IT manager actually need to do a lot both before you have the talk and then during the talk itself.

The first mistake that a lot of IT managers make when trying to use the feedback technique is that they assume that they already know it all. They schedule the meeting with the problem employee and then just show up and start talking.

The problem with this is that there is a good chance that you really don’t know it all. Every situation has a lot of background to it. If your problem employee is not meeting your performance expectations, you need to do some checking in order to verity that you’ve clearly laid out for them what you expected them to do. This means that you’re going to have to go back and dig through your emails and meeting notes to verify both what’s been requested and what’s been promised.

Next you’ve got to make sure that you’ve been measuring the correct things. In order to say that there’s a problem, you’ve got to be able to point to specific things that prove that there’s a real problem. To put it simply, you’re going to need to take a look at the performance objective that you’ve specified and then you’re going to have to take a look at how your are measuring your problem employee against this objective. Double check to make sure that the measurement matches the objective.

How To Handle The Feedback Meeting

When the day arrives for the big meeting, make sure that you handle it correctly. A lot of what determines the outcome of your actions has to do with how you prepare for and handle the meeting.

The first thing that you want to keep in mind is that when it comes to dealing with workplace performance issues, nobody likes a surprise. This means that you can’t spring a feedback meeting on someone. You need to tell them ahead of time that you want to have a feedback session with them, and this is the important part, make sure that you tell them what issue you want to discuss with them. This will allow them to get ready for the talk.

How you start the feedback session makes all of the difference in the world. If you start the meeting in an upbeat, positive way, then your chances of working with the problem employee and creating a solution are greatly increased. Starting in a “we’ve got a problem here” mode or one in which the employee fears for their job will only result in confrontation and denials.

Finally, instead of berating your problem employee for not performing at the level that you want them to, instead take a different approach. Take the time to explain why their behavior is having a negative impact both on you and on their fellow coworkers. By showing them how their actions are holding back the team, you have your best chance of making them want to change how they are going about doing their work.

What All Of This Means For You

As an IT Manager, one of your primary responsibilities is to make sure that your team is maximizing their contributions. If you’ve got a problem employee, then you’ve got a problem that you’ve got to solve.

The feedback technique provides a quick and simple way to go about starting this transformation process. However, it’s not something that you can do casually – you are going to have to both prepare to do it as well as treating it like a project.

The benefits of using the feedback technique to turn around a problem employee are numerous. It’s well worth the time that it takes to work with an employee that’s already on the team instead of having to fire them and then start over. Feedback is what good IT managers do well!

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

Question For You: What signs do you think that you should look for in a problem employee that would show that the feedback technique is working?

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. It’s your career. Subscribe now: Click Here!

What We’ll Be Talking About Next Time

You’d think that to be a good IT manager all that you’d have to be good at is managing people and understanding technology. Most of the time you’d be correct; however, it’s the times when this isn’t the case that far too many IT managers drop the ball.

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Posted in employee | 5 Comments »

3 Reasons Innovation Doesn’t Happen In IT

Thursday, October 15th, 2009
Innovation In IT Is Hard To Do When There Are Roadblocks In Your Way

Innovation In IT Is Hard To Do When There Are Roadblocks In Your Way

Welcome to the world of overused buzz words! The star of the show these days is “innovation” – everyone wants it, everyone is talking about it, nobody really knows how to get it. IT Leaders find themselves in a situation where if they aren’t careful, they just might make one of three different mistakes that could prevent innovation from happening within their teams…

The Communication Problem

Researchers Rob Cross, Andrew Hargadon, Salvatore Parise, and Robert Thomas have looked into what kills innovation in a department. #1 on their list of culprits is our old friend poor communication.

IT Leaders already know that poor communication is a major problem. However, they may not realize just how much of an impact that it may be having on their attempts to foster innovation in their IT department.

The causes of poor communication can be varied: staff in different physical locations (even working on different floors of the same building can be a hindrance), an organizational structure that may prevent teams from talking to each other, or it could as simple as different IT Leaders being in competition with each other and not being willing to communicate.

The Roadblock Problem

It is my belief that in order to be an effective IT Leader it’s as much who you know as what you know. When it comes to fostering innovation in your IT team it turns out that the same is true.

Within an IT department there are often certain people who become experts about one or more parts of the IT shop. This in turn puts these people in a position of power. Other IT staff must seek them out in order to get the information that they need to do their jobs or to get permission to complete some task that impacts the area under the expert’s control.

Having IT experts is not a bad thing in of itself. However, when these experts are allowed to control the flow of new ideas problems start to arise. Often times these experts will have had experiences that will cloud the way that they see the world. This means that they may quash innovative IT ideas based on their personal experiences that would otherwise benefit the company.

The Insulated Staff Problem

As much as we like to brag about all of the workplace benefits that working in the 21st Century has brought about, our communication networks are still amazingly frail. When IT departments allow staff to remain insulated, innovation can flounder.

A great deal of time and effort goes into setting up the deals that allow IT operations and development to be outsourced to other firms. However, once those deals have been set up, the communication channels between the firms are often left in the hands of just a few people.

This means that any innovation that occurs at either firm will be hard pressed to make it through this narrow communication channel to the other firm. Additionally, if the person who is the conduit leaves the firm, then communication will be damaged or lost.

Final Thoughts

IT Leaders are responsible for fostering and growing innovation within their departments. This job is hard enough without the extra challenge of encountering additional roadblocks to innovation.

Having the ability to recognize the three most common obstacles to a successful innovation program are the first step in dealing with these challenges. Once an IT Leader recognizes that an innovation problem exists, then a solution can start to be crafted.

If you develop the ability to spot these three innovation blockers then you will have found a way to transform yourself from an IT manager into a true leader.

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

What We’ll Be Talking About Next Time

Times are tough all over and a lot of IT Leaders are out pounding the pavement looking for their next position. For some of you it may have been a long time since you last had to do an interview – you are much more used to being on the other side of the table doing the interviewing. Well guess what – no matter how well you prepare, your best efforts may be undone by what your body is secretly telling the interviewer…

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Posted in innovation | 1 Comment »

IT Managers & The Secret Of The Color Wheel

Thursday, April 2nd, 2009

IT Managers Need To Learn How To Use A Color Wheel

IT Managers Need To Learn How To Use A Color Wheel

So I’m just a little bit off the beaten path with this discussion, but I’ve recently had to sit through so many bad presentations that I’m feeling an overwhelming need to try to make the world a better place for Powerpoint slides to live in.

We all live and die by Powerpoint. I can’t begin to tell you how many bosses that I’ve had that insisted that I provide them with status updates in Powerpoint form. What part of my hero Edward Tuff’s write up after the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster (“Powerpoint Does Rocket Science“) did they not read?

Well no matter, we have to do what we have to do. However, at the very least we should be able to do it to the best of our ability. One of the greatest errors that I’ve been seeing as of late is the criminal use of colors that in no way should ever be used together. Look, I realize that for most of us (guys) getting dressed in the morning can be a challenge (what goes with what), but we should have the same level of concern when it comes to creating slides.

So how should an IT manger pick colors for his/her Powerpoint slides? Simple – use a color wheel. Using a color wheel and just a bit of color theory, a product manger can start to produce professional looking slides. It turns out that using analogous colors (colors that are next to each other on the color wheel) or complementary colors (colors are across from each other on the color wheel) are easy ways to get your colors right.

Thanks to the Internet, there are now free sites that if you need to start with one color (company color, department color) will allow you to find out what colors work with that color. If this all seems to be too much for you, then you can visit the Colors On The Web site and press the button in order to get a random color scheme that has matching colors created for you.

How do you select what colors to use in your presentations today? Have you ever seen a really bad set of colors used in a presentation? Have you ever used a color wheel before? Leave me a comment and let me know what you are thinking.

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How IT Managers Can Get Better At Creating Powerpoint Slides

Thursday, March 26th, 2009
How Can IT Mangers Learn To Create Better PowerPoint Slides?

How Can IT Mangers Learn To Create Better PowerPoint Slides?

Yeah, yeah I know that everyone says that they hate Powerpoint – “death by Powerpoint” and all of that. However, the reality of modern IT Manger life is that we end up using Powerpoint to communicate a lot of information about our departments and the current status of our projects. Until you rise high enough in the organization to have someone on staff who creates your presentations for you, you’re going to be stuck doing this yourself. Thank goodness you took all of those Powerpoint classes back in college…

What? You’ve never had a Powerpoint class in your life? Hmm, can I at least assume that you know about the color wheel? Dang – struck out there also? Looks like we’re going to have to have a talk here.

There are some people out there that are really gifted artists. One that comes to mind is the Duarte design team over at slide:ology.  However, then there is the rest of us. Powerpoint has a bunch of flashy features that lots of people like to use; however, the key is to remember that it’s really a communication tool. This means that you’d like to get good enough at using it that you can get your point across in a clear way that will stick with your audience.

So how does an IT manager go about doing this? It’s actually pretty simple – it will just take an investment in time. I would suggest that you find a Powerpoint presentation that you’ve seen that really worked for you – it communicated what it was trying to say in a concise, clear way. Then you need to sit down with a blank Powerpoint presentation and try to recreate it from scratch.

This is actually a lot harder than it might seem at first, getting all of the details of a presentation that someone else created (fonts, colors, line thicknesses, what goes on top of what else, etc.) can be a challenge. However, as you go through this copy / creation process you’ll discover how a really good presentation comes together.

I’m out of room this time, but we’ll chat about color wheels next time…

How did you originally learn to use Powerpoint? Have you ever had any formal Powerpoint classes or has it been all on-the-job training? What was the best Powerpoint presentation that you’ve ever seen? Why? Leave me a comment and let me know what you are thinking.

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Posted in Powerpoint | 1 Comment »

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