Posts Tagged ‘information technology’

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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 »

IT Leaders Want To Know About : Non-compete Clauses

Thursday, June 4th, 2009
Noncompete Clauses Can Be A Hassle For IT Leaders

Non-compete Clauses Can Be A Hassle For IT Leaders

(Hopefully it goes without saying that I’m not a lawyer and this blog posting is in no way to be considered legal advice. If you’ve got further questions, go get yourself the best lawyer your money can buy…)

Did you even know that something called an “Non-compete Clause” existed? It turns out that you may have signed one when you started your current job (it differs from company to company). This piece of paper basically spells out the legal agreement between you and the company – they want you to stay and they want to scare you into not leaving.

What Is In A Non-Compete Clause?

Willie Jones over at the IEEE’s Spectrum magazine has been doing some digging on just what non-compete clauses mean. Non-clauses were invented in order to protect a company’s intellectual property. Basically they don’t want employees leaving and divulging trade secrets to their competition.

Once again, this is going to differ from company to company. A non-compete clause generally has 3 basic types of limitations built into it: geographical, time, or line of business.

How Do Courts Feel About Non-compete Clauses?

You would think that once you have signed one of these things, that’s it, right? Well, not really. Courts take a hard look at such contracts. In each case when there is an issue, the courts try to balance the issue of trade secrets being divulged to a competitor against an employee’s basic right to work. Courts try to make sure that a non-compete clause does not place an unreasonable restriction on a worker’s ability to earn a living.

If a court does find that you signed a non-compete clause that was too restrictive, then they can void the clause – you are free! Note that where the case is being heard is important – in California, courts often refuse to enforce such agreements.

What This All Means To You

If you decide to leave your IT job and you’ve signed a non-compete clause you need to be aware of what the ramifications may be. If you go work for a firm that is competing with your current employer and you are going to be doing the same sort of job, then there is a good chance your old employer will go to court to stop you from working for the new company.

How successful they will be is unclear before the trial. A lot depends on what state this is taking place in and just how restrictive the non-complete clause that you signed was. Once final point to consider is that when push comes to shove, your old employer may not want to risk having its trade secrets come out during a lengthy trial. These are all things to consider carefully as you work to transform yourself from an IT manager into a true leader.

Questions For You

Do you know if you signed a non-compete clause when you started your current job? How restrictive is it? What does your company do when someone leaves to go work for the competition? 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

I bumped into one of my longtime friends last week, Mark, and he told me how unhappy he was at his IT job. He was feeling a great deal of guilt over this because his firm had just had yet another round of layoffs and he had been spared. He still had his job, but he hated it. What’s an IT Leader to do in this situation?

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Posted in career | No Comments »

Group Decisions Can Be The Wrong Decision For IT Leaders

Thursday, May 28th, 2009
IT leaders Need To Know How Groups Make Decisions

IT leaders Need To Know How Groups Make Decisions

Decisions, decisions, decisions – how is an IT Leader supposed to make good ones? In our eternal quest to find a way to make good IT decisions on technologies, staff, and projects, is there a silver bullet that we can find that will show us the way?

One approach that is used by (too) many IT Leaders is to follow the crowd. I can see you shaking your head, but  come on, admit it, we all like to go where everyone else is going. If you don’t believe me than look around you – what development techniques are you using (agile?), what data center changes are going on (virtualization?), what initiatives are you working on (social networking?). Maybe Jason Zweig over at the Wall Street Journal can provide some insight on group decision making.

How Do Groups Make Decisions?

Group decision making is how a lot of IT decision making gets done. Robert Sutton, an organizational psychologist,  over at Stanford University has spent time studying how groups make decisions. I like what he has to say – “The best groups will be better than their best individual members and the worst groups will be worse than the worst individual.”

Sutton says that the reason that groups to behave this way is because of two things. The first is that they may have a tenancy to follow a given leader in sort of a rush to conform. The other possibility is that the group will split into warring factions and won’t be able to reach any decisions.

How Can Groups Make GOOD Decisions?

Richard Larrick over at Duke University believes that in order for any IT group to be able to make good decisions, the IT Leader needs to have built the group correctly. Groups need to be built using people who have different perspectives, experiences, and who are not shy about speaking up. Of course group members also need to have those IT skills that we all value so highly: the ability to take in lots of information, filter out the important parts, and learn from any mistakes that they make.

Tips For Making Better Group Decisions

So how can an IT Leader help a group to make a good decision instead of getting tied up in knots? There’s no magic cure, but here are some suggestions on what can be done to improve your odds of getting good decisions out of your groups:

  • Measure Success: Use the collective knowledge of the group to clearly define how a decision’s success should be measured. Starting at the end helps to make better decisions.
  • Use Numbers Carefully: Groups like to use facts and statistics when making decisions. However, you need to use this kind of data to rank your options. Then the group needs to do additional research and find out what’s really going on. Then create another list of ranked solutions. Average them out and you’ll have a balanced decision.
  • Reframing: When a group is charged with trying to answer a big question (“should we close our data centers”), use the power of multiple people to take both sides of the argument (“close” vs. “don’t close”) and have them build cases for their position. This will provid you with your best chance of seeing all sides of the question.

Final Thoughts On Group Decisions

Most IT Leaders would like to be thought of as bold decision makers who are never wrong. The reality is that sometimes a group really is needed in order to fully understand difficult questions. Building the group correctly and making sure that they know how to reach good decisions is part of what it takes to be a good IT Leader.

Questions For You

Have you ever had to build a group to study a problem? Did you do a good job of selecting the right people? Have you ever been on a group that was trying to solve a problem? Did you look at all sides of the problem or did you rush to make a decision? Leave me a comment and let me know what you are thinking.

What We’ll Talk About Next Time

Did you even know that something called an “Non-compete Clause” existed? It turns out that you may have signed one when you started your current job (it differs from company to company). This piece of paper basically spells out the legal agreement between you and the company – they want you to stay and they want to scare you into not leaving…

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

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Posted in decision | No Comments »

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