Posts Tagged ‘promotion’

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How An IT Leader Does A Performance Review

Thursday, February 26th, 2009

IT Leaders Need To Find A Way To Make Performance Reviews Work

IT Leaders Need To Find A Way To Make Performance Reviews Work

I hate performance reviews. I hate getting them and I hate giving them. In my mind they are a waste of time for both the IT Leader who’s giving them and the IT staffer who is getting them. I’m not sure who dreamed these things up, but they remind me of a 19th century factory environment when the guy working on the assembly line would be called up to the big boss’ office once a year and given his pay raise. Look, it’s the 21st Century, don’t you think that we could do things better?

My main gripe with performance reviews is that I believe that the two parties that are participating in the review are not really talking about the same thing. The manager is using this mandatory meeting as a once-a-year opportunity to try to remember who this person is and what they’ve been doing over the past year. The manager will have filled in mandatory text as answers to questions like “Where is improvement needed?” The expectation  is that this will be a backward looking discussion to talk about how the employee has been performing.

On the other hand, the employee shows up for the meeting with the hope that he / she will have an opportunity to talk about getting a pay raise or even a promotion. The expectation is that this will be an opportunity to have a forward looking discussion about how to advance the employee’s career.

Sorta looks like a train wreck in the making doesn’t it?

I’m a big fan of having four separate meeting each year (at the start of each quarter). The purpose should be to talk about how things have gone, what is expected for the quarter, and a review of the employee’s career situation and goals. It should be quick and it should be positive – “here’s what you need to be doing” type of theme. Now that would be a performance review worth attending!

Do you get anything out of your annual performance review? Do you give performance reviews? Do you try to make them more meaningful? How has this worked out for you? Leave me a comment and let me know what you are thinking.

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So IT Leader, Are You Thinking About Getting An Executive MBA…?

Thursday, February 19th, 2009

Does An IT Leader Need An Executive MBA?

Does An IT Leader Need An Executive MBA?

As the world’s economy continues to shudder, everyone in IT is scrambling to find ways to make themselves more valuable to both their current employer as well as to their next employer (if needed). For a long time, getting an MBA has been an option that many IT Leaders have considered. The big drawback has always been the amount of time that this degree requires – on top of all of your other responsibilities. It turns out that there is another option: the executive MBA.

I guess a good question to start off with is how does an executive MBA differ from a “regular” MBA? An executive MBA generally meets every other weekend for two full days – Friday and Saturday. Students generally travel to campus to participate in classes. While not in class, remotely located students collaborate to complete class assignments.

There’s also the issue of time: an executive MBA generally takes two years from start to finish. If you are working and choose to participate in a regular MBA, there’s a good chance that it will end up taking you longer to complete your degree as you take one or two classes a semester.

Where to go is the big question if you choose to pursue an executive MBA. There are a lot of executive MBA programs out there and because they are such a profit center for universities, they are all marketed heavily. Thankfully the folks over at the Wall Street Journal have taken the time to conduct a survey and they’ve found the best places for an IT Leader to go.

Just how do you go about ranking executive MBA programs? Well over at the WSJ they decided to go about doing it based on multiple criteria. The most important factor that they chose was how corporations viewed the programs – I mean you’re really getting the degree to boost your marketability, right? Next came how students in the program actually felt about the program. Finally, the value of what they were being taught was factored in.

So who won? Here’s the ranking of the top 10 executive MBA programs as computed by the Wall Street Journal:

  1. Northwestern University (Kellogg)
  2. University of Pennsylvania (Wharton)
  3. Thunderbird School of Global Management
  4. University of Southern California (Marshall)
  5. University of North Carolina (Kenan-Flagler)
  6. University of Michigan (Ross)
  7. Cornell University (Johnson)
  8. Columbia University (NY Program)
  9. University of Chicago
  10. Duke University (Fuqua)

So what do YOU need to consider if you are thinking about enrolling in an executive MBA program above and beyond which program ranks the highest? One interesting point is just how much this is going to cost.

The executive MBA programs that were reviewed by the Wall Street Journal cost between $65,000 and $160,000 just in tuition (books, travel, etc. would all be extra). Since lots of students work for firms that pay all/part of the cost of the program, the median out-of-pocket cost turned out to be something like $45,000. Of course then there’s the issue of travel…

In the survey, 64% of the executive MBA students traveled less than 50 miles to go to school which means most of them are local to the school. However 7% traveled up to 200 miles and 9% traveled more than 1,000 miles.

In the end, the big question is if this is all worth it? Once again we can go back to the survey to find out. 24% of those students surveyed said that they had been given a both a raise and a promotion since they started executive MBA classes. Another 30% said that they expect both in the next year.

So what do you think: is an executive MBA the way to go or is a regular MBA better? Do you think that getting an MBA would be worth $45,000+? Could you stay at your current company or would you have to leave once you got your degree? Leave me a comment and let me know what you are thinking.

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Your Next IT Manager Challenge: Girl Fight!

Friday, January 30th, 2009

On Top Of Everything Else, IT Managers Need To Put A Stop To Girl Fighting At Work

On Top Of Everything Else, IT Managers Need To Put A Stop To Girl Fighting At Work

By this time in the 21st Century, I’m hoping that we’ve all got the diversity message: gender, race, age, sexual orientation (you too California) don’t matter when hiring people for jobs or when managing them. However, it turns out that there’s been a pink elephant lurking in the room that many of us (males) may have not noticed: girl fights!

I’m not talking about “I’ll see you out in the parking lot after work” types of fights. Rather, it turns out that there is a sneaky thing going on in the workplace. Women are actively treating each other badly. Hmm, where did this come from?

Peggy Klaus wrote a telling article in the New York Times a while back in which she pointed out the issue that has been there all along. Peggy is a leadership coach who has truly been there, done that. This has allowed her to spill the dirt on this dirty little secret…

So what are women doing to each other at work? This can be a long list. How about: limiting access to important committees and meetings, holding back on critical information, giving assignments and promotions to others, even blocking access to people who could be mentors or senior management.

Most of these bullying actions can be placed into one of four buckets of bad behaviors: verbal abuse, job sabotage, misuse of authority, or relationship destroying. Who knew that so much bad stuff was going on at work?

The folks over at the Workplace Bullying Institute have done  a study that showed that women bullies target their abuse towards women an amazing 70% of the time. On the other hand, men who are bullies seem to split their bullying equally between the sexes. This leads to the big question: why bully in the first place?

It turns out that there are a lot of theories for why women treat women badly in the workplace (no – this is not a Jerry Springer moment):

  1. Scarcity Breeds Bullies: since promotion spots are so few these days, women at upper levels are unwilling to help women at lower levels advance for fear that promotion spots will go to those that they help.
  2. Go Bootstrap Yourself: This is a familiar one – I had to get to where I am with no help from anyone, so you should have to do the same.
  3. Avoiding Favoritism: in today’s hype-PC work environments, women don’t want to create an appearance that they are favoring females over males.
  4. Hyper-emotionality: Everyone agrees that women are generally more sensitive to emotions than men are. Some also believe that women more easily take offense and can quickly start to hold a grudge. This means that they can start to overreact when they feel slighted by someone.

So what’s an IT Leader to do with all of this girl-fight knowledge? No matter if the IT Leader is male or female, the steps that need to be taken are the same. The first step is create a true “open door” policy so that when girl fighting goes on behind your back, the victims will feel free to come to you and report what is going on.

The second is that you need to call the bully on their actions. Depending on the IT Leader’s gender (like if you are a guy), you need to be careful here. However, mistreating any employee is unacceptable and the bully needs to be told that this will not be accepted.

The nice thing about bullies is that generally when they get caught, they back down and shape up quickly. Yet one more 21st Century task for an IT Leader to master!

Have you ever witnessed any girl fighting going on in your department? Was it a senior female employee bullying a more junior employee? Did anyone tell the bully to stop? What was the final result of the bully’s actions? Leave me a comment and let me know what you are thinking.

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Mirrror, Mirror On The Wall, Who’s The Best IT Manager Of All?

Friday, January 2nd, 2009
It Turns Out That An IT Leader's Emotions Are Often Reflected By Your Staff

It Turns Out That An IT Leader's Emotions Are Often Reflected By Your Staff

Those boys who get locked up and do work on behavior neuroscience continue to come up with new and interesting discoveries all the time.  This time around they’ve made a stunning discovery that will have a long lasting impact on how IT managers do their job. Do I have your interest yet?

Daniel Goleman and Richard Boyatzis have written an article in the Harvard Business Review in which they describe what’s been going on in the world of neuroscience. Neuroscientists have discovered something called “mirror neurons” that are spread out all over our brains. Our brains have lots and lots of neurons. This newly discovered type appear to mimic (or “mirror”) what someone else is doing.

These neurons were discovered by Italian neuroscientists who were studying one particular type of cell in a monkey’s brain. This cell only fired when the monkey raised its arm. One day an assistant in the lab raised some food to his mouth and the cell in the monkey fired.

What this all means is that when we detect someone’s (consciously or unconsciously) emotions by observing their actions, these newly discovered mirror neurons reproduce the emotions that we believe that they are feeling. Taken all together, these neurons allow us to create a virtually instant sense of having a shared experience.

Why do we care about all of this brain stuff? It’s the key to being a great IT leader. It turns out that your emotions and your actions are what your department / team are going to be mirroring. If you can activate the mirror neurons in those who are following you, then you will have tapped into a very powerful force.

Additional studies that have been done on groups to measure the effects of activating these neurons has revealed even more. It turns out that when you are addressing your department / team, HOW you communicate is much more important than WHAT you communicate.

This means that if you want to get the best performance out of your team, you need to be demanding (of course) but do in in such a way that creates a happy positive mood in you team. This is all based on the simple fact that when your people feel better, then you’ll get better performance out of them.

Which now brings us to the subject of laughter. I’m not talking about having your team laugh at you (they may already be doing this). Instead, I’m talking about how often you get your team to laugh with you. Studies have shown that the best IT leaders got their employees to laugh on average three times as often as did midperforming IT leaders.

When you are in a good mood, this helps the people who work with and for you to both take in the information that you are providing as well as react quicker and with more creativity.

How often do you make your team members laugh? Have you found that your emotions cause your team to feel the same way that you do? Do you often find yourself feeling the same way that your boss is feeling? Leave me a comment and let me know what you are thinking.

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Need Some Help With Self-Promotion At Work?

Saturday, November 22nd, 2008
In Order To Be Successful, You Need To Know How To Promote Yourself

In Order To Be Successful, You Need To Know How To Promote Yourself

It’s just a little bit off-topic, but Meridith Levinson over at CIO.com just interviewed me as a part of an article that she wrote titled Self-Promotion at Work: 8 Tips for Shy People.

In these times of economic uncertainty, these tips might be just what the Doctor ordered for your career. Check the article out and let me know what you think about it.

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Posted in career | 2 Comments »

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