MORE ENTRIES
- Dealing with an autocratic change agent
- How to leave IT
- When the boss becomes detached
- IT background, careers, and how they're connected
- Join a challenged project or not?
- Dealing with undesirable responsibilities
- The goal of optimization - profit, or something else?
- Which MBA school to choose ... and why
- More MBA advice
- Finding references
Advice Line | Bob Lewis »
May 2006
I would appreciate your thoughts on the following situation.
Our company recently started a program to implement "radical change" in a particular business area. They hired an external contractor to create the program. This person (let's call him Dick) has now been hired as the overall Project Manager (still a contractor). I am a Systems Consultant (company employee) on this project - my role is to develop the overall IT solutions. Dick has made it clear that he is "in charge". To wit:
* He doesn't believe in stakeholder, consensus, or any consensus for that matter. He believes in imposing change (he has said exactly this).
* He will not hesitate to "throw out" systems methodology if it impedes the speed at which "he" can deliver. He has demonstrated often that he's not sure what systems methodology is and thinks all methodology is waterfall, despite efforts to educate him to the contrary.
* He does not believe in moving IT closer to the business - our role is to "deliver working software", not be partners in business change.
* His behavior demonstrates an "ends justify the means" approach to getting things done.
* He claims Senior Management has given him carte blanche to cut "whatever corners are necessary" to implement this program.
In spite of the above, I recognize he has a lot of knowledge in his area of expertise (change agent) and I believe his business plan is a good one.
How do I work with this guy? I report to the IT project manager (excellent manager), but have a functional reporting relationship to Dick - I want to work effectively with him. I believe in partnering with the business (which he doesn't). I fully endorse changing our processes when it makes logical sense to do so but we do have some rigor we CANNOT escape, e.g. SOX, and some we SHOULD NOT bypass in order to ensure quality and maintainability. Our dynamic is weird - Dick tends to speak to me in either a condescending manner as if I need his "wise guidance", or in a conspiratorial "it's just you and me" tone (I'm a younger female). I feel I'm being "played" much of the time. He also has claimed responsibility for my recent promotion, which is inaccurate. I want to be effective on this project, but I'm not sure how to approach this.
- Working for an egomaniac
Dear Working ...
Well, clearly the right course of action is to backstab him until he's thrown out, then bring in our consulting company to rescue the situation.
I'll even pay you a commission!
Okay, that isn't such a great solution. Among the many disadvantages is that we might get caught. Let's go for Plan B: Keep your head down and your nose clean.
Here's what's going to happen. Dick hasn't figured out the difference between being right and helping the organization be right enough. He also hasn't figured out the difference between being certain and being right. This will work out fine for him, right up until the time he overplays his hand. When he does, it will get ugly fast. He won't have to make very much of a slip for it to trigger the pent-up resentment he's certainly causing.
So do your best to keep yourself clean, wait it out, and let someone else start the blow-up process. My best advice is for you and the IT project manager to accept Dick's methodology, at least to the extent that you accept that your scope is limited to building software that fits the specs. To that end, document the specs as precisely as you can and insist that you get proper sign-off on the specs from Dick before anyone starts the coding process. That he thinks all methodologies are waterfall will work to your benefit here: This is how waterfall methodologies work.
If Dick refuses to sign off on the specs, that sounds like a great opportunity for you and the IT project manager to say something like, "We don't understand. If they're right, you would sign off on them, of course, so if you won't, that has to mean something is wrong with the specs. We sure don't want to start the coding process until they're fixed."
Or, you and the IT project manager might consider bringing in internal audit around then if you're boxed in and think that might help. But that's a last resort. As I say, try to wait it out and let someone else start the party.
BTW: In my book, what you describe indicates that Dick might be an excellent project manager, but as an agent of change he's a fool. Being a competent change agent means more than telling everyone what's supposed to happen and then blaming them when it doesn't. It means taking the steps necessary to move the organization forward.
By definition.
- Bob
I'm the one who wrote asking about non-IT professionals crossing over into IT and vice versa ("IT background, careers, and how they're connected," Advice Line, May 23, 2006). Your advice made a lot of sense.
I have 9 years of experience in IT supporting ERP systems, mostly in the Human Resources realm. In order to do my job well, I need to know how to do the application users' jobs as well as know the back-end IT systems for the software. I am able to communicate well with end users, but I do know others in IT who cannot. I also know IT staff who have come from the business areas and do not function well because of their lack of IT training and experience. It definitely seems to go both ways. I suppose a strong IT department will have a solid mix of people with technical skills and application knowledge.
You mentioned that you know many IT people that have successfully transitioned to other careers. Could you give me advice on doing this? The one thing I've proven to myself over the years is that I can adapt and easily learn new things, both in IT and also in the business areas. Do I need to go back to school for more formal education if I want to try other things outside IT? Most job postings have certain requirements like a certain educational level in a specific field or so many years of experience in the field. How have the people you know been able to make such a transition successfully?
As always, thanks for the great advice!
- Grounded again
Dear Grounded ...
The best way to make the transition is inside your current employer. Among the business areas you've supported or worked with, figure out which one or two are areas you'd like to work in. Ask for a half hour with the most highly placed executive you've worked with personally, and talk over how you might fit into his/her management team. Have one or two likely roles to suggest, but make it clear you're open to other ideas as well.
Very often the best transition role for someone in your position is an analyst role of some sort, and in particular a role that works with the rest of the management team to help translate ideas for business change into executable programs of action that include process change, employee re-skilling, and information technology.
If you've already established yourself as someone who helps them to clarify and solve problems, I expect you'll get a warm reception.
- Bob
Let me preface this submission with that statement that my boss has been very fair, very accessible, and a pleasure to work for - until recently. At about that time, our group began a very large and highly visible project.
Everything seemed to be moving along as well as can be expected. At some point, however, this project became not only key and high profile within our division, but it popped up on the radar of Corporate and soon was dubbed to be "the benchmark for the enterprise." My boss stated to my peers and I that when phase 1 kicks off and is successful, he's looking at a promotion - so are we - and he's going to do his best to take us with him when he moves on to corporate to oversee the enterprise deployment. Since then we've all been quite busy, and so has he - meetings with corporate, meetings with high level executives, giving briefings on our project to the executive committee. But then things changed.
Shortly after his announcement to us, his demeanor changed. He dismissed any issue with any other project that was in progress, or any "business as usual" day to day issues. When we can squeeze time into his now busy schedule to go over current projects and issues, his new tag-line is "... just make it happen." That doesn't always work as we all know. He seemingly doesn't care about any other projects, to the degree that none of us has had a significant one on one meeting with him in months. He has no idea what our project loads look like, because we're pretty sure he doesn't care. He wants this one project done, on time, and that's it.
Then over the past month it got worse. Suddenly, instead of yelling at us to "get our arms around things and get it done," he has become distant and disengaged. He had a trip overseas (business) for a week and never checked in once. That's right, not once. He's been back for four days, but hasn't been in the office yet (why, we don't know) - and still hasn't replied to one email, or checked in with any of us to see what's been going on. We all fear that he's in over his head (he's not as technical as he'll have his peers and the executives believe - he relies on us to help him out with presentations at times) and that he's totally overwhelmed. That, or on the flip side, he's got a promotion lined up (or another job) and he doesn't care anymore. Needless to say, morale is low. We're all concerned about our future here, and we're getting no guidance from our boss. We're operating as best we can - coming together as a team regularly to keep things in line to the best of our ability - but we're all working a lot of hours trying to keep things running. We're out of bandwidth.
Now, we're of the mindset that we need to polish up our CV's to make sure we're ready to move if need be. Any thoughts?
- Not Getting That Warm Fuzzy Feeling
Dear Cool-and-prickly-feeling ...
Here's the best advice I have, and it isn't all that great.
You're in a no-win situation with your current employer. The good news about that bad news is that you have a decent chance of waiting it out. Either your current boss is about to get his promotion, and things will settle into a new pattern of some sort or other, or he won't and is preparing his departure, at which point he'll be gone, you'll have a new boss, and things will then settle into a new pattern of some sort or other. The situation you describe doesn't sound stable - something is going to give, and my guess is that it will give sooner rather than later.
So internally, keep your head down and your nose clean. The closer to being invisible you can achieve, the better.
And yes, it will do you no harm to polish your resume and start making inquiries. There's no guarantee you'll like the "new pattern" very much, and this way you're taking control of your own destiny.
- Bob
I read an article today (http://www.computerworld.com/newsletter/0,4902,110724,00.html?nlid=CAR ) about people changing careers into IT jobs. I've seen a lot of this first-hand over the years and have always been a little confused about the subject. I have a bachelor's degree in computer science and have worked in a couple different IT departments where it was common to have people with various business backgrounds working in IT. Sometimes this worked out well and sometimes not so well.
I've always wondered why this approach has been so accepted over the years. If I applied for jobs in different functional areas like human resources, finance, or marketing, I definitely wouldn't get very far. In fact, I would probably be laughed right out the door because I don't have any educational background in those areas. Why is the same not true for IT? Why does it sometimes seem like the only qualification for working in IT, or even managing IT, is that the person has used a computer in the past? What's your opinion on this topic?
- Grounded
Dear Grounded ...
I'm on the other side of it, I think, probably because I've worked with IT professionals who had excellent computer science pedigrees, who would have done an outstanding job of coding a highly efficient sorting or indexing subroutine but who at best had only a cookbook approach to understanding what IT's business partners were trying to accomplish and to translating that knowledge into useful software designs.
I've also, by the way, known many IT professionals of all backgrounds who went on to succeed in diverse careers in everything from marketing to law to manufacturing operations. I sure hope you aren't looking at your computer science degree as a straightjacket. Depending on the assignments you've worked on I see no reason anyone would laugh you out the door for gaining experience outside IT.
Quite the opposite: With modern methodologies of the Agile sort, businesses need fewer and fewer pure developers. What they need are do-everything programmer/analysts.
That, at least, is my opinion.
The last statistics I saw on the subject, by the way, showed that for the past 25 years or so, about a quarter of the IT workforce has had formal training in computer science, and that's a pretty good description of the comparison between the supply of graduating computer science majors and the demand for IT new hires.
- Bob
I am systems engineer and architect and recently have been offered a position with the architecture group of a large-scale information systems project. This project is about halfway through its contract period. It has been late on its first few deliverables, and its next deliverable will also be late. There is evidence of serious scalability problems. The top three levels of project engineering management have been sacked, and new people brought in.
I spoke to the project's new Chief Engineer. I asked him questions about what he thought the problem was, and how he intended to deal with them. His answers always had to with more and better engineering He never mentioned requirements.
This is a very large-scale project, with a lot of parts that were not designed to work together that need integrating. I believe that requirements provide a convergence point for multiple independent integration efforts, a "forcing function" that increases unity of effort. If the top of the food chain doesn't understand this, then I would have to convince them that this is true before any useful work could be done. I don't think I have sufficient time to do that on this project.
I know that when the stuff hits the fan, it tends to stick to everybody in the room. I think I could add value to this project. I could perhaps keep it from failing, even if I probably can't make it a great success.
My question is this: is it possible to join up with a project like this and not have it hurt my career?
- DANGER/opportunity
Dear In Danger ...
While I generally don't use the term "requirements" (it's lost most of its meaning: I prefer to ask business users, "How do you want to run your part of the business differently and better?") it appears we think along the same lines. You can't design or integrate anything when you view it as solely an engineering challenge.
So to answer the question you didn't ask, I'd advise staying away from this project. Engineering is difficult enough when everyone understands the point of it all. Without that, a project that's already behind schedule will almost certainly deteriorate into unresolvable arguments whose source is misalignment of core assumptions on the part of the arguers.
To answer the question you did ask: Sure. If the company that contracted to deliver the project is run by reasonably intelligent executives who recognize the value of an employee who manages to bring into port a ship that by all rights should have sunk without a trace, there's a lot of opportunity in a situation like this.
There's also a lot of risk, since the more common response among executives who are dealing with a highly visible mess is to "hold people accountable" - managementspeak for "find scapegoats and publicly hang them."
- Bob
My wife works at a plant nursery, the boss often has tea with friends. The boss now tells my wife that part of her job is to clean the kitchen after the private tea. My wife feels that an adult should clean up after herself instead of sometimes leaving a mess for 2 days until my wife comes back to work after her days off. Can she be forced to clean the office kitchen?
- Advocate
Dear Advocate ...
Can she be forced to clean the kitchen? No. Is it within her employer's rights to redefine her position to include cleaning the kitchen? Probably.
You don't say what your wife's job title is. If she's Director of IS, I'd say this is quite inappropriate and she'd be better off finding another position. If, on the other hand, she's an administrative assistant, then this sort of thing isn't uncommon, although I'd agree that adults ought to be able to wash out a cup as a better choice than letting things sit in the sink for several days.
Regardless, if your wife doesn't like having this responsibility, her choices are simple and I'd advise her to pick one of them. She can: (1) Suffer in silence; (2) tell her employer about her dissatisfaction, living with whatever results; (3) tell her employer she isn't willing to accept this responsibility, living with whatever results; or (4) don't bother telling her employer and just leave.
Actually, there is a (5): Glower and grumble without saying anything, but since you introduced the notion of adulthood into the conversation, I'd say that's out of the question.
- Bob
You said (in your recent series on optimization in Keep the Joint Running) that there was not a single value to be specifically optimized. I have to disagree. Under this I would assume that the optimization would be for company profits. Of course that is also a very hard number to define.
Or am I missing something?
- Optimizer
Dear Optimizer ...
I wish it was that simple. Not all business strategies call for profit maximization (some, for example, sacrifice profits for growth; some prefer margin to total profit and vice versa; those are just two examples among many). And the connection between the order-entry call center and overall achievement of strategy isn't always provable, either.
I suppose you could say that all business strategies aim to maximize the present value of all future profits (which is to say, annual profits discounted by the expected rate of growth due to compound interest). It's a great theory, but very hard to turn into anything beyond interesting fiction.
Your larger point is correct, though - the Order Entry Call Center's goals (for example) should be defined by its contribution to the company's goals, not in isolation. That, of course, is another version of having to suboptimize the parts in order to optimize the whole.
- Bob
Thank you so kindly for your response ("More MBA Advice," Advice Line, May 10, 2006). I was wondering if you had any advice as to whether the reputation of school really matters. I am comparing two programs. One is significantly cheaper but seems to have a less-known reputation. The other has a more international focus. What are your thoughts?
- Degree bound (but bound where?)
Dear Bound ...
The reputation does matter, although not excessively so. What matters more is the caliber of connections you'll make while there. The biggest advantage people get from Harvard, Yale, Princeton and Stanford MBAs is that they leave with an amazing collection of contacts they can draw on throughout their professional career.
- Bob
I would like to revert the topic of discussion to MBA specializations. I am planning on pursuing an MBA this fall and have no clue as to which area I would like to specialize in. Like a few of the people on this blog, I have a degree in engineering. Many of my peers that have furthered their education in business have landed great jobs in the financial sector such as Mergers & Acq's and Trading, but I really do not know if this is the field that I will enjoy.
I enjoy marketing and could see myself working a the marketing board for a large organization but have doubts on the likelihood of landing that type of position. I have found myself gearing towards a business career by obtaining product management and marketing positions. I have a strong interest in obtaining an education to gain an important business sense that can be used in the real word and eventually pursue the avenue of entrepreneurship, however, I expect to be in a corporate environment for the next 3-5 years to eastablish a solid foundation.
I have worked in the automotive, IT and Telecommunications field, not really focusing on an industry. Is there any advice you can provide as to the type of career I can make and possible specializations I can pursue?
- Degree bound
Dear Bound ...
Sounds to me like your career thus far, and your aspiration to become an entrepreneur, give you all the guidance you need. You have a degree in engineering and have held (and presumably succeeded in) marketing and product management positions. I'd suggest talking with your graduate advisor about a curriculum that enhances your strength in product management. This will certainly include marketing, operations and finance. Beyond that, look at what's available and seems to fit best.
I would suggest that you stop thinking in terms of MBA "specialization." For where you want to go, specialization is the last thing you need to do. You need breadth far more than you need depth.
- Bob
If you've covered this topic before, please let me know where.
I recently decided that it would be in my best interest to leave my current employer, but not before obtaining employment elsewhere. In the process of putting together my resume, I find myself at a loss when trying to identify good references. I've been with this company for a number of years, and most of the best candidates for testifying about my abilities and competence are either employees of the company or employees of a firm that has close ties with my company and with my boss's other businesses. I know that my boss would be very unhappy if he knew I was looking for new employment, and I would prefer to leave on my terms, not his.
How do you recommend handling this situation?
- Referring To You
Dear Referring ...
This is a common challenge for non-job-hopping professionals. There's no perfect answer. The challenge isn't insurmountable, though. Here's what you can do:
If you can't come up with three names from among the people you work with, have worked with, and know you well, there's something going on that should cause you more concern.
- Bob
I read your column with interest having been a team leader and now finding myself, again, doing what I do best, which is creating software. I know that I am not a leader but expect some time to find myself in that position again, so am very interested in understanding what makes leaders. Maybe I can take an engineering approach to leading; treat it as a science and become a good, if not great, leader.
When I read about influencing yesterday, I spotted a weakness in myself. When I read today: "While most people know that argument by analogy is invalid," I was very surprised. Imagine the argument is a hot dinner. I've drawn more analogies in arguments than I've had hot dinners. In my mind, an analogy is the equivalent of an engineering model. (You see, even that sentence contains an analogy!) How could you have ever argued that the world is not flat without using models or analogies? Or maybe they are not the same thing. I am very interested in your opinion. Of course, now that I can't use my favorite arguing (persuading) tool, I'd like to know what I should use!
- Metaphorically inclined
Dear Tilted ...
The problem with arguing by analogy (or metaphor) is that all I have to do to refute your argument is to say, "No, arguing isn't like having a hot dinner. They aren't parallel." All that's left at that point is assertion.
Or, you can take your analogy and abstract the essential systems elements from it. If you take the parallel and can demonstrate the same elements, you're no longer arguing by analogy. You're arguing from general systems theory.
So if I were to say, "A business process is like a linear amplifier," you might not buy it. Now imagine I'd said, "A linear amplifier transforms inputs to outputs using a scaling factor. To stabilize it, you have to add a low-latency negative feedback loop. The business process we're analyzing also transforms its input to an output, although not with a linear scaling factor. I still think they're similar enough that we should explore using negative feedback to stabilize it."
See the difference?
Now about you and leadership: Perhaps it's because I wrote a book about leadership that looks at it as an engineering problem, more or less (Leading IT: The Toughest Job in the World, IS Survivor Publishing, 2004) - I agree not everyone is a leader or wants to be one, but most people can develop some ability in that area, and will benefit by doing so.
It's more challenging than mechanical or electrical engineering, because you're working with human beings - less predictable in their responses to stimuli than linear amplifiers or poured concrete. But the techniques do work.
Some people are natural leaders, just as some people are natural musicians. But just because something doesn't come easily to you doesn't mean you can't become skilled at it through learning and practice, whether it's playing the tuba or leading a project team.
- Bob
My boss and I argue regularly about whether his style, which is to run a consensus-driven organization, or mine - I tend to be more authoritarian - is better. He's constantly trying to get me to spend more time building consensus. I encourage him to be more decisive.
Who is right? Or should we each simply accept that we have different styles, and that's okay?
- Decisive
Dear Decisive ...
Finally - an easy one!
So here's the question you both should be asking each other: Who cares a fig what your style is, or his?
Imagine you're standing in the tee box on the golf course, looking down a long, narrow fairway, arguing over whether your style - you slice - or his, which is to hook, is better. Your styles are irrelevant. What matters is how the fairway goes.
There are five basic decision styles: Authoritarian, consultative, consensus, delegation, and democracy (voting). Democracy is awful for everything except when peers have to decide something and can't come to agreement - ignore it in all other circumstances. When you delegate a decision, the delegatee has to choose one of the five decision styles, so it's recursive. Ignore it too (for the purposes of this discussion - delegation is one of the most important skills a manager can master).
That leaves authoritarian, consultative, and consensus decision-making. Each is good for a different type of situation. Reserve authoritarian decisions for when fast and stupid is better than slow and wise, and when it doesn't much matter whether anyone else commits to the result. Unless you think you're the only person with something intelligent to say on a subject, don't use it if you have the time to do something else.
Consensus decision-making is slow, expensive and not all that much smarter than authoritarian decision-making, because it requires compromises that jeopardize consistency in favor of buy-in. Reserve consensus for situations where buy-in is more important than anything else.
That leaves consultative decision-making, where you ask a lot of people their opinions, actually listen to them to become smarter than you were before (lip-service consultation is simply authoritarian decision-making that irritates everyone, including the decision-maker) and then make the decision yourself, letting everyone involved know what you decided and why.
Consultative decision-making is what you and your boss should rely on for most of your decisions.
And for heavens sake, stop arguing. Arguing is about winning and losing. If you aren't having a discussion - trying to find common ground to solve a shared problem - both of you are wasting the company's time playing an unproductive game neither of you will ever win.
- Bob
In an article last year you mentioned an employee subverting a supervisor through malicious obedience ["The hierarchy of power," Keep the Joint Running, 6/20/2005]. In all the years I’ve been a supervisor I’ve never had one until now. Any suggestions on how to handle?
- Sabotaged
Dear Sabotaged ...
The answer depends a lot on the root cause. Put baldly, the question on the table is, is it the employee, or is it you?
Some employees are simply malcontents. It's in their character for one reason or another. At the right times in history they might turn into Samuel Adams (the revolutionary, not the beermeister) and do something incredibly useful for the world. When they're one of our employees, however, they're constant pains in the neck.
If you're dealing with a simple malcontent, you should strongly consider terminating the individual (or, if you're feeling Machiavellian, try to get him transferred to a department run by one of your organizational rivals ... but that would be wrong, of course). Check with HR for procedures and appropriate documentation, of course.
If you think the employee can be rescued and want to go through the effort, start by documenting specific instances. Then sit down with the employee and lay it on the table: "I don't know what you think you're going to accomplish, but what you are going to accomplish is finding yourself another position - this isn't acceptable, and I really don't care how good you are at loopholing policies and guidelines to prove you didn't violate any of them. What I care about is getting the job done well, and that isn't what you're doing. You have all the potential in the world - it's your attitude that's killing you. Only you can decide whether you want to contribute to this company or continue to try to damage it. My decision is whether to be patient while you figure it out. So what's it going to be?"
You'll need the documentation because employees who act this way are brilliant at denial - both to you and to themselves. And know in advance that the odds aren't all that good - mostly, you're putting yourself through this to satisfy yourself that you did the right thing. Not that this is a bad approach to leadership - I recommend it.
On to you as the possible offender. Think through the employee's job history. Did something change recently that might have cause the employee to become disaffected? I've seen this kind of thing happen because an employee expected a promotion and was disappointed (and then I didn't handle his disappointment very well). Have you cut another employee some slack, and this one has had to pick it up so all the work gets done? Have, on a few occasions, other employees received plum assignments while this one has been kept handling the day-to-day? Do you give recognition for achievement in staff meetings, only this character is never on the receiving end?
It isn't that these things don't happen. They do, and sometimes there's no avoiding it. It's how you handle them when they do occur that has the impact.
If you think it's you but you aren't sure, have a modified version of the meeting sketched out above, only start with a more compassionate opening: "Until a few months ago, I thought you were one of our most [promising/reliable/hard-working/substitute favorable adjective] employees. Something changed - I don't know what happened, but the result has been that you're killing me through malicious obedience. Want to tell me what's going on?"
One way or another, you have to take care of this. Leaving the situation unchanged will poison everyone else in the organization.
- Bob
May 31, 2006 | Comments: (0)
Dealing with an autocratic change agent
Dear Bob ...I would appreciate your thoughts on the following situation.
Our company recently started a program to implement "radical change" in a particular business area. They hired an external contractor to create the program. This person (let's call him Dick) has now been hired as the overall Project Manager (still a contractor). I am a Systems Consultant (company employee) on this project - my role is to develop the overall IT solutions. Dick has made it clear that he is "in charge". To wit:
* He doesn't believe in stakeholder, consensus, or any consensus for that matter. He believes in imposing change (he has said exactly this).
* He will not hesitate to "throw out" systems methodology if it impedes the speed at which "he" can deliver. He has demonstrated often that he's not sure what systems methodology is and thinks all methodology is waterfall, despite efforts to educate him to the contrary.
* He does not believe in moving IT closer to the business - our role is to "deliver working software", not be partners in business change.
* His behavior demonstrates an "ends justify the means" approach to getting things done.
* He claims Senior Management has given him carte blanche to cut "whatever corners are necessary" to implement this program.
In spite of the above, I recognize he has a lot of knowledge in his area of expertise (change agent) and I believe his business plan is a good one.
How do I work with this guy? I report to the IT project manager (excellent manager), but have a functional reporting relationship to Dick - I want to work effectively with him. I believe in partnering with the business (which he doesn't). I fully endorse changing our processes when it makes logical sense to do so but we do have some rigor we CANNOT escape, e.g. SOX, and some we SHOULD NOT bypass in order to ensure quality and maintainability. Our dynamic is weird - Dick tends to speak to me in either a condescending manner as if I need his "wise guidance", or in a conspiratorial "it's just you and me" tone (I'm a younger female). I feel I'm being "played" much of the time. He also has claimed responsibility for my recent promotion, which is inaccurate. I want to be effective on this project, but I'm not sure how to approach this.
- Working for an egomaniac
Dear Working ...
Well, clearly the right course of action is to backstab him until he's thrown out, then bring in our consulting company to rescue the situation.
I'll even pay you a commission!
Okay, that isn't such a great solution. Among the many disadvantages is that we might get caught. Let's go for Plan B: Keep your head down and your nose clean.
Here's what's going to happen. Dick hasn't figured out the difference between being right and helping the organization be right enough. He also hasn't figured out the difference between being certain and being right. This will work out fine for him, right up until the time he overplays his hand. When he does, it will get ugly fast. He won't have to make very much of a slip for it to trigger the pent-up resentment he's certainly causing.
So do your best to keep yourself clean, wait it out, and let someone else start the blow-up process. My best advice is for you and the IT project manager to accept Dick's methodology, at least to the extent that you accept that your scope is limited to building software that fits the specs. To that end, document the specs as precisely as you can and insist that you get proper sign-off on the specs from Dick before anyone starts the coding process. That he thinks all methodologies are waterfall will work to your benefit here: This is how waterfall methodologies work.
If Dick refuses to sign off on the specs, that sounds like a great opportunity for you and the IT project manager to say something like, "We don't understand. If they're right, you would sign off on them, of course, so if you won't, that has to mean something is wrong with the specs. We sure don't want to start the coding process until they're fixed."
Or, you and the IT project manager might consider bringing in internal audit around then if you're boxed in and think that might help. But that's a last resort. As I say, try to wait it out and let someone else start the party.
BTW: In my book, what you describe indicates that Dick might be an excellent project manager, but as an agent of change he's a fool. Being a competent change agent means more than telling everyone what's supposed to happen and then blaming them when it doesn't. It means taking the steps necessary to move the organization forward.
By definition.
- Bob
Posted by Bob Lewis on May 31, 2006 05:06 AM
May 30, 2006 | Comments: (0)
Dear Bob ...I'm the one who wrote asking about non-IT professionals crossing over into IT and vice versa ("IT background, careers, and how they're connected," Advice Line, May 23, 2006). Your advice made a lot of sense.
I have 9 years of experience in IT supporting ERP systems, mostly in the Human Resources realm. In order to do my job well, I need to know how to do the application users' jobs as well as know the back-end IT systems for the software. I am able to communicate well with end users, but I do know others in IT who cannot. I also know IT staff who have come from the business areas and do not function well because of their lack of IT training and experience. It definitely seems to go both ways. I suppose a strong IT department will have a solid mix of people with technical skills and application knowledge.
You mentioned that you know many IT people that have successfully transitioned to other careers. Could you give me advice on doing this? The one thing I've proven to myself over the years is that I can adapt and easily learn new things, both in IT and also in the business areas. Do I need to go back to school for more formal education if I want to try other things outside IT? Most job postings have certain requirements like a certain educational level in a specific field or so many years of experience in the field. How have the people you know been able to make such a transition successfully?
As always, thanks for the great advice!
- Grounded again
Dear Grounded ...
The best way to make the transition is inside your current employer. Among the business areas you've supported or worked with, figure out which one or two are areas you'd like to work in. Ask for a half hour with the most highly placed executive you've worked with personally, and talk over how you might fit into his/her management team. Have one or two likely roles to suggest, but make it clear you're open to other ideas as well.
Very often the best transition role for someone in your position is an analyst role of some sort, and in particular a role that works with the rest of the management team to help translate ideas for business change into executable programs of action that include process change, employee re-skilling, and information technology.
If you've already established yourself as someone who helps them to clarify and solve problems, I expect you'll get a warm reception.
- Bob
Posted by Bob Lewis on May 30, 2006 04:59 AM
May 26, 2006 | Comments: (0)
When the boss becomes detached
Dear Bob ...Let me preface this submission with that statement that my boss has been very fair, very accessible, and a pleasure to work for - until recently. At about that time, our group began a very large and highly visible project.
Everything seemed to be moving along as well as can be expected. At some point, however, this project became not only key and high profile within our division, but it popped up on the radar of Corporate and soon was dubbed to be "the benchmark for the enterprise." My boss stated to my peers and I that when phase 1 kicks off and is successful, he's looking at a promotion - so are we - and he's going to do his best to take us with him when he moves on to corporate to oversee the enterprise deployment. Since then we've all been quite busy, and so has he - meetings with corporate, meetings with high level executives, giving briefings on our project to the executive committee. But then things changed.
Shortly after his announcement to us, his demeanor changed. He dismissed any issue with any other project that was in progress, or any "business as usual" day to day issues. When we can squeeze time into his now busy schedule to go over current projects and issues, his new tag-line is "... just make it happen." That doesn't always work as we all know. He seemingly doesn't care about any other projects, to the degree that none of us has had a significant one on one meeting with him in months. He has no idea what our project loads look like, because we're pretty sure he doesn't care. He wants this one project done, on time, and that's it.
Then over the past month it got worse. Suddenly, instead of yelling at us to "get our arms around things and get it done," he has become distant and disengaged. He had a trip overseas (business) for a week and never checked in once. That's right, not once. He's been back for four days, but hasn't been in the office yet (why, we don't know) - and still hasn't replied to one email, or checked in with any of us to see what's been going on. We all fear that he's in over his head (he's not as technical as he'll have his peers and the executives believe - he relies on us to help him out with presentations at times) and that he's totally overwhelmed. That, or on the flip side, he's got a promotion lined up (or another job) and he doesn't care anymore. Needless to say, morale is low. We're all concerned about our future here, and we're getting no guidance from our boss. We're operating as best we can - coming together as a team regularly to keep things in line to the best of our ability - but we're all working a lot of hours trying to keep things running. We're out of bandwidth.
Now, we're of the mindset that we need to polish up our CV's to make sure we're ready to move if need be. Any thoughts?
- Not Getting That Warm Fuzzy Feeling
Dear Cool-and-prickly-feeling ...
Here's the best advice I have, and it isn't all that great.
You're in a no-win situation with your current employer. The good news about that bad news is that you have a decent chance of waiting it out. Either your current boss is about to get his promotion, and things will settle into a new pattern of some sort or other, or he won't and is preparing his departure, at which point he'll be gone, you'll have a new boss, and things will then settle into a new pattern of some sort or other. The situation you describe doesn't sound stable - something is going to give, and my guess is that it will give sooner rather than later.
So internally, keep your head down and your nose clean. The closer to being invisible you can achieve, the better.
And yes, it will do you no harm to polish your resume and start making inquiries. There's no guarantee you'll like the "new pattern" very much, and this way you're taking control of your own destiny.
- Bob
Posted by Bob Lewis on May 26, 2006 03:08 PM
May 23, 2006 | Comments: (0)
IT background, careers, and how they're connected
Dear Bob ...I read an article today (http://www.computerworld.com/newsletter/0,4902,110724,00.html?nlid=CAR ) about people changing careers into IT jobs. I've seen a lot of this first-hand over the years and have always been a little confused about the subject. I have a bachelor's degree in computer science and have worked in a couple different IT departments where it was common to have people with various business backgrounds working in IT. Sometimes this worked out well and sometimes not so well.
I've always wondered why this approach has been so accepted over the years. If I applied for jobs in different functional areas like human resources, finance, or marketing, I definitely wouldn't get very far. In fact, I would probably be laughed right out the door because I don't have any educational background in those areas. Why is the same not true for IT? Why does it sometimes seem like the only qualification for working in IT, or even managing IT, is that the person has used a computer in the past? What's your opinion on this topic?
- Grounded
Dear Grounded ...
I'm on the other side of it, I think, probably because I've worked with IT professionals who had excellent computer science pedigrees, who would have done an outstanding job of coding a highly efficient sorting or indexing subroutine but who at best had only a cookbook approach to understanding what IT's business partners were trying to accomplish and to translating that knowledge into useful software designs.
I've also, by the way, known many IT professionals of all backgrounds who went on to succeed in diverse careers in everything from marketing to law to manufacturing operations. I sure hope you aren't looking at your computer science degree as a straightjacket. Depending on the assignments you've worked on I see no reason anyone would laugh you out the door for gaining experience outside IT.
Quite the opposite: With modern methodologies of the Agile sort, businesses need fewer and fewer pure developers. What they need are do-everything programmer/analysts.
That, at least, is my opinion.
The last statistics I saw on the subject, by the way, showed that for the past 25 years or so, about a quarter of the IT workforce has had formal training in computer science, and that's a pretty good description of the comparison between the supply of graduating computer science majors and the demand for IT new hires.
- Bob
Posted by Bob Lewis on May 23, 2006 01:37 PM
May 23, 2006 | Comments: (0)
Join a challenged project or not?
Dear Bob ...I am systems engineer and architect and recently have been offered a position with the architecture group of a large-scale information systems project. This project is about halfway through its contract period. It has been late on its first few deliverables, and its next deliverable will also be late. There is evidence of serious scalability problems. The top three levels of project engineering management have been sacked, and new people brought in.
I spoke to the project's new Chief Engineer. I asked him questions about what he thought the problem was, and how he intended to deal with them. His answers always had to with more and better engineering He never mentioned requirements.
This is a very large-scale project, with a lot of parts that were not designed to work together that need integrating. I believe that requirements provide a convergence point for multiple independent integration efforts, a "forcing function" that increases unity of effort. If the top of the food chain doesn't understand this, then I would have to convince them that this is true before any useful work could be done. I don't think I have sufficient time to do that on this project.
I know that when the stuff hits the fan, it tends to stick to everybody in the room. I think I could add value to this project. I could perhaps keep it from failing, even if I probably can't make it a great success.
My question is this: is it possible to join up with a project like this and not have it hurt my career?
- DANGER/opportunity
Dear In Danger ...
While I generally don't use the term "requirements" (it's lost most of its meaning: I prefer to ask business users, "How do you want to run your part of the business differently and better?") it appears we think along the same lines. You can't design or integrate anything when you view it as solely an engineering challenge.
So to answer the question you didn't ask, I'd advise staying away from this project. Engineering is difficult enough when everyone understands the point of it all. Without that, a project that's already behind schedule will almost certainly deteriorate into unresolvable arguments whose source is misalignment of core assumptions on the part of the arguers.
To answer the question you did ask: Sure. If the company that contracted to deliver the project is run by reasonably intelligent executives who recognize the value of an employee who manages to bring into port a ship that by all rights should have sunk without a trace, there's a lot of opportunity in a situation like this.
There's also a lot of risk, since the more common response among executives who are dealing with a highly visible mess is to "hold people accountable" - managementspeak for "find scapegoats and publicly hang them."
- Bob
Posted by Bob Lewis on May 23, 2006 06:05 AM
May 20, 2006 | Comments: (0)
Dealing with undesirable responsibilities
Dear Bob ...My wife works at a plant nursery, the boss often has tea with friends. The boss now tells my wife that part of her job is to clean the kitchen after the private tea. My wife feels that an adult should clean up after herself instead of sometimes leaving a mess for 2 days until my wife comes back to work after her days off. Can she be forced to clean the office kitchen?
- Advocate
Dear Advocate ...
Can she be forced to clean the kitchen? No. Is it within her employer's rights to redefine her position to include cleaning the kitchen? Probably.
You don't say what your wife's job title is. If she's Director of IS, I'd say this is quite inappropriate and she'd be better off finding another position. If, on the other hand, she's an administrative assistant, then this sort of thing isn't uncommon, although I'd agree that adults ought to be able to wash out a cup as a better choice than letting things sit in the sink for several days.
Regardless, if your wife doesn't like having this responsibility, her choices are simple and I'd advise her to pick one of them. She can: (1) Suffer in silence; (2) tell her employer about her dissatisfaction, living with whatever results; (3) tell her employer she isn't willing to accept this responsibility, living with whatever results; or (4) don't bother telling her employer and just leave.
Actually, there is a (5): Glower and grumble without saying anything, but since you introduced the notion of adulthood into the conversation, I'd say that's out of the question.
- Bob
Posted by Bob Lewis on May 20, 2006 11:00 AM
May 17, 2006 | Comments: (0)
The goal of optimization - profit, or something else?
Dear Bob ...You said (in your recent series on optimization in Keep the Joint Running) that there was not a single value to be specifically optimized. I have to disagree. Under this I would assume that the optimization would be for company profits. Of course that is also a very hard number to define.
Or am I missing something?
- Optimizer
Dear Optimizer ...
I wish it was that simple. Not all business strategies call for profit maximization (some, for example, sacrifice profits for growth; some prefer margin to total profit and vice versa; those are just two examples among many). And the connection between the order-entry call center and overall achievement of strategy isn't always provable, either.
I suppose you could say that all business strategies aim to maximize the present value of all future profits (which is to say, annual profits discounted by the expected rate of growth due to compound interest). It's a great theory, but very hard to turn into anything beyond interesting fiction.
Your larger point is correct, though - the Order Entry Call Center's goals (for example) should be defined by its contribution to the company's goals, not in isolation. That, of course, is another version of having to suboptimize the parts in order to optimize the whole.
- Bob
Posted by Bob Lewis on May 17, 2006 05:39 AM
May 15, 2006 | Comments: (0)
Which MBA school to choose ... and why
Dear Bob ...Thank you so kindly for your response ("More MBA Advice," Advice Line, May 10, 2006). I was wondering if you had any advice as to whether the reputation of school really matters. I am comparing two programs. One is significantly cheaper but seems to have a less-known reputation. The other has a more international focus. What are your thoughts?
- Degree bound (but bound where?)
Dear Bound ...
The reputation does matter, although not excessively so. What matters more is the caliber of connections you'll make while there. The biggest advantage people get from Harvard, Yale, Princeton and Stanford MBAs is that they leave with an amazing collection of contacts they can draw on throughout their professional career.
- Bob
Posted by Bob Lewis on May 15, 2006 07:41 PM
May 10, 2006 | Comments: (0)
Dear Bob ...I would like to revert the topic of discussion to MBA specializations. I am planning on pursuing an MBA this fall and have no clue as to which area I would like to specialize in. Like a few of the people on this blog, I have a degree in engineering. Many of my peers that have furthered their education in business have landed great jobs in the financial sector such as Mergers & Acq's and Trading, but I really do not know if this is the field that I will enjoy.
I enjoy marketing and could see myself working a the marketing board for a large organization but have doubts on the likelihood of landing that type of position. I have found myself gearing towards a business career by obtaining product management and marketing positions. I have a strong interest in obtaining an education to gain an important business sense that can be used in the real word and eventually pursue the avenue of entrepreneurship, however, I expect to be in a corporate environment for the next 3-5 years to eastablish a solid foundation.
I have worked in the automotive, IT and Telecommunications field, not really focusing on an industry. Is there any advice you can provide as to the type of career I can make and possible specializations I can pursue?
- Degree bound
Dear Bound ...
Sounds to me like your career thus far, and your aspiration to become an entrepreneur, give you all the guidance you need. You have a degree in engineering and have held (and presumably succeeded in) marketing and product management positions. I'd suggest talking with your graduate advisor about a curriculum that enhances your strength in product management. This will certainly include marketing, operations and finance. Beyond that, look at what's available and seems to fit best.
I would suggest that you stop thinking in terms of MBA "specialization." For where you want to go, specialization is the last thing you need to do. You need breadth far more than you need depth.
- Bob
Posted by Bob Lewis on May 10, 2006 05:02 AM
May 07, 2006 | Comments: (0)
Dear Bob ...If you've covered this topic before, please let me know where.
I recently decided that it would be in my best interest to leave my current employer, but not before obtaining employment elsewhere. In the process of putting together my resume, I find myself at a loss when trying to identify good references. I've been with this company for a number of years, and most of the best candidates for testifying about my abilities and competence are either employees of the company or employees of a firm that has close ties with my company and with my boss's other businesses. I know that my boss would be very unhappy if he knew I was looking for new employment, and I would prefer to leave on my terms, not his.
How do you recommend handling this situation?
- Referring To You
Dear Referring ...
This is a common challenge for non-job-hopping professionals. There's no perfect answer. The challenge isn't insurmountable, though. Here's what you can do:
- If any co-workers have left your company in the last few years, they can serve as references and asking for their discretion won't be an imposition.
- If any current co-workers are close enough friends that you can trust their discretion, you can go ahead and ask them as well, letting prospective employers know that they should make contact using home telephone numbers, and only after hours.
- If you've worked with the employees of outside vendors, they'd be fine choices, too.
- Personal friends can serve as "character witnesses" - not a complete solution, but one that can complement the previous three.
If you can't come up with three names from among the people you work with, have worked with, and know you well, there's something going on that should cause you more concern.
- Bob
Posted by Bob Lewis on May 7, 2006 04:11 PM
May 06, 2006 | Comments: (0)
Why arguing by analogy isn't valid
Dear Bob ...I read your column with interest having been a team leader and now finding myself, again, doing what I do best, which is creating software. I know that I am not a leader but expect some time to find myself in that position again, so am very interested in understanding what makes leaders. Maybe I can take an engineering approach to leading; treat it as a science and become a good, if not great, leader.
When I read about influencing yesterday, I spotted a weakness in myself. When I read today: "While most people know that argument by analogy is invalid," I was very surprised. Imagine the argument is a hot dinner. I've drawn more analogies in arguments than I've had hot dinners. In my mind, an analogy is the equivalent of an engineering model. (You see, even that sentence contains an analogy!) How could you have ever argued that the world is not flat without using models or analogies? Or maybe they are not the same thing. I am very interested in your opinion. Of course, now that I can't use my favorite arguing (persuading) tool, I'd like to know what I should use!
- Metaphorically inclined
Dear Tilted ...
The problem with arguing by analogy (or metaphor) is that all I have to do to refute your argument is to say, "No, arguing isn't like having a hot dinner. They aren't parallel." All that's left at that point is assertion.
Or, you can take your analogy and abstract the essential systems elements from it. If you take the parallel and can demonstrate the same elements, you're no longer arguing by analogy. You're arguing from general systems theory.
So if I were to say, "A business process is like a linear amplifier," you might not buy it. Now imagine I'd said, "A linear amplifier transforms inputs to outputs using a scaling factor. To stabilize it, you have to add a low-latency negative feedback loop. The business process we're analyzing also transforms its input to an output, although not with a linear scaling factor. I still think they're similar enough that we should explore using negative feedback to stabilize it."
See the difference?
Now about you and leadership: Perhaps it's because I wrote a book about leadership that looks at it as an engineering problem, more or less (Leading IT: The Toughest Job in the World, IS Survivor Publishing, 2004) - I agree not everyone is a leader or wants to be one, but most people can develop some ability in that area, and will benefit by doing so.
It's more challenging than mechanical or electrical engineering, because you're working with human beings - less predictable in their responses to stimuli than linear amplifiers or poured concrete. But the techniques do work.
Some people are natural leaders, just as some people are natural musicians. But just because something doesn't come easily to you doesn't mean you can't become skilled at it through learning and practice, whether it's playing the tuba or leading a project team.
- Bob
Posted by Bob Lewis on May 6, 2006 04:06 PM
May 03, 2006 | Comments: (0)
The best way to make decisions
Dear Bob ...My boss and I argue regularly about whether his style, which is to run a consensus-driven organization, or mine - I tend to be more authoritarian - is better. He's constantly trying to get me to spend more time building consensus. I encourage him to be more decisive.
Who is right? Or should we each simply accept that we have different styles, and that's okay?
- Decisive
Dear Decisive ...
Finally - an easy one!
So here's the question you both should be asking each other: Who cares a fig what your style is, or his?
Imagine you're standing in the tee box on the golf course, looking down a long, narrow fairway, arguing over whether your style - you slice - or his, which is to hook, is better. Your styles are irrelevant. What matters is how the fairway goes.
There are five basic decision styles: Authoritarian, consultative, consensus, delegation, and democracy (voting). Democracy is awful for everything except when peers have to decide something and can't come to agreement - ignore it in all other circumstances. When you delegate a decision, the delegatee has to choose one of the five decision styles, so it's recursive. Ignore it too (for the purposes of this discussion - delegation is one of the most important skills a manager can master).
That leaves authoritarian, consultative, and consensus decision-making. Each is good for a different type of situation. Reserve authoritarian decisions for when fast and stupid is better than slow and wise, and when it doesn't much matter whether anyone else commits to the result. Unless you think you're the only person with something intelligent to say on a subject, don't use it if you have the time to do something else.
Consensus decision-making is slow, expensive and not all that much smarter than authoritarian decision-making, because it requires compromises that jeopardize consistency in favor of buy-in. Reserve consensus for situations where buy-in is more important than anything else.
That leaves consultative decision-making, where you ask a lot of people their opinions, actually listen to them to become smarter than you were before (lip-service consultation is simply authoritarian decision-making that irritates everyone, including the decision-maker) and then make the decision yourself, letting everyone involved know what you decided and why.
Consultative decision-making is what you and your boss should rely on for most of your decisions.
And for heavens sake, stop arguing. Arguing is about winning and losing. If you aren't having a discussion - trying to find common ground to solve a shared problem - both of you are wasting the company's time playing an unproductive game neither of you will ever win.
- Bob
Posted by Bob Lewis on May 3, 2006 04:39 AM
May 02, 2006 | Comments: (0)
Dear Bob ...In an article last year you mentioned an employee subverting a supervisor through malicious obedience ["The hierarchy of power," Keep the Joint Running, 6/20/2005]. In all the years I’ve been a supervisor I’ve never had one until now. Any suggestions on how to handle?
- Sabotaged
Dear Sabotaged ...
The answer depends a lot on the root cause. Put baldly, the question on the table is, is it the employee, or is it you?
Some employees are simply malcontents. It's in their character for one reason or another. At the right times in history they might turn into Samuel Adams (the revolutionary, not the beermeister) and do something incredibly useful for the world. When they're one of our employees, however, they're constant pains in the neck.
If you're dealing with a simple malcontent, you should strongly consider terminating the individual (or, if you're feeling Machiavellian, try to get him transferred to a department run by one of your organizational rivals ... but that would be wrong, of course). Check with HR for procedures and appropriate documentation, of course.
If you think the employee can be rescued and want to go through the effort, start by documenting specific instances. Then sit down with the employee and lay it on the table: "I don't know what you think you're going to accomplish, but what you are going to accomplish is finding yourself another position - this isn't acceptable, and I really don't care how good you are at loopholing policies and guidelines to prove you didn't violate any of them. What I care about is getting the job done well, and that isn't what you're doing. You have all the potential in the world - it's your attitude that's killing you. Only you can decide whether you want to contribute to this company or continue to try to damage it. My decision is whether to be patient while you figure it out. So what's it going to be?"
You'll need the documentation because employees who act this way are brilliant at denial - both to you and to themselves. And know in advance that the odds aren't all that good - mostly, you're putting yourself through this to satisfy yourself that you did the right thing. Not that this is a bad approach to leadership - I recommend it.
On to you as the possible offender. Think through the employee's job history. Did something change recently that might have cause the employee to become disaffected? I've seen this kind of thing happen because an employee expected a promotion and was disappointed (and then I didn't handle his disappointment very well). Have you cut another employee some slack, and this one has had to pick it up so all the work gets done? Have, on a few occasions, other employees received plum assignments while this one has been kept handling the day-to-day? Do you give recognition for achievement in staff meetings, only this character is never on the receiving end?
It isn't that these things don't happen. They do, and sometimes there's no avoiding it. It's how you handle them when they do occur that has the impact.
If you think it's you but you aren't sure, have a modified version of the meeting sketched out above, only start with a more compassionate opening: "Until a few months ago, I thought you were one of our most [promising/reliable/hard-working/substitute favorable adjective] employees. Something changed - I don't know what happened, but the result has been that you're killing me through malicious obedience. Want to tell me what's going on?"
One way or another, you have to take care of this. Leaving the situation unchanged will poison everyone else in the organization.
- Bob
Posted by Bob Lewis on May 2, 2006 04:47 AM
|
Three books. Three ways to change the world, your life, or at least Bob Lewis' bank account. Leading IT: The Toughest Job in the World distills the world of IT leadership into eight learnable skills and gives you concrete, practical techniques for each one of them. Bare Bones Project Management: What you can't not do makes project management manageable, even for first-time project managers with no formal training in the discipline. ManagementSpeak: What managers say/What they mean … well, it won't help your career, and won't make you a better manager. Mostly, it will make you chuckle, guffaw, and maybe even chortle. Make friends - it's the perfect gift for anyone who has ever suffered through one of those meetings. Order your copies today! |
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