MORE ENTRIES
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- Vendor relationship management concerns
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- How long should a discipinary freeze last?
- Why re-using is harder than building for re-use
- Learning from success without stifling innovation
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Advice Line | Bob Lewis »
December 2007
Dear Bob ...
I recently went to a "conflict management" class and got classified high on the "Conscientious" division on the basis of a short questionnaire. Leaving aside the validity of such a short instrument (never let facts get in the way of a good hunch), I agree with the classification.
The sad thing is that we Conscientious types seem to find it very difficult to learn the emotional intelligence and social skills needed to survive in a "Dominator" dominated environment. It's just tough to get it through our heads that people won't always do the reasonable thing for the greater good. I'm motivated by the group goal--shouldn't everybody be?
Sigh ...
- Conscientious
Dear Conscientious ...
A few thoughts occurred to me:
- Bob
Not really. I'm sure most of the people who work there, and even most of the people who direct the company are very nice human beings who treat their families well, don't kick dogs, and host backyard barbecues.
Nonetheless.
As many Advice Line readers know, I also send out an independent e-letter once a week called Keep the Joint Running (KJR). It goes to a list of voluntary subscribers only. It is, from a spam perspective, entirely kosher.
It doesn't matter. So far as I can tell, something about it has flagged my ISP's SMTP server as a spam source.
That, by itself, would be okay - these things happen, and there's no definitive test of an e-mail message that clearly separates spam from legitimate messages.
Here's what isn't okay: There is no way to contact MessageLabs to discuss the problem, inform them that they've made a mistake, and get the flag cleared.
MessageLabs is accessible to its subscribers. It isn't accessible to its victims. Period.
I'm seriously tempted to have my attorneys decide whether identifying my e-mails as spam when they aren't constitutes libel. I won't do it, of course - the cost of pursuing the complaint would exceed anything I'd get out of it by a huge multiple.
Except, of course, for the satisfaction I'd get.
I don't have any advice to give about this, other than to explore alternatives to MessageLabs if you're looking for a commercial spam identification system.
Not that MessageLabs will fail to identify spam. Quite the opposite. I figure, their system is easy. If you flag everything, some of what you flag will be spam.
Sorry to sound so grumpy about this. Mostly, it's because I'm pretty grumpy about it.
- Bob
Dear Bob ...
This is strange, but true. My wife has been strongly and relentlessly pushing me to leave my current job because the company sucks and has been getting worse on a daily basis for the last ten to fifteen years.
I respond by pointing out options and the positives of working there to my beloved - that drives her crazy.
I love my job, my coworkers and my manager, but after that everything drops off the cliff. Simply, the company had once been a top-rated place to work, but has since slid into being a third-rate employer, and is trending into becoming a sweatshop.
Some argue whether the glass is half full or half empty. At this company, the executives drank the contents, then stole the glass, then blame the employees for the lack of more glasses.
There are two things I can do about the situation - one is leave for a better employer, the other is to stay and be positive by realizing that my attitude, enthusiasm and actions are independent of the company's eroding culture.
That is not to say that corporate problems should be ignored - it is to say that you focus on fixing what can be fixed and improving what can be improved. It is saying to be truthful regarding the negatives, but not to dwell on negative stuff that you can't influence, improve or fix.
Choose to be a winner and overcomer, not a whiner and a loser.
- Overcoming
Dear Overcoming ...
A point that seems obvious - when you say, "... be truthful regarding the negatives, but not to dwell on negative stuff that you can't influence, improve or fix," I have to wonder why you aren't willing to "think outside the company" when you say that.
You can't influence, improve, or fix your current employer. You can influence, improve, and fix your choice of employer. My question is, why do you want to stay with a company that's only a decent place to work so long as your manager keeps his/her job and enough independence to shield you from the rest of upper management?
Keep this in mind: In a company like that, your manager could be gone tomorrow. Where will that leave you?
- Bob
Dear Bob ...
You may have already entertained this topic but I have not seen it. It has to do with the ugly reality of vested interests and marginal or even improper relationships, usually with vendors.
As a consultant who has seen it many, many times around the world I think of it as "Listen To Me..........Not."
It involves cases like a CIO, along with his SEVP, who declared to the IT Steering Committee "We are not getting value out of our storage arrangement. With this next major purchase we should put pressure on our supplier by testing if someone else can do it better and for less." After 3 major vendors worked many hours into many nights given the prospect of displacing a competitor at a major customer site and, in fact, all put forth significantly better offers, it came out that the 2 executives met privately with the CIO and awarded the deal to the incumbent who only moved slightly from their previous commercial arrangement. Rationale not provided.
In other "integrity" situations I see sporting event tickets, "training" trips, etc. routinely impact the vendor decision process, manifesting itself as clear bias in evaluations, refusals to attend presentations by competitors, etc. We don't even want to go into internal alliances and politics beyond observing that much more of it appears to me to be top-down while vendor involved shades of gray and black seem to exist top down (executive fiat) and bottom up (technical bias), squeezing the middle and upper-middle management teams who so often are the ones seeking to improve effectiveness.
Bob, I am not on any kind or moral march here. My interest in the topic is the degree to which these types of actions prevent the IT organization from reaching its potential. I believe vested interests would easily make the top 3 of reasons why IT organizations underperform. Fortunately, there are some process changes that can impact/improve the integrity of the decision process. The rest, however, is achieved through imparting values and setting expectations for the openness and thoroughness of decision processes.
I would appreciate your thoughts as to whether you see this as a significant issue.
- Conflicted about interests
Dear Conflicted ...
It's been a long time since I've talked about this sort of thing, and even when I did hit it, it wasn't from this angle. I think you're talking about a few subjects, in fact.
One is companies taking advantage of vendors by issuing phony RFPs or RFIs when they have no intention of actually buying. I've donated a few free ideas to non-clients that way. I've also had prospects solicit a stream of expensive meals in the name of relationship building, when in fact they had no intention of buying either.
Asking prospective vendors to jump through a few hoops isn't all that bad an idea. Choosing a strategic vendor and implementing its solutions entails serious risk. Proper due diligence is simply prudent. Asking non-prospective vendors to donate free advice is an entirely different matter.
A second, related subject is getting into bed with a particular vendor. This isn't necessarily wrong … given what it takes to make major changes to IT architecture, strong relationships with strategic providers make all sorts of sense. IT execs cross the line when the relationship stops being businesslike and starts turning into obligatory perks. Whether solicited by a client or encouraged by a vendor, it generates conflicts of interest and is bad business.
As is always the case, balance is everything. If I want an hour of your time over lunch, I should pick up the check. That's simply good manners.
And, I should choose a restaurant that doesn't charge so much that my picking up the check gives you a conflict of interest. I figure if your lunch tab is $20 and that influences your buying decisions, there's something seriously wrong with your bank account. If your lunch tab is $75, I've chosen the wrong place to eat.
Whether this hits the top-three list of reasons IT doesn't reach its potential is questionable, given the number of potential reasons that compete with it.
But if for no other reasons than how demoralizing it is for IT staff to see their supposed leaders behaving like this, and how easy it is to avoid the problem ... there's really no reason for the issue to ever come up, other than IT's leaders never stopping to reflect for a moment as to whether it's a good idea.
- Bob
Dear Bob ...
Well, I just found out that my boss is interviewing people to replace me. I have no idea why. We don't have performance reviews and my boss has never had a bad word to say to me. So far as I knew everything was fine. Obviously not.
Is there any hope of salvaging my job here? Or should I just dust off the resume and start looking? I would really prefer to keep my job - I have sacrificed my career in order to stay here. I have not had the opportunity to learn new skills and technology because I have spent the last 13 years maintaining and enhancing what we have going here as that's what I thought my boss wanted, and up til now, I think I was correct.
I want to confront my boss and tell him off but good, but that would only serve to confirm his thoughts about replacing me. How can I approach him with a positive outlook and find out what the problem is (or problems are) and (hopefully) convince him that I can do the job (that's supposing I can get him to tell me what the job he wants done is)? I need this job (doesn't everybody?) and can't afford to walk away. There is no severance package and management here has been known to sent people packing with a "Here's your last check. Good-bye."
- On the edge
Dear Edgy ...
Before answering your question, I have to ask a question. Really, I want you to ask yourself a question. You said you sacrificed your career in order to stay with your current employer - a company that provides no severance packages and has been known to send people packing with nothing more than a last check and a good-bye.
Why would you sacrifice your career for a company that offers so little loyalty in return? We're living in a capitalist system, and that means everyone is supposed to look out for their own interests first. Before you take any action of any kind, reorient yourself: This is business. You're in business for yourself. Your "employer" is a customer. It gives you a paycheck in exchange for services you provide.
That's the nature of the relationship. Any emotional satisfaction you receive beyond this - praise for good work, social connection, a sense of achievement - is a bonus. I recommend companies provide them. That doesn't mean employees should expect them as part of their compensation package.
I'm recommending this as a first step because telling off your boss would provide emotional satisfaction and no other benefit. It's pointless and self-destructive. I know - I made this mistake very early in my career. It cost me two years of bad references.
Now I want to ask yourself a second question: How sure are you of what you "just found out." Did you hear a rumor, have reason to trust your source, or did a friend of yours let you know he or she is applying for the job? Is it possible your boss is hiring another employee rather than a replacement?
If you're certain, what you should do is, quietly and discreetly, start an intensive search for a new position at a different company. Don't confront your boss. Don't say a thing. Don't allow yourself to feel resentful - it will poison your ability to interview.
You're losing a client. Time to find another one.
If you aren't so sure, talk to your boss. Don't confront him angrily. Just ask, as casually as possible: "Hey, I heard a strange rumor - supposedly, you're trying to hire my replacement. Anything I should know about?"
Between the answer and the body language, you should get a pretty good idea. If your boss is evasive, don't push. There's no point to it. Remember, the only measure is your personal benefit, and you don't benefit from a confrontation.
Let's imagine it turns out to be something entirely innocent and your job isn't at risk. What now? The answer is, your job is at risk. You've said so yourself - you're in a dead-end situation.
Wait enough time that your boss won't connect the two situations and sit down for a career planning discussion. Make it clear, in a friendly, non-confrontational way, that you want a career, not just a job, and you're getting stale just doing what you've been doing. You'd prefer to keep working for the same company, and the same boss. You want to talk about ways you can provide more value to the company, earn yourself a promotion, or at least a lateral move to something newer and fresher.
You want something that's more of a stretch, so you don't end up coasting. If your boss is any good, he'll help you get there. If not, perhaps you'd be better off working for a better boss.
- Bob
Dear Bob ...
This ("Learning in the wrong direction," Keep the Joint Running, 12/3/2007, about a Help Desk employee who gamed the metrics) reminds me of what happened to Netware.
A single smart Netadmin could keep a large number of Netware servers running smoothly ... but Windows Servers required lots of maintenance and patching and defragging and periodic rebooting by less skilled people.
Manager pay scales are based on the headcount they supervise, so IT managers promoting their own agendas were motivated to get rid of Netware and bring on more Windows servers because they could justify a much larger headcount that way!
To paraphrase other items you've publish - you get what you reward ... you reward large headcount, managers will tweak things to maximize headcount.
- Networn
Dear Networn ...
I have to tell you - having lived through that period of IT history, I really don't think that's what happened.
Here's what I saw:
- Bob
Dear Bob ...
I read your recent Keep the Joint Running about compensation ("Poor Joe," 10/22/2007) and understand your point about raises being forever.
But salary freezes as punishment for being "written up" are forever too, no? Some co-workers of mine have been handed a lump of coal in the form of no raise, since they've received a written reprimand and weren't articulate or bull-headed enough to beat the rap at HR. They may not have even been aware of the consequences until evals came around.
Granted, these "write-ups" were necessary to punish such evil deeds as taking too long of a break to finish a crossword puzzle, or lingering 15 minutes extra over lunch.
And the fact that staff members are directed to spend more and more personal time squinting at Blackberrys and logging in from home is no excuse, either. After all, change is necessary, as long as all changes are orchestrated by upper management.
But that lower base salary that these staffers are stuck with will remain that much (3-4%) lower not just this year, but for every year through the end of their careers.
If staff who have one good year shouldn't be rewarded forever for it, why then should they be punished forever for having one bad year?
- Distressed
Dear Distressed ...
If your point is that inhumane management is bad, I agree with you. If you're seriously asking whether I agree with a policy that disciplinary action results in a permanent compensation freeze, of course not.
Disciplinary action, up to and including verbal warnings, written warnings, and termination is sometimes necessary. Depending on the job, "too long a break to finish a crossword puzzle" might or might not be serious enough to warrant discipline. Among the variables: Whether the individual is on-call to handle emergencies, and how long the crossword puzzle extended the break.
I've talked with employees who think four productive hours a day constitutes busting their humps. It's a real issue in some companies.
Whether either of us agree with a particular disciplinary action, when an employee successfully corrects the issue and is back on course, the compensation freeze should end. If the employee hasn't corrected the issue, then yes - I don't see that giving someone a raise while trying to figure out whether I'll have to terminate him or her in the near future is a good idea.
What's interesting to me about your question is that after you asked it (should disciplinary compensation freezes be eternal) you then mixed in questions (rhetorical, I presume) about whether the company's expectations are fair or not and whether discipline is too harsh for particular infractions. These are separate subjects.
To give you the obvious answers:
Dear Bob ...
I don’t agree with your point below:
“…Exceptional performance? That means repeating the results of others, not having them repeat yours,” (from "Creating a learning organization," Keep the Joint Running, 11/26/2007).
Many of us are faced with the challenge of global standardization. We are focused on the harmonization of disparate legacy regional processes. Leading other teams to repeat our repeated successful results is the measure of exceptional performance.
Perhaps I didn’t understand your point ...
- In the lead
Dear Leader ...
My point was simple: If you want to encourage the broader use of anyone's success, you have to make it clear that making use of someone else's ideas is the engine that makes this happen much more than creating re-usable something-or-others. Otherwise, instead of (for example) using the existing Pricing service that another developer wrote, a developer will be more likely to develop a new one, for all the standard reasons.
You might think you can lead other teams to make use of your repeated successes. If they are paid more to create their own instead, the outcome is entirely predictable.
Put it differently, and more broadly: You aren't leading unless they're following. Voluntarily because they want to, not because you're dragging them.
It takes a lot to create that sort of environment - much more than building the reusable somethings. Supply side economics doesn't work here. You also have to create the demand.
I'll add one more point I didn't make in the KJR column: Reusing the processes and components created by others is, in many respects, more difficult than building them in the first place.
Software is an opinion about how to automate part or all of a business process or practice. Business process designs are opinions about how a particular business function should run.
Those who build these things the first time have the privilege of their opinions defining things. Those who have to adopt them do not, and wherever they disagree, they have to subordinate their disagreement ... their good judgment about how things ought to be ... to the greater good of re-usability.
When you re-use the work of others, you're forced to accept a different view of the world than your own. That can be a whole lot harder than turning the view you have into software and swim-lane diagrams.
- Bob
Dear Bob ...
Nice column! ("Creating a learning organization," Keep the Joint Running, 11/26/2007). I hope you follow this up with some thoughts on how you can reward learning from success without stifling innovation. Somehow I think you will do that; otherwise, why the teaser at the end?
I'm actually less worried about stifling innovation than I am with people not learning from success. Most of the technical people I've worked with like to create "new" things.
- Teasered
Dear Teasered ...
The short answer is "balance," and balance isn't something that comes easily out of formal methodologies or techniques.
I think the core of the solution starts with the understanding that innovation isn't complete when a new idea is proven to work. It's complete when a new idea has been adopted and made part of the enterprise, whether it's a new product successfully brought to market, new software successfully implemented in the business, or a new business practice that spreads from the division that first thought of it to the entire business.
It's also my opinion … and I have nothing to back this up with other than my sense of how people work … that innovation isn't possible unless everyone thinks of themselves as being on the same side. It's a whole lot more palatable for the Illinois branch office to adopt something developed by the North Carolina branch office when they both figure it's their company against its competitors than when they each figure Illinois is competing with North Carolina.
One other thought on the subject: Innovation is easiest when everyone in the company loves new ideas. You need a culture in which employees are constantly encouraged to find better ways to do things - not because what they're doing now is bad but because the company leadership is confident there's always an even better way. You need one in which employees are more likely to be excited about possibilities than about finding flaws.
Achieving that sort of culture is extraordinarily difficult. And once you achieve it, you've immediately created a new problem: Employees who are more excited about possibilities than about finding flaws are more likely to adopt and promote seriously flawed ideas.
Which brings us back to the need for balance.
- Bob
Dear Bob ...
I think it is great to point out management challenges and recommend ways to improve.
Lately, many of my co-workers are going beyond this, taking opportunities to improve as indictments against the management of the company I work for.
Although it would be great if management "got it" with so many issues, they are doing enough things right to keep the joint running, they are watching the finances, and focusing on core business.
I was allowing myself to get sucked into the doom, dismay, and agony thing until my wife sat me down for a talk, which included that she was getting tired of seeing my mopey look, droopy eyes, and constant bitterness. She reviewed for me the good things this job does provide, the cool things we are working on, and if nothing else – that it is doing a good job of paying the bills. I have to say, that talk has made a huge difference in my outlook and attitude.
While others may argue that the glass is half empty or half full, at least I have a glass to be thankful for.
- Grateful
Dear Grateful ...
And as I presume you know, engineers argue that the glass is twice as big as it should be. Meanwhile, college students ask, "Who drank half my beer?"
You (really, your wife) made a great point. As my own wife has pointed out to me more than once, the more you learn about any company the less likely you'd be to either want to work there or to invest in it.
Every company has flaws. It's important to try to address them. It makes no sense to think of them as the whole picture as you do. The difference between "This place stinks and we need to fix it," and "We can make this place even better," is immense. Most of the time it's mostly a matter of attitude.
Any company that's successful must be doing many things right or it wouldn't be making money. Among the many reasons to keep track of them, there's an entirely pragmatic one that might even outweigh the impact on attitude: If you don't see what's right, you're likely to break it in the effort of fixing what's wrong.
- Bob
Dear Bob ...
I think you missed a bit in this week's Keep the Joint Running ("Creating a learning organization, 11/26/2007). Granted this is a controversial subject and hard to solve in a column.
From your column:
"That means consistently praising everyone who identifies mistakes and takes the lead in fixing them, without ever paying the least bit of attention to who made the mistake in the first place."
That works great in the grand scheme of things, but it create three major issues:
1. Team morale suffers if the same person(s) continue to make the mistakes.
2. Your best people burn out because they are always fighting someone else's fire.
3. Since solutions are celebrated, people start to work around the problem areas.
In theory I somewhat agree with you. In reality, I still think that good leaders need to give some folks a dope slap every now and then to wake them up. Or as the not so good Good to Great book notes, you need to have the right people on the bus.
Personally I like working for a leader who encourages solutions but will also jump up and down when things aren’t going well. The level of the reaction is tied to the degree of the issue and parties involved.
- Mistaker Staker
Dear Vlad ...
We're more or less in agreement.
We're talking about a tough balancing act for any leader. The trick, I think, is to separate the process of handling incidents from the process of managing employee performance.
When a problem arises, everyone's focus should be on what's needed to take care of it - nothing else. When a manager sits down with an employee to talk about job performance … something that should happen on a regular basis … that's another story. What's particularly difficult, of course, is understanding what really happened. It's rarely as cut and dried as "Fred made a mistake and it caused serious problems."
Very often, Fred made a mistake because:
Holding someone accountable for an honest mistake is rarely … probably never … a good idea. Removing someone from a position in which they aren't succeeding is an entirely different matter.
- Bob
December 29, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Is looking out for the greater good reasonable?
Dear Bob ...
I recently went to a "conflict management" class and got classified high on the "Conscientious" division on the basis of a short questionnaire. Leaving aside the validity of such a short instrument (never let facts get in the way of a good hunch), I agree with the classification.
The sad thing is that we Conscientious types seem to find it very difficult to learn the emotional intelligence and social skills needed to survive in a "Dominator" dominated environment. It's just tough to get it through our heads that people won't always do the reasonable thing for the greater good. I'm motivated by the group goal--shouldn't everybody be?
Sigh ...
- Conscientious
Dear Conscientious ...
A few thoughts occurred to me:
- Aren't all environments dominated by dominators, by definition?
- In a Dominator-controlled environment, you don't need social skills (let alone the ever-execrable "emotional intelligence"). You need political skills. You're in a multi-player chess game. Figure out your own goals, analyze everyone else's moves, and figure out your best course of action. EQ is a bland panacea that conceals what's really needed.
- Why would you expect anyone to have the greater good in mind? This is capitalism. That means everyone is supposed to look out for themselves first. Anyone who doesn't is a commie.
- Which means, by the way, that you're the one who isn't being reasonable. You're looking out for the greater good first, assuming everyone else is as well. That isn't a reasonable assumption.
- Bob
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Posted by Bob Lewis on December 29, 2007 10:49 AM
December 26, 2007 | Comments: (0)
MessageLabs is evil.Not really. I'm sure most of the people who work there, and even most of the people who direct the company are very nice human beings who treat their families well, don't kick dogs, and host backyard barbecues.
Nonetheless.
As many Advice Line readers know, I also send out an independent e-letter once a week called Keep the Joint Running (KJR). It goes to a list of voluntary subscribers only. It is, from a spam perspective, entirely kosher.
It doesn't matter. So far as I can tell, something about it has flagged my ISP's SMTP server as a spam source.
That, by itself, would be okay - these things happen, and there's no definitive test of an e-mail message that clearly separates spam from legitimate messages.
Here's what isn't okay: There is no way to contact MessageLabs to discuss the problem, inform them that they've made a mistake, and get the flag cleared.
MessageLabs is accessible to its subscribers. It isn't accessible to its victims. Period.
I'm seriously tempted to have my attorneys decide whether identifying my e-mails as spam when they aren't constitutes libel. I won't do it, of course - the cost of pursuing the complaint would exceed anything I'd get out of it by a huge multiple.
Except, of course, for the satisfaction I'd get.
I don't have any advice to give about this, other than to explore alternatives to MessageLabs if you're looking for a commercial spam identification system.
Not that MessageLabs will fail to identify spam. Quite the opposite. I figure, their system is easy. If you flag everything, some of what you flag will be spam.
Sorry to sound so grumpy about this. Mostly, it's because I'm pretty grumpy about it.
- Bob
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Posted by Bob Lewis on December 26, 2007 06:45 PM
December 23, 2007 | Comments: (0)
The downside to focusing on the positives
Dear Bob ...
This is strange, but true. My wife has been strongly and relentlessly pushing me to leave my current job because the company sucks and has been getting worse on a daily basis for the last ten to fifteen years.
I respond by pointing out options and the positives of working there to my beloved - that drives her crazy.
I love my job, my coworkers and my manager, but after that everything drops off the cliff. Simply, the company had once been a top-rated place to work, but has since slid into being a third-rate employer, and is trending into becoming a sweatshop.
Some argue whether the glass is half full or half empty. At this company, the executives drank the contents, then stole the glass, then blame the employees for the lack of more glasses.
There are two things I can do about the situation - one is leave for a better employer, the other is to stay and be positive by realizing that my attitude, enthusiasm and actions are independent of the company's eroding culture.
That is not to say that corporate problems should be ignored - it is to say that you focus on fixing what can be fixed and improving what can be improved. It is saying to be truthful regarding the negatives, but not to dwell on negative stuff that you can't influence, improve or fix.
Choose to be a winner and overcomer, not a whiner and a loser.
- Overcoming
Dear Overcoming ...
A point that seems obvious - when you say, "... be truthful regarding the negatives, but not to dwell on negative stuff that you can't influence, improve or fix," I have to wonder why you aren't willing to "think outside the company" when you say that.
You can't influence, improve, or fix your current employer. You can influence, improve, and fix your choice of employer. My question is, why do you want to stay with a company that's only a decent place to work so long as your manager keeps his/her job and enough independence to shield you from the rest of upper management?
Keep this in mind: In a company like that, your manager could be gone tomorrow. Where will that leave you?
- Bob
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Posted by Bob Lewis on December 23, 2007 02:11 PM
December 19, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Vendor relationship management concerns
Dear Bob ...
You may have already entertained this topic but I have not seen it. It has to do with the ugly reality of vested interests and marginal or even improper relationships, usually with vendors.
As a consultant who has seen it many, many times around the world I think of it as "Listen To Me..........Not."
It involves cases like a CIO, along with his SEVP, who declared to the IT Steering Committee "We are not getting value out of our storage arrangement. With this next major purchase we should put pressure on our supplier by testing if someone else can do it better and for less." After 3 major vendors worked many hours into many nights given the prospect of displacing a competitor at a major customer site and, in fact, all put forth significantly better offers, it came out that the 2 executives met privately with the CIO and awarded the deal to the incumbent who only moved slightly from their previous commercial arrangement. Rationale not provided.
In other "integrity" situations I see sporting event tickets, "training" trips, etc. routinely impact the vendor decision process, manifesting itself as clear bias in evaluations, refusals to attend presentations by competitors, etc. We don't even want to go into internal alliances and politics beyond observing that much more of it appears to me to be top-down while vendor involved shades of gray and black seem to exist top down (executive fiat) and bottom up (technical bias), squeezing the middle and upper-middle management teams who so often are the ones seeking to improve effectiveness.
Bob, I am not on any kind or moral march here. My interest in the topic is the degree to which these types of actions prevent the IT organization from reaching its potential. I believe vested interests would easily make the top 3 of reasons why IT organizations underperform. Fortunately, there are some process changes that can impact/improve the integrity of the decision process. The rest, however, is achieved through imparting values and setting expectations for the openness and thoroughness of decision processes.
I would appreciate your thoughts as to whether you see this as a significant issue.
- Conflicted about interests
Dear Conflicted ...
It's been a long time since I've talked about this sort of thing, and even when I did hit it, it wasn't from this angle. I think you're talking about a few subjects, in fact.
One is companies taking advantage of vendors by issuing phony RFPs or RFIs when they have no intention of actually buying. I've donated a few free ideas to non-clients that way. I've also had prospects solicit a stream of expensive meals in the name of relationship building, when in fact they had no intention of buying either.
Asking prospective vendors to jump through a few hoops isn't all that bad an idea. Choosing a strategic vendor and implementing its solutions entails serious risk. Proper due diligence is simply prudent. Asking non-prospective vendors to donate free advice is an entirely different matter.
A second, related subject is getting into bed with a particular vendor. This isn't necessarily wrong … given what it takes to make major changes to IT architecture, strong relationships with strategic providers make all sorts of sense. IT execs cross the line when the relationship stops being businesslike and starts turning into obligatory perks. Whether solicited by a client or encouraged by a vendor, it generates conflicts of interest and is bad business.
As is always the case, balance is everything. If I want an hour of your time over lunch, I should pick up the check. That's simply good manners.
And, I should choose a restaurant that doesn't charge so much that my picking up the check gives you a conflict of interest. I figure if your lunch tab is $20 and that influences your buying decisions, there's something seriously wrong with your bank account. If your lunch tab is $75, I've chosen the wrong place to eat.
Whether this hits the top-three list of reasons IT doesn't reach its potential is questionable, given the number of potential reasons that compete with it.
But if for no other reasons than how demoralizing it is for IT staff to see their supposed leaders behaving like this, and how easy it is to avoid the problem ... there's really no reason for the issue to ever come up, other than IT's leaders never stopping to reflect for a moment as to whether it's a good idea.
- Bob
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Posted by Bob Lewis on December 19, 2007 07:24 AM
December 15, 2007 | Comments: (0)
When you hear you're going to be replaced
Dear Bob ...
Well, I just found out that my boss is interviewing people to replace me. I have no idea why. We don't have performance reviews and my boss has never had a bad word to say to me. So far as I knew everything was fine. Obviously not.
Is there any hope of salvaging my job here? Or should I just dust off the resume and start looking? I would really prefer to keep my job - I have sacrificed my career in order to stay here. I have not had the opportunity to learn new skills and technology because I have spent the last 13 years maintaining and enhancing what we have going here as that's what I thought my boss wanted, and up til now, I think I was correct.
I want to confront my boss and tell him off but good, but that would only serve to confirm his thoughts about replacing me. How can I approach him with a positive outlook and find out what the problem is (or problems are) and (hopefully) convince him that I can do the job (that's supposing I can get him to tell me what the job he wants done is)? I need this job (doesn't everybody?) and can't afford to walk away. There is no severance package and management here has been known to sent people packing with a "Here's your last check. Good-bye."
- On the edge
Dear Edgy ...
Before answering your question, I have to ask a question. Really, I want you to ask yourself a question. You said you sacrificed your career in order to stay with your current employer - a company that provides no severance packages and has been known to send people packing with nothing more than a last check and a good-bye.
Why would you sacrifice your career for a company that offers so little loyalty in return? We're living in a capitalist system, and that means everyone is supposed to look out for their own interests first. Before you take any action of any kind, reorient yourself: This is business. You're in business for yourself. Your "employer" is a customer. It gives you a paycheck in exchange for services you provide.
That's the nature of the relationship. Any emotional satisfaction you receive beyond this - praise for good work, social connection, a sense of achievement - is a bonus. I recommend companies provide them. That doesn't mean employees should expect them as part of their compensation package.
I'm recommending this as a first step because telling off your boss would provide emotional satisfaction and no other benefit. It's pointless and self-destructive. I know - I made this mistake very early in my career. It cost me two years of bad references.
Now I want to ask yourself a second question: How sure are you of what you "just found out." Did you hear a rumor, have reason to trust your source, or did a friend of yours let you know he or she is applying for the job? Is it possible your boss is hiring another employee rather than a replacement?
If you're certain, what you should do is, quietly and discreetly, start an intensive search for a new position at a different company. Don't confront your boss. Don't say a thing. Don't allow yourself to feel resentful - it will poison your ability to interview.
You're losing a client. Time to find another one.
If you aren't so sure, talk to your boss. Don't confront him angrily. Just ask, as casually as possible: "Hey, I heard a strange rumor - supposedly, you're trying to hire my replacement. Anything I should know about?"
Between the answer and the body language, you should get a pretty good idea. If your boss is evasive, don't push. There's no point to it. Remember, the only measure is your personal benefit, and you don't benefit from a confrontation.
Let's imagine it turns out to be something entirely innocent and your job isn't at risk. What now? The answer is, your job is at risk. You've said so yourself - you're in a dead-end situation.
Wait enough time that your boss won't connect the two situations and sit down for a career planning discussion. Make it clear, in a friendly, non-confrontational way, that you want a career, not just a job, and you're getting stale just doing what you've been doing. You'd prefer to keep working for the same company, and the same boss. You want to talk about ways you can provide more value to the company, earn yourself a promotion, or at least a lateral move to something newer and fresher.
You want something that's more of a stretch, so you don't end up coasting. If your boss is any good, he'll help you get there. If not, perhaps you'd be better off working for a better boss.
- Bob
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Posted by Bob Lewis on December 15, 2007 09:57 AM
December 14, 2007 | Comments: (0)
The history of the world, part whatever - why Windows beat Netware
Dear Bob ...
This ("Learning in the wrong direction," Keep the Joint Running, 12/3/2007, about a Help Desk employee who gamed the metrics) reminds me of what happened to Netware.
A single smart Netadmin could keep a large number of Netware servers running smoothly ... but Windows Servers required lots of maintenance and patching and defragging and periodic rebooting by less skilled people.
Manager pay scales are based on the headcount they supervise, so IT managers promoting their own agendas were motivated to get rid of Netware and bring on more Windows servers because they could justify a much larger headcount that way!
To paraphrase other items you've publish - you get what you reward ... you reward large headcount, managers will tweak things to maximize headcount.
- Networn
Dear Networn ...
I have to tell you - having lived through that period of IT history, I really don't think that's what happened.
Here's what I saw:
- Novell developed an important concept … the Directory … and completely failed to explain it to the marketplace.
- The move from Netware 3.x with the Bindery to Netware 4.x with NDS was different enough to amount to a conversion rather than an upgrade. This opened Novell's customers to other alternatives.
- Whatever else you might say about Windows, administration was easier to learn since it was 100% GUI-driven.
- Biggest issue of all: Novell never managed to position Netware as an application server. The result: CIOs weren't choosing between Netware and Windows. They were choosing between Windows and Netware plus Windows.
- Bob
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Posted by Bob Lewis on December 14, 2007 06:12 AM
December 12, 2007 | Comments: (0)
How long should a discipinary freeze last?
Dear Bob ...
I read your recent Keep the Joint Running about compensation ("Poor Joe," 10/22/2007) and understand your point about raises being forever.
But salary freezes as punishment for being "written up" are forever too, no? Some co-workers of mine have been handed a lump of coal in the form of no raise, since they've received a written reprimand and weren't articulate or bull-headed enough to beat the rap at HR. They may not have even been aware of the consequences until evals came around.
Granted, these "write-ups" were necessary to punish such evil deeds as taking too long of a break to finish a crossword puzzle, or lingering 15 minutes extra over lunch.
And the fact that staff members are directed to spend more and more personal time squinting at Blackberrys and logging in from home is no excuse, either. After all, change is necessary, as long as all changes are orchestrated by upper management.
But that lower base salary that these staffers are stuck with will remain that much (3-4%) lower not just this year, but for every year through the end of their careers.
If staff who have one good year shouldn't be rewarded forever for it, why then should they be punished forever for having one bad year?
- Distressed
Dear Distressed ...
If your point is that inhumane management is bad, I agree with you. If you're seriously asking whether I agree with a policy that disciplinary action results in a permanent compensation freeze, of course not.
Disciplinary action, up to and including verbal warnings, written warnings, and termination is sometimes necessary. Depending on the job, "too long a break to finish a crossword puzzle" might or might not be serious enough to warrant discipline. Among the variables: Whether the individual is on-call to handle emergencies, and how long the crossword puzzle extended the break.
I've talked with employees who think four productive hours a day constitutes busting their humps. It's a real issue in some companies.
Whether either of us agree with a particular disciplinary action, when an employee successfully corrects the issue and is back on course, the compensation freeze should end. If the employee hasn't corrected the issue, then yes - I don't see that giving someone a raise while trying to figure out whether I'll have to terminate him or her in the near future is a good idea.
What's interesting to me about your question is that after you asked it (should disciplinary compensation freezes be eternal) you then mixed in questions (rhetorical, I presume) about whether the company's expectations are fair or not and whether discipline is too harsh for particular infractions. These are separate subjects.
To give you the obvious answers:
- Companies should establish guidelines when possible and policies only when necessary.
- When companies establish guidelines or policies, they should include the reason the guideline or policy is important.
- When enforcing policies, companies should give the benefit of the doubt.
- When enforcing policies, the company should err on the side of being less harsh rather than more.
- The focus of disciplinary action should be to turn around employee performance. Laying the groundwork for termination should not, although the process should include and support that outcome if it becomes necessary.
- Employees who feel about their employer as you do about yours should find a different place to work as soon as possible. You aren't doing yourself any good hanging around with this level of hostility, let alone your employer.
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Posted by Bob Lewis on December 12, 2007 08:16 AM
December 10, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Why re-using is harder than building for re-use
Dear Bob ...
I don’t agree with your point below:
“…Exceptional performance? That means repeating the results of others, not having them repeat yours,” (from "Creating a learning organization," Keep the Joint Running, 11/26/2007).
Many of us are faced with the challenge of global standardization. We are focused on the harmonization of disparate legacy regional processes. Leading other teams to repeat our repeated successful results is the measure of exceptional performance.
Perhaps I didn’t understand your point ...
- In the lead
Dear Leader ...
My point was simple: If you want to encourage the broader use of anyone's success, you have to make it clear that making use of someone else's ideas is the engine that makes this happen much more than creating re-usable something-or-others. Otherwise, instead of (for example) using the existing Pricing service that another developer wrote, a developer will be more likely to develop a new one, for all the standard reasons.
You might think you can lead other teams to make use of your repeated successes. If they are paid more to create their own instead, the outcome is entirely predictable.
Put it differently, and more broadly: You aren't leading unless they're following. Voluntarily because they want to, not because you're dragging them.
It takes a lot to create that sort of environment - much more than building the reusable somethings. Supply side economics doesn't work here. You also have to create the demand.
I'll add one more point I didn't make in the KJR column: Reusing the processes and components created by others is, in many respects, more difficult than building them in the first place.
Software is an opinion about how to automate part or all of a business process or practice. Business process designs are opinions about how a particular business function should run.
Those who build these things the first time have the privilege of their opinions defining things. Those who have to adopt them do not, and wherever they disagree, they have to subordinate their disagreement ... their good judgment about how things ought to be ... to the greater good of re-usability.
When you re-use the work of others, you're forced to accept a different view of the world than your own. That can be a whole lot harder than turning the view you have into software and swim-lane diagrams.
- Bob
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Posted by Bob Lewis on December 10, 2007 05:24 AM
December 08, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Learning from success without stifling innovation
Dear Bob ...
Nice column! ("Creating a learning organization," Keep the Joint Running, 11/26/2007). I hope you follow this up with some thoughts on how you can reward learning from success without stifling innovation. Somehow I think you will do that; otherwise, why the teaser at the end?
I'm actually less worried about stifling innovation than I am with people not learning from success. Most of the technical people I've worked with like to create "new" things.
- Teasered
Dear Teasered ...
The short answer is "balance," and balance isn't something that comes easily out of formal methodologies or techniques.
I think the core of the solution starts with the understanding that innovation isn't complete when a new idea is proven to work. It's complete when a new idea has been adopted and made part of the enterprise, whether it's a new product successfully brought to market, new software successfully implemented in the business, or a new business practice that spreads from the division that first thought of it to the entire business.
It's also my opinion … and I have nothing to back this up with other than my sense of how people work … that innovation isn't possible unless everyone thinks of themselves as being on the same side. It's a whole lot more palatable for the Illinois branch office to adopt something developed by the North Carolina branch office when they both figure it's their company against its competitors than when they each figure Illinois is competing with North Carolina.
One other thought on the subject: Innovation is easiest when everyone in the company loves new ideas. You need a culture in which employees are constantly encouraged to find better ways to do things - not because what they're doing now is bad but because the company leadership is confident there's always an even better way. You need one in which employees are more likely to be excited about possibilities than about finding flaws.
Achieving that sort of culture is extraordinarily difficult. And once you achieve it, you've immediately created a new problem: Employees who are more excited about possibilities than about finding flaws are more likely to adopt and promote seriously flawed ideas.
Which brings us back to the need for balance.
- Bob
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Posted by Bob Lewis on December 8, 2007 10:09 AM
December 05, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Dear Bob ...
I think it is great to point out management challenges and recommend ways to improve.
Lately, many of my co-workers are going beyond this, taking opportunities to improve as indictments against the management of the company I work for.
Although it would be great if management "got it" with so many issues, they are doing enough things right to keep the joint running, they are watching the finances, and focusing on core business.
I was allowing myself to get sucked into the doom, dismay, and agony thing until my wife sat me down for a talk, which included that she was getting tired of seeing my mopey look, droopy eyes, and constant bitterness. She reviewed for me the good things this job does provide, the cool things we are working on, and if nothing else – that it is doing a good job of paying the bills. I have to say, that talk has made a huge difference in my outlook and attitude.
While others may argue that the glass is half empty or half full, at least I have a glass to be thankful for.
- Grateful
Dear Grateful ...
And as I presume you know, engineers argue that the glass is twice as big as it should be. Meanwhile, college students ask, "Who drank half my beer?"
You (really, your wife) made a great point. As my own wife has pointed out to me more than once, the more you learn about any company the less likely you'd be to either want to work there or to invest in it.
Every company has flaws. It's important to try to address them. It makes no sense to think of them as the whole picture as you do. The difference between "This place stinks and we need to fix it," and "We can make this place even better," is immense. Most of the time it's mostly a matter of attitude.
Any company that's successful must be doing many things right or it wouldn't be making money. Among the many reasons to keep track of them, there's an entirely pragmatic one that might even outweigh the impact on attitude: If you don't see what's right, you're likely to break it in the effort of fixing what's wrong.
- Bob
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Posted by Bob Lewis on December 5, 2007 05:23 AM
December 02, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Dear Bob ...
I think you missed a bit in this week's Keep the Joint Running ("Creating a learning organization, 11/26/2007). Granted this is a controversial subject and hard to solve in a column.
From your column:
"That means consistently praising everyone who identifies mistakes and takes the lead in fixing them, without ever paying the least bit of attention to who made the mistake in the first place."
That works great in the grand scheme of things, but it create three major issues:
1. Team morale suffers if the same person(s) continue to make the mistakes.
2. Your best people burn out because they are always fighting someone else's fire.
3. Since solutions are celebrated, people start to work around the problem areas.
In theory I somewhat agree with you. In reality, I still think that good leaders need to give some folks a dope slap every now and then to wake them up. Or as the not so good Good to Great book notes, you need to have the right people on the bus.
Personally I like working for a leader who encourages solutions but will also jump up and down when things aren’t going well. The level of the reaction is tied to the degree of the issue and parties involved.
- Mistaker Staker
Dear Vlad ...
We're more or less in agreement.
We're talking about a tough balancing act for any leader. The trick, I think, is to separate the process of handling incidents from the process of managing employee performance.
When a problem arises, everyone's focus should be on what's needed to take care of it - nothing else. When a manager sits down with an employee to talk about job performance … something that should happen on a regular basis … that's another story. What's particularly difficult, of course, is understanding what really happened. It's rarely as cut and dried as "Fred made a mistake and it caused serious problems."
Very often, Fred made a mistake because:
- Fred was juggling too many top priorities
- Three people interrupted each others' interruptions, requiring Fred to switch from one task to another instead of being able to focus on one to get it done.
- Fred's mistake was being required to handle a task the way someone else wanted it handled instead of being allowed to just get it done.
- Fred is a potentially good employee who has been put in the wrong role.
- Fred is a potentially good employee who thought he knew how to handle a task but really didn't.
- Fred is a potentially good employee who thought he wasn't supposed to ask for help when he was out of his depth … an employee who needs coaching.
Holding someone accountable for an honest mistake is rarely … probably never … a good idea. Removing someone from a position in which they aren't succeeding is an entirely different matter.
- Bob
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Posted by Bob Lewis on December 2, 2007 11:03 AM
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