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I Can Help! May 29, 2009

Posted by Chuck Musciano in Leadership.
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5 comments

My mother tells the story of a friend who was caught in a power outage.  The line for her house was down,keeping her from getting power even as other parts of town were being restored.  Repeated calls to the power company had no effect as they busied themselves with other, more important areas.

Finally, in frustration, she called the power company and asked them to cancel the service call. “Why?” they asked.  She explained that she knew they were very busy, dealing with all those other customers.  Her husband, she said, was very handy, and was headed outside with a ladder to reconnect the drop line himself.  They were aghast.  “Don’t let you husband touch those lines!”  “Oh, no,” she assured them. “It’s OK.  We just want to help out, and this way you can send your people to fix other houses instead.”

A truck roared up in five minutes, and her power was restored.

At some point, every organization is a service organization, focused on internal or external customers.  As we try to provide “fair” service, it can be easy to lose sight of one or two customers who warrant our attention even though they may not be as big or as important as other customers.  What seems fair to us can seem completely unjust to those who are on the wrong side of the decision.  That leads to frustration that forces customers to threaten unusual behavior to get our attention.

As we manage with limited resources, we need to keep in mind that every customer is equally important.  While it may impossible to serve everyone at once, we need to find creative ways to serve everyone a little bit.  The vast majority of customers are fair-minded; when they see that everyone is getting some measure of service, they tend to recognize that we’re doing the best we can in a tough situation.

This goes beyond IT issues like fixing PCs and resolving system errors.  Some of us may be faced with allocating scarce products among competing customers.  Others may have legal work or audits to be done under tight deadlines with limited personnel.  It’s easy to tell everyone to just wait their turn as we honestly work to get to each customer as quickly as we can.  In these days of instant gratification and rapid responses to everything, we need to find ways to provide a little bit of service to everyone, just so they know we understand their needs and are working to meet them.

This kind of incremental service isn’t easy and sometimes requires a complete rethinking of how we tackle problems.  It may not always be necessary; sometimes we’re blessed with enough resources to take care of everyone at once.  But we all need these skills when times get tight.  If not, we’ll have customers reaching for live wires, and that causes problems that are a lot harder to solve.

Solutions Without Technology May 27, 2009

Posted by Chuck Musciano in Leadership, Technology.
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1 comment so far

Of the many aphorisms that I enjoy using, one of my favorites is

When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.

I pull this one out when someone is using some system in an inappropriate way.  People get so comfortable with their favorite tools, they use them for everything even when a better solution is readily available.

This is an easy accusation for an IT person to make.  Most software systems are so complicated that it is easier for a user to twist an existing system into an unusual solution than it is to learn some completely arcane new system.  People just want to solve problems and get on with their jobs and lives.  I know this is hard to believe, but they don’t look forward to exploring and mastering that latest version of some new desktop application.

Those of us in IT would do well to listen to our own advice.

How many times, when asked to help solve some problem, do we immediately reach for a computer?  Typically, the answer is “all of the time.”  We’re in IT; we know how to make computers do interesting things; therefore every problem can be solved with some technology-based solution.

Wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong.

Many problems do not exist for want of a technology solution.  In fact, many of the day-to-day business problems we encounter are rooted in process, flow, and data collection.  While you can certainly throw software at all of those areas, you can also fix a lot of issues by talking to people, understanding their real needs, and proposing ways to change things in a non-technical way.

Within IT, we have developed a broad range of skills that are not rooted in technology.  Process analysis, data management, project management, user interface design, audit and compliance, risk management: the list is long.  Why, then, when someone is gracious enough to give us the opportunity to help, do we reach for the hardware?  We perpetuate the perception that we are nothing more than geeks, when if fact we have so much more to offer.

I’ve been on projects where the real solution was to have a user interface designer rework a paper form layout.  I’ve seen errant projects saved by sharing good project management skills.  I’ve seen business processes reworked by applying disaster recovery discipline.  In all of these cases, not a single line of code was written in pursuit of a solution.  Instead, IT people spent time listening, sharing, and collaborating to help users do their jobs more effectively.

People in IT chafe at being known solely for their technical expertise, yet we fall into our old habits when confronted with a problem.  We need to follow our own advice, set down the hammer of technology, and look for effective non-technical solutions to many of the problems we’re asked to solve.  We’ll grow in our ability to be of service, and we’ll begin to build a better reputation with our end users.

Comfort Zones May 22, 2009

Posted by Chuck Musciano in Leadership, Networking.
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2 comments

Last summer, I had the opportunity to watch a group of Boy Scouts go through a high-ropes team building exercise.  Beyond the fun of watching boys climb 50 feet in the air with nothing more than a safety rope hooked to their waist, I learned a clever trick about comfort zones.

High-ropes courses are all about getting out of your comfort zone.  I am very comfortable on the ground, enjoying the combination of gravity and my feet firmly planted on the earth.  Climbing a 40-foot ladder comprised solely of five planks at eight-foot intervals took me way out of my zone, to the point of near-frozen, knee-shaking fear at the top.  But I did it, and I’m better for it, if only to avoid embarrassment in front of 13-year-olds who scrambled to the top like monkeys.

There was a more subtle comfort zone that was shattered five minutes into the day.  When we arrived, the instructors asked the boys to pair up.  As you would expect, they found their best friends and quickly formed twosomes.  She then asked them to each assume a character, either SpongeBob or Patrick (remember the audience here).  They did so.  She then gathered all the SpongeBobs into one group, and all the Patricks into another.  One group headed to the ropes course, and the other to another exercise.

In one deft motion she separated every boy from his best friend! For the rest of the day, the boys worked without the comfort of their buddy, opening them to social opportunities they would never have had.  They still had fun, accomplished things, and grew a bit.  But they did it with a little more risk and became more open to partnering with others throughout the day.

I was so impressed by this trick that I asked the leader about it.  She shared that they had choices for any number of groups.  Need groups of three? Team them in trios and then ask them to become one of the Three Stooges.  Foursomes? Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. And so forth.  They had learned that boys know how to game the “count off” trick, positioning their best friends “n” people away to make sure they stayed together.  The character game took them by surprise, before they could figure out how to thwart the leader’s intent.

As adults, we probably won’t be asked to become a cartoon character (I’d pick SpongeBob, FYI). But, boy, do we need to be broken up and moved out of our social comfort zones!  How many times do you arrive at a networking event and look for the familiar faces?  I’m guilty of this, and I really enjoy working a room and getting to meet new people.  For the less gregarious among us, breaking out to meet strangers is a difficult exercise.

How many opportunities do we miss for fear of breaking away from our comfortable friends?  There is such value in meeting new people, expanding our horizons, and finding ways to help others.  Our reluctance to engage a stranger costs us so much.  As adults, we are supposed to know better and not require outside intervention to make us do the right thing.  Yet we still revert to old behaviors, rooted deep in our psyches.

We all own this problem.  At your next event, acknowledge the familiar faces and turn away to meet the strangers.  If your friends chase you down, gently aim them at others as well.  You may have to write “SpongeBob” on your name tag to make your point, but it will be worth the effort.

Absolute Guy In A Relative World May 18, 2009

Posted by Chuck Musciano in Leadership.
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1 comment so far

I like absolutes. Yes or no. Black or white. Right or wrong. No room for debate or equivocating; the answer is patently obvious to all concerned.

This is why computing is so appealing to me.  Strip away all the layers of abstraction, and computing is about getting a sequence of 1s and 0s in the right order.  If you get the right order, it’s correct.  Drop or flip a bit, and it’s not.  You may think you’re reading this blog; in fact, you are viewing an abstract representation of several billion bits arranged to appear as text on your screen.  If even one bit were wrong, these words would not be correct.  Simple: right or wrong.

Leadership is rarely about such absolutes.  When dealing with people and plans, there are a million shades of gray that must be weighed and blended to reach decisions.  From strategic planning to tactical choices, we have to function within a spectrum of relative values that are open to interpretation.

In many cases, relative judgments make life easier.  We often talk about being “good enough,” about applying the 80/20 rule, about knowing when to quit and move on to the next project.  In these cases, there is often a law of diminishing returns that make achieving an absolute result more expensive than the benefit derived.  Knowing when to stop is an important aspect of leadership, too.

With so much of our world based on a relative scale, it can be tempting to let everything shift to a relative scale.  I think it’s important to remember that some things are never relative.  Things like ethics, morals, trust, integrity, and reputation should never be viewed on a relative scale.  We should hold ourselves to absolute standards and never relax in our desire to achieve an absolute result in those areas.  Note that this doesn’t mean that we won’t have lapses, but those lapses can take a long time to overcome.  A tarnished reputation may take years to be restored, but the standard of a “good reputation” should not change; we simply need to work harder to achieve that standard.

I also have certain things, related to my IT background, that I always judge on an absolute scale. Data integrity is not a relative issue for me.  Data is either right or wrong, pure or corrupt.  Systems are either up or down, available or not.  Software features either work, or they don’t.  I tend to drive my team crazy with this stuff, but that doesn’t deter me from getting on my soapbox every now and again.

I find that I get a lot of reactions when I express this view.  Some people, it seems, will gauge almost anything on a relative scale.  There seems to be a general aversion to absolute anything. What do you hold to an absolute scale?  What do you shift to relative judgment?  Does it matter?

A Quiet Place May 13, 2009

Posted by Chuck Musciano in Leadership.
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4 comments

Leaders get pulled in a thousand directions.  No matter where you sit in the org chart, you are being pulled by those above and those below.  From above, requests for status and things to do; from below, a need for guidance and clarification.  There is little time to think; you need to be ready to respond at a moment’s notice, and you need to be right every time.

Truth be told, I thrive in this kind of world.  I like the pull, the energy, the constant change, and the challenge of not dropping the ball.  For an ADD mind like mine, constant change feeds my natural need for distraction.  If the world did not present distractions, I’d have to create them.

Nonetheless, everyone needs to time to think.  When that time comes, it can be almost impossible to stop the distractions (self-induced or externally imposed) and find an extended block of time for concentrated thought.  For leaders, these blocks of time are crucial for pulling all the pieces together and thinking strategically.  Tactical thinking thrives on distraction (solve this problem now!); strategic thinking thrives on solitude and focus (what will we be doing years from now?).

How do you find time to think?  I cannot find the time at the office or even at home; there is always something, either self-inflicted or from someone else, that demands my attention and pulls me away from a quiet moment. Instead, I  think best in the noisiest activity available to me: while I cut the grass.

The overwhelming cacophony of the mower shuts out everything else in the world.  Coupled with the iPod plugged into my ears, I am absolutely oblivious to any outside stimulus, to the point that my wife often has to throw things at me to get my attention while I’m mowing.  The simple repetitive act of going back and forth across the yard occupies a large part of my brain that would otherwise be engaged in ADD-related activity.  The end result is that my mind is truly freed to engage in long-term thinking and problem-solving.

The other nice thing about lawn-mowing is that it has to happen every week, rain or shine.  As a result, I get consistent thinking time on a regular basis.  Were it not for the relentless growth of the grass, I know that I would never put so much time on my schedule just for thinking.  In fact, I can feel the loss of that time in the winter, when I don’t get the chance to think as much.

I’m not recommending that everyone turn to lawn care as their preferred deep-thought environment.  What I am suggesting is that we all need to find some way to create a deep-thinking place, and we need to go there on a regular basis.

It is easy to get caught up in the day-to-day stuff and neglect our strategic focus.  Successful leadership requires strategic thinking that can only occur in self-imposed solitude.  How you find that solitude is up to you, depending on your personality and psyche.  Finding that time, however, is not optional and is crucial to your success as a leader.