Big Stretches April 1, 2009
Posted by Chuck Musciano in Leadership.Tags: Best Of 2009, Leadership, Management Skills, Mentor
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Early in my management career, I ran the Unix portion of a large corporate data center. There were close to one hundred people there, managing all the things you need to run a big, multi-vendor environment. It was fun, challenging, and educational, in more ways than I expected.
It came to pass that one of the senior managers had a new opportunity and would be moving on to a different part of the company. As was the tradition, there was a send-off event at work, which was always structured as a roast of the honoree. I had never been to one before, as I was still relatively new to the group.
Imagine my surprise when the Director of Operations pulled me aside and told me that I would be one of the speakers! I was expected to get up and speak for three or four minutes, telling jokes and entertaining the crowd. Refusing was not an option, so I started putting together a routine of sorts.
People who know me know that I can speak to large groups at the drop of a hat. I’ll get up and speak even if you don’t have a hat. For me, “staff meeting” is just corporate-speak for “captive audience.” However, “speaking” and “entertaining” are two very different concepts. I enjoy the former; the latter is in the ear of the listener. Coupled with being the new kid on the block, this seemed to be an overwhelming challenge. In short, I was terrified.
But I did it. I got up, started talking, and they actually laughed! No one was more surprised than I was. And the benefits of the experience extended beyond overcoming extreme stage fright. I became accepted into the group, developed more relationships, and became a more effective employee.
Later, I asked my director why he asked me to speak. After all, he didn’t know me very well, and he was taking a bit of a risk. He told me he thought I could step up to the challenge and that I would do a good job.
For me, it was a big stretch that had a big payoff. Because my boss had faith in me, I showed I could succeed in a difficult assignment. That success translated into other opportunities that helped me and the organization.
When is the last time you gave one of your people such a stretch opportunity? When did you roll the dice and let someone really go beyond their comfort zone? This is incredibly hard to do. A few posts back, I talked about letting people solve their own problems; that is hard enough for some leaders. Now we’re talking about letting people take on big, public challenges with a high-risk/high-reward payoff.
Can you do it? Do you have people ready for that challenge? Are you mature enough as a leader to let them try and support them if they fail? It’s a test of their mettle to see if they can hit that stretch goal; it’s a test of your leadership skills to make it possible.
A Greatly Needed Void March 25, 2009
Posted by Chuck Musciano in Leadership.Tags: Leadership, Management Skills
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Many years ago, an email circulated with clever lines from back-handed letters of “recommendation.” One brought a smile to my face and has stuck with me to this day:
He fills a greatly needed void.
What a perfect description of the deadwood in your organization!
Leaders often spend a lot of time worrying about the thin spots in their teams. These days, especially, we are all stretched thin and trying to keep things running with reduced staffs and resources. Without a deep bench, the loss of one or two key people could really be a problem for us. As a result, we focus on filling voids: plugging people into open positions to make sure that everything is covered. Those voids represent risk and exposure, and its our job to reduce both.
Perhaps we should spend a little more time looking to create some voids. While eliminating people is unpleasant and painful, our teams always benefit from a little housecleaning. Not only do you eliminate people that were not contributing, you improve the morale of those who were.
When people see that an organization will tolerate poor performance, they are less inclined to contribute. After all, if you can stay employed with less effort, why try harder? When you demonstrate that poor performance will not be tolerated, some borderline employees will get the message and pick up their pace a bit. Good employees will continue to work hard, knowing that good performance is expected and rewarded.
When did you last go looking for greatly needed voids in your organization? When did you last honestly assess each person in terms of their contribution, commitment, and character? Is a person harming your organization by squandering the privilege of working there? Is a person pulling others down to their level? Answer these questions honestly, and you’ll find a few needed voids.
Don’t overlook the most important void: are you filling one? Could you be perceived as lacking in contribution, commitment, or character? Are you able to objectively figure that out? I guarantee that the voids you seek in your team have no idea that they are in that position. Don’t be similarly blind.
Here’s hoping you’ll have the discernment to find the greatly needed voids in your organization and the courage to create them. And may you never find yourself filling a greatly needed void.
Bring It! March 23, 2009
Posted by Chuck Musciano in Leadership.Tags: Best Of 2009, Leadership, Management Skills, Problems
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My people bring me their problems. If you are in a leadership role, I’m guessing that your people bring you their problems, too. That seems natural. After all, we got to where we are by solving problems. We should be pretty good at this by now; it’s what we get paid to do.
Or is it? While solving the problems that arrive is certainly helping our organization, it is not helping the person who brought the problem. All things considered, solving the problem is actually harming the person who has come knocking on your door.
From the employee’s perspective, pushing a problem up the ladder is the easy way out. By definition, the boss will pick the solution that suits him or her, so you can’t lose brownie points by presenting the wrong answer. It saves you a lot of time trying to figure out the right answer, which is efficient. And you might learn something when you see how the boss would solve things.
Lesser leaders love it when people bring them problems to solve. It strokes their ego to know that they are the only one who can save the day. They get to show off their knowledge and skills when they provide the answer. They get to feel like they have taught a valuable lesson to the employee.
Better leaders know better. Our job as leaders is to teach and guide our employees to find the solutions on their own. The process of considering and rejecting alternatives is crucial to mentoring people to become better at what they do. Much like giving a man a fish instead of teaching him to fish, the issue is resolved but nothing is gained.
As a leader, this is really hard to do. Our natural inclination is to solve the problem and move on. It is contrary to our nature to push the problem back to the employee and see what they might do. But this is exactly what we must do, every time this happens.
My team learned long ago that I expect them to come to me with a problem and a solution. With a proposed solution on the table, we can debate the merits, consider alternatives, and arrive at the right answer together. Hopefully, they learn something as we find that answer.
Invariably, when someone brings me a problem, my first question to them is, “What do you think we should do?” If they can’t answer, they need to go away and come back when they have a proposal to consider.
Note that this advice applies to you when you go to your boss: bring the problem and your solution. At our level, you are seeking consensus on your approach, not a quick answer to hard problems. Your boss may able to provide political advice and other intangible support; you need to bring the real answer.
Practice what your preach and apply this rule consistently. Over time, your people will become better problem-solvers without being dependent on you for all the answers. Then you will have achieved your real goal as a leader: mentoring your people to be better than you at everything they do, and then simply getting out of their way.
Wwwwhy Designs Fail March 18, 2009
Posted by Chuck Musciano in Leadership, Random Musings.Tags: Interfaces, Irritants, Users
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Here’s a simple test: pick a web site, any web site. Try typing the URL the old-fashioned way, with “www” in front. Did it work? Most certainly. Now try it again, with just “ww,” “w,” or even “wwww.” Did any of those work? I’ll give you even money one or more of them failed.
Why? People mistype this stuff all the time! Don’t you think that some considerate, thoughtful systems administrator would have taken the time to create the “near miss” versions of his web site, just to make it easier on the users? You’d think that, but they certainly didn’t. And hundreds, maybe thousands of users feel the effects of one unthinking person.
This isn’t about poor web site name management. The real issue here is that too many developers don’t take the time to figure out where users might make mistakes so that they can program around them. The goal of any system is to make it as easy as possible for the user, and that includes silently detecting and correcting mistakes wherever possible.
Much like interfaces that force users to perform mundane tasks better left to the computer (like insisting on perfectly formatted credit card numbers) mistake-intolerant tools force the user to do more work for no good reason. By definition, humans make errors. When dealing with other people, we silently recognize and correct minor errors all the time. People are really good at figuring out intent based on context and ignoring minor faux pas. Computers aren’t naturally good at this, which is why developers need to consider all sorts of potential errors that might occur in their systems. Wherever possible, they need to accept the error, anticiapte the intent, and move forward.
This kind of design error is not limited to software systems. It extends to leadership as well. Too many leaders insist on “correct” behavior from their team, expecting behavior that exactly matches what they might do when presented with a task. Good leaders allow for creativity and understand that there are many paths to the goal. Tolerating multiple paths that reach the same goal is a sign of a confident leader.
This isn’t to say that it’s OK to miss the goal. It’s not, and failure needs to be addressed. But are you allowing your people the latitude to take routes you didn’t anticipate and still reach the goal? Like a system that gauges intent and still delivers the desired result, strong leadership encourages creativity that will find other paths. In the best scenarios, your people will find a way that is better than yours, and even in the worst case, you can use the less-optimal paths as teachable moments to improve your team’s performance in the future.
Eschew Boilerplate March 16, 2009
Posted by Chuck Musciano in Leadership.Tags: Boilerplate, Consulting
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I spent eighteen months as a private consultant, providing executive-level IT consulting to a variety of clients along the east coast. Having been a consumer of consulting services prior to this phase of my career, I learned a great deal about being a provider of said services. Even though I’m back on the other side of the table, those lessons stick with me.
Part of high-end consulting is the “deliverable.” Beyond the stellar day-to-day advice provided by the consultant, the deliverable is supposed to provide a tangible copy of the wisdom delivered during the engagement. Some deliverables actually accomplish this goal; most fall horribly short.
A good deliverable is a completely custom document with two principal sections. The first section should capture everything the consultant learned about the client, with particular focus on the information pertinent to the specific engagement. Understanding a client’s overall business is important, but understanding the specifics of the problem at hand is crucial. This section tells the client that the consultant was listening, asked the right questions, and learned the right things to actually be useful.
The second section is the meat of the deliverable. It should provide detailed, specific information and solutions germane to the problem at hand. It should build on the specifics in the first section, and provide solutions and advice that actually apply to the difficulties being faced by the client. This section tells the client that the consultant actually provided value and is worth whatever they were paid.
Sadly, most deliverables are just reams of boilerplate. Most of this boilerplate tends to address “best practices” for the problem at hand. “Best practices” is a consulting term that means “Things I found on Google.” Anyone (and I mean anyone) can find best practices for anything (and I mean anything) with nothing more than a browser and a spare lunch hour. A little cutting and pasting, a few fancy templates, and—tada!—it’s a deliverable!
Here’s a simple illustration. You’ve engaged me as a consultant to help you select your next car. After meeting with you and your family for several days at an obscene hourly rate (plus travel and expenses), I provide a thick document that outlines the best practices in selecting a vehicle. These practices include sage advice like “if you have a lot of things to haul around, consider a truck” and “if you need to take long trips as a family look for a minivan” and “environmental concerns lead many buyers to select smaller, more fuel-efficient vehicles.” Would you be happy with this kind of advice? Would you pay thousands of dollars for it?
On the other hand, a good deliverable would describe your family, along with your short- and long-term travel needs. It might discuss your lifestyle and income. After laying that groundwork, it would suggest three specific models that would meet your needs, along with dealer contact information and recommended pricing. Sound like a better answer? I thought so.
Whenever I receive a deliverable from a consultant, I like to see how many times I can write “duh!” in the margin. Each obvious fact or meaningless observation gets a “duh!” on the side. I’ll forgive any consultant a few of these, but if you are averaging more than one for every three pages, the deliverable (and your invoice) go in the trash.
All consultants are expensive. Good ones earn their keep and prove it with solid deliverables. The rest get shown the door. (Duh!) That’s a best practice I’ll leave you with, for free.
The Effective CIO 