Slices Of Apple, Part 1 July 27, 2008
Posted by Chuck Musciano in Leadership.Tags: Humility, Project Management
add a comment
I beat up on Microsoft a lot (and offer praise when it is justified). In the spirit of fairness, it’s Apple’s turn, given the absolute debacle of the rollout of the iPhone 3G and related technologies. It’s a great case study for CIOs, developers, and just about every IT person in between. Over the next few days, I’ll be extracting some lessons to be learned from Apple’s ongoing woes.
Stay Humble
Pride goes before destruction,
a haughty spirit before a fall. -Proverbs 16:18
Before dissecting the specifics of Apple’s problems, it’s important to note that they set themselves up for all the scorn and criticism they are now getting. Apple has spent years poking at Microsoft, using every failure to highlight how great and infallible Apple products are. Bug-free, easy to use, simple to configure, and secure, Apple has people believing that their systems and software are somehow different from every other piece of software out there. When Apple products fail, people are astoundingly forgiving. A similar failure from a Microsoft product yields everything but torch-lit marches on Redmond. Somehow, Apple is just too cool to be wrong.
When things began to unravel, you couldn’t help but be amused as the problems began to pile up during the iPhone rollout. For anyone who has lived through a less-than-perfect deployment of any system, big or small, it was somehow reassuring to see Apple struggle just like the rest of us. In the end, software is software, and poor execution yields lousy results, no matter who runs the company or how fanatical the customer base becomes.
The most damaging aspect of all this is that, for the first time, Apple’s shiny reputation has been tarnished outside of the IT community. Nerds can recount problems with Apple OS releases and other odd product failures, but for the mass of mortals who use iPods and iPhones, their infallible technology provider has stumbled, revealed to be just another purveyor of buggy, poorly tested software. Apple couldn’t always live up to its over-hyped reputation, and that day of reckoning has finally come due. The cost of that slip, given their previous arrogance, will be huge.
The lesson to be learned is simple: stay humble. No matter how good your track record, you are just one project away from a similar disaster. Lose focus for one minute and you’ll be digging out from a pile of problems. The price of great IT execution is eternal vigilance. No one, at any level, ever gets to let up, slip up, or give up.
When things go well, be thankful, show your appreciation to those who really enabled the success, and don’t let it go to your head. That way, when things go poorly (and sooner or later, they will) you won’t have people rooting against you if only to reward your ego and arrogance. That’s one lesson from Apple that applies not only to project management, but to every aspect of life.
Love All, Serve All July 23, 2008
Posted by Chuck Musciano in Leadership.Tags: Customer Service, Rock and Roll
add a comment
I recently recounted a great customer service experience with the Wall Street Journal. Hard on the heels of this unexpected event, I had another great experience this past weekend at the Hard Rock Theme Park in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. Could this be a trend? Let’s hope so!
Unlike my single interaction with the Journal, my family’s entire day at the Hard Rock was exceptional. As we arrived at the parking lot entrance to pay our $10 parking fee, the attendant took the time to explain the re-entry rules, welcomed us to the park, and exhorted us to “Rock On!” as we pulled away. We laughed and drove on, our mood and attitude reinforced for a fun day.
Inside the park, every employee took time to ask us how we were doing. Did we need help finding something? Were we enjoying our day? Did we know that a particular show was starting in a few moments? From r
ide attendants to cashiers to janitorial staff, every single employee seemed to be taking a personal interest in our experience. Although we were a bit surprised at first, we began to appreciate what a difference this attention made throughout the day. It was wonderful!
I lived in Florida for fifteen years. I’ve been to every variation of a theme park you can imagine, more times that I can count. The service and approach by the Hard Rock staff was better than any other park I’ve attended, including the Disney properties.
Being a brand new park, the Hard Rock lacks the breadth of more established parks but makes up for its smaller scope with a wide range of different things to do. Hands down, it has the best background music of any park you’ll attend. The small touches and puns are everywhere, rewarding the discriminating rock and roll fan with something to smile about no matter where you look. My favorite part: the same music plays everywhere at t
he same time, but in the reggae area, a synchronized version of the song is played on the steel drums. I never thought I’d hear Livin’ On A Prayer on the steel drums, but thanks to the Hard Rock I can check that off my bucket list.
If you get the chance, take the time to visit the Hard Rock Theme Park. Enjoy the music, have fun on the rides, and marvel at the customer service. Then come home and see if you can get your staff to generate and sustain the same level of customer focus with your customers. Love all, serve all!
Experiments In Leadership July 22, 2008
Posted by Chuck Musciano in Leadership.Tags: Leadership, Scouting
add a comment
I recently returned from a week at Boy Scout Summer Camp, at idyllic Camp Raven Knob in the mountains of North Carolina. I was not alone: camp is best experienced in large groups. To that end, I was there with Boy Scout Troop 244 with eight other adults and 39 Boy Scouts, including my son. Overall, the camp was home to 650 Scouts, with perhaps 150 adult leaders and 100 staff members.
The boys spent the week earning merit badges, hiking, swimming, building fires, playing with sharp objects, eating camp food, getting rained on, and fooling around. The adult leaders focus on ensuring that the boys have fun, don’t get too homesick, and return home with all the eyes, fingers, and limbs they brought to camp at the start of the week.
To the casual observer, Scouting is just another extracurricular activity for boys that involves camping and various outdoor skills. Those involved in Scouting know better. Scouting is an outstanding leadership training program for young men that uses outdoor experiences as the venue for boys to try their new skills. For 100 years, Scouting has been teaching young men how to solve problems, organize teams, develop strategies, and lead people. When you throw in the opportunity to build fires, use knives, and get dirty, it becomes almost irresistible to most 12-year-old boys.
Most people never get the opportunity to experiment with leadership with no fear of failure. By the time we are placed in a leadership position, failure carries a huge cost. Scouting creates leadership opportunities where failure has no downside. Instead, boys get the opportunity to see their mistakes, learn from them, and try again. By the time they move into a real leadership role, they have the experience to be successful and avoid previous errors.
I once watched my son try to lead a patrol of eight boys in cooking breakfast. He struggled as boys wandered off, ignored his plan, and went their own way. He wound up doing much of the work himself and found the experience frustrating. Everyone did get to eat, but the process was messy, literally and figuratively. Afterward, I asked him how it went. He declared he never wanted to be in charge of cooking again! I laughed, and we talked about how to motivate a team, delegate tasks, follow up, and finish a project. Since then, my son has managed patrol meals on many occasions without a problem, and his patrol eats very well. (Menu highlights have included penne with shrimp in a tomato cream sauce, chicken fajitas, and apple pie, all prepared in various remote locales across North Carolina).
Leadership training is an essential part of any good organization. Just as Scouting provides a lab environment for future leaders, we need to create training opportunities for our people to test their leadership skills. Most importantly, we need to give them the ability to fail without fear so that they can learn from their mistakes and get better. Fear of failure is paralyzing. Let your people fail, provide structure to contain the potential damage, and give feedback so they can learn from their mistakes. Although you may not be able to send them camping for a week, they’ll still grow and mature into more effective contributors in your organization.
Customer Service! July 3, 2008
Posted by Chuck Musciano in Leadership.Tags: Customer Service, Grammar, Newspapers, Punctuation
add a comment
I had a startling customer service experience this week that is worth sharing.
I am a long-time reader of the Wall Street Journal. I think the Journal is the last great newspaper in America, with an editorial viewpoint that resonates with my own political leanings. It comes as no surprise to me that a paper run by conservatives is successful and profitable, in contrast to a certain other high-profile New York paper that positions itself slightly to the left of Karl Marx.
I have been distressed recently to see an uptick in spelling and grammar errors in the Journal. Loyal readers know my feelings on such things, and I was not happy to see the Journal slipping to a level of quality normally associated with USA Today and its ilk. I reached the end of my rope when earlier this week a Journal article referred to the owner of a Toyota dealership as “Mr. Yaris,” replacing the real name with the name of a Toyota model.
Knowing that they await my feedback on a regular basis, I dashed off an email to the editors. You can imagine the consternation in the Journal offices when word got out that I had written; I can only presume they brought the whole operation to a grinding halt while my thoughts were shared across the organization.
Well, something like that must have happened, because in less than two hours, I received a personal response from the author of the article, apologizing for the error, thanking me for my concern, and assuring me that the Journal worked very hard to keep such things from happening.
Wow! A real response to a (mildly) disgruntled customer! Imagine an organization that reads their email so quickly, routes it to the responsible party, and ensures that a response occurs so quickly! I was impressed, and wrote back to say just that. Later, I found that they even listed the error in the next day’s corrections.
Does your organization handle customer feedback that well? Are your people taking personal responsibility for their errors with their customers in such a professional manner? If not, why not?
Big Decisions June 16, 2008
Posted by Chuck Musciano in Leadership.Tags: Dress Code, Shoes
add a comment
Being a CIO has lots of benefits but carries big responsibilities as well. For better or worse, the really big decisions get pushed up to you, forcing you to make difficult and sometimes divisive rulings on critical issues facing your organization.
Like, for example, women’s casual footwear.
We have a dress code in my organization that is designed to let people be comfortable while maintaining a professional work environment. This includes wearing “appropriate footwear.” As warmer weather approaches, people start wondering what that means, exactly.
For the men, it’s pretty easy: almost any reasonably-maintained shoe except sneakers is acceptable. For women, it gets harder. Open-toe shoes have prompted great debate in my group. Are flip-flops allowed? If not, what about “dressy sandals?” What about “strappy sandals?” What about open-toe flats that aren’t actually sandals? Open-toe, with or without a heel strap? Slingback as opposed to buckled? Sandals, but without a toe thong? What about those new gladiator sandals? Leather or plastic? What about plastic that looks like leather?
Big decisions like this cannot be delegated to lower levels of your management team. Only you possess the Solomonic wisdom to define a single standard by which all sandals, strappy or otherwise, will be judged. You must meet this challenge head on and appease everyone at once.
Thus we have another Profile In Courage: What constitutes appropriate women’s sandals for professional wear?
My answer: if you can submerge the sandal in a bucket of water without upsetting the owner, it is not appropriate. If the owner would be greatly annoyed by having her sandal submerged and ruined, it is appropriate for our workplace.
This test instantly rules out most everything you would typically wear to the beach or the pool, but leaves in everything you’d wear to dinner or an evening out on the town. Amazingly, most of the women in my group who consider this solution find it acceptable. While there are exceptions to both sides of this test, they are small enough that the vast majority of footwear can be easily and unambiguously judged.
Notice that this solution does not apply to the men. Most men would barely flinch at soaking-wet shoes since our shoes, wet or dry, look and feel about the same.
With another big issue resolved, I can return to less pressing matters. What a relief!
The Effective CIO 