Lion? Eagle? Or… May 8, 2009
Posted by Chuck Musciano in Leadership.Tags: Animals, Best Of 2009, Leadership, Public Speaking
4 comments
As a leader, what kind of animal are you? Of all the members of the animal kingdom, which one demonstrates the very best qualities of leadership?
My predecessor, a very good CIO, once had the opportunity to answer this question. He was invited to speak as part of a leadership panel, with an audience of several hundred fellow IT executives. The moderator had provided some of the seed questions to the panel in advance, so he had some time to think about his response. He actually did some research and came up with the perfect answer.
Now, most people are quick to answer this question with “lion” or “eagle.” Lions, of course, have great strength and sit near the top of the food chain. Although naturally lazy, especially the males, the lion’s leadership aura has been greatly enhanced by teams of Disney animators and the fact that the best lions apparently sound a lot like James Earl Jones.
An eagle is a better choice. Soaring high above the landscape, eagles have great vision and react quickly when detecting prey or enemies. Unfortunately, eagles are pretty much loners and do very little actual leading of anything. Although Disney has not yet made the equivalent of “The Eagle King,” the eagle gets good PR from being on money and various state and national seals.
The real answer, as my friend discovered, is the giraffe. Before you scoff, consider: the giraffe is the tallest animal, able to see threats at great distance. Other animals rely on this skill, gathering near the giraffe to capitalize on its early detection ability. As a result, the giraffe is recognized by all the other animals as a natural leader. Just as a good leader looks to the horizon to guide their team, a giraffe brings safety and surety to the world of the other herd animals. Giraffes, in fact, see the lions long before an attack is possible. Giraffes are also too large to be carried off by an eagle, or even a team of cooperating eagles, should the eagles ever get their act together.
So my friend went into the panel discussion sure that he had the killer answer. The moderator poses the question, and much to his astonishment, the guy next to my friend answers “Giraffe!” He goes on to explain all the great reasons, and the crowd is suitably impressed. When the moderator turns to my friend, all he can say is “I chose giraffe, too.” Even though we knew he had, half the audience was thinking “yeah, right.” Who would say “eagle” after hearing the great giraffe answer?
So today’s blog offers not one, but two crucial bits of leadership advice. First, when you get the question about the best animal leader, you know now that the answer is “giraffe.” And two, make sure you get to answer first.
Deep And Wide May 6, 2009
Posted by Chuck Musciano in Leadership.Tags: Communication, Leadership, Management Skills
2 comments
Information, of quality both high and low, is seemingly infinite in supply. Time, however, is woefully finite. I’ve written previously about using the Three Ps as a structure for status reports, in the hopes of sharing more quality information in a shorter amount of time. Coaching your people to focus on the Three Ps certainly can help, but it doesn’t stop there. It’s also important to recognize the value of Deep versus Wide.
Many people, especially technical people, take a simple approach when communicating up their management chain: convey a lot of detail about the issue at hand. There are merits to this technique: you can show that you know your stuff; you make sure that your boss is truly well-informed; and you can’t be accused of hiding information. There is little downside for the messenger to use this “deep” communication strategy.
Unfortunately, your boss may simply not have the time to listen to all this data, no matter how much they’d like to hear it. In many cases, they need certain salient details to make a decision; once that decision is made, little further information is needed. Instead, they need to move on to the next decision, which may require a similar quick assessment. Leaders often need “wide” communication, rapidly covering many topics at a low level of detail.
These competing goals often set up disastrous status meetings. Staff members go on at length with tremendous detail and background about each project while the decision-makers patiently wait them out, having made their decision long ago. Not wanting to offend or discourage their team, leaders will suffer through lots of extraneous data, sacrificing precious time that could be spent on other decisions. When they do cut things short, teams come away annoyed that their hard work was ignored or dismissed out of hand.
This conflict serves no one and can demoralize a team. Meetings run long and items at the end of the agenda never get addressed. Without clear direction, people have no idea how to communicate effectively with their bosses.
You need to address your desired level of detail with your staff. I tell my team to approach these meetings in a “wide” fashion first, initially addressing each item at a fairly cursory level. If things are as I expected, either good or bad, there is often little need to go “deep” and request more information. If, however, the initial review seems awry, I want to dive into the details and learn more. I expect my staff to have the details in their head so we can discuss them.
That’s a key item: discuss them. I expect my staff to understand the details and to be ready to engage in a good discussion. I do not want them to whip a stack of PowerPoint slides out of their hip pocket on demand. That’s a huge waste of time on their part, time better spent doing real work. Just be ready to have an informed conversation and we’ll all be better off.
Don’t think that this advice only flows downhill. Many CIOs suffer from the same problem, arriving at a senior management meeting ready to go “deep.” This is a double disaster, since deep dives with CIOs eventually drift into inscrutable technobabble. It’s as if we CIOs need a “stall alarm” in our heads that squawks “Pull Up! Pull Up!” as soon as we mention anything with moving electrons.
Your boss and peers are just as pressed for time as you are. Go “wide” until the questions start, and then dive deep as their questions lead you. You’ll save time, win some points, and shift further into your true role as a business leader, not the technology director.
Idiot Or Thief? April 24, 2009
Posted by Chuck Musciano in Random Musings.Tags: Customer Service, Interfaces, Irritants
2 comments
I love shopping in a store and being accused of being both stupid and a thief. What better way to win my long-term loyalty?
It all started back in 1973. A nearby grocery store had installed a high-tech checkout system that used new-fangled “bar codes” to scan items at checkout, eliminating the hand-keying of prices into the cash register. Well, what could be better? As bacon is to all foods, lasers are to all technology. There is no device that does not get better by adding a laser in some fashion. And these checkout systems had visible lasers, flickering across the products, ready to blind or maim at a moment’s notice! Dangerous technology, bent to the will of man!
Over the years, scanners replaced cash registers, until they were pervasive in every shopping experience. But the technology was off-limits to all but a select few: the highly trained cadre of cashiers who were granted access to the mysterious machines. Only they knew how to hold the products just so, and move them at the right speed, to get a good scan each and every time. Mere mortals stood back in awe as these artists worked their magic with cans, boxes, and even plastic bags.
The desire to use the machine and scan something was overpowering. Alas, my career choice precluded being a cashier, so I tried to manage my impulses. A rare encounter with a cashier that would let you scan something was like a brief glimpse into another world. It felt so good!
Imagine my excitement when my local grocery installed self-checkout machines. I could be my own cashier, scanning all by myself! This was heady stuff, and I was quick to use those lanes whenever possible.
The fun was cut short when I found that the machine assumes that I am both an idiot and a thief. As you scan each item, the system tells you to place it in the bagging area. If it doesn’t arrive in the bagging area in quickly enough, the system repeats the command and then locks up, awaiting intervention from the system manager. After the manager unlocks the system from their console, I can then move on to the next item.
As to the idiot assumption: where do they think I am going to put the item? Throw it to the floor? Back in my basket? Juggle it? I know to put it in the bag. Why would you tell me this for each and every item I am buying? Thanks for assuming that a typical adult has no idea how the purchasing process works.
And a thief? Apparently, these machines are built with scales in the bagging area, and some poor soul has entered the weight of every conceivable item you might buy. As you scan an item, the system is carefully checking to see if what you bought is correctly placed into a bag. If that weight is not registered in the bag, the system assumes you have not bagged it and must therefore be committing some sort of fraud. Did you scan one item but bag two? Scan a cheap item but bag something far more expensive?
The reality is that the scales on these machines are not that great, so that bagging errors happen all the time. Set an item down too hard or too gently, and it is misread. Jostle the scale or try to shift things in the bag, and you upset the system. Most items weigh so little that they cannot possibly register accurately every time. Yet the assumption is that the system is right, you are wrong, and some shenanigans are going on in aisle seven.
Let me clarify something for my local grocer: my long-term retirement plan does not involve skimming extra candy bars and razor blades for potential resale on eBay. I am not out to rob you; I just want to quickly check out while experiencing the vicarious thrill of using a laser to do so. I understand that certain miscreants might uses lasers for nefarious purposes, but that usually involves sharks. I am honest, long-term customer that wants to be treated that way. For goodness sake, I scanned my frequent shopper card when I started; if there was some sort of problem, you know whre I live!
Once again, companies are usnig technology with the best of intentions but ending up alienating and irritating customers. We preach about trust and relationship with customers, but that seems to only go one way. Our systems assume there is no trust or relationship, and customers are quick to perceive that. We need to live the customer experience more often and translate our feelings into the systems we design. Then we can start building trust and earning a relationship with our customers.
No? No. No! April 22, 2009
Posted by Chuck Musciano in Leadership.Tags: Communication, Customer Service, Denial, Governance, Leadership, Management Skills
5 comments
There is a fatal trap into which all IT Leaders fall, sooner or later. It isn’t a sudden trap, sprung upon you all at once, but a slow, gentle descent into a disaster that can break your career if you aren’t careful.
It starts by saying “no.”
Every IT organization in the world is understaffed with respect to the total demand for all IT projects contemplated by the business. While we may have enough people to keep the lights on and systems running, we’ll never have enough people to execute every project envisioned by our peers in the business. That’s the way it should be: not every project needs to be completed, no matter how badly it is wanted by its champion.
As the owner of scarce resources, IT can become the arbiter of what gets done and what gets ignored. And therein lies the trap: for every project you accept, you are telling one or more people “no.” Each person that gets turned away views IT as an impediment to their grand plan, a speed bump on their road to success. Over time, you’ll wind up telling everyone no at some point. You’ll have accrued so much resentment among your customers that they will begin to bypass you to get things done. When that happens, your effectiveness as a CIO has diminished, and your ability to serve your company has ended. Soon after that, you’ll be looking for a new job.
There is a better way, and savvy CIOs know how to avoid this trap. The key is to engage your peers to decide, among themselves, which projects should or shouldn’t get green-lighted. IT has no business determining the ultimate cost and benefit of a project. That’s up to the project champion and his or her peers, debating the project in the broader perspective of the business as a whole. When they finish their debate, your job is to step in and make their collectively-chosen projects successful. The animosity of those whose projects were declined can be directed at their peers who made that decision, not you as the CIO.
Every CIO needs to develop this governance process in their company. Whole books have been written on how to gather projects into portfolios, build governance teams at various management levels, and facilitate the debate among business leaders. The IT organization provides guidance along the way, with scope estimates, impact statements, and technology assessments. This is done objectively to support the conversation, not to champion a particular cause.
But, some CIOs complain, change only occurs when I initiate it! How do I get things to happen while being objective?
You have two choices. The right way is to present your big idea to another business leader, convince them of the merits, and allow them to champion the project. With them as champion, you step back into your role of objective facilitator and implementation expert. The more difficult path is to advance the idea yourself, acting as a business leader and not as the CIO. This requires a deft hand and can be fraught with peril. Honestly, if you can’t convince someone in the business to champion your idea, why would you advance it on your own anyway?
Good IT governance is a crucial part of every successful company and every successful CIO. It takes time to develop the culture and process for successful governance, but your patient efforts will be well-rewarded. Good governance gets you out of the position of being the “guy who always says no.” That’s important, because the “guy who says no” is soon known as the “guy looking for a new job.”
The Effective CIO 