Rumors at work

What do you do when rumors - those that go coursing through almost every workplace start. Worse, what happens when those rumors hurt a member of your staff. The simple answer is you stop the rumors as quickly as possible. But rarely is life or work that simple.

Rumors do start - some because they are true or close (a shred of truth). Many because of fear - the thing that we don't want to happen becomes the reality. Some start to hurt a specific individual.

Most managers who have been around for a while have encountered all of these. Most of us go at the rumor for the simple reason that spreading rumors impacts the company - time. Most of us don't want to see our people waste time on something that is not true or not known. Most of us don't want to see our people hurt.

Whatever the reason that rumors start the goal should be truth - stop the rumor. Stop it quickly before it has an impact on the organization or hurts someone.

Talk to the group publicly if appropriate.
Talk to the individuals who passed on the rumor.
Talk to anyone directly effected by the rumor.

First things First - get your services right

I've been reading quite a bit over the past several weeks - Gary Hamel's book "The Future of Management", the Wall Street Journal, lot of material on the Internet - from newspapers to blogs to various web sites. One thing that I've noticed regarding I.T. and Leadership in general - there is very little said about where to start.

So on the subject of where to start in a new Information Technology leadership position - start with an evaluation of what's working and what is not. In virtually every business that I've been involved with as a consultant or employee - there are basic issues that are creating problems for I.T. and the business. Most of the time they are not the sexy new stuff - they are basic issues that effect reliability, availability and usability.

So my advice - take 30 days to evaluate. Talk to your peers, talk to your end-users, talk to senior leaders. Don't make changes right away - unless something is really broken. Do you have meaningful stats that can tell you how your services are working? Do you have negative feedback on services? Do you have positive feedback?

Each of the situations that I've been in has had at least a couple of areas where IT was not performing to the user community's (or Senior Management's) expectations. A couple of these areas were serious concerns - instability in the infrastructure supporting key services and lack of progress on reports that had been promised.

Resolve these issues quickly earns credibility for IT (and you) but the process isn't necessarily easy. Issues with instability are typically a combination of straight forward solutions (power, network and server redundancy) along with less easily corrected problems (O/S, Database and application configuration). But focusing on these allows the organization to move to work that is more valuable to the business and more rewarding for I.T. staff members. Reducing after hours calls on instability issues also goes a long way to improving moral.

Looking carefully at the organization that you are coming into - while you still have an "outsiders" perspective is also useful. You may see changes that could improve the functioning of your group(s) and increase morale. Changes that you would not necessarily see after being in the organization for a longer period of time. If that view does point to significant changes in personnel - it is good to start planning those early so that they can be executed early allowing you and the organization past those changes quickly and with less disruption than if you wait.

Younger Workers and Technology

Jarina D'Auria's article in CIO Magazine's -"Younger Workers More Likely to Break Corporate Rules for Web Apps" provides a great overview of one of the challenges facing both Senior I.T. Leadership and Organizational Leadership. This generation (born after 1980) is very technologically savvy. They use technology in ways that no previous generation has including the Web Apps that are discussed in the article in addition to more basic technology including cell phones and PDA's. They expect more from technology and they don't expect their company's to get in the way.

Many of us try to accomodate reasonable employee requirements - web use is permitted provided that the work gets done. Security, where I.T. is reasonably sophisticated can handle most of the issues created by Web 2.0 applications and other technologies. Standards may be impacted but much of the technology in use seems less likely to impact corporate networks than earlier versions of the same.

But what is the benefit? Employee engagement, innovation, retention?

While we need to retain an "appropriate" level of discipline - that level has changed during my tenure in I.T. - correctly I believe. Before the 1980's there seemed to me to be very little blending of our personal and work lives. We went to work, we went to lunch, didn't spend much time on personal business during the day and went home when the day was done.

Now my younger employees are engaged in their whole lives through the whole day. Some of my customers are easier to reach via text messages than email or telephone and respond to messages regardless of time. I can find out about potential employees via LinkedIn, Facebook or YouTube. My kids will text me before calling.

What this means for I.T. is an orientation that is very different from the baby boomers. One that may be hard to understand but offers opportunities for improvements in the services that we develop within I.T. along with the products and services that we offer to our customers. Another form of diversity that recognizes the talents of a younger generation and provides an opportunity to demonstrate value.

This change is going to require management innovation that has certainly not been common. Gary Hamel points out in "The Future of Management" that there has been very little management innovation in the past 20-30 years. Management innovation is going to be required to engage GenX "millennials" and to gain the 4-6 hours of productivity that is available according to the Symantec study referenced in the article.

Vacations - Stress Reduction

I recently found the Dilbert Blog!

Given my discussion (random rants) on stress and Scott Adams tech background (he knows of what he speaks and speaks well) I found today's post particularly appropriate. Scott Adams takes a vacation..

Although Scott's thoughts were about the "bad of vacation planning" and the "good of actually being on one" his underlying theme seemed to be "vacation is important". It is especially important in I.T. where people ofter put in long or unusual hours. It's important to have the good memories. The stress reduction inherent in taking time off is critical to individual and organizational well being.

As leaders we need to focus the resources (people and time) on the issues and projects that are important to the business. Making sure that those people are at maximum efficiency is equally important as is managing time within our organizations.

Random rant!

Work Place Stress

Americans are stressed - and work is a big factor. In an article by Kelly Holland in the March 23rd edition of the New York Times entitled "The Tension Builds (It’s Almost Monday)" it is noted that in "Poll results released last October by the American Psychological Association", "one-third of Americans are living with extreme stress, and that the most commonly cited source of stress — mentioned by 74 percent of respondents — was work. That was up from 59 percent the previous year."

In addition "More than half the respondents to the survey said they had left a job or considered doing so because of stress, and 55 percent said that stress made them less productive at work." and "some 48 percent of the employers in the survey said stress created by long hours and limited resources was affecting business performance, but only 5 percent said they were taking strong action to address those areas.

What does this say about leadership? We are knowingly allowing stress to impact our organizations - through loss of productivity and loss of people but are not taking "strong action" to fix the problem! I suspect that many companies are taking NO action.

Several other blogs have picked up on the article and the results. In Wally Bock's Three Star Leadership Blog posting "Sunday Afternoons" Mr. Bock notes "If you want to head off the "chronic sadness of late Sunday afternoon," the best way to do that is to give people a great working environment to go to on Monday morning. And the key to that is great supervisors. Select them. Train them. Support them." That's each of us - anyone who is called "the boss" - company leadership.

There are two good examples of companies that have done something about stress - GlaxoSmithKline and PWC. The PWC example I find particularly relevant to I.T. and Technology Organizations. PWC focused on eliminating the interruptions on weekends. I.T. Organizations work weekends - either because of changes that have to be implemented during off hours or project deadlines that won't be met without extra hours or outages. But that doesn't mean that we should expect other work to be accomplished during those times. Giving people the downtime that they deserve, that they need, improves our organization's efficiency, decreases turnover, increases satisfaction.

Finally, in Spherion's blog post "Life in the Cubicle - Burning the Midnight Oil" (from which the graphic in this post was swiped THANK YOU Spherion)they note that "nearly one third of U.S. workers spend between 41 and 50 hours a week at the office, and another 12% clock 50 hours or more weekly.". While we all know that it is often necessary in I.T. to work long hours - it should not constant and leadership has to make sure that we do what is necessary to reduce the requirement for long hours with no break. We also have to make sure that long hours at work are rewarded - not considered normal and expected. A bit of appreciation.

My thanks to the New York Times - many great articles that make me think about leadership, and technology.