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.

IT Services

Reginald Lo has a great post on I.T. Services in the Advice and Opinion section of CIO (http://www.cio.com/).


The post addresses a common problem - defining exactly what I.T. does for the business. Mr. Lo uses ITIL (ITSM) as a basis for the post but marketing and sales executives would both recognize and readily understand the approach.

1. Catagorize the Service (end user, technical, business),
2. Describe the service,
3. Define the service including value and warranty.

This is a good basic overview of a process that is critical to I.T. success. Get the basics (I.T. 101) - Infrastructure and application set stabilized. Then define what you offer to the business.


There is a lot to the process of defining services and that process will take several months if done properly. But the reward is defined services that your internal customer will better understand and that I.T. can build on in defining services levels, reimbursements/charge backs, improvements and upgrades plus be the basis for governance discussions.

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.

Blogging

I mentioned early in this blog that my purpose in starting was as an intellectual exercise. Based on a couple of months of posting and tweaking plus my own sense that this is starting to come together - I'll give my self a solid C on an admittedly low set of expectations.

I've taken the time to understand the basics of the technology. I've improved and tweaked my initial layout. I've looked at how the technology and the application are being used and I've looked at the pro's blogs.

I've continued to read as much as I can on both Leadership and Technology (as it applies to I.T.) and I've had fun. Each post gets a bit easier - I find interesting subjects in many areas. So while the overall blog is not quite as cohesive as I would like it is gradually coming together.

Comments help and not just those at the end of a post. Suggestions such as Monty's to "watch the grammar and spelling" were very timely. Note: correct grammar's still a problem when I'm in a hurry but I did find the Blogger spell checker. I've also read other blogs and tried to build on the good ideas of others.

I believe that consultants, job seekers or those trying to get ahead should use this new medium because blogging, like any form of writing, forces the writer to learn - it add a new dimension to any career.

Disruptive Technologies - Change

Apple's iTunes Store has surpassed Wal*Mart as the #1 source of music. The shift to digital (music, movies and books) is accelerating. Digital sources of information are growing and our use is accelerating.

What does this mean for I.T. in our support for business. More content, more movement of data, more need for good taxonomy and meta data - more bandwidth.. We already see employees and customers looking for digital information sources. In addition to our standard fare of html and pdf files they are starting to expect podcasts, webcasts and videos (do you have something on You Tube yet)?

What does this mean from the standpoint of our organizations? What does this mean from the standpoint of the application set and infrastructure that we purchase and support? It's probably good news for certain suppliers - storage supplier(s) that we have arrangements with, that have good tools and the capability to scale. Software suppliers, database suppliers that can make the management of that data more efficient.

Organizationally, what are we doing to optimize our ability to handle the growth in storage requirements, changes in tool sets, ability to manage new forms of data? Dedicated storage staff, projects to meet these new business requirements, staff targeted at new areas of growth? and doing it all within static or shrinking budgets?

This is an opportunity to give key staff members a chance at something new. It's, perhaps, an opportunity to reorganize and move non-performing members of our organizations out of the business. It's an opportunity to change our staff composition to meet business requirements.

Housing / Financial Crisis - Impact on hiring

Back to the NY Times. An article in today's paper "Unsold Homes Tie Down Would-Be Transplants" by Louis Uchitelle tells an interesting story about the effect on our organizations ability to hire qualified staff. Specifically, to hire people who have to sell their homes to relocate. A common situation for many of us who have changed jobs in the past.

Hiring often involves someone who must sell house a house and move to a job. What if that house can't be sold or can't be sold without a substantial financial loss? It's possible that your perspective hire might not take the job. Or he/she might take the job and take a financial hit that has a substantial negative impact. It's also possible that you might never interview him or her because of the requirement to sell a house.

It is also possible that you and your company might find a different solution. Commuting / telecommuting. I'm a fan of flexibility having worked for several companies where it was the norm to manage telecommuting staff along with employees housed in other locations including some that were far from home.

For me relocation pain hits close to home (no pun intended). I've had a senior I.T. position where I planned to relocate ultimately but could not. The decision was, in part, due to the real estate market and partially due to schools. No blame here - the culture in that company held that all senior staff live locally. I respect the decision because I respect that team. But the discussions on flexibility were particulary painful.

Change for the good? From my family standpoint no move, no new schools, no change - so maybe yes. From a corporate standpoint - we found my successor - who lived in that area - so little pain other than that imposed by the transition. Either way we've both moved on.

The issue posed in Mr. Uchitelle's article is that the ability of the workforce to relocate is reduced. Will this situation force changes in the way we acquire and retain talent? Will those changes be long lasting?

10 Trends - Center for Creative Leadership

The Center for Creative Leadership (CCL) is an organization focused on leadership education and research. I went through their Leadership Foundations Series 15 years ago and still remember it as the best educational experience of my career.

CCL has many great publications including white papers and articles in addition to their education services. One recent study is similar to the PWC CEO survey that I discussed in my 3/3/2008 post "PWC Survey and Change". That study "10 Trends - A Study of Senior Executives' Views on the Future" is a very good read.

I'll let you read the study but the trends reviewed in the document are:

Trend 1: The Rise of Complex Challenges
Trend 2: The Innovation Revolution
Trend 3: The Art of Virtual Leadership
Trend 4: Collaboration Nation
Trend 5: The World of Interruption
Trend 6: Authenticity Is the Next Celebrity
Trends 7 & 8: The Fallout from the Baby Boom
Trend 9: Leadership for Longevity
Trend 10: What’s Next?

As with the PWC Survey - talent, innovation and collaboration are themes. But there were differences - the PWC Survey was a survey of CEO's - the 10 Trends survey was Senior Leadership (31% CEO or President) with most of the remaining participants being Vice Presidents or Directors. The difference in input resulted in a few interesting differences in output.

Where the PWC Survey showed a frustration on the part of CEO's with "buy in" to plans on the part of senior and middle management the CCL Study showed an interest in "Authentic" senior leadership. The CCL study indicated a concern with the change over in leadership as the baby boomers retire and organizations loose the continuity of this large group of executives. The PWC Study expressed an interest in more effective government involvement.

The focus of these studies had many overlaps and many differences - but both are very good reads.