management « Continual Improvement

Archive of posts filed under the management category.

Scoring a job online

14 October 2009, 10:14 pm

Are you interested in minimizing your career opportunities? Do you plan on staying at your current position forever? If you answered “yes” to either of these questions, there’s no need to continue reading. If you answered otherwise, you might be surprised at how much your online presence is limiting your career and in ways not often considered.

Over the past six months, I’ve read no less than five different Web articles preaching about how individuals need to spruce up their Internet persona, but most of these suggestions seem to be written by someone who hasn’t hired someone in the past 5 years or who just recently discovered the Internets. These warning stories often focus on the need to avoid and remove embarrassing pictures, comments, or opinions that might hurt your chances with certain employers. Sure, this is sound advice, and if your heart rate is increasing just reading this, there’s no better time than the present to start thinking about the permanent nature of posting something to the Web.

For everyone else who realized the naked keg stand pic probably shouldn’t be in the public domain, the problem is much more subtle (or not subtle in some cases). Over the past several weeks, we’ve been trying to fill a software development position and during this time, I’ve been amazed at how many people have compromised their chances in the search pool due to their online apathy.

Here’s a sampling of my favorites. Granted, none of these would necessarily constitute a candidate veto; however, first impressions are still valid even in the cloud age.

1. Profile picture is the Geico caveman. The software craft is creative and all, but I have to wonder how many serious companies are looking for a senior caveman. For those Gen-Y’ers who are thinking “the codger doesn’t get it”, I challenge you to consider a few things. First, for every hiring manager that thinks this is clever, there are ten that wonder if this is a serious candidate. Second, if personal expression is the intent, I recommend something that exhibits originality a lot better than a plagiarized advertisement image. Advice: To create a connection with someone beyond what a boring resume can provide, upload a decent head shot of yourself.

2. Personal Web site has more broken links than a bicycle in a blender. For those in the more technical fields, this is a great way to immediately impress an employer with examples of your best work, and it’s a free advertisement for your ability to “get things done right”. Advice: Simply stated, your site needs to work, or it should be taken down.

3. Objective statement says NASA, but the work history says Sizzler. Shooting for the stars is admirable; however, making the move from part-time Frisbee golfer to senior VP of anything is likely to take more than one step. Advice: If you don’t like what you are doing, start a new career or create your own company, but if you want to progress in the same field, choose an objective that will convey that you understand your current skill set.

4. Where’s Waldo? If you have a name like ‘John Smith’ or ‘Brad Pitt’, it’s understandable why you aren’t anywhere on the first two pages of a Google or Bing search. Typically, just being part of a couple of professional directories such as LinkedIn, Plaxo, or an up-n-comer like Brazen Careerist is enough to get the search engines to make you findable. Many readers will use the excuse that this will cause them to be spammed or have headhunters calling, but my many years of Internet transparency and exposure disprove these myths. Advice: Use the Internet as a tool to better your chances of being discovered and contacted by adding and maintaining a profile on one or more professional social networking sites.

5. You did what? Does that job at the global waste management company mean you were lifting trash or running the company? It’s always confusing to see a list of company names with no job titles or descriptions, especially when cut-n-pasting the information from your resume is so simple. Advice: Add job titles and some information about what you did at each job.

6. You are busier than every other busy person in the world. Having a subpar public profile is not helping your chances, but violating the rules of common Internet etiquette will absolutely destroy your chances now and possibly in the future. For instance, responding to email is the electronic version of shaking hands when it comes to building professional relationships, and this applies to the messaging systems that Facebook, LinkedIn and other social media sites use. Frankly, I’m always flattered if someone sends me a message via a comment on my blog or my Twitter account, so I do my best to always acknowledge this with a simple reply. Advice: Even if the job doesn’t interest you, the response and networking opportunity should never be dismissed. Also, confirm that you will be notified via the right email address or text message when people use the proprietary messaging systems used by social media sites.

While writing this post, I often received feedback that someone shouldn’t be excluded for one of these reasons. Sure, there’s no doubt a superstar candidate will overcome many online flaws, but the process for finding superstars is indeterminate. I was tempted to use cleaning up a house to be sold as an analogy for how to approach an online presence, but selling a house only happens a couple of times for most of us. Selling yourself, on the other hand, is a never-ending process, especially with technology allowing someone to market himself or herself globally, 24 hours a day for almost zero cost. Unlike sprucing up the landscaping, a professional network can’t be developed in day, and since you never know when someone is stopping by, why not get your online house in order.

Filed under career, management. Tagged advice, career, employment, job, online, resume

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The compliment yardstick

29 March 2009, 8:09 pm

The fastest way to ensure failure at an existing or new relationship is to make a positive comment for every negative mention. But what happened to the rule of balancing encouragement with constructive criticism!? Until recently, I thought this combination created the perfect mixture for healthy and lasting unions in our personal and work lives, but a recent reading has convinced me otherwise. Upon further introspection, I was able to recount several situations where I had experienced disastrous exchanges using the “say something nice for every bad thing” formula.

As it turns out, some studies have shown that a 1:1 ratio of negative to positive remarks is a sure-fire way to end or severely damage productive communications between people. This applies to everything from spouses to work associates. A much healthier ratio to ensure an enduring relationship is closer to 1:5 negative to positive interactions, which is far fewer than most of us ever even get close. Granted, fleeting flattery doesn’t count as a meaningful compliment, which means the words must be sincere.

I’ve been thinking about using criticism counting as a way to keep the ratio in check. This means I’m on the hook for 5 positives for each and every disapproving statement spilling out of my mouth, which means the criticisms will go down or the positives will go up. In either case, trying to measure up to this compliment yardstick will take some work.

Filed under life, management.

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Scary management

10 December 2007, 10:23 pm

Have you recently told someone on your team to do something? If so, there’s a good chance that some management training may be in your future. (Disclaimer: This blog post doesn’t just apply to software development.) We often hear that the command-and-control style of management is the “old way”, and removing roadblocks is the “agile way”. While this sounds like a good thing every time we hear it, there isn’t a quick and easy way to determine how to adjust. I often find that it’s difficult to take many of these self improvement suggestions and act on them, so I prefer internal triggers that can shape behavior in an ad hoc manner.

In this case, the key trigger is simple asking/telling someone to do something. What?! Our internal voices may find this proclamation to be borderline-insane as this is method by which we get almost everything done. But wait, there is a better way that creates self-empowering teams and removes the management dependence. The alternative approach, simple and elegant, involves explaining the expected result and trusting the teams to accomplish the resulting tasks. In some cases, the difference is a subtle change in the wording and intentions, and in others, there may be political reasons why specific commands are given. In the later, this is a trigger in itself that the political issues (often elephants in the room) should be tackled head-on instead of being obfuscated.

It’s true that since childhood none of us have liked being told what to do, and each of us wants to feel that we had some say in the planning. Using the method above solves both of these common psychological dilemmas. The bottom line is that if you can’t trust people on a team to know the intended result, there could be a problem with having the right people on the team or managing the team.

Filed under career, life, management, process.

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Confrontation meets capitalism

21 July 2007, 10:02 am

Can the simple rules of capitalism help you with life’s predicaments? In both family and business, all of us are forced into situations where we have reached an impasse with someone else. Often the “facts” favor each party’s perception of the conflict. Before entering into a conversation that can become heated, one simple rule of thumb to remember is the supply and demand mindset. On the demand front, it’s important to never demand anything during the conversation. The goal should be to determine what the goal is and work towards an action plan that is acceptable to both sides. This is not easy to do when we think we are “right”, but it’s a simple rule to remember once the emotions start flaring.

On the supply front, it’s a good idea to start the conversation by admitting what part of the conflict you have supplied. This is the most difficult but most important part of resolving the problem because we often think in terms of facts and evidence, but the only reality is that both sides have contributed some part of the awkward stalemate. This also requires serious self-examination as the contribution may have been doing or saying nothing for too long of a time. When having difficulty identifying what your contribution may be, viewing the situation from the other person’s point-of-view can often help. In many cases, the admission of what one person supplied to the problem will result in other person following the same course, and in the end, the conversation has a much better chance of both parties having their demands met.

Filed under career, life, management.

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Say what you mean

17 February 2007, 10:11 am

As someone who is quite particular about the words I write, I constantly make the assumption that anything written can and often will be published to more than the present/intended audience. For example, I try to punctuate and spell correctly when typing in IM, even though I use my fair share of chat abbreviations for speed. Others choose to strive for speed in chat and email, often leaving all words lower case and misspelling about half of the other words. So, what does all this babbling about “writing” have to do with anything other than personal preferences? Almost nothing, it’s all about style and old habits in many cases, and it really doesn’t matter. What is important is the content, and specifically, how well the message is delivered.

In a recent email exchange with Coté, I congratulated him on his usage of “has had” in a sentence. My simple amusement of this seemingly insignificant detail was derived from an encounter I once had with an English literature teacher in college, where I used this combination. After a lighthearted demonstration to her showing where several famous authors wrote this in their books, she caved, and I became one of her favorite students. After the story, Coté remarked that things get a lot easier once you start writing to say what you mean. (Put that one in the old memory banks, and use it often.) Granted, it’s unlikely any of us would tolerate complete gibberish, but I would take this a step further and pass a little caution onto those who admonish clichés and other society-driven terms. Unless the line clutters the meaning, why not throw it in?! Because, you can’t have your cake and eat it too, since he who lives by the sword, shall die by the sword.

Filed under career, life, management.

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The Specialization Ambush

29 November 2006, 11:13 pm

As someone who has performed in various leadership roles over the years, one career killer remains evident year after year: The Specialization Ambush. When did this fundamental requirement for capitalism become obsolete you may be asking yourself. As someone who has spent years learning about computers and software, I would have argued a strong case for learning every bit and byte there is to know, but now, I propose a different position.

The Specialization Ambush is a trap that workers of all occupations are lured into by exploiting existing skills at the cost of learning new skills for the future, and doing so will likely result in major distress at some point in time. Triggers for detecting too much specialization are the thoughts: “that’s not my job” or “I’m not trained for that”. As employers look for employees to do more with less, it’s worthwhile to consider learning more about other parts of the business, even if little bits at a time, because today’s craft is tomorrow’s bygone.

Filed under career, management.

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What vacations and piranha have in common

16 October 2006, 10:52 pm

This Men’s Health article on fatigue in men mentions that men typically fail to take even 4 days of vacation per year. It seems hard to believe, regardless of the industry, but it does bring up an issue discussed quite often. The issue revolves around the idea that vacations are often more stressful than not taking vacations. The core concern doesn’t involve the stress of dragging the kids across the desert with a rabid dog or the back pain of sleeping on the in-law’s foldout couch.

The real apprehension around taking vacations often deals with (1) the amount of work piling up while gone, (2) missing important decision making process, and (3) not being able to defend against a work bully. To avoid these pains, people will give up unused vacation time and show up for meetings while on paid time off. Some might argue this shows real dedication, but as the article above proves, this is most likely creating a situation where the lack of a recharge will start to slowly take little bites from your mental health. (And hence, the weak piranha analogy is revealed.)

Some people deal with this by hooking up to the corporate email on vacation and just checking important emails while gone. (Absolute time boxing is essential.) This may seem counterintuitive, but for some, the decreased pressure can make the vacation more relaxing. I’ve seen others setup a designated substitute (possible a trusted peer or senior employee) while gone, who can make decisions and defend against a tear-down artist. This method has the added effect of building trust relationships with others in the group, which can ease the pressure during future vacations.

Another tactic for those having difficulty with time away from the office is to schedule vacation time when others are likely out of the office. While somewhat limiting to the family schedule, the chances important decisions are being made are lessened, and the amount of work piling up is often significantly decreased. Along the same lines of adopting one’s schedule, I’ve seen people take a series of 3-5 day vacations (ex. Fridays off for Nov and Dec), such that some time is spent in the office every week. Granted, short stints of time away may not completely clear one’s mind; it’s better than taking no time away or being tormented while sitting on the beach.

Filed under career, fitness, life, management.

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The Inertia Challenge

10 October 2006, 10:55 pm

It seems like the term ‘inertia’ has become washed-out in The Noughts, just as the term ‘paradigm’ was overused late in The Nineties. I often hear inertia as the key culprit for nearly every business problem encountered in the past 25 years. Inertia in this case can be defined as the force that keeps people and processes behaving in the same ways, even in light of superior methods. While there’s no doubt that changing the behaviors of 6.5 billion people isn’t going to happen overnight, not all problems can legitimately be blamed on this mystery force of forward momentum. In fact, as a general rule, one should question and further scrutinize any situation where the basis for some problem has been associated with “inertia”.

For instance, I’ve had several conversations where the creation of various roles in a business has been deemed questionable and mostly likely a product of corporate inertia. While this may be true in some aspects, especially with the standard approach used in handing out titles, there can be no denying the power of specialization in this process. If enough individuals existed with all the abilities to engineer, market, sell and support a product, market forces would soon push this new wave of white collar workers to the top of the food chain. Unfortunately/fortunately, these superhuman workers do not exist in significant numbers; thus, the need for most existing job roles continues.

Another similar situation often blamed on inertia is the existence of management within large institutions. Is the existence of VPs and CxO positions at Google a product of inertia at the enterprise level, or is this approach just the reality of not having a better system of organizing large numbers of people to accomplish a similar goal? If there has ever been a chance to rethink common ways of doing things, I believe Larry and Sergey would have found and promoted a different way. If innovation is the nemesis of inertia (and I believe it is), Google would be the Jedi force facing the Sith-based corporate mandate.

In general, pinning the responsibility on the “inertia effect” will typically provide little help in solving a problem. In fact, blaming inertia will most likely provide a red herring excuse for giving up on attacking a problem due to the overwhelming nature of tackling such a mystic force. Looking for smaller solutions to problems and taking baby steps to tackle a larger problem will lead to much more productive solutions, and in many cases, these smaller solutions may lead to the generation of superior methods which alter the state of the bodies in motion.

Filed under career, management, process.

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The Power of Self

9 October 2006, 9:37 pm

This short article in Men’s Health has an awesome list of five reminders in boosting self-confidence. Every person has areas where he/she may be lacking in confidence, and if left unattended, these feelings often develop into harmful insecurities that can hurt personal relationships or an entire career. In fact, I would venture to speculate that the vast majority of interrelationship troubles can be attributed to some sort of insecurity in one or more of the individuals involved. My favorite bullet point in this article is:

‘Self-image is the mental picture you have of yourself. It is not fixed, it is not objective, it can be changed and you can change it.’

Even as a firm believer in trying to find the objective part of any problem, I believe this cannot be said any better. It reminds me of something a friend recently told me about a recent blind dating encounter, where it was mentioned that the other person became magnitudes more attractive as they conversed. Granted, this story didn’t come with a visual reference point and may sound a bit superficial, but the point is proof in the power of changing one’s persona.

My second favorite bullet in this article deals with the issue of boredom in developing a lack of confidence. While I’m not a fan of busy work or delegating work for the sake of image, there is a good memento for managers hidden in this idea, because people with nothing to do or with mundane work will often become paranoid about their value to the organization and ultimately themselves.

Filed under career, life, management.

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Customer Spin

29 September 2006, 10:05 pm

I recently read an email from another software vendor’s customer support team. In the email, the support representative stated something like ‘however, for special customers we can perform this requested DB change’. This made me start wondering whether I was really a “special customer” or whether they would do this for anyone who asked. In the end, it doesn’t really matter, because the customer (me, in this case) thinks they are receiving extraordinary and personalized attention. This is very similar to the sales tactic of congratulating a buyer on the “once in a lifetime” deal being made. While the sales version of this can be shady, especially when the deal is unscrupulous in nature, the customer support version seems much less ethically harmful. After all, most of a business’s customers are “special” in one way or another.

Filed under management, software.

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The Accountability Myth

26 September 2006, 10:13 pm

Early in my career, I spent a lot of time collecting all the emails I had sent or received. I would have backups of 1000’s of emails lying around on servers, encrypted with compression passwords. Occasionally, I would perform a massive search on these GB’s of data to uncover a few emails discussing a topic, which had recently resurfaced. In many of these cases, the true purpose of finding one of these emails was to prove my rightness in a disagreement or occasionally show my innocence in some controversial situation (i.e. CYA – Cover Your Behind).

Nowadays, this all seems silly, and here’s why. First, if you are thinking you need to CYA something, there’s a good chance the decision should be reconsidered or handled in a different way. In other words, if your gut is not feeling good about the course of action being taken, those actions need to be changed. This sounds easy to say but often much harder to implement due to politics or other confounding aspects of the situation. Unfortunately, the career ladder is littered with those who just followed, but most of those at the top took the initiative to do something others weren’t willing to do.

Second, pulling out the old piece of “evidence” to slam your work nemesis rarely gains anything but a short pride swell and a couple of enemies. For instance, pulling out the email that says ‘I said this was a bad idea’ is not much more than documentation of your self-incrimination. If it was such a bad idea the time, a simple email documenting a stance isn’t a worthwhile method of exoneration. Other options would have included escalation to a higher authority or complete removal of oneself from the process. In this case, pulling out the old CYA email has just shown a desire to track all disagreements with your peers as well as an inability to take a stand. In the end, neither of these will create healthy business relationships nor help with career progression.

Filed under career, management.

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The Bar of Gold Theory

23 September 2006, 9:39 am

For all those loyal readers of my old blog, I decided to bring back the Bar of Gold Theory, but this time with a slightly more positive twist aimed at improving the situation. Simply put, the infamous Bar of Gold Theory:

If a person starts handing free bars of gold to anyone who asks, someone will complain.

Again with the disclaimers/assumptions:

There is plenty of gold.

The value of gold does not decrease relative to its existing monetary value. No violence ensues due to a mad rush on the gold stand.

Each person only gets one bar of gold.

Forget any other silly notions; it’s a metaphorical situation equal to many other proverbs, so ‘bar of gold’ can be easily replaced with just about any perk.

Granted it’s a subtle twist on the old saying ‘you can’t please everyone’, but in this case those who are complaining have gained something they did not have before. So, the question as a leader or peer is how to deal with this circumstance. Here are some proposals in dealing with those smitten with this dilemma:

Ask if the situation is better than it was before the reward. (Sometimes a simple reminder of one’s benefits can resuscitate the optimism within a person.)
Ask for a detailed scenario in which the situation would be better. (Mentally working out problems can help some see what’s there.)
Ask for an outline of changes potentially implemented by trading roles, often referred to as the ‘What would you do differently if you were in my shoes?’ question. (Similar in nature to #2, this allows venting to occur which can calm down a heated situation.)
Last but most importantly not least, ask for the reward back, and be courageous enough to take it back, if it would help. (This is the defibrillator method meant to shock someone into realizing their gain by showing what an equal loss would be like. In extreme situations, the overall outcome may be better by removing the reward as it has no longer retained its benefactive effect.)

Filed under career, management.

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Down with the “Don’t fix it if it ain’t broke” adage.

22 September 2006, 12:26 am

The next time you hear someone warn ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’, perk your ears and pay attention because dire straights may soon follow. The rate of change is increasing and what’s working today will be broken tomorrow because someone else will be doing it better, faster, cheaper, and with less effort. As the title of this blog declares “Continual Improvement”, this is the mindset necessary to compete, and frankly survive, in all areas of life today. (I was going to mention rapid globalization and technological advancement, but the double cliché was more than I could stomach.) Here are some examples:

Don’t see any issues with your smooth flowing work process? Wake up! One of your competitors is or soon will be using the same process with 1-2 tweaks to increase productivity two fold.
Think you know everything there is about programming language X? There’s 10,000 people connected to the Internet working to develop faster than you with an 8086 and for the same cost as an 8086.
Does the significant other seem quietly content with the weekly routine going on X years? Wait too long to throw some spice in the mix, and breakup city will be in your future moving plans.

The point is just thinking something isn’t broke means it probably is. These complacency thoughts should be the trigger in the mind that jolts us out of our slumber and starts probing for better ways.

Filed under career, management, process.

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The overtime trap

13 September 2006, 10:20 pm

This article about excessive overtime in the IT industry reminded me of a question I was asked about how meet a release date when the project was behind. While there are many things to try, asking the team to work additional overtime was low on my list, and here’s why.

Anyone who has worked in the software industry for any amount of time knows that releases can and often do have highs and lows in terms of work hours. If the team has been cohesively formed, development and QA engineers will most likely work extra as the release date approaches anyway. While a last extra push over a couple of weeks or so might help cleanup a few last details, the effects of doing this for many weeks will often cause the project to be delayed even further. This is because tired and burned out engineers will make more mistakes, which will create more churn and code chaos. In addition, if any team members quit before the release is complete, the project could take a serious setback and potentially fail. So, what can be done? Fortunately/unfortunately, there are three fundamental things.

Decrease scope. If the project is using an Agile approach, this won’t be an issue because the team will maintain a releasable state for the majority of the project. Some will often mention decreasing the quality, but this is essentially decreasing the scope since releasing a quality product was a requirement in the beginning.
Adjust resources. Adding people is a favorite suggestion for second and third level managers to make, and it never hurts to reevaluate the team. Unfortunately, software isn’t the same as building a highway, and in some cases, the additional resources can consume time from the key contributors and stretch the release date out even further. There are some interesting variations on this suggestion ranging from adding subject matter experts to help the existing team all the way to adding resources in specific areas, such as testing. With an Agile approach, resources are typically fixed, but if there are multiple Agile teams, some teams may be able to take tasks from another team that has encountered roadblocks. In addition, if the Agile teams have been formed over time as cross-functional teams, it becomes much easier for alternate teams to be able to take on extra tasks with minimal training time.
Push the release date. If no compromises can be made in either of the first two areas, moving the date will be required. When using an Agile approach, everyone agrees to the three laws of software development, often referred to as the iron triangle, and in this model, additional iterations will added until the desired scope is achieved.

Filed under agile, management, process, software.

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Not a review of ‘True to Our Roots’

30 August 2006, 6:41 pm

While I was incredibly impressed with True to Our Roots: Fermenting a Business Revolution, I’ll spare all readers with another review of the content that can be had somewhere else. Instead, it’s much more beneficial to comment on an aspect that the author just touches in a few places but doesn’t seem to emphasize. To give a bit of background, the story is written by the CEO of Fetzer Vineyards, Paul Dolan, who helped transform the vineyard and a large part of the California wine industry into a “environmentally and socially conscious” industry. While doing this, he grew the company at double digit earnings increases for ten or so years, and now, he is promoting this sort of change in corporate business policy to all companies and industries.

Dolan’s sale to the corporate world seems to be based more on the moral and socially responsible aspects of making these changes to business, but he doesn’t seem to accentuate the aspects that might have a bigger impact in converting the CEOs of the world, such as increased sales and higher profits margins. Here are some of the advantages I see from adopting the Fetzer philosophy, if the philosophy alone isn’t reason enough.

1) Employees that are motivated by more than money will work harder, work for less, and enjoy working much more.
2) Consumers will prefer an earth-friendly product over the contrary at the same price point, and in many cases, consumers will pay a premium for these products.
3) Consumers prefer purchasing products from companies with happy employees.
4) Companies that engage in these practices are often publicly awarded for making strides in environmental and social change.
5) In many cases, converting operations to an environmentally sound approach can lower operating costs over the long term.

CxO interpretation: lower costs, increased sales, higher productivity per employee, less employee turnover, free viral marketing, increased brand awareness

Filed under management, money.

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