Many people working in large companies speak business-buzzwords as a second language. Business language is full of pretty meaningless words. I Don’t Understand What Anyone Is Saying Anymore article tells that the language of internet business models has made the problem even worse. There are several strains of this epidemic: We have forgotten how to use the real names of real things, acronymitis, and Meaningless Expressions (like “Our goal is to exceed the customer’s expectation”). This would all be funny if it weren’t true. Observe it, deconstruct it, and appreciate just how ridiculous most business conversation has become.
Check out this brilliant Web Economy Bullshit Generator page. It generates random bullshit text based on the often used words in business language. And most of the material it generates look something you would expect from IT executives and their speechwriters (those are randomly generated with Web Economy Bullshit Generator):
“scale viral web services”
“integrate holistic mindshare”
“transform back-end solutions”
“incentivize revolutionary portals”
“synergize out-of-the-box platforms”
“enhance world-class schemas”
“aggregate revolutionary paradigms”
“enable cross-media relationships”
How to talk like a CIO article tries to tell how do CIOs talk, and what do they talk about, and why they do it like they do it. It sometimes makes sense to analyze the speaking and comportment styles of the people who’ve already climbed the corporate ladder if you want to do the same.
The Most Annoying, Pretentious And Useless Business Jargon article tells that the stupid business talk is longer solely the province of consultants, investors and business-school types, this annoying gobbledygook has mesmerized the rank and file around the globe. The next time you feel the need to reach out, touch base, shift a paradigm, leverage a best practice or join a tiger team, by all means do it. Just don’t say you’re doing it. If you have to ask why, chances are you’ve fallen under the poisonous spell of business jargon. Jargon masks real meaning. The Most Annoying, Pretentious And Useless Business Jargon article has a cache of expressions to assiduously avoid (if you look out you will see those used way too many times in business documents and press releases).
Is Innovation the Most Abused Word In Business? article tells that most of what is called innovation today is mere distraction, according to a paper by economist Robert Gordon. Innovation is the most abused word in tech. The iPad is about as innovative as the toaster. You can still read books without an iPad, and you can still toast bread without a toaster. True innovation radically alters the way we interact with the world. But in tech, every little thing is called “innovative.” If you were to believe business grads then “innovation” includes their “ideas” along the lines of “a website like *only better*” or “that thing which everyone is already doing but which I think is my neat new idea” Whether or not the word “innovation” has become the most abused word in the business context, that remains to be seen. “Innovation” itself has already been abused by the patent trolls.
Using stories to catch ‘smart-talk’ article tells that smart-talk is information without understanding, theory without practice – ‘all mouth and no trousers’, as the old aphorism puts it. It’s all too common amongst would-be ‘experts’ – and likewise amongst ‘rising stars’ in management and elsewhere. He looks the part; he knows all the right buzzwords; he can quote chapter-and-verse from all the best-known pundits and practitioners. But is it all just empty ‘smart-talk’? Even if unintentional on their part, people who indulge in smart-talk can be genuinely dangerous. They’ll seem plausible enough at first, but in reality they’ll often know just enough to get everyone into real trouble, but not enough to get out of it again. Smart-talk is the bane of most business – and probably of most communities too. So what can we do to catch it?
2,604 Comments
Tomi Engdahl says:
IT Leadership: Signs You’re a Micromanager (And How to Stop)
http://www.cio.com/article/2889159/leadership-management/it-leadership-signs-youre-a-micromanager-and-how-to-stop.html
Micromanagement may seem harmless, but it’s sabotaging your teams, your productivity and morale from within, and stifling your business’s ability to grow. Here’s how to tell if you’re a micromanager, and some steps you can take to overcome this fatal flaw.
Are you never quite satisfied with your team’s results? Do you avoid delegating at all costs, often taking on work that’s far below your experience and talent level just because you’re certain no one else can do it as well as you can? Are you constantly demanding status updates, progress reports and check-ins? It’s time to face the facts: You’re a micromanager.
Micromanagement might not appear to be a big deal — you’re just trying to make sure tasks and projects are on time, done right and in ways that will benefit the business, right? — but the truth is, it’s incredibly damaging to every aspect of a business, says Stu Coleman, partner and senior managing director at WinterWyman Financial Contracting and a self-proclaimed recovering micromanager.
Micromanagement Stunts Growth, Erodes Morale and Slows Productivity
“At its core, micromanagement chokes off growth. You can’t micromanage a team, or an entire business and expect to grow; you have to support, groom and grow leadership within your organization that can take on roles and responsibilities that you used to perform so you can focus on strategic issues,” says Coleman.
Micromanagement also negatively impacts employee morale, engagement and productivity, says Bob Hewes, senior partner with oversight for leadership development, coaching and knowledge management, Camden Consulting, and can lead to high turnover rates and even recruiting and talent retention problems.
“Micromanagement is almost never benign. It’s a destructive force that goes far beyond a ‘management style;’ it really gets at morale, at engagement and you’ll find that micromanagers often see high turnover of their direct reports,”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Mark Zuckerberg reveals his one rule for hiring at Facebook
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/mark-zuckerberg/11450900/Mark-Zuckerberg-reveals-his-one-rule-for-hiring.html
‘It’s a pretty good test and it has served me well,’ Facebook founder tells captive audience at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona
As the founder of one of the most success companies on the planet, when Mark Zuckerberg gives job advice it’s a good idea to listen.
Speaking at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona this week, the 30-year-old Facebook CEO revealed the main thing he looks for in a prospective employee. And the answer is simple.
“I will only hire someone to work directly for me if I would work for that person,” Mr Zuckerberg told the audience. “It’s a pretty good test and I think this rule has served me well.”’
“Facebook is not a company for everyone in the world,”
Facebook’s staff is relatively small compared to other tech giants in Silicon Valley
“The most important thing is to keep your team as small as possible,” he went on. “[Facebook] serves more than a billion people around the world but our team has fewer than 10,000 people.
“It’s only possible because of modern technology. Big companies get bloated.”
He said the most important thing is to “just have faith in yourself and trust yourself.
“When you’re young you hear that you don’t have experience to do things, that there are people that have more experience than you. I started Facebook when I was 19.”
“Don’t discount yourself, no matter what you’re doing,” he added. “Everyone has a unique perspective that they can bring to the world.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Facebook Comes Out on Top, Google Slips to Third, in Survey of Corporate Interns
http://spectrum.ieee.org/view-from-the-valley/at-work/tech-careers/facebook-comes-out-on-top-google-slips-to-third-in-survey-of-corporate-interns
Vince Vaughn took a camera crew onto the Google campus to film the 2013 comedy, The Internship, skewering both the clueless and the cutthroat and introducing film audiences to Google’s over-the-top perks, not all of which were fictional.
And indeed, back in 2013 Google was the best spot in the country to land an internship, according to recruitment website operator Glassdoor. One survey responded then noted, “Google treats interns better than fulltime employees.”
But in this year’s Glassdoor survey of corporate interns, released just in time for internship-hunting season, Google slipped to number three, behind Facebook and Chevron. Why?
According to Glassdoor, it’s not all about the perks, though Facebook certainly offers its share. Facebook interns praised the openness of the company culture, the challenging projects assigned, and, probably the most key factor, the fact that much of their work actually made it out into the real world.
That’s not to say perks don’t count at all; many interns mentioned the free and abundant food, the games of all kinds, and the pub crawls; one noted, however, a serious lack of napping pods. (Google, it turns out, does offer that particular perk).
Tomi Engdahl says:
We need real leadership
We are in the electronics industry, we expect and need from our leaders.
Leaders are expected to see – somehow magically – in advance, what industry is going and how the company is run growth, profitability, owners pleased to proof to the growing share price and a secure livelihood for their employees.
Unfortunately, the crystal balls are not easily available in our industry, so often the best way to lead is to understand what is best for your company. “Right,” defining the parameters can be a lot, but they must know and stay in your recipe, did any of the competitors. If you can not see clearly what their own company, it is the best or do not have the strength of character to stay on the road, you can easily end up on the wrong path, or the path to be enticed by the end may be a technological dead end.
Source: http://www.etn.fi/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=2525
Tomi Engdahl says:
Business leaders say big data is having a ‘disruptive’ effect on their business
http://www.cio.com/article/2895103/big-data/business-leaders-say-big-data-is-having-a-disruptive-effect-on-their-business.html
A global study of business leaders shows that big data is having a “disruptive effect” on their organisations, including in the way they are having to organise their IT to exploit it.
The Capgemini and EMC report surveyed over 1,000 C-suite and senior decision makers across 12 countries to understand the need and enterprise readiness for big data adoption. The report found that two-thirds (65 percent) of business leaders acknowledged they are at risk of becoming “uncompetitive” unless they embrace new data analytics solutions.
The report also showed that 36 percent of organisations, due to the strategic importance of big data, have had to “circumvent IT teams” to carry out the necessary data analytics required to gain business insights. And over half (52 percent) reported that developing fast insights from data was “hampered” by “limitations” in the IT development process
In the UK, nearly three quarters (72.5 percent) of UK business leaders said their organisations are either experiencing big data disruption or are anticipating it over the next three years. More than half (56 percent) of the UK organisations surveyed have already implemented big data technology or are in the process of doing so. And almost half (47 percent) say that there is, or will be, increasing competition in their industry from data-enabled startups.
In addition, a majority (57 percent) of UK respondents see big data as capable of enhancing existing revenue streams by becoming a revenue driver in its own right, and an even higher proportion (61 percent) say that it can unlock entirely new revenue streams. And 41 percent say their companies are restructuring to exploit data opportunities, or have already done so, with a third introducing C-level roles relating to data.
Tomi Engdahl says:
7 Silent Project Killers
http://www.edn.com/electronics-blogs/embedded-basics/4438919/7-Silent-Project-Killers?_mc=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_today_20150319&cid=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_today_20150319&elq=24d90c098d1e4244abe788aa1421edaf&elqCampaignId=22166&elqaid=24900&elqat=1&elqTrackId=7db2ebb9be0a42cc82fe3b0c633e8f74
There are few things more discouraging to an engineer than pouring their heart, sweat and tears into a project only to have it fail. Failure can and does provide insights and growth experiences to those involved but the loss of time and effort can strike a devastating blow. There are many reasons that an embedded systems project can fail but there are seven key indicators that a project is dying a slow and silent death.
#7 – Team turnover
Every company experiences employee or contractor turn over but excessive turnover of key personal can be a leading indicator that a project is doomed for failure. There are many reasons why turnover can have a detrimental effect on the project.
#6 – Go stop go syndrome
A manager, client, or some other entity pushes his team hard, claiming that the project has to get out the door by a certain date. Developers work weekends and put in extra effort. Then, just as quickly as the big push came the project is stopped dead in its tracks. Months later it is once again an emergency.
The repeated urgency followed by stopping the project that is later urgently started again has a psychological effect on the development team. The developers come to no longer believe that there is any urgency.
#5 – A perfectionist attitude
One of my favorite phrases concerning engineers is “There comes a time in every project when you must shoot the engineers and start production.” Many engineers have a perfectionist attitude. The problem with this attitude is that it is impossible to build the perfect system, write the perfect code, or launch the product at the perfect time.
#4 – Accelerated timetable
It seems counter-intuitive, but to develop an embedded system rapidly a team actually needs to go slow. Working on an accelerated timetable results in decreased performance due to stress and, more importantly, a higher likelihood that mistakes will be made. Mistakes will directly influence the number of bugs that then increase test time and rework time.
#3 – Poorly architected software
Embedded software is the blood of the embedded system; without it nothing works. Poorly architected software is a sure sign of failure. The architecture of an embedded system needs to have flexibility for growth.
#2 – Putting the cart before the horse
Developing a new product is an exciting endeavor. There is a lot to do and companies are usually in a hurry to get from concept to production. This hurry can be extremely dangerous, especially when production decisions start to get ahead of themselves.
#1 – Scope creep
Every project has scope creep, but the degree of the scope creep can be the determining factor as to whether the project will succeed or fail. One of the most dangerous aspects of scope creep is that it can be insidious.
Conclusion
There are no guarantees for success when developing a new embedded system and there are many factors that contribute its success or failure. These are what I have identified the top seven silent project killers. These are subtle clues that can indicate your project is on a slow and silent death trajectory.
Tomi Engdahl says:
How Much Should You Pay Your Engineers? (Infographic)
http://blog.startupcompass.co/how-much-should-you-pay-your-engineers
With the world’s ever-expanding appetite for great engineering talent, hiring is becoming a larger and larger challenge for tech companies. Never has it been more critical to know just how much you should pay that promising candidate.
If you’re a startup — How do your salaries compete with more traditional IT firms? Where in the world is the cheapest place to source talent? And if you’re bootstrapping development, which are the least expensive programming languages to work with?
If you’re an IT firm — Are freelance or in-house resources more cost effective? What is a benchmark career path for an engineer?
Tomi Engdahl says:
13 insider tips for acing your job interview
http://www.itworld.com/article/2853760/13-insider-tips-for-acing-your-job-interview.html
Esoteric puzzles, landmine questions, ‘cultural fit’ — these 13 tips help you navigate the IT interview process with confidence
IT interview tip No. 1: Don’t be afraid to reach out early
IT interview tip No. 2: Don’t believe everything you read on Glassdoor
IT interview tip No. 3: Find employee blogs and read them in depth
IT interview tip No. 4: Research social culture — it’s as critical as technical focus
IT interview tip No. 5: Understanding the underlying principles of interview puzzles is the key to crushing them
IT interview tip No. 6: Connect with current employees
IT interview tip No. 7: Don’t tilt at windmills
IT interview tip No. 8: Dress as if you already work there
IT interview tip No. 9: Let your personality out
IT interview tip No. 10: Beware the “interviewing the interviewer” trap
IT interview tip No. 11: Help the interviewer imagine you in the position
IT interview tip No. 12: Always speak favorably about former employers
IT interview tip No. 13: Ask for the job
Most interviewers ask if you have any questions for them at the end of the interview. If you are excited about the opportunity, it’s OK to ask, “When do I start?” If the interviewer has hiring authority, he/she may make you an offer on the spot. This question shows enthusiasm and initiative, and at the very least elicits a laugh and ends the discussion on a positive note
Tomi Engdahl says:
How tech bosses manage their teams for fun and profit
‘Whenever I hear the word culture I reach for my org chart…’
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/03/26/cios_tell_us_how_they_manage_their_teams/
It’s seven years on from the great crash and IT departments are moving from the bunker mentality of keeping the lights on and maintaining legacy VB6. But what does that mean for the way we manage tech teams?
People and Culture are different
Actually the IT execs regarded “culture” as a bit of a lame excuse for not thinking of their staff as people, each of whom has their own set of ambitions and perceptions of what needs to be done. As one put it “you’re not dealing with a firm or a culture, you are dealing with this person”.
Most of them had at some point inherited a dysfunctional team and a common pathology for non-delivery is that many IT pros haven’t really been told what the real business objective was and more than one has ended up working really hard to achieve things that weren’t really wanted.
Setting expectations for how staffers can contribute was seen both as getting them to prioritise the right things, and as fixing morale, which is a bigger thing for senior IT execs than the footsoldiers often realise. At this level, the time they spend in any given job is often a lot less than the rest of the team and it’s not going to shock you to read that often the reason you have a new guy in charge of IT is that the rest of senior management want IT changed and they want it changed quickly.
The “flat” management structures that some firms believe make them more agile and meritocratic weren’t all that popular amongst the execs who ran larger IT functions. That’s because without a visible progression path it’s harder to retain good people and for larger and/or more ambitious projects the lack of leadership shows much more than when you’re just keeping the lights on.
Contrary to what most IT pros think, the execs we met are extremely reluctant to fire people.
This was a new term to me, but apparently is what the cool IT execs call the bad habit of applying the A-word to pretty much any process that doesn’t have the word Waterfall printed on the cover. It is often an excuse or synonym for not planning things and the wiser end of the interim CTOs now have this as a thing to be wary of (or be paid to fix) when looking at new assignments.
People aren’t constants
Each worker’s motivations changes over time. The need for money has peaks around life events. They learn that skills are getting hotter and cooler and can feel they are being seriously underpaid. That’s getting harder to monitor as the number of different skills only ever increases, which means you need a good relationship with the right bits of management to do buybacks, which are a lot more common since regular automatic pay rises for IT people aren’t much of the new normal. (Oh you didn’t know that? You thought that if you just kept doing your job well enough, they’d up your pay? No.)
Tomi Engdahl says:
CIOs discuss how they nurture IT talent
http://www.cio.com/article/2901518/cio-role/cios-discuss-how-they-nurture-it-talent.html
In the latest installment of CIO Quick Takes, three IT leaders discuss how they nurture tech talent.
It’s no epiphany to point out that the CIO’s world is changing. Technology budgets are moving to other departments, apps and infrastructure are moving to the cloud, CDOs are moving in, the bad guys are moving to steal your data … so what’s the CIO’s best move?
Having the right people on his or her team is a good place to start. Of course, that’s no easy task.
Recruiting and hiring IT staff remain top challenges for CIOs. In our 2015 State of the CIO report, IT leaders listed big data and analytics, security and risk management, application development, mobile technologies, and enterprise architecture as the IT skills in greatest demand. However, we know that finding technology professionals in any discipline is a challenge.
Finding those talented workers is also only half the battle (actually, probably less than half). Once those IT pros are on board, you need to develop and challenge them if you hope to retain them. Recruits don’t just become productive and motivated employees on their own. You need to nurture talent for the benefit of both your company and your workers.
Tomi Engdahl says:
The Key to Interviewing at Google
http://news.dice.com/2015/04/08/key-interviewing-google/?CMPID=AF_SD_UP_JS_AV_OG_DNA_
Wired has an excerpt from a new book of Google-centric workplace advice, written by Laszlo Bock, the search-engine giant’s head of “People Operations” (re: Human Resources).
In an interesting twist, Bock kicks off the excerpt by describing the brainteaser questions that Google is famous for tossing at job candidates as “useless,” before suggesting that some hiring managers at the company might still use them.
“The goal of our interview process is to predict how candidates will perform once they join the team,” Bock wrote. “We achieve that goal by doing what the science says: combining behavioral and situational structured interviews with assessments of cognitive ability, conscientiousness, and leadership.”
As Bock acknowledges, the “pre-validated” questions in the structured-interview portion can seem pretty bland. For example:
“Tell me about a time your behavior had a positive impact on your team.
“Tell me about a time when you effectively managed your team to achieve a goal. What did your approach look like?
“Tell me about a time you had difficulty working with someone (can be a coworker, classmate, client). What made this person difficult to work with for you?”
But it’s not about the questions: It’s how the candidates answer them. “Superb candidates will have much, much better examples and reasons for making the choices they did,” he wrote. “You’ll see a clear line between the great and the average.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Here’s Google’s Secret to Hiring the Best People
http://www.wired.com/2015/04/hire-like-google/?mbid=social_fb
“You never get a second chance to make a first impression” was the tagline for a Head & Shoulders shampoo ad campaign in the 1980s. It unfortunately encapsulates how most interviews work. There have been volumes written about how “the first five minutes” of an interview are what really matter, describing how interviewers make initial assessments and spend the rest of the interview working to confirm those assessments. If they like you, they look for reasons to like you more. If they don’t like your handshake or the awkward introduction, then the interview is essentially over because they spend the rest of the meeting looking for reasons to reject you. These small moments of observation that are then used to make bigger decisions are called “thin slices.”
judgments made in the first 10 seconds of an interview could predict the outcome of the interview.
The problem is, these predictions from the first 10 seconds are useless.
They create a situation where an interview is spent trying to confirm what we think of someone, rather than truly assessing them. Psychologists call this confirmation bias, “the tendency to search for, interpret, or prioritize information in a way that confirms one’s beliefs or hypotheses.” Based on the slightest interaction, we make a snap, unconscious judgment heavily influenced by our existing biases and beliefs. Without realizing it, we then shift from assessing a candidate to hunting for evidence that confirms our initial impression.
In other words, most interviews are a waste of time because 99.4 percent of the time is spent trying to confirm whatever impression the interviewer formed in the first ten seconds. “Tell me about yourself.” “What is your greatest weakness?” “What is your greatest strength?” Worthless.
Equally worthless are the case interviews and brainteasers used by many firms.
Unstructured interviews have an r2 of 0.14, meaning that they can explain only 14 percent of an employee’s performance. This is somewhat ahead of reference checks (explaining 7 percent of performance), ahead of the number of years of work experience (3 percent).
The best predictor of how someone will perform in a job is a work sample test (29 percent). This entails giving candidates a sample piece of work, similar to that which they would do in the job, and assessing their performance at it. Even this can’t predict performance perfectly, since actual performance also depends on other skills, such as how well you collaborate with others, adapt to uncertainty, and learn.
And worse, many jobs don’t have nice, neat pieces of work that you can hand to a candidate.
The second-best predictors of performance are tests of general cognitive ability (26 percent). In contrast to case interviews and brainteasers, these are actual tests with defined right and wrong answers, similar to what you might find on an IQ test.
Tied with tests of general cognitive ability are structured interviews (26 percent), where candidates are asked a consistent set of questions with clear criteria to assess the quality of responses. There are two kinds of structured interviews: behavioral and situational. Behavioral interviews ask candidates to describe prior achievements and match those to what is required in the current job (i.e., “Tell me about a time . . . ?”). Situational interviews present a job-related hypothetical situation (i.e., “What would you do if . . . ?”). A diligent interviewer will probe deeply to assess the veracity and thought process behind the stories told by the candidate.
Structured interviews are predictive even for jobs that are themselves unstructured. We’ve also found that they cause both candidates and interviewers to have a better experience and are perceived to be most fair. So why don’t more companies use them? Well, they are hard to develop: You have to write them, test them, and make sure interviewers stick to them.
There is a better way. Research shows that combinations of assessment techniques are better than any single technique.
The goal of our interview process is to predict how candidates will perform once they join the team. We achieve that goal by doing what the science says: combining behavioral and situational structured interviews with assessments of cognitive ability, conscientiousness, and leadership. To help interviewers, we’ve developed an internal tool called qDroid, where an interviewer picks the job they are screening for, checks the attributes they want to test, and is emailed an interview guide with questions designed to predict performance for that job
Tomi Engdahl says:
CIOs discuss how they nurture IT talent
http://www.cio.com/article/2901518/cio-role/cios-discuss-how-they-nurture-it-talent.html
In the latest installment of CIO Quick Takes, three IT leaders discuss how they nurture tech talent.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Superstar Programmers
Do you need a talent agent?
http://www.eetimes.com/author.asp?section_id=182&doc_id=1326302&
A talent agent for the power programmers and superstar engineers makes sense.
In the really weird department, a New Yorker article describes a talent agency for engineers. 10x, whose name comes from an anecdotal observation that some software developers are ten times more productive than others, matches what they consider the best and brightest with companies desperate for developers.
Details are sparse, but at least some of their clients get $150 to $250 per hour for software engineering gigs. 10x gets 15% of that. If the average is $200/hour they’re getting $30/hour per client, not bad for a couple of young guys with fat Rolodexes and not much else. With 80 clients now, assuming each works 1000 hours per year, the agency nets a cool couple of million a year.
It’s true that many conventional recruiters are just resume mills, and one does have to admire 10x’s determination to cull the very best in breed.
The Programmer’s Price
Want to hire a coding superstar? Call the agent.
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/11/24/programmers-price?intcid=mod-most-popular
The agency 10x has nearly eighty clients, mostly in North America, though one codes from India and one from beaches in Thailand.
Computer programmers with agents: Bradley was interested. So one day last month he found himself in the 10x headquarters, in midtown Manhattan, talking to Michael Solomon. Solomon has a rock-and-roll vibe: he wore jeans and a metal bracelet, and he projects a mellow air.
Bradley asked about 10x’s talent pool: did it really include “the top developers in the world,” as Solomon claimed?
“What’s your stack?” Solomon asked, referring to the layers of code that make up a Web site.
“What kind of price range are we talking about?” Bradley asked.
“Ballpark, for this role you’re talking a hundred and fifty to two hundred and fifty dollars an hour.”
The rate was significantly higher than what Bradley had paid the workers in Pakistan.
The world is being rebuilt in code. Hiring computer engineers used to be the province of tech companies, but, these days, every business—from fashion to finance—is a tech company. City governments have apps, and the actress Jessica Alba is the co-founder of a startup worth almost a billion dollars. All of these enterprises need programmers. The venture capitalist Marc Andreessen told New York recently, “Our companies are dying for talent. They’re like lying on the beach gasping because they can’t get enough talented people in for these jobs.”
The computer science taught in colleges still focusses more on theory than on commercial application; the business of teaching practical coding skills has the whiff of trade school. So-called coding “boot camps,” such as General Assembly, founded in 2010, are trying to fill the gap, teaching crash courses in how to design Web sites and write code.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Dave McClure / Medium:
High private tech valuations the result of investors betting against doomed public incumbents unable to innovate
Bubble, My Ass: Some Unicorns Might Be Overvalued, But All Dinosaurs Gonna Die.
https://medium.com/@davemcclure/bubble-my-ass-some-unicorns-might-be-overvalued-but-all-dinosaurs-gonna-die-fb0ce311a7bd
Summary: pundits argue billion-dollar startups are overvalued, but few realize why public company valuations might also be too expensive. Traditional P/E ratios of 15–20+ are likely too optimistic, relative to how long the future cash flows and operating margins of big dumb companies can be sustained. Unless they innovate more rapidly (or acquire their internet peers), expect most S&P 500 Dinosaurs to be disrupted and destroyed by an endless march of VC-funded Unicorns that will bash their tiny little reptile brains in with software and internet marketing.
Why do I believe this to be true? There are three basic reasons:
1. Dinosaur Companies Don’t Innovate.
2. Dinosaur Companies have a tough time recruiting & retaining top technical talent.
3. Dinosaur Companies don’t get how critical internet marketing is becoming.
Fundamental to all of the above is the following observation: most public companies have not taken to heart how absolutely mission-critical software technology & internet marketing have become to business competitiveness. Thus, almost every Dinosaur Company is extremely vulnerable to a Startup Unicorn eating their lunch
Tomi Engdahl says:
Learn yourself hireable: Top tips for improving your tech appeal
No time? No budget? No problem – get yourself skilled up
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/04/13/skills_for_new_jobs/
There comes a point in most people’s career when they get a bit bored of the day job and start looking to move. but one factor that can prevent upward mobility is a tired CV.
Aside from the obvious updating and checking for grammar and punctuation errors, what else can give that bit of sparkle back to the resumé and get it noticed?
A lot of companies are reluctant to provide staff with specialist vendor training courses, not only due to cost but also because of the sometimes-misplaced belief that once a staff member is trained up, they may look to move on. If your company is one of these types of employer, how can you escape this catch-22?
Fortunately, it turns out there are a number of courses and exams available that don’t cost an arm and a leg that can help prove understanding of the fundamentals. Examples of quick wins to help you get your CV back in the game again include:
Associate exams
Self-learning
Vendor-agnostic courses and exams
Tomi Engdahl says:
IT Consultant Talks About ‘Negotiating for Nerds’ (Video)
http://it.slashdot.org/story/15/04/14/1840210/it-consultant-talks-about-negotiating-for-nerds-video
Matt Heusser did a Slashdot video interview back in 2013 titled How to Become an IT Expert Companies Seek Out and Pay Well.
Today, Matt is with us again. This video is about ‘Negotiating for Nerds.’ Matt talks about negotiating a pay raise or consulting fee increase, starting with learning who has the actual power to negotiate with you. This is essential knowledge if you are employed (or self-employed) in IT and want to make sure you’re getting all you are worth.
How to Become an IT Expert Companies Seek Out and Pay Well (Video)
http://developers.slashdot.org/story/13/01/07/208229/how-to-become-an-it-expert-companies-seek-out-and-pay-well-video
Tomi Engdahl says:
Mat Honan / BuzzFeed:
Square’s Jack Dorsey on using data to minimize risk and improve the company’s margins, on how Caviar helps Square get inside restaurants, more
Square’s Jack Dorsey Puts It All Together
http://www.buzzfeed.com/mathonan/squares-jack-dorsey-puts-it-all-together#.gtwA3Pyo
The Square CEO and Twitter founder explains how his company’s recent spate of initiatives fit together in the big picture.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Ascending “knowledge generation” is revolutionizing business
“We found only over a year ago that our events began to accumulate a totally different crowd than before. All bothered the same basic question: how digital company to develop,”
“Besides, inquirers often do not have the IT people, and never the IT infrastructure builders. For us, new acquaintances were business unit heads, who had additional responsibility with some kind of research and development tasks,”
The vast majority, or 96 percent of business executives believe that new technologies have changed the business rules of the game permanently.
Information has become more equal, while customer expectations have risen dramatically.
Customers are demanding faster and round the clock service, which can be accessed anytime, anywhere and on any device. The service will be personal and unique experience.
EMC calls all these new and more demanding digital citizens “information generation”i.
Burton believes that a digital company to develop an organization should, among other things, to know how to anticipate market opportunities more accurately.
“Innovation from and inventions required flexibility. This will require a proactive analytics and real-time run data streams,”
While business leaders recognize their IT skills, of necessity, a grant companies deficiencies.
Only 12 percent of respondents are satisfied with their company predictive analytics. Suppleness, speed, and customers’ trust and transparency requirements were equally low levels.
Research houses Gartner and IDC predict that by 2020, more than seven billion people to produce at least 30 billion device business and public organizations as much as 44 zettabytes (44 trillion gigabytes) of data.
EMC’s respondents business leaders of half of a good understanding of the data value
The respondents, 70 per cent receive information tips for decision-making, but only less than a third are able to take tips heed in real time. In addition, 52 percent considered their own business big data processing ineffective.
“It will not be long when the intelligent car will be able to communicate with the insurance company on accident. Insurance arrange for repair, as well as space for the site of the towing vehicle and the über-taxi,”
“Digital Business requires speed and pace of change, far from slowing down. Even now survives, if you know how to innovate. But tomorrow the company leaders must manage the entire networked ecosystems. Digitalization of the ball does not stop once issued after leaving,”
Source: http://www.tivi.fi/CIO/2015-04-20/Nouseva-tiedon-sukupolvi-mullistaa-liike-el%C3%A4m%C3%A4n-3220074.html
Why digital transformation is a make-or-break proposition
http://www.cio.com/article/2911195/it-management/why-digital-transformation-is-make-or-break.html
Tomi Engdahl says:
Yahoo Called Its Layoffs a “Remix.” Don’t Do That.
http://tech.slashdot.org/story/15/04/22/1915217/yahoo-called-its-layoffs-a-remix-dont-do-that
Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer, in a conference call with reporters and analysts, referred to the net layoffs of 1,100 employees in the first quarter of 2015 as part of a ‘remixing’ of the company.
Yahoo Called Its Layoffs a ‘Remix.’ Don’t Do That.
http://news.dice.com/2015/04/22/yahoo-called-its-layoffs-a-remix-dont-do-that/?CMPID=AF_SD_UP_JS_AV_OG_DNA_
Things aren’t fantastic at Yahoo at the moment. Despite a renewed focus on mobile and an influx of skilled developers and engineers, the company still struggles to define its place on the modern tech scene. That struggle is no more evident than in the company’s most recent quarterly results, which included rising costs, reduced net income, and layoffs.
Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer, in a conference call with reporters and analysts, referred to the net layoffs of 1,100 employees in the first quarter of 2015 as part of a “remixing and pivoting” of the company.
A “remix” is when you create a different version of something, usually by adding or removing elements. It’s a term most often applied to songs, although it’s also appropriate to use in the context of photographs, films, and artwork. CEOs rarely use it to describe something as momentous as a major enterprise’s transition, especially if said transition involves layoffs of longtime employees, because it could potentially appear flippant to observers.
Tomi Engdahl says:
4 Of The Hardest Things To Change In Information Technology (IT)
http://www.cio.com/article/2875736/it-transformation/4-of-the-hardest-things-to-change-in-information-technology-it.html
As an information technology (IT) leader dealing with the intricacies and complexities of enterprise technology every day, I can tell you this: it’s not the technology that is the toughest thing to change in IT. It’s the people.
1. Going global
There’s no question that transforming your company from regional-based systems to global systems is a big job. Global applications, global processes, global networks … that takes tech expertise to the nth degree.
2. Migrating legacy applications
There are often – though not always – financial benefits associated with migrating legacy applications to the cloud. Unfortunately, it’s never a matter of just moving the app from Point A to Point B and shifting dollars from capex to opex. Customizations, integrations, security requirements, and concerns of protecting personally identifiable information (PII) often impact the timeline and present unexpected hurdles.
3. Changing domains
The fact is, changing your domain involves massive file migrations, starting over from a search engine ranking perspective, and modifying marketing materials, voice recordings, and forms.
So what’s the challenge here? Internally, it’s making sure people track down every ramification of your new domain. Build a cross-functional team soliciting impact from every department in the organization. Communicate often and early.
4. Building bridges
The last change I want to talk about doesn’t involve technology directly, but is intimately connected with IT. In an era where business units often have their own technology budgets and are looking for quick solutions to address evolving business needs, IT needs to take the stance of partner – not gatekeeper. Why do you want to do this? Too often I’ve seen IT get cut out of the conversation in technology selections because they’re perceived as too dogmatic, too conservative, and too slow.
The good news is this: when you include people as one of the key components of your technology change, even the hardest implementations won’t be as hard as you think.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Industry Doesn’t Like Change
http://www.eetimes.com/author.asp?section_id=36&doc_id=1326472&
Change is inevitable in any industry, especially electronics. Leadership at the top can make companies successful, even amid constant change.
Technology continually changes, forcing managers at all companies to evaluate their present market position. New approaches that yield cheaper and more powerful solutions for customers that are might erode a company’s product offerings. These may come from established companies or from start-ups.
The future is, however, always murky. We never know which technology to put resources behind to expand a company’s product line. “Cannibalizing your product before someone else does” is the watchword that must drive any successful transition. Sounds good, but why do so many companies fail at it?
Tomi Engdahl says:
Carly Fiorina: 85-95% Of What We Do Online Is Superficial And Useless
http://techcrunch.com/2015/05/05/carly-fiorina-85-95-percent-of-what-we-do-online-is-superficial-and-useless/
Former HP CEO and current presidential candidate Carly Fiorina took the stage at Disrupt NY today to talk about her campaign, experience at HP and the role of technology in politics.
“We are in a different time for a whole host of reasons. There were some artificial things pushing the last boom. It wasn’t sustainable,” she noted. “But I do think we’re in a rather frothy time.” Specifically, she noted that a lot of the money today is going into applications and not into manufacturing.
Talking about current tech fads, Fiorina also noted that she believes that we are still trying to find the balance between what we can do and we should do.
“I’m willing to bet that 85 to 95 percent of what people spend doing on their technology today is pretty superficial and useless.” Instead of using our tech to vote for American Idol and The Voice, why aren’t we using it to more effectively engage with our politicians, she wondered.
Tomi Engdahl says:
The world top-level career made the Finnish boss says: These are the head of seven rule
The world, he made a career Mårten Mickos now shares management theories young growth entrepreneurs. To this end, he founded the school of herring.
The CEO should not say something like “I plan to give up”, even if the situation would be uncomfortable.
You do not give up. You collect yourself together and head forward, they said.
Mårten Mickos, 52, is one of the world’s premier career which performed the Finnish business leaders. MySQL in addition, he has led a number of other growth companies. Recently Mickos has worked with a giant Hewlett-Packard’s business director.
He is taking now to share their own experiences and teachings for young entrepreneurs in the form of an online video. Mickos has set up a School of Herring Management blog named (schoolofherring.com). Online is free of charge, and has no curriculum.
“A friend of mine advised that do not write a book, today’s deal is a video blog,”
He has been working across the globe to follow best principles of Finnish management: candor, authenticity, equality.
Now, Mickos says, what are the seven most important digital age boss rule.
1 Learn how to lead yourself
“When everyone is doing it, there will be a positive spiral. Then the senior management does not have to be Jesus.” Self-management is not easy.
2 Treat everyone equally
This is the basic idea of modern management: all people are equal, says Mickos.
3 When you rely on, it begins to produce
A good boss final test is when he leaves the organization.
“If an organization takes its previous leader is successful.”
4 Set a common goal
Management keeps focus on how motivated employees provide supermotivoituneiksi, says Mickos. Then productivity can multiply. This requires objectives, other than the numbers.
“The numbers are needed, but many inspired by something wider.”
Therefore, the “revolutionize database market” is a better strategy than “strive for a hundred million in annual sales.”
5 Reward your feedback
“We humans are very simple. We do more with what we get awards,” Mickos said.
The Director must communicate to subordinates, that has been noticed to have increased their responsibility in.
“Some people think that the prize should be monetary. Even better prize is the superior attention.”
6 The bad news is good news
The manager must have a solid self-confidence. If it falters, subordinates do not want to tell you held in the boss bad news.
“Therefore, bad news is good news is such an important principle.”
7 It all depends on communication
Finally, the digital time director of the most important subjects.
“Leaders should communicate. It is a central part of management. It must not be delegated. It does not have to be beautiful and wonderful, it has to be genuine.”
“The organization needs the presence of the director.”
Good leaders do not create followers. They create more leaders, Mickos says.
Source: http://www.hs.fi/ura/a1431657962611
Tomi Engdahl says:
Richard Feloni / Business Insider:
Inside Zappos’ switch to Holacracy, a manager-free operating structure, which led 14% of employees to quit
Inside Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh’s radical management experiment that prompted 14% of employees to quit
Read more: http://uk.businessinsider.com/tony-hsieh-zappos-holacracy-management-experiment-2015-5?op=1?r=US#ixzz3aPvq9XYX
Tomi Engdahl says:
About Zappos Culture
http://www.zappos.com/d/about-zappos-culture?zlfid=2&PID=7099101&AID=4048741&utm_source=2617611&zpsrc=Skimlinks&splash=none&zhlfid=208&utm_medium=affiliate&zpch=affiliate
These are the ten core values that we live by:
1. Deliver WOW Through Service
2. Embrace and Drive Change
3. Create Fun and A Little Weirdness
4. Be Adventurous, Creative, and Open-Minded
5. Pursue Growth and Learning
6. Build Open and Honest Relationships With Communication
7. Build a Positive Team and Family Spirit
8. Do More With Less
9. Be Passionate and Determined
10. Be Humble
Inside Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh’s radical management experiment that prompted 14% of employees to quit
Read more: http://uk.businessinsider.com/tony-hsieh-zappos-holacracy-management-experiment-2015-5?op=1?r=US#ixzz3aPvq9XYX
Tomi Engdahl says:
5 ways to think big, any day of the week
https://blog.asana.com/2014/10/workstyle-5-ways-think-big-day-week/?utm_source=techmeme&utm_medium=partner&utm_campaign=think_big
“How do I make sure I’m thinking about the big picture, when I’m always working on a lot of small things that seem to take up all my time?”
This was a question a product manager once asked me when she felt lost in the weeds, and one you may have asked yourself.
How can you empower yourself to step back and look at the big picture so you can lead your team more effectively?
Allocate time to thinking
Buddy up
Choose specific goals
Identify first steps
Ground yourself in reality
Tomi Engdahl says:
DevOps Isn’t a Job. But It’s Still Important
http://www.wired.com/2015/05/devops-isnt-job-still-important/
Traditionally, companies have at least two main technical teams. There are the programmers, who code the software that the company sells, or that its employees use internally. And then there are the information technology operations staff, who handle everything from installing network gear to maintaining the servers that run those programmers’ code. The two teams only communicate when it’s time for the operations team to install a new version of the programmers’ software, or when things go wrong.
Instead of speaking only occasionally, both the development and operations team would collaborate on the entire process of conceiving, building and maintaining software. The idea of creating such unified teams is called “DevOps.”
The important thing was, he says, getting away from the mindset of software projects as ever being complete. Instead, they should be thought of as ongoing processes that continue long after an application has been delivered to the user. That means thinking about updates, security fixes, and maintenance in a more holistic way.
“It’s as fundamental a shift in the way build technology as it was when we went from a hunter-gathering society to a farmer society,” he says. “We stop viewing as a one-and-done and think of it as a series of cycles over the entire lifecycle.”
The DevOps movement grew out of a related idea called agile software development. In 2001, a group of programmers published the Manifesto for Agile Software Development,
Since the term was first coined for an event in 2009, DevOps has become a trendy buzzword. The term has always been fraught with controversy
“The problem with ‘learning DevOps’ or ‘doing DevOps’ is that the word means different things to different people,” he tells WIRED in an email. “Even the guy who came up with the term chooses to leave it without a solid definition, so the legion of ‘thought leaders’ surrounding it have twisted it every which way—usually to promote a product or e-book or certification program.”
How To Prepare for a Career in DevOps
DeGrandis says DevOps isn’t really a job, it’s an organizational strategy. Goerlich agrees.
That said, there are skills that tech professionals can learn that will help them adapt to a DevOps way of thinking. Goerlich suggests IT operations staff get started by learning about automation tools like Puppet, Chef, and Microsoft’s PowerShell language. “Then use the time that frees up to spend more time with developers and end-users to understand what they’re doing and why,” he says.
Tomi Engdahl says:
On-Demand Startups Aren’t Delivering on Promises to Workers
http://www.wired.com/2015/05/demand-startups-arent-delivering-promises-workers/
For all the criticisms of the 1099 economy—the cornucopia of app-based, push-button services provided by an army of independent contractors—becoming an on-demand worker can still seem like a very attractive prospect to lots of people. Startups like Uber, Lyft, and TaskRabbit promise they can offer higher wages per hour while letting contractors work whenever they want. They hold out the hope of a bright, flexible future in which you are the micro-entrepreneur—a startup of one. And folks tend to believe them.
Until they actually start doing the jobs. This week, a broad survey of on-demand workers found that many encountered lower pay than they expected and hours tied tightly to periods of peak demand. They discovered they had to work earlier or later than they expected, and longer hours in general, because the systems weren’t as flexible as they assumed. The upshot: people are leaving on-demand work after finding out the promised advantages over traditional jobs don’t hold up.
Tomi Engdahl says:
The innovative CIO
http://www.cio.com/article/2925992/innovation/the-innovative-cio.html
CIO’s sit at the intersection of the business and IT and there is no doubt that the CIO’s role is changing, but rather than simply “manning the engine room,” I argue that they should be on the bridge working in new ways to help their organizations identify and conquer new market opportunities.
“The CIO’s role is changing driven by Cloud and an increasing number of ‘as-a-Service’ solutions that progressively reduce the organizations dependency on maintaining a high number of specially skilled ICT staff. Under these new conditions organizations have two options – they can make their technology managers, architects and administrators redundant and reap the short-term rewards in an uptick in profits and share price or they can retain these highly skilled staff who sit at the intersection of the business and technology and create an impressive innovation team that adds considerably more value to the business.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
The Joyless World of Data-Driven Startups
https://medium.com/backchannel/the-joyless-world-of-data-driven-startups-b6f475f11f5f
Everyone tells early-stage startups to use data
for big strategic decisions. But does that really
work, and whatever happened to vision?
Tomi Engdahl says:
You’re Never Too Old To Start A New Venture, Look At These Famous Entrepreneurs
http://digitalsynopsis.com/inspiration/never-too-late-start-venture/
The current lot of 20-something CEOs are ruining it for people like us who are facing a mid-life crisis. This infographic gets back at those young pricks and proves why it’s never to late to start your own venture.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Why does integrity matter?
http://schoolofherring.com/2015/03/20/why-does-integrity-matter/
Integrity is a vital part of the culture and values of a company. Integrity is often mentioned as one of the most respectable aspects of human behavior. It is commonly agreed that it is not possible to achieve sustainable success without integrity. But what does integrity mean within a leadership context? What distinguishes behavior with integrity from the one without?
Warren Buffett said: “You’re looking for three things, generally, in a person: intelligence, energy, and integrity. And if they don’t have the last one, don’t even bother with the first two. I tell them: Everyone here has the intelligence and energy; you wouldn’t be here otherwise. But the integrity is up to you. You weren’t born with it, you can’t learn it in school.”
Integrity is about being true to yourself and to the social context in which you operate.
Integrity is about actions matching words, and those words being intellectually honest. Integrity is not about good or bad; it is about transparent consistency.
Persons with high integrity:
Act honorably, whether others are looking or not
Treat others with respect, whether they deserve or demand it or not
Behave today like they did yesterday. If there is a change, they communicate it openly.
Express their true opinion when it is in the best interest of the organization, even if it may not be in the best interest of themselves
Admit their mistakes
Are intellectually honest and seek truth.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Why It Pays to Be a Jerk
New research confirms what they say about nice guys.
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/06/why-it-pays-to-be-a-jerk/392066/
Smile at the customer. Bake cookies for your colleagues. Sing your subordinates’ praises. Share credit. Listen. Empathize. Don’t drive the last dollar out of a deal. Leave the last doughnut for someone else.
Follow one of those paths, the success literature tells us, and you’ll go far. Follow the other, and you’ll die powerless and broke. The only question is, which is which?
At the University of Amsterdam, researchers have found that semi-obnoxious behavior not only can make a person seem more powerful, but can make them more powerful, period. The same goes for overconfidence. Act like you’re the smartest person in the room, a series of striking studies demonstrates, and you’ll up your chances of running the show. People will even pay to be treated shabbily: snobbish, condescending salespeople at luxury retailers extract more money from shoppers than their more agreeable counterparts do. And “agreeableness,” other research shows, is a trait that tends to make you poorer. “We believe we want people who are modest, authentic, and all the things we rate positively” to be our leaders, says Jeffrey Pfeffer, a business professor at Stanford. “But we find it’s all the things we rate negatively”—like immodesty—“that are the best predictors of higher salaries or getting chosen for a leadership position.”
Pfeffer is concerned for his M.B.A. students: “Most of my students have a problem because they’re way too nice.”
Narcissistic CEOs cluster near both extremes of the success spectrum. “There is such a thing as a useful narcissist.”
What separates the asshole from the psychopath is that he engages in moral reasoning (he understands that people have rights; his entitlement simply leads him to believe his rights should take precedence). That this reasoning is systematically, and not just occasionally, flawed is what separates him from merely being an ass.
This U-shaped distribution, Hambrick grudgingly allows, suggests that “there is such a thing as a useful narcissist.” Narcissistic CEOs, he found, tend to be gamblers. Compared with average CEOs, they are more likely to make high-profile acquisitions (in an effort to feed the narcissistic need for a steady stream of adulation). Some of these splashy moves work out. Others don’t. But “to the extent that innovation and risk taking are in short supply in the corporate world”—an assertion few would contest—“narcissists are the ones who are going to step up to the plate.”
Of course, that says nothing about how narcissists (or takers, or jerks) get to the executive suite in the first place. Grant argues that many takers are good at hiding their unpleasant side from potential benefactors—at “kissing up and kicking down,” as the saying goes—which is undoubtedly part of the story: a number of studies indicate that takers show one face to superiors, whence promotions flow, and another to peers and underlings.
The norm-violating version of the man in the video was, in the eyes of viewers, more likely to wield power than his politer self.
Instead of asking why some people bully or violate norms, researchers are asking: Why doesn’t everyone?
Tomi Engdahl says:
Building Hospitable Open Source Communities (Video)
http://news.slashdot.org/story/15/05/25/160236/building-hospitable-open-source-communities-video
Tomi Engdahl says:
Creating an IT organization where people want to work
http://www.cio.com/article/2926560/staff-management/creating-an-it-organization-where-people-want-to-work.html
The very nature of information and technology is changing and oftentimes right under the nose of enterprise IT leaders. In the vast and complex landscape of corporate IT in both small and large businesses, the focus is on delivery, cost management and stakeholder engagement. However, amazing opportunities are left on the table because the talent dynamics of implementing the next level of IT required for the business to be successful are not fully considered. While new technologies and their impact on our industries are crucial to a strategic IT vision, the long-term success of IT is truly about how it can create organizations that people want to work for.
Technology groups are facing a vortex of challenges that create the perfect storm for creating the workforce capabilities that will drive the future of technology needed for business success. Certainly, the shortage of people with the necessary skills for both legacy and emerging technologies matters but the issues are broader. As I think about experiences across various industries, there are three major drivers that create barriers to truly successful human capital management.
Both within IT organizations and outside, there is often a perception that only business support or legacy technologies are within the realm of the CIO.
Leveraging the five concepts below, they have the chance to create organizations people desire to work for – attracting and retaining the best people that directly align to driving business success.
1. Branding: How many tech organizations are actively thinking about their brand to prospective and current employees?
2. Spirit of opportunity: It relatively easy to catch the spirit of a team after spending some time with them. IT teams are not different and perhaps one of the most critical aspects of creating a team people want to work on is that they have a spirit of opportunity.
3. Interlock people and capabilities: Businesses and IT often talk about what capabilities are needed to succeed in the future and how to build them. Technology leaders frequently discuss the latest platforms and trends in industry. People and teams may even be aligned a clear strategy that maps people and competencies to the current and future investment portfolio for IT.
4. Own the strategy: Too many leaders think that other groups like HR are solely responsible for the IT recruitment, staffing and people management.
5. Infuse relevance: Mapping tangible connections between people and teams in IT to business success is easily said and more difficult to do.
Tomi Engdahl says:
You’re Ending Your E-mails Wrong
Why “best” is actually the worst
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-06-02/the-best-e-mail-signature-is-actually-the-worst
It’s time to stop using “best.” The most succinct of e-mail signoffs, it seems harmless enough, appropriate for anyone with whom you might communicate. Best is safe, inoffensive. It’s also become completely and unnecessarily ubiquitous. That development is relatively recent: A University of Pennsylvania study from 2003 found that, out of hundreds of e-mailers, only 5 percent opted to close with best. It came in behind “thank you” and “regards.” But a quick search through your work account will quickly clear up two things: 1) No one says regards anymore; 2) everyone says best.
When e-mail first entered the office in the 1990s, most users wanted to abandon the formalities of letter writing altogether, so they omitted signoffs. “There was no salutation and no closing,” says Barbara Pachter, a business etiquette coach. “It was like a memo.”
But as e-mails started to function (and look) more like letters, people reverted to formal, familiar behavior. Now, “there is a whole hierarchy of closings,” Pachter says. So how do you choose?
“Warmest regards” is too effusive; “sincerely” is just fake
The problem with best is that it doesn’t signal anything at all. “Best is benign,” says Judith Kallos, an e-mail etiquette consultant. “It works when you apparently don’t know what else to use.” Others have called it charmless, pallid, impersonal, or abrupt.
“Now, it’s like a virus.” And so it’s mutated: “All my best,” “all best,” “very best,” and so on.
So if not best, then what?
Nothing. Don’t sign off at all. With the rise of Slack and other office chatting software, e-mail has begun functioning more like instant messaging anyway. “Texting has made e-mail even more informal than it is,” Pachter says. In conversations with people we know, complimentary closings have started to disappear.
Signoffs interrupt the flow of a conversation, anyway, and that’s what e-mail is. “When you put the closing, it feels disingenuous or self-conscious each time,”
Tomi Engdahl says:
On Managing Developers
http://developers.slashdot.org/story/15/06/07/046233/on-managing-developers
A columnist at TechCrunch takes a crack at advice on how to manage developers. He has some decent starting points. For example, “Basically a manager’s job is to make other people more productive. What’s one really good way to do that? Do the work that is getting in their way. Which means: find out what kind of important work your developers dislike the most, and do it for them.” Also: “[D]on’t bull$%^& anyone, ever. … Speak the truth as you see it. Speak it diplomatically, don’t get me wrong; but be trustworthy.”
On Managing Developers
http://techcrunch.com/2015/06/06/on-managing-developers/
But I can assure you I am someone who screwed up a lot along the road to being better. Here are some mistakes from which I have learned:
Just Because You’re In Charge Doesn’t Mean You’re In Control
The great irony of management is that the higher up you go, the less actual control you have. When you are but a humble coder, you make the computer do exactly what you want; when you’re a manager, you only hope that people understand what you want, and then trust/pray that they do it both correctly and in a timely manner.
Agile Is Good. What Is Agile?
People talk about process a lot. Too much, if you ask me. In many places, ‘agile development’ has become codified into a fixed, carefully specified process of “standups” and “scrums” and “sprints,” which is darkly ironic given that the key principles of the Agile Manifesto include “value individuals and interactions over processes and tools” and “value responding to change over following a plan.” So what did companies create and fervently follow? Agile processes, tools, and plans. Sigh. If you are a Certified Scrum Master, you are doing it wrong.
The Shit Work Is Your Work
Basically a manager’s job is to make other people more productive. What’s one really good way to do that? Do the work that is getting in their way. Which means: find out what kind of important work your developers dislike the most, and do it for them.
Few developers like to write documentation. That means it’s your job. Testing is really important, but few developers like to write tests. That means it’s your job.
Think QA is someone else’s job, or not part of your job description? Then you’re a really really really bad manager.
The summary of the summary of the summary is: people are a problem
Unfortunately, as you probably already know, people suck. People flake, screw up, ignore you, pester you, disappear, quit, and/or lose faith in you, frequently for no good reason. Guess what? Now that you’re a manager, their screwups are your screwups, and their problems are your problems. Get used to it. You need to develop an early-warning sense of people problems and have contingency plans in place.
Also: people work in different ways and at different paces. Which is a polite way to say that hiring well is really important, because, again, most people suck.
the most surprising lesson of my professional career: once people learn that they can trust you, then you can usually trust them back. No, really. I swear.
You’re basically a mildly glorified technical translator
Managers translate the project’s Big Picture into individual tasks for developers, with their details and interactions specified in minute detail; translate the work done by developers so that clients/executives/users understand it; and, perhaps most importantly, translate the details of errors, roadblocks, and opportunities to client/executive-speak as well. As any professional translator will tell you, this means you need to understand the work more intimately than the author. To them it’s intuitive, but it’s your job to break it down so it makes sense to anyone.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Millennials bring consumer shopping tactics to corporate buying
http://www.cio.com/article/2931767/it-industry/millennials-bring-consumer-shopping-tactics-to-corporate-buying.html
An IBM study of more than 700 people who make corporate buying decisions, including Gen-Xers, people from Gen-Y and millennials, sheds light on notable differences in their motivations to make corporate purchases and offers valuable lessons for B2B marketers.
Millennials take a different approach than their Gen-X and Baby Boomer counterparts to many things, including social media use, work habits and communication. They’re also shaking things up in the marketing world, according to a recent report from The Boston Consulting Group.
state of cios
State of the CIO 2015
More than 500 top IT leaders responded to our online survey to help us gauge the state of the
Read Now
More than half (51 percent) of the 800 millennial respondents base their personal buying decisions on peer recommendations. They also want to interact more frequently with companies through digital channels. This behavior has started to trickle down into their purchasing decisions at work, and because millennials now make up the majority of the American workforce, it’s time for B2B marketers to take notice.
When initially researching a potential corporate purchase, millennials prefer straightforward, in-person meetings with vendor representatives, which is in contrast to Gen X-ers or Boomers who like to get their information from analysts, articles, blogs and third-party websites
Carolyn Baird, global research leader at the IBM Institute for Business Value (IBV) and author of the report, says B2B vendors need to pay attention to these trends. “We know how [millennials] are researching as consumers and so much of it is digital,” she says. “But when you get into the B2B space, the digital [component] is table stakes and what they really want to do is connect with individuals they’d be working with.”
When moving on to the actual corporate purchase, millennial behavior is evenly split. Thirty-six percent of respondents rely on recommendations from family or friends, another 36 percent use their company’s data analysis, and 34 percent go with gut feelings.
“If the data shows a promising and competitive product, and the individuals selling it pass my gut-check, then I’m likely to go into persuasive mode and explain why this is the right vendor to my colleagues. If I feel uneasy about either, then I start checking in with others and weigh their past experiences in similar situations.”
Satisfied millennials spread the word
B2B vendors should also note that if millennials like their products, they’re more likely to show love online versus past generations. Sixty-nine percent of respondents leave compliments on vendor sites, and the same number of respondents post positive comments on social media. Millennials are also less likely to blast companies with negative feedback online than the previous two generations.
“Millennials are very aware of how quickly a brand can be damaged with negative social exposure,” Baird says. They also know the potential impact of negative feedback on their own careers
Tomi Engdahl says:
6 ways to attract and retain millennial workers
http://www.cio.com/article/2925344/hiring/6-ways-to-attract-and-retain-millennial-workers.html
For all the talk about millennial workers, many companies are still stymied when it comes to not just hiring millennials, but also retaining them. Here are 6 ways you can not only draw millennial workers to open positions, but also get them to stick around.
Offer competitive salary and growth opportunities
Always maintain transparency
Ditch the hierarchy
A new approach to mentorship
Make sure millennials feel connected to the brand
Strengthen the company’s digital presence
Final thoughts
It’s important to remember that there are just as many myths out there as there are facts about millennial workers. Ultimately, all employees want the same thing — fair compensation, flexibility and a mission statement they feel strongly about.
Tomi Engdahl says:
WeWork:
Should You Invest in People or Technology? 5 Deciding Factors — People or technology? That’s a question countless business leaders have debated, and there’s really no definitive answer.
Should You Invest in People or Technology? 5 Deciding Factors
https://creator.wework.com/work/should-you-invest-in-people-or-technology-5-deciding-factors/
1. Augment your expertise. The product you make or the services you provide clearly mean enough to you—you did, after all, decide to create an entire company dedicated to them. But that doesn’t make you an expert on technology, or marketing, or human resources.
2. Streamline your process. As your company grows, it’s critical that business operations—such as payroll, insurance, and human resources—keep pace to support the business and its employees.
3. Become more efficient. The more efficient your business, the more productive your employees.
4. Cut costs. Spending money to save it may seem counterintuitive, but every successful entrepreneur will tell you this strategy works—if you invest in the right assets.
5. Improve customer service. Employees on the front lines bear the brunt of customer demands and complaints. It’s a stressful position to be in: one that relies on processes and established standards, and not to mention, a thick skin. How is your company supporting this critical function?
The reason you started your business is because you’re an expert in your field.
But that doesn’t mean you can do it all by yourself.
Tomi Engdahl says:
How to find the perfect project manager
http://www.cio.com/article/2933191/project-management/how-to-find-the-perfect-project-manager.html
The prototypical project manager needs financial, scheduling and management skills to keep projects on time and on budget. They also must communicate effectively to diverse business and technical teams — and that’s just the beginning. Here’s how to target the elusive perfect project manager.
It’s very hard to teach a non-communicator to communicate but it’s easy to teach them how to do an ROI or do something that’s more of a traditional project management item.
“Companies have all realized there is power in technology, that it gives you a competitive advantage, it helps you be faster and more effective. And companies realize that the investment is significant around these projects, and it’s really important that you see the return on your investment,” says John Reed, senior executive director of IT staffing firm Robert Half Technology. “The best way to do that is to have a project manager experienced in being able to manage from scoping to implementation. That’s why you see this increase in demand for skilled project managers.”
Reed estimates that salaries range from around $75,000 for junior-level program managers up into the six figures for more seasoned professionals.
Hot skills alert: Tips for landing a plum project manager’s job
http://www.cio.com/article/2933485/it-skills/hot-skills-alert-tips-for-landing-a-plum-project-managers-job.html
As companies continue to invest heavily in new projects, those IT staffers with project management skills are hot commodities. Here’s how to get started.
Karen Klein had a typical entrance into the project management profession, evolving into the role after working her way up the IT ranks.
“It took a while to figure out that I was managing projects, managing task lists, risks and scheduling,” she says.
With that experience under her belt, Klein charged ahead. She attended seminars on project management, sought out mentors in the field and read as much as she could on the topic. She then moved into full-time project management jobs
It’s a common pathway, she says. “In small to midsize companies, the lines tend to get blurred and anyone who has the skills to manage projects ends up managing them,” Klein explains.
Researchers and IT leaders say companies are investing heavily in new projects as they work to stay competitive in the expanding economy and catch up on initiatives that were sidelined during the Great Recession.
The strong demand for project managers isn’t a temporary blip.
What’s needed: Cool head, soft voice
A project manager’s job is challenging, with duties that require a mix of business, technical and leadership skills. Typical responsibilities include developing project charters, defining a project’s scope and outlining objectives. Project managers must develop and maintain schedules and ensure that milestones are met. They often have to calculate estimates of ROI, get approvals of business cases and craft persuasive justifications for projects.
“It’s the type of role where you’re working across organizations,”
Tomi Engdahl says:
10 Ways To Lose Your Best Employees
Want to hold tight to your talent? Don’t do these things!
By Andrew Benett
http://www.fastcompany.com/3019050/leadership-now/10-ways-to-lose-your-best-employees
Want to unload your most dynamic, highest-potential employees? Keep doing these things:
1. Hire for the past, not the future.
2. Downplay values and mission.
3. Bungle the teams.
4. Place jerks in management.
5. Measure hours, not results.
6. Promote people straight up the ladder.
7. Leave talent to HR.
8. Hoard information.
9. Don’t bother with training.
10. Hire outsiders.
If this sounds at all familiar, you’d better hope your competitors are following the same game plan.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Three things you need to break down those company silos
Why soft skills matter in the drive to shared services
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/06/18/breaking_down_silo_mentality/
If you’re the guy tasked with breaking down silos, should you be breaking down the people who police those silos first? We explore how to de-mine your team ahead of your brownfield project.
Something common between all of the frustrating employers and clients has been when the place has operated as a collection of separate silos.
What does matter is the third of the three definitions in that same entry: “a system, process, department, etc. that operates in isolation from others”.
Companies have structure: all but the smallest couldn’t work without one. They’re split into divisions, the divisions may be further split into departments, and so on. It’s a necessary thing to do in order to preserve order.
You sometimes have to …
The title of this feature makes it pretty clear that we think a company operating in a silo mentality is a Bad Thing and that the structure needs to be sorted out. Before we get to how you do that, though, let’s look at instances where a silo approach is absolutely essential to some things we do.
Take the information security function of your business. Can you let individual departments look after their security? Of course not, because they don’t know how to and they won’t do it anyway – particularly the sales function because given the choice of employing a security specialist (who costs money) or a salesperson (who does quite the opposite) the decision is a no-brainer.
… but usually you don’t
So we’ve established that sometimes businesses need to have components that are deliberately and forcefully separate.
There are only three departments that really have the benefit of seeing across the entire company: IT, finance and HR; of the three, IT’s the one best placed to help departments out either by innovation or by simply directing the right technology and people at the problem.
Three things you need
People with MBAs have written plenty of books about how to organise companies so they work best
1. Helping them understand the big picture
2. Identifying tasks that belong elsewhere
3.Doing it well In my experience this is the most important of the three actions that help you break down silos.
In short
Although this feature is ostensibly about breaking down silos, in fact this isn’t always either possible or desirable. What you do need to do, though, is ensure that:
Where silos exist they’re doing the stuff that necessarily belongs in them.
There’s sufficient communication between the silos (either directly or via departments like finance and IT which frequently interact with all of them).
Where silos are stepping outside their sensible scope you make that stop by ensuring that the proper department does the stuff they shouldn’t be doing – but justifies this desire by making a bloody good job of it.
Use your influence and personal relationships to get over to people the reasons why you think changing the approach will work better – after all you have no authority over them so influence is the best tool you have to hand.
Tomi Engdahl says:
The Science of Incivility
http://science.slashdot.org/story/15/06/21/0513242/the-science-of-incivility
Stress causes health issues — we’ve known this for years. But what’s harder to figure out is what exactly qualifies as stress. It’s easy to understand that working as an EMT or police officer can be stressful. But as medical researchers are beginning to learn, minor stress events common to all workplaces eventually add up — the cumulative stress from workplace incivility can have huge consequences for both health and performance.
No Time to Be Nice at Work
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/21/opinion/sunday/is-your-boss-mean.html?_r=0
MEAN bosses could have killed my father.
Rudeness and bad behavior have all grown over the last decades, particularly at work. For nearly 20 years I’ve been studying, consulting and collaborating with organizations around the world to learn more about the costs of this incivility. How we treat one another at work matters. Insensitive interactions have a way of whittling away at people’s health, performance and souls.
Robert M. Sapolsky, a Stanford professor and the author of “Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers,” argues that when people experience intermittent stressors like incivility for too long or too often, their immune systems pay the price. We also may experience major health problems, including cardiovascular disease, cancer, diabetes and ulcers.
Intermittent stressors — like experiencing or witnessing uncivil incidents or even replaying one in your head — elevate levels of hormones called glucocorticoids throughout the day, potentially leading to a host of health problems, including increased appetite and obesity. A study published in 2012 that tracked women for 10 years concluded that stressful jobs increased the risk of a cardiovascular event by 38 percent.
Bosses produce demoralized employees through a string of actions: walking away from a conversation because they lose interest; answering calls in the middle of meetings without leaving the room; openly mocking people by pointing out their flaws or personality quirks in front of others; reminding their subordinates of their “role” in the organization and “title”; taking credit for wins, but pointing the finger at others when problems arise. Employees who are harmed by this behavior, instead of sharing ideas or asking for help, hold back.
I’ve surveyed hundreds of people across organizations spanning more than 17 industries, and asked people why they behaved uncivilly. Over half of them claim it is because they are overloaded, and more than 40 percent say they have no time to be nice. But respect doesn’t necessarily require extra time. It’s about how something is conveyed; tone and nonverbal manner are crucial.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Why every entrepreneur should consider a Mini-IPO
http://venturebeat.com/2015/06/19/why-every-entrepreneur-should-consider-a-mini-ipo/?obref=obinsite
Mini-IPOs could also allow founders to take on less dilution and retain more control of their companies. So, should you consider a Mini-IPO? Here are seven reasons why you might want to:
1. Reward loyal customers
2. Raise brand awareness
3. Maintain control
4. Drive higher revenue and referrals
5. Augment a larger round
6. Take some chips off the table
7. Use the Mini-IPO as a stepping stone to an IPO
Tomi Engdahl says:
The wonderful madness of metrics: Different things to different folk
Or, how I learned to stop worrying and verify
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/06/23/madness_of_metrics/
Managers and customers love statistics and metrics. Companies can live or die by how good their metrics are and the potential penalties for failing to meet the required service levels as defined in agreements.
It can also be: “Have my team met their SLA” or: “What is the uptime on the server farm”.
The dictionary defines the noun metric as: “A standard for measuring or evaluating something, especially one that uses figures or statistics.”
In an honest world, things would be that simple. But this isn’t an honest world. Metrics can be interpreted differently, stretched, used and abused if they are not laid out in black and white. It can be like comparing apples and oranges, to use an often quoted phrase.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Gaming the system: exploring the benefits of intranet gamification
By Melanie Baker – March 10, 2014
https://www.igloosoftware.com/blogs/inside-igloo/gaming_the_system_exploring_the_benefits_of_intranet_gamification?utm_source=techmeme&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=blog
Gamification isn’t just playing games, and is increasingly becoming a useful corporate tool to increase employee productivity and intranet engagement
By Melanie Baker – March 10, 2014
Gamification isn’t just playing games, and is increasingly becoming a useful corporate tool to increase employee productivity and intranet engagement.
Gamification.jpg
Gamification is showing up in an increasing number of areas in business, from employee training, to social elements on the corporate website, to the intranet. According to Gartner, by 2015 up to 40% of Global 1000 organizations will be using gamification in business operations. Gamification doesn’t necessarily refer to actually playing games, however. There are many different gamification elements, but not all are relevant to the intranet, so we’ll focus on the ones that are.
Points, badges, and voting/ranking are three of the most common gamification elements that can be implemented on the intranet.
Make sure that the requirements to achieve rewards are clear and easy to find, especially for the introductory ones like badges for new member activities.
An important consideration in designing your intranet’s gamification is the reward parameters and thresholds:
For what actions will members be rewarded?
How many points are different activities worth?
What will the interval be between rewards? (E.g. how many points must be accrued before you earn the next badge.)
How many levels of rewards will there be?
Do the rewards have any peripheral effects on member prominence or feature access?
Are there real world bonuses for accruing points? (E.g. gift cards.)
According to Gartner, up to 80% of intranet gamification efforts fail due to poor design, so it’s important to work through these considerations before implementing anything.
Marketing intranet gamification
Which brings up the question of what to do about those who are less encouraged by public recognition, or who simply don’t want to participate in gamification. It’s important to remember that it’s the participation that’s most important, not the rewards. The main goal is to train and encourage people to be active on the intranet and to contribute regularly. If they get rewards for that, great. Be careful not to create a situation wherein you are at a loss how to encourage people without extrinsic rewards, but they don’t respond to anything else.
What can intranet gamification do for your company?
Gamification can help enable staff to learn how to complete tasks, feel good about their achievements, and publicly recognize their successes. For example, to an employee who isn’t normally a writer, completing a first blog post could be a pretty daunting exercise. It’s worth recognizing when the post gets published correctly, the information shared is useful, and other employees engage in discussing it. After all, the employee has created user-generated content, improved the company’s knowledge base, and catalyzed internal communication.
While you want people to mostly appreciate the feeling of success from doing good work, external recognition is valuable, too. According to Gabe Zicherman, gamification can increase employee productivity by 40%.
Tomi Engdahl says:
The Fundamental Fallacy of Modern Recruiting
http://techcrunch.com/2015/06/21/the-fundamental-fallacy-of-modern-recruiting/?ncid=rss&cps=gravity_1462_5234485190956611512
Think the hiring process is tedious and a waste of time? You are not alone. Lately, there has been growing concern among policymakers and journalists about the increasing time gap between the posting of a job listing and the actual hiring of a worker.
The most popular explanation for this trend among economists is that labor quality is dwindling – that there is a “skills mismatch” between job seekers and employers. Another theory advanced by Vox’s Matthew Yglesias argues that there are too many applicants per position, complicating the process of finding the right employee.
These theories and others miss a critical point: built into these analyses is the assumption that recruiters and human resources professionals actually know what they are looking for when hiring.
They don’t, and I am going to call this the Fundamental Fallacy of Modern Recruiting.
Recruiting would seem to be one of those things you really can’t screw up if you want your business to grow. Talent is everything, according to every business conference and TED talk ever. Human capital, after all, is the lifeblood of the modern corporation, and so it must get incredible attention from senior executives.
That’s worth a real lol, and maybe even a roflcopter.
As anyone who has worked in one of these modern corporations knows, recruiting has become a profession like every other function in the business world. It’s essentially outsourced, or maybe insourced is a better way to put it.
The Rise Of Ambiguous Jobs
This essential challenge is a classic one in economic theory: the principal-agent problem. As organizations grow and become more specialized, the distance between recruiters (and really, any business function) and the people who actually know who should be recruited grows not just linearly, but exponentially.
However, there are decent structures and incentives to handle the principal-agent problem, yet recruiting still remains awful. Why?
My theory is that jobs have become far more ambiguous in today’s world than they have in the past, making it much harder for HR specialists to use pattern recognition to find the right fits. Two decades ago, a software engineer used to “just code,” probably within a very narrow set of languages and environments.
Our world is fundamentally more complicated today. An engineer doesn’t just code in one language on one platform, but is now expected to engage with a range of frontend and backend systems using a myriad of languages and platforms.
While every one of these skills may not be used on a daily basis, the kinds of versatile engineers desired by employers today are capable of shifting from one place to another in the codebase on a whim.
That’s not all though. Engineers in most firms today are also supposed to know at least something about product design, marketing, and customer support for those top-paying enterprise clients. Purely technical roles still exist of course, but they tend to congregate away from consumer and enterprise software into areas such as embedded systems.
Interdisciplinary skills may be the hallmark of the modern engineer, but it is precisely that broad and ambiguous skillset that complicates hiring. Engineering is hardly alone is experiencing this change in ideal worker. No one just hires a “marketer” or a “salesperson” anymore. There are so many requirements and expectations for all of our roles that it should be no wonder why jobs can’t be fulfilled very quickly.
It’s not the fault of the recruiters. I’m certain they are doing everything they can to make their organizations grow, but they have an impossible job looking for these unicorn employees. When we combine the increasing ambiguity of our jobs with the increasing distance of HR recruiters from the actual work taking place, you get everything that is wrong with modern recruiting.
Founders should not just insource their hiring to some specialist, but should instead continue to take an active role in ensuring that the right employees are being hired.
One example of this is Stripe’s Capture the Flag tournaments, which test programmers on their security abilities through a tough set of challenges.
Another example is Larry Page at Google. He continues to read every employee’s biography and gives an up or down vote before they join the company.
Last, but certainly not least, there is also the post-hiring stage of recruiting, when real magic can happen. Mentorship and training can go a long way toward turning a good employee into a great and even fantastic one.
Tomi Engdahl says:
The programmer’s guide to breaking into management
http://www.infoworld.com/article/2938909/it-careers/the-programmers-guide-to-breaking-into-management.html
The transition from command line to line-of-command requires a new mind-set — and a thick skin
Software development, like any career, is divided into leaders and producers. You’re either Steve Jobs, or you’re Woz. Two completely different approaches, and yet both can lead to great success.
Talented engineers may see managing a team as the next step to growing their careers. So if you’re moving in this direction, what tools do you need to make the transition? We’ll look at some possible approaches, common pitfalls — and offer solutions.
A first question might be whether to make a change at all. What if a Woz-like existence is more your style? Knowing yourself and whether management is really where you want to land is worth some self-reflection.
“You have to think about what aspects of the job you really enjoy, and which you try to avoid,” says Adam Wolf, head of engineering for foundational applications at Bloomberg L.P. “If what you really enjoy doing is bringing everyone together to accomplish something as a team, or building a vision and getting everyone behind it, then management is a great opportunity to have a broader impact.”
The management track begins right where you are, in your current position. It requires taking on more responsibility, reaching out to team members, and making yourself visible.
“Ask yourself how well you tolerate risk and criticism,” says Hutley, a former CIO at British Telecom, and vice president of innovation at Cisco Systems. “Be honest. Better to be a happy grassroots worker than a miserable leader. That said, stretch yourself. Have the courage to move outside of your comfort zone and take on more responsibility.”
Managing others will often lead to awkward situations. An exceptional career can be uncomfortable. And good managers are driven by a desire to lead and understand that delivering criticism may influence people, but maybe not win friends.
“Leadership means making hard decisions on occasions — disagreeing with those who used to be your colleagues — and it can be a lonely place,” Hutley says. “The higher up you go the more certain it is you will fail — in someone’s eyes.”
But if you’ve never managed people before, how can you know if leading others is a good fit for you? Hutley offers these tips: “Are you one of those who tends to think beyond the immediate task, not just at work but socially as well? Do you suggest a better way of doing things or challenge things when they don’t seem right? Do others seek you out for your thoughts or guidance? If this is you then you are a natural leader — and others recognize it too.”
If you’re hopeful hard work and attention to detail will speed your way to the top, you may need to broaden your plan. The leap to management will mean a complete redesign of your work life
You could, of course, apply to an MBA program and complete it online or after work. Public speaking courses can help, say our experts, along with budget training, self-assessments like Myers-Briggs, and training in diversity and inclusion. But there are plenty of opportunities at the office that can help you move in the right direction.
“Find mentors,” agrees Hutley.
One of our pros says management offers many of the same challenges and uncertainties as parenting.
First, get ready for “a complete and total career change,” says executive coach Long. “There are no product specs or algorithms for people. As a manager, your job will be 90 percent about influencing people, which is an inherently illogical task, and dealing with ambiguity in the business while still producing results through others, which is also a task that can’t be done by leaning on logic and reason alone.”
And now for the really tough part. Are you ready to hand over control and let your team do their jobs?