June 2008

Where I come from (small town Oklahoma), silos are part of life for dairy farmers.  A silo is a good thing…it stores grains (we called it sileage) to feed cattle and can be found on most farms across the state.

Imagine my surprise when I first started working in large organizations.  I started hearing about ’silos’ and found that they weren’t quite as good as the silos I remember back home.

Silos in the corporate world are created for one thing…and one thing only: control.  If you want to control something within an organization, you build your little empire by building a silo around your piece of the business.  You don’t interact or communicate with other groups unless absolutely necessary, you make ‘getting things done’ as difficult as possible and you protect your ‘turf’ at all costs.

Today’s Dilbert Comic Strip (June 28 2008) had a nice commentary on the subject….and is somewhat true for some organizations.

Its funny because its true.

How does one build a silo/empire?  Easy.  Create a process and stick to it. When’s the last time you requested something be done and heard ‘well…that’s not our process…you’ll need to file a form to request that’.  Does that group that you were dealing with have a reputation for getting the job done?  More likely, that group is one that everyone hates dealing with precisly because they can’t get anything done quickly because of their ‘processes’.

I hate to say it, but ‘that’ group is usually the information technology group of an organization.  IT groups have a great deal of processes and compliance demands thrust upon them (PCI, SAS70, SOX, etc) which makes life difficult for all parties involved.  I think a lot of IT groups try to hide behind these processes rather than find ways to deal with them and get things done quickly.  Its easier to hide behind a process and let your self become process bound than finding innovative ways to work these new compliance issues and processes in to the organization so that they don’t slow everything down.

In a real-world silo, grain goes in for storage, sometimes waiting for weeks before being used. Mechanical devices pull the grain out of the silo and distribute it to the waiting cattle who then consume it.  Should we (the folks that need to get things done) stand around and wait for the farmer to turn on the feeder device or should we find a way to jump the fence and hit that ‘on’ button ourselves?  Why not start trying to remove some of the bricks at the base of the silo and see if we can’t open up some more holes…perhaps we can start to get things done quicker.

Rather than acting like Dilbert (or more accurately, his Pointy Haired Boss), lets start focusing on getting our jobs done.

I asked the following question on LinkedIn earlier this week and received some very insightful responses:

What are the top challenges in IT organization’s today?

In reading the various magazines, blogs and websites out there (CIO.com, etc) on the subject, I’ve come to the conclusion that there are many many issues facing IT groups today. What are the top challenges that most IT organizations are facing today? What is keeping CIO’s up at night in today’s environment?

If you haven’t tried out LinkedIn yet, you should…there are some great folks over there as well as some excellent information available in the Questions / Answers Section.

I received some excellent responses…and most were on target with my own thoughts.  Prior to asking the question, I thought that the issues that were in the front of many IT leaders were:

• Find and Keeping Talent
• Business / IT Alignment
• IT Strategy
• Outsourcing

The responses received from other LinkedIn users seem to back up my original thoughts.  There were other issues listed (System integration, Merger and Acquisition Due Diligence, etc) that were very interesting to see as well.

It’s interesting to get the feedback from people in the field on what they see as huge issues.  An interesting point to note, none of the responses seemed to be from CIO’s of an organization…all were from people who seem to be at a more tactical level than strategic level.

Why is this important?  To me, it says that there are a lot of people in IT with the business savvy to see the challenges that is facing them and their organization.  Why then are these same IT folks being told that they aren’t “business savvy” and need to start speaking “like business people“?  It sounds to me like there are plenty of business savvy people in IT but very few people on the ‘business’ side of things that have really reached out to these folks to get their opinions.

Any additional challenges for IT groups that have been overlooked (either in my post or in the responses on LinkedIn)?

In a recent posts, I’ve mentioned employee engagement (more on the topic here, here and here)…I’ve had a few emails from readers asking me to give some examples of how they could go about engaging the people on their teams.  There are no ‘right’ answers for this because every person is different, but as a general rule, the following factors would help:

1. Trust your team.
2. Make sure your team knows that failure IS an option.
3. Make your team members accountable for their actions

Let’s look at each of these factors in more detail.  Before you continue, please realize I am not an organizational design expert nor human resources expert…these are just some basic techniques that I’ve used in the past.

Trust your team

Trust your employees.  If you trust them to do their jobs, they’ll deliver.

Treat your team like the adults they are.  Stop using the employment model from the Industrial Revolution and let your team decide when and where they should work.  Look into Results Focused systems (such as Results Oriented Work Environment (ROWE), etc).

Make sure your team knows that failure IS an option

Failure will happen.  If you ensure that your team knows that it is OK to fail, and that you expect them (and yourself) to fail, you’ll be amazed at what they’ll be able to accomplish.  I touched on this subject in a previous blog post titled “Learning From Failure“…an excerpt from that post is:

According to a story recounted in a newsletter from the New & Improved website, Warren Buffett, the semi-celebrity CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, says that the act of making a mistake (and failing) is essential to the decision making process.  As an example of this, Mr Buffett once told David Sokol, the CEO of a Berkshire Hathaway controlled company, that:

David, we all make mistakes. If you don’t make mistakes, you can’t make decisions.

This comment was after Mr. Sokol told Buffett that they would have to write off $360 million for the year due to a project that didn’t work out as expected.

If you truly want to engage your employees, making them understand that failure IS an option is key.  If they know that they have the right to fail, they’ll put their heart and soul into their efforts.

Hold your team members accountable for their actions

At first, this may seem a bit out of place, but I promise you, it will help.  Think back to a time when one of your team-mates / employees / friends / etc weren’t pulling their weight on a task.  What was your reaction to finding out that they were able to ‘get by’ without doing as much work as you?  If you are like most people, you were a bit disappointed in the person responsible for managing / leading that task.

It’s very difficult for any person to maintain a positive attitude and love what they do if they feel like there are people who aren’t pulling their weight.  If you ensure that all your team members are held accountable for results, and that they must hold you accountable for results, then you’ll have a much happier team.

Conclusion

The three factors listed above will not immediately turn a dis-engaged employee into a happy and engaged one, but they will help you down the road of build a steady foundation for your team.  By trusting your team, holding them accountable and communicating that failure IS an option, you’ll have a team of people who are willing to dig deeper and do a bit more for you and the organization.

This book,  with the full title of “Groundswell: Winning in a World Transformed by Social Technologies” is a must read for anyone trying to figure out how to benefit from the social networking phenomenon. There is only one major negative aspect of this book: It wasn’t written 3 years ago. Shame on you Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff! (joking of course!)

This book is perfect for anyone who doesn’t understand ‘social media‘…and for those that think they do! It  provides case-based examples of how organizations have used social media to engage their users.  The examples provided in the book are quite good and describe how organizations have used social media to embrace their community.

Before you go out and buy the book on my recommendation, let me point out a couple of important points:

• This book does not tell you how to implement a social network.
• This book will not solve your social media problems.  It will help you with understanding your problems and give you some ideas for solutions.

What this book will do is help you understand that there isn’t any one answer to the question of ‘how to embrace social media”.  The book provides many examples of social media experiments…some successful and some failures.

The book provides a ton of information about demographics and age group differences and how age normally affects social media usage.  Excellent information that everyone should review.

For me, the most interesting section of the book is the one in which the authors state very clearly that any social media project (or really any project for that matter) can be made more successful if the following four steps are followed:

• First, look at your People.
• Second, Set at your Objectives.
• Third, Review your Strategy.
• Fourth, look at Technology.

This approach, which the authors abbreviated as POST, is no different than any proper strategic planning initiative…at least in my book. When any organization starts to look at new things like social media, they must first look at their people and their customers.  Is this new strategy something that can be achieved easily? Is it viable?

The second step is to Set your Objectives for the project.  What are you trying to achieve with this social media project (or any project)?  The third step is to review your overall strategy as well as determine your ‘go to market’ strategy.  The last step (which most organizations perform first), is to select the technology platform that you will use to carry out your strategy.  I can’t count how many times I’ve seen this process performed backwards with technology selected before any real thought was put into the strategy, objectives and people.  Many of those projects failed miserably because of that.

The book is well reviewed…and is well deserving of those reviews.  Its an excellent book for anyone interested in this topic.  Highly recommended.

Carmine Coyote had a great post over on Slow Leadership today titled “The More Meetings, The Less Trust“. The introductory paragraph sums it up nicely (emphasis mine):

In the list of activities that waste time and cause worthless frustration at work, meetings rank very near the top. Not only do many meetings fail to result in any clear decision, leaving you wondering why people came together in the first place, others have no discernible purpose at all. Worst of all, holding too many meetings passes a strong message: the boss doesn’t trust the team to function without his or her constant interference; and colleagues don’t trust one another not to undermine them in some way.

How many of you have experienced this in your career?  How many have experienced this within the last week?  I know I have.

I actually got to see the ultimate no-trust meeting request…a meeting to prepare for a meeting. If your boss wants to prepare for the meeting with his boss with a pre-meeting, you know you are in trouble.

There are very few times that having a meeting to prepare for a meeting makes sense.  If you’re preparing to present a solution to a client or something similar…you should be prepared and a meeting might be called for.  But…if you are calling a meeting of your staff to have them tell you what they will tell your boss in the upcoming meeting, something is very very wrong.

Why does this occur?  Why would a seemingly intelligent individual have to gather their staff together for a ‘pre-meeting’?  Well…I think it has to do with trust.  If you trust your staff, why would you call them in to debrief you on what they will discuss in the ‘official’ meeting?   You might as well as just scream “I don’t trust you” to your entire staff.

Even worse than just having a pre-meeting is having a pre-meeting and forcing people to change their commentary/report to match what the ‘boss’ wants to hear.  I recently saw this occur and was amazed that everyone went along so readily.  It seems that the ‘boss’ only wants to hear what he expects to hear so that’s what everyone tells him.

This type of attitude does nothing for morale.  It destroys what little faith employee’s have left in the organization and in their manager.

So how do we get out of death by meeting?

Simple…trust your employees to do their job.  Give them the freedom to get things done.  Make sure they know that you are available to help at any time but that you expect them to make the decisions that they need to make to do their job.  Make them feel trusted.

Carmine Coyote has this to say about bring trust back into the workplace:

What does it feel like to be trusted? You’re allowed to make decisions without constantly checking with others; to get on with your job and use your commonsense about whom you need to speak with to ensure success. You’re expected to ask for help when you need it, and not otherwise; and not to call others together until you have something really important to say. Add these up and you have a water-tight case for removing upwards of 75% of the meetings that disfigure people’s calendars. Think how much time and money that would save.

Yes..think how much time, money, energy you could save by just letting your people do their jobs.

One thing that I’ve heard often is that a project manager role is a good thing for your career and will help your ascent up the ladder to more responsibility.

I’m wondering how often this actually occurs. I’ve met a lot of Project Managers who have been PM’s for years and have had very little chance to be promoted.  Now, some of these people are perfectly happy being PM’s and don’t want to do anything else…but others are struggling with moving into higher responsibility positions.

I’ve got a good friend who’s looking to make the transition into a leadership role (she’s hoping for a Director or VP spot) and she asked for my thoughts on what she needs to do to make herself more appealing for a more senior role.

I couldn’t really answer the question…surprising I know! :)  She’s a great PM but an even better leader.  She understands business and technology and is a perfect candidate for a a senior leadership role but she’s found that companies are passing her over for advancement.  I took a look at her resume…everything looked great.    She’s personable and interviews well.  She has peer reviews and recommendations from current and previous managers…everything is the way it should…except she can’t land a job in a more senior role.

I’ve mentioned to her that she might want to start looking elsewhere because it seems as if her managers don’t want to promote her because she is skilled at what she does and they don’t want to lose a good PM.  I’ve seen this happen other places…people aren’t given a chance to move into a management role because they are ‘too good at what they do’.   Of course, that’s absolutely the wrong thing to say and do…if you have good people and they have the right skill sets to be a manager, you should move them into that role.

Does anyone have any ideas for those PM’s who can’t seem to get promoted?

I had some time this weekend and used it to catch up on some reading.  One of the books I read was Cali Ressler and Jody Thompson’s “Why Work Sucks and How to Fix It“.

Great book….but I wonder if the people that need to read it will read it.  I’m talking about the CEO’s and other leaders of organizations who need to be on board with the Results Only Work Environment (ROWE) mentality to actually fix the problem of why work sucks.

According to the book, work sucks because we are all still stuck in the industrial age mentality of what it means to “work”. I agree.  You no longer need to be ‘in the office eight hours a day’ to do your job….in fact, I can’t think of any knowledge worker position in existence today that shouldn’t be allowed to move into a ROWE position….if you can think of any, feel free to leave me a comment.

The biggest piece of knowledge that any manager/leader should take away from this book is the following:

Trust your employees. If you trust them, they’ll deliver.

A ROWE doesn’t work unless there is trust. Managers must trust their team to do the job.  Team members must trust each other and they must trust their manager.

NOTE: This book was provided by the publisher as an advanced review copy.

The topic of Information Technology Strategy is one that is near and dear to my heart.  In fact, I’ve harped on this subject a few times (a few posts for your reading please can be found here, here and here and you can find all posts related to the topic with this search).

Why is this topic something I think and write about often?   Because it’s one of the most important topics in business today.  I doubt there are many people who would argue that point.

Every corporate leader that I speak with agrees with me on the topic of IT Strategy….but few can really describe their IT strategy and even fewer can show a plan for implementing that strategy.  This strategic plan doesn’t have to be a huge formal document but it must address a few key questions:

1. Where is the organization going to be in the next 6, 12,18 and 24 months?  What are the short and long term goals?
2. How can IT help the organization achieve the goals described in #1 above?
3. What are your criteria for project selection and what project portfolio management techniques will you use?
4. Is your current IT organization capable of implementing your strategy?
5. How can you bring value to your clients AND your IT staff?

There are other questions that should be addressed by an IT strategy but the above will help get any organization started.

Like most other posts like this, I have an example that might help clarify the above points.

On a visit with a potential client, I was being briefed on the organization’s “big project” that they wanted my assistance with.  On the surface it seemed simple and straightforward…and it seemed like a great idea for the organization. After about an hour of discussion, I started to get the sense that this organization hadn’t clearly thought this new project through.

The new platform had the ability to consolidate the functions from three other platforms that they had already been using…but they weren’t planning on replacing those platforms. They were going to add this new platform in order to take advantage of a single piece of functionality while still running the other three platforms.

I asked them a few questions (e.g., why they were doing this, why they weren’t thinking about replacing their existing platforms, etc)…their response was “well….we already have those systems in place and we just need this one piece in place and we’ll be set”.

After a few more rounds of questions, I finally got the real answer from the group as to why they have 3 platforms that do the same thing and were going to put in another one: They had no IT Strategy.  The CIO had talked about creating a strategic plan for technology but it had been mostly talk.  Because of the lack of an IT strategy, the organization lacked any direction and any guidelines for what IT projects to take on.

We all know how this turns out.  No IT strategy, no IT project selection guidelines and no IT project measurement systems will always lead organizations to flounder around and grasp at whatever projects pop up.  They implement the ’sexy’ projects (the latest technology, etc) without any real governance on project selection.   Organizations end up with three platforms that do the same thing.

I told my potential client that I couldn’t help them with the new implementation. I turned the project down primarily because it was a bigger project than I could take on at that time but also because I didn’t believe in the project’s feasibility and usefulness.

The CIO and I had lunch a few months later to touch base and I was surprised to hear that he had stopped the project that they had spoken to me about.  He had mentioned that he was starting to see that the organization was spinning its wheels and not accomplishing much but he couldn’t understand why.  I mentioned my thoughts to him and I saw his eyes widen a bit as he realized why his team wasn’t accomplishing anything…they had no roadmap to help direct them.

He asked if I’d be interested in helping him draft an IT strategy (I said yes of course) and we setup some time to discuss the topic more in-depth. I spent the next three months helping the CIO craft an IT strategy that addressed the questions listed above.

The IT strategy that we developed has subsequently helped the organization deliver more services for less costs due to a properly thought out IT strategy.  Gone are the days of supporting multiple platforms…the IT staff has one platform and are now focused on creating innovative applications rather than integrating multiple platforms.  The IT staff has also been able to streamline operations and become more flexible. No more waiting 6 months to get a quote to an internal client for a new project….projects are quoted the same day and usually delivered within 3 months.

In addition to the ability to deliver more quickly and at lower costs, there is an additional benefit that come from thinking about question #5. When developing your IT strategy, you should always consider how to create value for your clients….but don’t overlook how you can bring value to your employees as well.   This is a key issue for any IT strategy…how can you make your organization a place where your IT staff will want to work?

Has your organization taken a good hard look at its IT Strategy?  Does your IT group know where they should be focusing their attention?  If not, you really should stop and think about developing a strategy for at least the next few years.  Without a map, you may not end up where you want to be.

Short post today…but powerful (at least I think so). Great post over at Carpe Factum today titled “Are You Botox-ing Your Organization?“.

Not much I can add to what Timothy has already said other than to ask you the following question:

Do you allow your employees/teams to fail?  Do they know they have the right to fail?  If not, you aren’t really allowing innovation and change and you are “Botox-ing your organization”.