What's on my Bookshelf? (Part 1)

All readers are not leaders, but all effective leaders are readers.

If you are in a position of leadership, you should have a bookshelf.  It shows you are open to new ideas, to learning, and to input from others.

Your bookshelf says a lot about who you are... and want to be.

So... I thought I'd take you on a tour of my bookshelf... one snapshot at a time.

Once I'm done with the physical books (which I am still a rabid consumer of), I'll post a screen shot of my eBook libraries.

Here goes with picture #1...

Change your job, or change your job?

In their book "First, Break All the Rules" - Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman (formerly of Gallop Research) outline the results of a significant study on why employees leave their organization.

Their conclusion? People don't quit their company, they primarily quit their boss. Buckingham picks up on this theme further in his book "The One Thing You Need to Know" and discusses Management, Leadership, and personal development as a leader.

From my years in organizational development and building high performing teams, I am convinced that if people are in a situation where they feel they have no way to influence the situation for the better, they will likely look other places.

It's not usually the hard work or challenges of the job that cause the exit.

Bus Drivers Hate IT People

..Or so it seems.

How often have we heard the warning "What if your key people get hit by a bus?" to talk about business continuance?

I've heard it so often that I have to wonder if there is a fleet of killer buses on the loose, just looking for network administrators, programmers, analysts, and all other kinds of IT people to run over. Why aren't the police doing anything about this? Why hasn't Peter Mansbridge made it headline story?

I'm going to let you in on two secrets... First, the killer bus doesn't exist (aside from some B-Grade Teen horror flick), and secondly, there are better ways to motivate your team into not running as islands of experts, where each person is intrinsically necessary to the running of the operation.  Remove one person, and the whole thing collapses.

There are lots of "I"s in "Team"

You've heard it a dozen times as a kid... usually at a low point in your life... like when the opposing team is crushing you and the coach is trying to motivate you, but his frustration shines through any encouragement.

"There's no I in TEAM"

As you advance in your career, and things are not going well, you could bet that someone drags out that "motivational" talk again.  At this point, some smarta** usually pipes up "But there is in WIN".

You advance some more, and you are now leading a team.  Things start to take a turn for the worse, and you hear that well worn phrase forming on your lips...

Give it up.  Banish this phrase from your vocabulary.

Teams need to work together. But teams are not composed of homogenous androgynous robotic people.

Marcus Buckingham, in his book "The One Thing You Need to Know" describes Leadership as the ability to motivate people around the things that are common to all, and Managing as working with individuals, and their unique blend of strengths and capabilities.

Your skill in recognizing and leveraging the core skills of your team will allow you to build a high performing group of individuals who work together to accomplish great things.

This book is full of great advice for IT leaders.  Highly Recommended.



T-Shirt Image from Zazzle.com

Getting Rid of the Pointy Haired Boss

First a disclaimer.  If I don't visit the barber fairly often, I do bear a striking resemblence to Dilbert's pointy haired boss.  That is the only way I resemble him.  But back to the posting.

I'll bet you thought that I was talking about your boss, right?  Wrong. I'm speaking to you (and me, too).

As you begin your career, you usually end up working for someone.  Sometimes it's great, other times, let's just say not.  Marcus Buckingham, in his book First, Break All the Rules mentions that people do not usually leave their company when they quit their jobs, they leave their manager.

Your career progresses.  You may come to the crossroads of decision.  Do I apply for that management role, or do I stay in "the trenches".  For many people in IT, the pressure of mortgages, kids, etc. tend to tip the skills in favour of the management role.  It's the only viable career track in many organizations.  Even if you are the best developer, or network admin in the company, you hit the salary ceiling.  If you want to make more money, you either rob a bank (not wise), leave the company, or become a manager.

It is this situation in my opinion that contributes greatly to the PHB (Pointy Haired Boss) syndrome.  There are a large number of skilled technical people suddenly faced with management tasks (i.e. HR, budgets, leadership, mediation, etc.) for which they have had little or no training.  Pity their former colleagues who now have to work for them!

The solution is really simple to say, but difficult to implement.  But just because it's hard, doesn't mean you shouldn't do it. (How many apostrophes can you put in one sentence? but I digress...).  There is no shortage of good material to help you frame your issues and find a solution.  I'll include some in future posts.

If you are a senior leader in your organization responsible for IT, you need to review the development of your managers.  Do they have the tools and skills to be successful?  If not, you may be the one modelling PHB behaviour.

Note: This posting was published as one of my entries in Computerworld Canada's Blogging Idol Contest.