When I was an individual contributor, I couldn’t wait to be a manager so I would be in a position to make all of the decisions for my department.  I thought I had some great ideas and really wanted to make a positive impact in my department and for the company. Then, when I became a manager, I realized that most of my annual budget was fixed and that all of my decisions of consequence, such as hiring people, giving promotions and staff assignments required the review and approval of my manager. So guess what?  I couldn’t wait to have my boss’s job because I thought when I was a manager of managers I would at last be in a position to make all of the decisions for the groups I managed.  Well, while it was true that I had a little more latitude to make decisions, I again found that most of my budget was still controlled by those above me and like before, needed permission from those more senior than I when making important decisions for the company. After all, even at this higher level of management, I still had a boss and I still had specific and defined levels of authority.  In fact, I found this to be true at almost all levels of management. The moral of this story is that you should understand, that like you, your manager has specific constraints within their job, limited decision-making authority, and limited ability to influence higher level decision makers. Understanding [...]

In the business world, a player/coach is an employee whose job description requires him/her to perform a combination of individual contributor and supervisory activities.  That is to say, you perform some hands-on tasks that are the same as the people who report to you. The role of player-coach is one of the hardest job types in business.  Some of the reasons for this difficulty are: Your time is divided between two very different responsibilities When a person’s job description and business tasks are divided between two roles, it’s very hard to do both well.  What generally happens is that each of the task types, in reality, require more than 50% of your time. Therefore, any time spent on one task, reduces the time needed to do well at the other.  From a player-coach perspective, this means if you spend too much time helping and supervising your staff you can’t get your work done. Alternatively, if you spend too much time on your individual tasks, you can’t properly manage your team. To be successful in this role requires two very different skill sets If you are a techie, a construction worker, a teacher, a nurse, or almost any other professional, the skills you are trained to perform are very different than the skill set needed to properly manage a team.  Since both skill sets are required to be successful in a player-coach role, weak skills in either area can put your entire job in jeopardy. Your team heavily scrutinized your delegation decisions As [...]

Do you have any tips on how to enhance the emails and other written communications I’m sending to my team, other people inside IT, and my non-IT counterparts and vendors?  The ones I’m writing now seem to leave people flat and uninspired. Let’s begin by discussing the importance of written communication. The standard party line for this topic is that the quality of the emails you write, the presentations you display, and the documents you create are a reflection of your professional ability, attitude, and attention to detail. Yes, this is all true. Let’s, however, expand this statement into the virtual world we now live and work in. The advent of email, Microsoft Teams, blogs, discussion boards, and social media in general has caused a resurgence, if not a rebirth, of the written word by everyday people. In the workplace this is magnified by the popularity of virtual teams spanning across the street, around the country, and around the world. As a result, many of the people you work with today, maybe even including your boss, you may never meet in person causing your main interpersonal communication to be totally phone, Zoom, and email based. There have been various studies that have said that a relatively small percentage of the communications between people are based on the word and that the majority of the communication is based on body language and voice tone. These studies range from 93% body language and non-verbal queues by James Borg to studies by others ranging from [...]

When my team and I talk with our business counterparts about our software development projects, they seem not to care.  How should I deal with this issue? As much as we love the technologies we use and how they work, most of our business users don’t.  Business users are, generally speaking, looking for solutions to their problems and not necessarily the behind-the-scenes technologies that make it work. That said, you will know you are talking too technically to your business users when: Their eyes glaze over and don’t seem to understand what you are talking about When they don’t ask you any follow-up questions regarding your articulately stated technical explanations When the users say “That sounds great, but what does this mean for me?” When the users just say “Great, thanks” with no added comment and then change the subject. Additional ways to know you’re talking too technically to your users is to: Watch the body language of the person you are talking to for visual cues that they are bored, uninterested, or totally lost Listen to their tone of voice to see if it sounds dismissive and they are trying to end the conversation The habit of speaking to business people too technically can be very career limiting.  From an IT management perspective, it’s great when the people in your group can communicate effectively with those outside of IT. Doing so, has the following benefits: Reducing the chance of miscommunications on an array of topics, including business requirements, resource planning, user [...]

My boss is a great person, but sometimes I can’t seem to get his attention and support for the things I think are most important for my department. Any suggestions on how influence my manager in this way? The first thing you must do to gain the support and ear of your manager is to be the best employee you can be. You must: Do quality work Embrace company values Meet your deadlines Play well in the organization’s political sandbox . . . and generally, be a true asset to your company With these things now in place you can influence your manager. That said, when reading these suggestions, note that you should choose your tactics wisely, based on your relationship with your manager, your department’s role within IT, and the culture of your organization in general. When you bring issues to your manager, also provide potential solutions and your suggested recommendation. With a well thought out recommendation in hand, you will very likely be able to correct the issue in the manner you wish. Try to view the world from your manager’s perspective. This will not only help you better understand your manager’s needs and wants, it will also help your professional growth should you wish, in time, to attain your manager’s position. Be transparent with your manager. Be equally willing to tell them about the good news as well as the bad news. This approach of sharing both good and bad news has many advantages including the following: It develops [...]