A “Knowledge Worker” can best be described as a person who works more with his/her mind than with his/her hands, uses trained judgment and creativity as part of his/her job, holds a job requiring a high level of education and professional expertise, and uses this acquired knowledge to perform needed tasks.  Professions that classically fall into this category are accountants, lawyers, doctors, computer programmers, analysts of all types, economists, consultants, engineers, and other similar job types. Managing these types of people can be both extremely rewarding and extremely frustrating based on your personal management style and/or the temperament of your knowledge workers. Regarding the temperament of your knowledge workers, assuming technical competence, their success or failure in a specific job tends to be based on the following factors: The relationship with their manager Their fit, from a personality perspective, with their coworkers Their manager’s ability to keep them mentally stimulated The job’s ability to meet their intellectual needs The manager’s willingness to allow them to use their expertise to make level-appropriate decisions, creative process improvements, and professional judgments Ability to enhance their professional stature, knowledge, and organizational position should they aspire to do so. Certainly the knowledge worker’s personality and job alignment with their skills and aspirations is a key factor, but don’t underestimate the role you play as their organizational leader.  As their manager, when looking at the above list, take note that many of the factors that drive their success, motivation, and job satisfaction is directly related to your ability [...]

Does your team have any informal traditions, such as annual get-togethers, monthly pot-luck dinners, or employee birthday cakes? Do you celebrate project completions with pizza parties? Do you have lost-the-deal pep talks and lessons learned meetings or any other type of event or action that helps your group feel like a team that cries together and celebrates together? If your answer was yes to one or more of the above questions, then you have most likely seen that these organizational traditions have real business value.  This value shows itself in a number of ways, including: An increased morale because people think fondly of previous events and look forward to future events Stronger interpersonal relationships between employees because they have had the opportunity to get to know each other a little better outside the business structures related to job-based task execution An enhanced sense of “team” because these events, by their nature, are communal ways to celebrate success and reduce the disappointments of failure A greater feeling of loyalty to the company in general, you as their manager, and their team (your department) because of their conceptualization of group belonging After reading though the above bullet points you may be thinking “So what, my group likes getting free pizza” or “Big deal, my employees get to know each other a little better.  I just want them to get their jobs done”.  The business value of these types of activities is not simply to give them free pizza, get them to feel like a [...]

One thing great about being a IT Manager is that, for the most part, you can delegate things you don’t like to do, or don’t do well, to the people that work for you.  I’ll give you a personal example of how I follow this concept.  I’m a terrible proof reader.  If I’m asked to proofread a document that has three typos in it, by the time I’m done, it has four typos.  Knowing this weakness, I always make sure there is someone on my team that enjoys and is very skilled at proofreading.  I truly envy people who have this ability; it’s just not in my skill set. I’ll give you a second example that is experience-based, rather than skill-based.  I started my profession as a computer programmer and over the years moved up through the software development ranks into senior Information Technology (IT) roles.  My specialty was always computer software, not computer hardware.  Therefore, when at an executive level and had both hardware and software reporting to me, I was always very careful to hire a very knowledgeable and competent hardware person to cover my lack of experience in that technical area. Regarding hiring to your strengths, it’s of course, extremely important to always hire great people. However, if you only hire people that are just like you, namely with your strengths, weaknesses, experience, and perspective then you open up yourself and your department to: Quality issues caused by overall skill set deficiencies Reduced possibility of innovation due to a [...]

There are times in life and at work when it makes sense to make a small sacrifice simply to benefit others. I was flying home on business from California to Massachusetts. By the luck of the draw, I was one of the first people on the plane and got a nice aisle seat near the front of the plane.  There I sat as person after person and suitcase after suitcase went by. As the plane filled almost to capacity, the only seats left were the middle seat in my row and the middle seat in the row diagonally ahead of me across the aisle. Then, on comes a man with his (about) six year old daughter.  The man motions to his daughter to sit in one middle seat across the aisle and then he begins to sit next to me.  Out of the corner of my eye I see this little girl looking longingly to sit next to her dad.  Her one look caused me to give up my aisle seat so that she could sit next to her father.  This middle seat I soon occupied was far less comfortable, but not unbearable, even given the length of the flight. I gave up my seat because I could see that she wanted to sit next to her father more than I wanted to site on the aisle.  In effect, I traded a little to give someone else a lot. My goal in telling you this story is not to show you that [...]

Who are the managers you have had in the past that have inspired your management style? The interesting thing about this question is that inspiration can come from many unexpected places. Have you ever had a great manager that you looked up to? As a child did you have a sports coach that you looked up to? Did you volunteer your time to a charitable, religious, or civic organization and are spellbound by the leadership’s ability to lead and inspire others? In many ways managing people is like raising children. That said, can you draw management inspiration from your mother and/or father? Did you have a high school teacher or college professor who changed your life? If you think it’s easy to properly manage a classroom, you should try it.  Like most things in life, it’s much harder than it appears. Is there a person in your life, such as a relative or friend, who you admire and try to emulate? Management inspiration can also come from negative experiences.  Have you ever had a manager who was indecisive, unorganized, professionally incompetent, uninterested, or just plain mean?  The reason it’s very appropriate to learn from your worst managers is because it teaches you what not to do.  Working for a really poor manager teaches you what it feels like to report to this type of person.  Chances are you don’t want your team to look at you the way you look at and think about your less than desirable managers. The reason that [...]

There are two great reasons I decided to write a blog on this topic. The first is that the combination of good manners, respect for those you work with, and showing appreciation to those who work for you is not only good taste, but it’s also good business.  The second great reason for me writing this column is that it will make my mother proud.  Yes mom, all those years ago as a kid I was listening, thank you. From a business perspective, good manners, respect for your colleagues, showing appreciation and being good to those working for you each brings its own advantages. Good manners to all those you work with, including vendors, peers, your staff, customers, and those above you organizationally help you build a high quality professional brand of being a team player and someone of character.  There is an old expression that gets to the heart of the matter on this topic. It says you get more bees with honey than with vinegar.  You should be nice to people because it’s the right thing to do, but also feel free to reap the benefits and rewards that common courtesy can help bring. Showing respect to the people working with you is also the right thing to do, but, like good manners, in the long run can be much to your advantage, or at least not to your disadvantage. Early in my career I worked with a person, we’ll call him Joe, who for some reason didn’t like the [...]

From a strategic thinking perspective, diversity in the workplace is a true blessing. Let me explain this statement by first defining strategic thinking, then describing my definition of diversity, and then explain the magical connection between the two. I consider strategic thinking to be the process of defining the successful future state of an existing issue, topic, or direction.  As a contrast, I consider strategic planning to be the process of defining a plan to bring you from the current state to the successful future vision created via a strategic thinking exercise. I consider diversity as being the differences between people in a way that provides different perspectives, philosophies, perspective on the world, values, and thinking processes.  These differences could be based on ethnic background, gender, age, professional discipline, level of education, life experience, and any other factor that makes someone unique. I’m quite confident that almost everyone who reads this column has heard the expression “Two heads are better than one”.  At its essence, this is the basis for the value of diversity.  Two heads bring two different perspectives, thus allowing the problem at hand to be analyzed in two different ways. Now let us expand on this two heads are better than one theory.  Let’s say that you have ten people on your staff, with the following types of diversity: People in their 20’s through their 70’s and beyond Some men and some women Three different religions Various ethnicities including Hispanic, Caucasian, African American, Asian, and Indian Some born in [...]

There are many quotes and sayings that strongly suggest or quietly allude to how you think about things today can have a profound effect on your future reality.  These sayings include: “Whether you think you can, or you think you can't--you're right.” (Henry Ford) “The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.” (Eleanor Roosevelt) "In the long term the most important question for a company is not what you are but what you are becoming." (Gary Hamel) "The best way to predict the future is to create it." Peter F. Drucker What these quotes and quotes like them teach us is that each one of us has great power to shape our personal futures, the future of the companies we run, and potentially, the future of the department we manage within the company were we are employed. As an IT Manager within a company, big thinking is relative to the current state of your department, and your department’s role within the company. Thinking big may be something as seemingly simple as reducing processing errors, increasing productivity by a specified percent, or providing your customers with an incremental improvement in customer service.  It could also be something as grandiose as helping to accelerate company growth or implement a major reduction in processing costs.  The important thing is that the goal you select stretches the people in your department in a way that is: Challenging, but realistic to attain Conceptually appropriate, given your department’s charter Something of true value [...]

The idea of spending time “on” and “in” your IT department is best described using the example of a small one-person consulting firm specializing in management consulting.  Like most small companies, the owner, has two primary responsibilities; first, generating revenue by doing hands-on consulting and second, trying, to find future consulting assignments.  The problem is that if you try to maximize your revenue by spending all your time working on your current client, when your consulting engagement ends, you don’t have your next client lined up.  Alternatively, if you spend too much time marketing, you run the danger of not properly servicing your current client and/or reducing your billability. Department managers have a similar dilemma.   That is to say, if you spend too much time ”In” your department working on tasks performed within the department, you don’t have time to properly manage your staff and/or perform manager-level tasks such as salary planning and budgeting.  Alternatively, if you spend too much time “on” your department, performing general management functions, then you run the risk of not properly managing your staff. One of the hardest things for self-employed consultants and first-line managers is to properly divide their time between these two types of activities.  This phenomenon is doubly true if the manager is in a player/coach type role where he/she officially has both managerial and individual contributor type responsibilities. Some of the reasons that this balance is hard to achieve are: The pressure to complete department tasks on time and under budget prevents you [...]

As IT Managers, we wear many hats, including delegator, commander, disciplinarian, leader, decision maker, facilitator, and role model.  Great managers, however, are also teachers, providing instruction and insights to their staff on topics such as: Job specific skills Navigating company politics Leadership skills Interpersonal skills Professional growth and career advancement Life skills, when asked for personal advice Incorporating teaching into your management style has many advantages for your company, your staff members, and you personally. Regarding the advantages to the company, teaching your staff is a triple win.  First, improving the skills of your staff can enhance company morale, boost productivity, increase quality, and reduce employee attrition.  Second, as your staff becomes more highly skilled, due to your tutelage, they increase the company’s bench strength as new projects and challenges arise.  Third, you may be the manager, but you are still an employee. Hence, the more you learn by teaching, the more valuable you become to the company in regard to future promotions. Regarding the advantages to your staff, they’re learning new job skills, gaining insights on navigating their professional careers, have the benefit of working in a nurturing environment, and are enhancing their future professional marketability. The advantages to you personally include: You learn by teaching. The reason you learn when teaching a topic is because students’ questions cause you to consider things from different perspectives, this giving you deeper insights into the topic/subject you are teaching.  Also, teaching makes you break down tasks into steps so you can explain them [...]