I try to be fun, , , even funny , , , and at times, I’m extremely funny. The problem is that maybe no one else realizes it except my wife. She laughs at me all the time because she gets my sense of humor.

The challenge I have is that I have a very dry sense of humor. But I have a secret for you. If you ever met Tom Mochal, you would realize that I am extremely funny.

Just kidding, Tom.

You see, Tom and I both have a dry sense of humor. I can listen to Tom and pick up his very subtle humor, , , and when you “get it”, he is terribly funny, , , I mean very, very funny.

A few weeks ago I said something to my wife and son that literally “cracked me up”. I started laughing at my own comment and couldn’t stop. It was so funny, I was crying. No one else was laughing, but I was totally caught up with how funny this comment was.

Wish I could remember what it was, , , ,

Oh well, the point is that I learned about humor from my Dad and from my son, Eddie.  Daddy Gene (as we called him) and Eddie were born on the same day – November 23rd. Both of them had (my Dad) and have (my son) a great sense of humor. They truly understood how to enjoy life.

Most people who know me would say that I’m a pretty serious guy. Yeah, that fits, , , but there’s a Johnny Carson in me dying to get out and make everyone laugh.

My Dad taught me how to enjoy life to the fullest. He never had a lot of money but what he had was a love of life and the people around him. I’ve often thought he was one of the richest men alive because he enjoyed his life so much. As I get older, I’m hoping I become more and more like him.

I’m pretty certain I’m getting just a little funnier every year.

The lesson: Learn to love your life or make changes so you can. Life is too short to be miserable and not be able to enjoy each and every day. What you will find is that the people around you become more positive forces as well, , , and that’s a good thing for you and your IT organization.

Over 90% of us in IT are high detail people. That’s a good thing.

However, being a high detail person comes with some drawbacks that you need to be aware of.

One challenge is that high detail people tend to be perfectionists.

Now, when you are a Systems Administrator, a DBA, a Programmer, or some other type of technical resource, , , this high detail aspect is not only desired, , , it is necessary to a great extent. What happens if your Systems Administrator updates one of the servers and selects an inappropriate parameter setting? You got it, , , he or she can crash the server, , , so being precise is important in our technical roles.

As a manager, being precise can be a tremendous disadvantage.

Being precise means it may take too long to make a decision.

Being precise may mean no decision will be made until we have enough information, , , which may or may not ever be obtained.

Being precise may mean we do things right but fail to do the right thing, , , a big problem for an IT manager.

Be aware that if you are a high detail person, it may be appropriate and necessary for you to “pull it back” to a level when you become the manager. Now is the time to depend on others to wade into the detail and understand all the technical issues of a situation. Now is the time to manage and delegate, not to try to do everything yourself.

It’s difficult to back off your innate desire to get to the bottom of an issue and to be the problem solver like you have been for so many years, , , but if you don’t, your team and you will suffer.

Take a hard look at yourself and ask yourself the question, “Am I a perfectionist?” If so, make a conscious effort to let go of some of the detail and rely on the expertise of others you work with to be the experts. Your role as manager is to focus at an issue level, not necessarily the detail level.

CONGRATULATIONS, , , you finally received that promotion you have been looking for , , , smooth sailing ahead – right !!

Hopefully when you get promoted it will be smooth sailing and lots of opportunity ahead. But, it could also be a big challenge for you, , , especially if your promotion means you will be managing some of your peers.

Managing peers can be a huge challenge. When I was with IBM many years ago, they had a policy of moving you to another city when you got promoted because they understood how difficult it is to manage your peers.

That’s right, at the end of the week you are big buddies with everyone you work with but come next week when you start your newly assigned management role, things are going to be different.

Very Different !!!

The dynamics change drastically and they change immediately when you become the manager after being one of the employees. Whether you think so or not, your former buddies you worked alongside view you differently now. You are management, , , not “one of the guys”.

Most will be more cautious around you now, some may wonder why you got the job and what makes you qualified, and one or two might even be jealous that you got the promotion instead of them. Regardless of how they see the situation, they will react differently to you from now on, , , because you are the manager.

Now that you have the job, you have to be careful and avoid micro managing your employees. Most of us in IT are high detail and we like doing things “our way”. You may have gotten the Programming Manager position because you were the best programmer.

As the senior programmer, you probably had your way of doing things and was very effective. As manager, your tendency will be to require all programmers to do things the way you did them. I’m not saying this will be wrong but you need to have good reasoning when you make changes in the way things are being done, , , especially if the team is already effective.

You had credibility as a programmer, but you don’t have it as the manager, , , you must earn your management credibility. You do this by delivering results and in treating your employees and clients with respect.

I usually develop two strategies after completing an IT assessment.

First, a tactical strategy that entails the next 60-90 days, but could be up to 180 days (6 months). Once I get my staff focused on the “immediate” targets of our tactical plan, I begin working on developing the strategic IT plan.

The strategic plan is usually focused on the next 18-24 months unless my company wants something longer like a 3-year strategy or a 5-year plan. If that’s the case, my primary focus still tends to be on the first two years, , , and the strategy elements beyond two years get much more general in nature.

The reason I try to keep my IT strategies focused to two years is because you can see two years out, but technology is changing so fast that it can get pretty blurry beyond two years.

Think about this for a second. Look back to 2005, just five years ago. Lots of change and many innovations have occurred in the last five years, , , and technology continues to change at a faster and faster rate.

I have been in the IT world since 1969 and I can tell you that we take many things for granted. For example, most of you reading this article were not in IT before the spreadsheet. Prior to Excel and Lotus 1-2-3, it was Visicalc that revolutionized the accounting world by eliminating paper and pencil, , , and lots of erasers.

You might also be surprised to learn that we didn’t always have project management methodologies, let alone project management certifications like PMP thirty years ago.

Have you paid attention to the advances in PC and laptop technology? The power and capacity keeps going up while the price falls. The 300GB disk drive capacity alone in the Lenovo ThinkPad I carry around would have required some 6,000 square feet of floor space 30 years ago, , , and think of the heat all these disk drives created. In fact, one of the Division Headquarters of IBM actually heated its building from the heat created from the CPU’s, disk and tape drives that had less disk capacity than my laptop.

That’s right, many of the things we have today and take for granted had to be developed as new technologies, methodologies, and tools. What will be great about this is that in ten or twenty years from now, we will look back at what we have today and think we sure were struggling compared to what we will be able to do then.

Enjoy the fact that technology is doing so much to improve our lives, , , but be careful when you try to forecast or build your IT strategies beyond two years out.

If you are in the IT world for very long, you soon learn that things can go awry at times. You need to “expect the unexpected” and plan on what you would do if and when it occurs.

What I mean is that you should anticipate things will happen, , , because they will. Think about the scenarios of what can go wrong and plan your move in case it does so you are ready when it happens.

I’m not saying that you should spend all hours of the day worrying and thinking about what might happen, , , but you do want to give it at least a little thought. You will be much more prepared to react and take care of the problem when it occurs.

Let me give you a couple examples:

1. When I travel to teach an IT Manager Institute, I do two things to anticipate potential flight problems. First, I reserve a flight that gets me there on Saturday so I have an extra day (just in case) and it also allows me to rest and get adjusted to the local time. Many of my trips are 14 hour flights and more. Second, I take an earlier flight to Atlanta or wherever I must make my international connection. If the flight gets postponed or cancelled, I can always get the next flight and still get to the main airport to make my connection.
2. I built time buffer into my IT Manager Institute class, , , just in case we have a power outage or other mishap. In my 10th Institute in Curacao, that’s exactly what happened, , , a tropical storm knocked out the Marriott Hotel’s power and their backup generator. We had no power for half the day, , , but because I anticipated the possibility of such a thing, it was no issue in getting through all the material. 

When you manage projects, build budgets, install a system upgrade, etc., , , be sure to anticipate the things that might go wrong and put some buffer into your plan. When the unfortunate event does occur (and it will at some point), you will be glad you did.

Make it a habit to “expect the unexpected” and teach your employees to do the same. It will help you become a more responsive IT organization.

Expect the unexpected !!