ITLever™

It’s 6:31pm my time as I sit down to write this post, , , the end of a long week. I look forward to a nice weekend.

I have a question for you, “What did you get accomplished this week?”.

Do you ask yourself this question from time to time? If not, maybe you should. I don’t know if you have ever gone through a week where you logged the activity of each day, , , hour by hour. If you do, you might be amazed at where your time goes. It was an eye opener when I went through such an exercise.

Self reflection is a good thing as long as you don’t over do it.

Here are some questions you might ask yourself about how your week went:

• How much time did you spend on email this week?
• How much of your week was spent in meetings?
• How much time was spent at lunch?
• Did you spend any time coaching or developing your employees?
• Was there any time spent developing your own skills?
• How much time was spent at work versus at home?
• What was the percentage of time you could truly call productive?
• Would your boss think your time was well spent?
• What would you do differently in retrospect?
• Did you work on that personal project or did you not get to it, , , again?

Learn about where and how you spend your time so you can weed out the “lost time”. If you are like most, you probably lose quite a bit of productive time.

I completed an IT due diligence project (a technology assessment) one time, and I discovered something very special – a company with a tremendous “cooperative spirit”.

The culture in this company was focused on the client and everyone I talked to had a strong sense of client service and purpose in helping one another do the  best job possible.

All too often, hard charging managers and senior technical people are competitive and allow this to become a weakness versus a strength. It’s good to be competitive, but not when it prevents a sincere sense of being helpful to others in the company.

Winning is about the customer winning and not about your organization or team member winning. If the customer isn’t successful, believe me when I say that we won’t be successful as an IT organization.

Your client may be an outside client or an internal organization. Regardless of who it is, there are going to be challenges and pressures placed on your ability to support that client effectively. When these pressures arise, meet them head on with a positive and “cooperative” spirit.

Look for win-win opportunities where everyone comes out of a difficult situation in a positive way. Certainly, the outcome may not be the optimal for you personally or your team, but when both parties win after confrontational issues arise, they start helping one another down the road.

If you have ever worked in a company with a cooperative spirit, you know just how great it is. People helping one another during the good times and the tough times builds camaraderie like you can’t believe.

Approach your most difficult client in a sincere desire to help and drop the idea that you always have to win. This isn’t easy to do – believe me, it is very difficult for me as I like winning and winning is a lot more fun than losing.

Work harder to help others and be a “giver” rather than a “taker”. You will find that your successes become more consistent, and it is very difficult for clients or other managers in your company to create conflict with you when you are genuinely doing things that helps them.

It all starts with you as the IT manager. Don’t expect your client to take the first step. If there is a bad relationship, it’s up to you to fix it. You won’t fix it by fighting and trying to get the upper hand so that you end up winning. You may win the battle but the real issue is to have a positive long term business relationship where everyone wins. We are the ones who must reach out to the other party.

The company’s employees I referred to know why they exist. Their operation exists to help their clients do a better job through the technology and services being provided by the company. It is a culture that starts with senior management and is reinforced by every manager in the company.

This doesn’t mean there are no problems to deal with; they have their fair share to be sure. But the impressive thing is that they are focused on doing what’s right by the client and taking the extra step to ensure the work gets done in quality manner. That means working together.

In every company there are organizations that have natural conflicts with one another as they do their job. In many cases, operational units need more than their IT organization can provide. Frustration builds and barriers are built between the organizations. As managers, we have to recognize these tendencies and prevent our organizations from working against one another.

What can we do to create a cooperative culture ?

• Be a “giver”.

• Develop employee performance plans and reward your people for behavior that “gives” rather than “takes”.

• Reach out to department managers you are having conflict with. Develop a mutual respect for each others role and work toward the common good of the client. Most of us are reasonable when we encounter genuine approaches from people trying to work together.

• Lead by example. Your people will follow your lead. Be aware of the impact you have by your action, comments, and behavior.

• Seek senior management’s help in supporting activities that reinforce a cooperative spirit. They can mandate that everyone work together, but that won’t make it happen. However, their proactive support and positive reinforcement can help make it a reality.

• Realize that changing culture takes time. Be persistent and give the change time to happen.

• Seek win-wins and realize that it’s more important for your client to win the early issues as long as you both can win in the long run.

Help create a cooperative spirit in your organization to start with and extend it out to other departments in your company. Lead by example and coach your employees on the benefits of helping one another.

One of the expressions I have used a lot is, “We will all be successful together; none of us will be successful individually.”

Teamwork is built on cooperative spirit.

Help others every day and you will find that they will begin helping you become more successful than you might believe possible. I can attest that in my personal life and business, the more I help others the more I seem to succeed.

There are many situations where you need to validate the facts before running with unsubstantiated information. It will keep you out of trouble, will prevent you from making big mistakes, and will keep the mud off your face.

I’ve had to learn some of these things the hard way. In fact, anyone got a clean washcloth so I can wipe my face?

Seriously though, here are a few areas to consider getting your facts straight before acting:

A.  Hiring people –  Always verify the resume information. Anyone can create a great looking resume.

B.  Complaints about people –  Bickering among employees is going to happen. Be sure you verify the specific issues before taking action; you may find that the circumstances are misstated or that there is misunderstanding of the facts.

C.  Selecting vendor products and services –  Verify what the vendor is telling you, especially for mission critical functionality or capability. Their customers will be able to shed light on whether the Vendor can deliver and how well they support their client. Ask for more than just two or three happy clients to talk to. Ask to talk to unhappy clients as well; they may tell you things that help you become a successful client of the Vendor.

D.  Complaints about clients –  Your employees may complain about external clients or company departments. Unless you know the specifics beneath their complaints and have an opportunity to verify these issues really exist, it is premature to try to implement corrective action. I’ve seen too many situations where the IT staff needed to make an improvement or change to allow the client to work with them effectively.

E. “Senior management doesn’t want that !” –  There are often situations of the past that were issues where senior management required certain things that no longer exist in today’s environment of the company. What often happens is that the “rumor” that senior management “doesn’t want that” continues to perpetuate itself. An example is that I  was in a company where everyone understood that senior management did not allow an overhead paging system. However, when the CEO was asked about it, he replied, “That was when our entire office was one small floor of people and we did not want to interrupt client visits with overhead pages, etc. Today, we are on multiple floors, even in different buildings. If implementing a paging system for our support units helps us support our clients better, then we should implement it by all means.”

F. Client complaints about IT – You need to be careful about taking complaints about IT from a client as 100% solid fact. I joined a company once where several managers in the corporate office suggested I needed to fire one of the IT employees. After looking into the situation, the issue was that there was a significant lack of resource to support our client needs, , , it was not at all a problem with this resource. Once we got the resource capacity in line with the client need, the complaints about this particular employee went away.

The point
The message with all of this is that you need to validate the facts, get specific input to analyze, etc. before taking action. Issues can be very misleading until you get underneath them. You may also find that it is well off the mark due to misinterpretation, a lack of doing the necessary work to discover the real facts of the issue, or even a prejudice or emotional feeling that is coming from the source of the information.

All I can tell you is that when you conduct an IT assessment, you have to listen to the message everyone delivers, but verify the facts before deciding on any action. It will help you be far more successful, , , and “keep the mud off your face”.

A major challenge for many IT managers is being able to make the transition from a technology expert to a business manager. The requirements and skills of being one of the technology resources in your company versus managing technology resources is entirely different.

It certainly helps to have a technical understanding, but when you start managing you cannot afford the time and energy to remain the expert. The best advice I can give anyone is to “leave your technology competence behind and focus on managing”.

Before you start sending me ugly email messages, let’s qualify this statement a bit. I’m not saying you need to forget everything you know about technology. I’m also not saying that you should stop learning about new technologies. This base of technical understanding will be invaluable in your future management efforts.

What I am saying is that to be an effective manager of an infrastructure support group or a programming support organization does not mean you have to continue to be the expert in those technologies. In fact, unless you have to be the “player-coach” role in your company (often required in a small company), you better decide to let your team play the “technology expert” role.

I speak from experience on this subject. Transitioning out of my technical role to a manager was very difficult for me as it is for so many new IT managers. Fortunately, I had a few senior managers who helped me understand the need to make the change and mentored my development.

You see, as the technology expert your success comes from what you are personally able to do to help the client or the company. The challenge is that you tend to carry this mindset with you when you become the manager.

Not a good thing.

It was an eye opener when my CEO explained to me that it was, “far more important in what I could get the team to achieve than what I could do on my own”. I probably should have known this and most likely did know it intuitively. However, it hits home when your boss explains it to you.

more important in what you can
get the team to accomplish
than what you can accomplish alone

The bottom line is this: If you are spending your time trying to stay current with technology, you are probably not doing the things you need to do to be an effective manager.

Managers need to focus on things such as:

• planning
• coaching
• mentoring and developing employees
• understanding business and user needs
• developing strategies
• inspecting

Management is a full time job. I have only seen a couple of people who I thought were able to maintain their technical expertise and also manage their organization at a high level. Guess what, they were both in very small companies and had no choice.

When you become a manager, it’s extremely important to develop business skills, leadership and management skills, planning skills, and communication skills than ever before. Fail to do this and you will limit your success.

One of the reasons there is such a gap between what IT organizations focus on versus what their companies need is because many IT managers, even CIO’s, continue to focus on the expertise they developed as a technology resource. A person who now has the full IT responsibility for a small company must make the transition to learn about the other facets of his technology support responsibility, , , these other parts may be more important for the company.

For example, if your background is infrastructure, you need to learn more about the business and the critical business applications, the processes to make application programming changes effectively, Help Desk operations, etc.

If you allow yourself to stay primarily focused on the infrastructure, your company will probably have a stellar infrastructure and data center; but critical components of your company’s technology that reside in support of the user and client will be lacking. The result will become very clear and fairly soon – you will not be successful focusing only on infrastructure.

In my early management days, I was authoritative, did much of the work myself, and was controlling. Looking back, I know how bad that must have been for some of my employees. It was caused by inexperience, possibly a lack of confidence at times, and simply not knowing there was a better way.

The “not knowing” part is what causes the IT-business needs gap most of the time. Learn how to assess needs and issues, plan and prioritize those issues, manage projects effectively, and motivate and develop your staff so they can succeed and you will achieve much more success.

The reason I started writing the IT Manager Series books was because I could relate so well to the difficulty many managers have in making the transition to a true manager role. Having the title doesn’t mean much to your staff if you don’t do the things to lead the organization and help them be successful.

Your staff and clients all need some of the same things. They want to know your technology vision, how you plan to get there, and they need confidence that your plan is achievable. Senior executives need to know that your initiatives are cost effective and will provide real value to the company.

In other words, “Are we doing the things that give us the best value for our technology investment?”.

How do you go about making the transition easier?

First, find a mentor or coach in someone who recognizes the challenge and who has had to make that transition themselves.

Second, attend classes that focus on the management fundamentals of managing technology resources. Obviously, I believe my classes to be some of the best in the industry and highly recommend them. Do some research and find educational help that can “short cut” your learning curve. It will pay you dividends in your career and help your company get more from its IT investment.

Third, read as much material on the subject of managing technology as you can. We should never stop learning. When we do, it’s time to retire and just watch the grass grow.

Fourth, approach learning about management and leadership with the vigor and enthusiasm you had when learning a new technology. Both are disciplines that we can all be competent in, but we will never be competent unless we make a personal investment to learn what we do not know. In my case, it was just as much of a matter of not realizing I didn’t know something as anything.

Have you ever had a “light bulb flash” moment? That’s what happens when you learn why something happens a certain way with a particular technology. It’s also exactly what happens when you see the cause and effect of implementing a new management concept that you were not aware of. It can be a true “eye opener”.

MDE can help in several ways:

Our 41st & 42nd IT Manager Institute will be held in September in Nashville, TN and Honolulu, HI in October. If you can’t attend, the Self Study version is always available. This program follows my proprietary IT Management Process and includes my complete library of management books and tools. It is by far the best price value of anything you will find in the industry in developing sound IT operational management skills. Take a look at www.mde.net/institute .

MDE consulting services provides several options – see www.mde.net/consulting:

• Management mentoring program
• Management evaluations and development program
• Delivery of customized management training at your company
• IT due diligence and assimilation projects

My fourteen books and IT Manager ToolKit were developed to provide IT managers practical insight on what to do to be successful, instruction on how to go about it, with tools and examples to help you implement each concept quickly. They are quick reads and have received high marks from managers in over 120 countries.  Information is available at www.mde.net/cio .

Summary
Focus your energy as a new manager in learning how to become an effective manager. Just because you were an outstanding technology resource has no bearing as to whether you will become a successful IT manager. Key things you want to learn will be:

• Your business and the technology drivers of its industry
• How to assess needs and quantify issues that relate to technology support
• How to develop a vision and plan (strategy)
• Project management is key – learn how to manage projects and deliver on your promises
• How to motivate and develop your team
• How to communicate with clients, managers, users, and employees effectively
• How to manage change and implement change management processes
• How to create a client service focus and culture
• How to deal with a problem client or user
• How to manage expectations – possibly the most critical skill you must have

Actually, I believe life is more than fair but it’s all about what you make of what you have to work with.

What made me think about this topic is my golf game and the results of the Hohenwald Invitational Golf Tourney we played in this weekend. Four of us have played in this annual event for well over 20 years. Chris Cantrell and Chris Ideker (the two in the middle of our team photo below) always team up against Larry Johnson and me.

(Larry Johnson, Chris Cantrell, Chris Ideker, Mike Sisco)

Larry and Chris C. are by far the best golfers although I used to be able to give them a run for their money until I stopped playing more then a few rounds a year. Been playing more this year but the results haven’t shown up yet, , , need more practice I think. Well, actually I know that’s the case.

It takes work to do anything well and golf is no exception. I’ve put in more time for golf this year but the last 20 years of very little play have coated on some thick layers of rust, , , and then there’s the fact that I’m not as young and flexible as I once was.

Still, I see a few positive signs from time to time, a good drive here, , , a couple of good iron shots to the green, , , a few nice putts. Soon, we will put a good round together if I keep on working.

Results of this weekend
Larry and I ended up paying Chris and Chris $3.00 so they get bragging rights for a whole year – OUCH! Our scores were not great but we had a great time as we always do, , , and after all, that’s the whole point. Larry and I have won three years in a row so it was time for the “other team” to rebound. If Larry’s partner (that’s me) had played well we would have taken the crown another year.

• Larry J.      77  –  72      149
• Chris C.      71  –  79       150
• Mike S.       85  –  78      163
• Chris I.       87  –  90      177

Weekend highlights
There were many actually, but none like last year when Larry made a hole-in-one. That was special.

• Chris C. posts 3-under for the first 9 and 71 for the first day
• Larry J. shoots 3-under for first 9 of Day-2 and 72 for the day
• Chris I. hits his best shots from back tees of #1 with a crowd watching
• Mike S. ends Day-2 with two birdies and looks to next year

Remember my post earlier this year about “Make a decision: Get in the game or get out”? Well, I have been playing and practicing to improve my golf game and even though I hit the ball poorly most of the weekend, there were some “all world” up and downs from just awful places, , , places you don’t want to go on this golf course. And, there were a few good tee shots and iron shots, , , not many mind you, , , but a few.

The good news is that I broke 80 for the first time this year and did it twice, , , the practice round on Friday and then again on Sunday. That’s under 80 even when hitting the ball pretty bad, , , so there is light at the end of the tunnel and more fun to come. And hold the presses, I shot even par 36 on the last nine holes.

This same principle works for managers, you know. Even when you perform poorly, there can be parts or moments that you can look to as making positive progress, , , you may just have to look for it. The key is to maintain a positive outlook and think of the good things to come. We become what we think, , , and I’m convinced that I’ll shoot under par once again. I’m a long way from that right now but it’s going to happen.

So, the morale of this story is, , , believe in yourself, put the necessary work in to prepare yourself, and persevere through the struggles that you will likely have during your journey. It would be nice if steady improvement was a straight line, but it usually isn’t. Be prepared for some falls along the way, but if you keep working at it, the goal you seek will ultimately be achieved.

If you had told me I would shoot 78 the way I hit the ball yesterday, I would have laughed. What’s even funnier is that it would have been 2 shots better (76) if I had just tapped in two putts, but I was so disgusted I mishit two backhand tap-ins. Took the extra strokes and went on.

The most positive thing of this weekend is that even though I struggled terribly, I never gave up and called it quits. I truly tried on every shot (except for those two backhanded tap-ins).  🙂  🙂

Take the lesson I learned from all of this in that often you are actually doing better than you think you are. Most of us in IT are high detail people and we can be our own worst critics, , , something we all need to work on.

Give yourself a  break and stop being such a perfectionist. Perfection rarely happens, and you don’t need to be perfect to do extraordinarily well in life and career.

My wife will read this post later and I can already hear what she will say, “Mike, you need to take some of your own advice.”

Hit ’em long and straight !!

There is a great debate within the IT ranks, , , ever wonder which side you are on?

The debate about whether the IT Manager should be technically competent or not has been going on since the first commercially available computer systems hit the scene in the 1960’s. This is not a debate fought in the “public eye” so many people aren’t aware it occurs in companies every day.

The debate is simple and there are definitely two different opinions in this one:

1.   The manager must be technically competent to know what the technology resource can do and how to manage such a person effectively.

“You can’t manage someone effectively if you can’t walk in his/her shoes.”

2.   The manager does not need to be technically competent in the technology to be an effective manager of resources supporting the technology.

“You can’t stay technically proficient and manage effectively at the same time.”

Let’s address my position on the issue right up front. I am a “non-technical” manager. That means that I’m not an expert on systems, networks, or business applications. However, I am definitely technically oriented and was once proficient with certain technologies.

I now know how to identify issues that exist in a company’s technology and how to prioritize the project initiatives that need to take place to mitigate risk and to provide real value for the company.

In my opinion, the best IT managers are business oriented first and foremost and know how to apply technology resources to address company issues cost effectively. That’s who I am. Early in my career I was a technology expert on certain business applications and computer systems and liked the role very much.

You will never find me learning how to do data entry in a business application or to configure a Cisco (no relationship, , , and they spelled it wrong) router in a network.

As a CIO or an IT Manager, that’s not the value the company needs to get from me. My job as the manager is to organize and focus the resources on the issues that give the company the greatest payback for its technology investment. When you consider IT expenses usually run anywhere from 1% to as much as 10% or more of the company’s revenue, it is a big price tag for most companies.

You might be confronted by a “senior programmer” or “senior network administrator” as their new IT Manager or CIO.  They may challenge you in that you don’t have the right credentials to manage their group. I can assure you that you don’t have to be a programmer or a network specialist to manage those type of people effectively.

In fact, being a technical expert will actually hinder you in a manager role.

You don’t have to be a technical expert to be able to identify issues that cause risk or that offer potential savings for your company. Experience, a solid understanding of the business operation and the industry, plus knowing how to achieve a true Return on Investment (ROI) are much more valuable than knowing the inside workings of an operating system or how the router works when you are in a management position.

The manager needs to know how to find the experts and focus them on the appropriate priorities, not do the job.

Don’t get me wrong, I believe in staying current with what’s taking place in technology. It’s changing more rapidly than ever before and every IT manager needs to stay current to some extent with the issues of the day.

Keeping up with what’s happening doesn’t mean continuing to be the expert. There simply isn’t enough time.

One of the best pieces of advice I got as a young manager was that to be effective, “You have to let go of the technology and the desire to be proficient in it when you become a manager. If you don’t let go, you aren’t spending the time or making the effort you need to in your management responsibility.”

Managing people and organizations is an entirely different discipline than being a technology expert. One of the problems technology organizations have everywhere is that too many managers are focusing on the technology and not on the business. That’s why you hear so much about “technology needing to be properly aligned with the business” these days.

A few years ago I conducted an IT assessment in a small manufacturing company. The proposal being presented to the CEO was a $350,000 upgrade to improve the company’s network. He called me in to take an objective look because he wasn’t certain it was an appropriate investment.

Key findings in my assessment were:

• the network had up time of 99.9% for the past 3 years
• the data center was immaculate
• the company had recently reduced its number of employees by 18% by consolidating operations to adjust to economy impacts
• the department managers were very unhappy with business application support and Help Desk

Are you getting the picture? The IT manager was a former network administrator and probably a very good one. The problem was that his focus was on the network technology that he understood, not on what the company needed. He was spending too much time dealing with technology and not enough time in understanding the business issues and needs.

The morale of the story is that we saved the company hundreds of thousands of dollars in a two week assessment and refocused IT on issues that had real value for the company. I’m all for spending and making investments in technology, but only when it provides value.

My recommendation is that when you have the opportunity to manage technology resources, focus in on the skills of management, understanding what the business needs and how to get things accomplished through your people. Let go of the need to be technically proficient.

If being the technology expert is what you like, great, , , take that path and you will probably be a lot happier and more effective.

The debate goes on, , ,

This is a good question and an issue that comes up quite often.

You could panic, , , but there is a better option.

Let’s break it down a bit.

First, when you submit a budget it’s important to list the business assumptions you are basing the budget upon. This includes any special project initiatives that you think you will be working on in the coming “operational year”.

It’s normally impossible to know everything you will be working on so in most cases you should build in a few “buffers” to cover the surprises that you are inevitably going to run into in the coming year. I’ve never managed an IT operation when there were no surprise projects to pop up and had to be taken care of.

Quantifying your assumptions and building in a certain amount of buffer for the extra things that will come up is your best safeguard.

Second, if you have done a good job in quantifying your assumptions and have buffer, you may be able to absorb the new project and still make your plan. If it will cause you to exceed the plan (spend more than the budget), you need to manage senior management’s expectations in that such a project was not planned for and it will require several things, one of which is redeploying resources to focus on the unplanned project.

As soon as you can, you should quantify the incremental cost of the project and the extent it will cause you to exceed your budget and lay it out for management to see both the resource impact and the budget impact.

The new project issue may be something the company would prefer not to do but has no choice (like a regulatory issue that has come up). Helping senior management understand the cost and resource implications helps them manage to the company’s overall budget and positions you in a light of “business manager” and not just the “technical manager”. In doing this you are also trying to ensure they understand that the original project plans you were going to accomplish are affected by this new project requirement.

In my IT Management Models book there is a model called the 5-pound sack. In this model, it explains that your IT organization has a certain amount of capacity. How the capacity is used can be changed and you can even find several ways to add more capacity. But you can’t add capacity for long periods of time without adding more resource without causing morale issues.

If the company requires you to take on a large unplanned project and your commitments are already a “fully loaded 5-pound sack”, something has to give.

Managing resource availability is very similar to managing budget dollars. The key is that you have to manage other people’s expectations as to what is realistic and enlist their help in determining the best way to use the resources when “key projects” compete for limited resources (either staff, equipment, or budget dollars).

Finally, let’s assume you have no buffer in your plan. Your efforts still must be focused to managing senior management’s expectations and that there will be a trade-off of resources and budget dollars to focus on the new project.

In IT, we don’t really care where we are focusing our teams as long as senior management considers it to be in the best interest of the company and provides best value for their IT investment. As a CIO, I will certainly help direct where these resources can be best utilized but ultimately my mission is to serve the company’s needs so I answer to my customer – the senior management of the company and department heads who manage the resources utilizing the technologies of the company.

If you are caught off guard (something that rarely happens when you do a good job of quantifying your budget business assumptions and you have strategically inserted a few key buffers that will offset many such surprises), you will need to quantify the new project as quickly as possible in terms of resource needs, existing project implications, and cost. Before you have all  the information, start setting the appropriate people’s expectations that you believe there are budget implications and impacts to current project plans.

When you have determined the specific impacts, sit down with the appropriate people to explain the impacts this new project will have on current plans. In this meeting you should lay out the implications, offer suggestions for possible alternatives in managing the issue to minimize budget impact or planned project impact, etc.

Your senior management team can help you arrive at a decision as to what are the best options to take or will take the issue offline to gather more information to determine what’s best for your company in meeting overall objectives.

One of the best ways to minimize these types of impacts is to develop a strategic plan where you identify all the major project initiatives planned for the next year. This helps you manage senior management’s expectations and is tremendous help when budgeting your IT organization for the following year.

This weekend starting today, I plan to take three days off from my business to play in the annual Hohenwald Golf Club Invitational golf tournament. It’s a 9-hole course where I grew up and learned to play golf. I have hundreds of great memories there including a double eagle on #9.

Four of us have played in this tournament together for many years (26 or 27 years we think), and we have a great time. It is one of the few times we can get together each year and the fun we have has some great benefits.

I work on most days including weekends because I truly enjoy what I’m doing at my company. Even so, it is important to find the time to “remove yourself” from the business and just get away for a few days. If you don’t you run the risk of “burn out”.

We all need to “recharge” our bodies and minds at times to keep ourselves positioned for maximum performance. All work and no play will ultimately become a burden and when that happens we start losing interest, our focus isn’t as good, and ultimately our productivity and results of our work are diminished.

It is vitally important for each of us to take some time to have fun in life if we are to be solid contributors over a long stretch of time. I must admit that it is easier for me to say this than to practice it at times. My office is in my home and unless I’m on the road teaching one of my classes, I’m usually in the office developing new content or taking care of business.

Having my office in my home has many benefits (no commute, flexibility, etc.), but it also has some drawbacks as well (the work is always right there). Unless I force the issue, you might find me in my office for days without ever leaving because I literally get so involved in what I’m doing. My wife jokes with me at times and suggests that she sees less of me now than when I used to commute to an office every day. I’m fairly certain she is exaggerating, but I do tend to put in a lot of hours.

Enough about me, but I hope you are starting to pick up the essence of my message.

There are two things you should always try to do when managing a staff of technology people:

1. Require people to take at least two weeks off every year for vacation and get them out of the office.
2. Create a “fun” atmosphere at work.

Getting people’s productivity to a high level is dependent upon them enjoying their work to a certain extent and definitely in their being able to enjoy their work environment. Create an unhappy, miserable work environment and productivity is going to be low.

Creating an enjoyable work environment doesn’t mean that you require less of your staff. It’s about how you go about the work, showing appreciation for individual and team efforts, and staying focused on issues that make a real difference for your company. Winning organizations do certain things very well:

• Succeed in their objectives
• Work as a team
• Maintain positive attitudes
• Deliver high levels of client service

An unhappy staff does not stay focused nor will they go “the extra mile” to support your client. A staff that is not motivated and does not work as a team essentially does only what it takes to get by. That type of attitude is a cancer that eats away at your team’s productivity and true potential.

In looking back at my 30-plus years of working in a technology environment, I can tell you that my fondest memories are when I was part of a winning team. Every one of those teams were focused and had fun together. Winning is contagious and helps promote teamwork and more successes.

The journey is just as important as reaching the destination.

What I mean by this is that when you can create a fun environment where people enjoy what they are doing, the process of achieving the result makes it much more worthwhile. It also creates a self sustaining environment where you position your team for more successes.

As you get older, you begin looking closer at the “quality of life” you have. At some point, most of us will simply not work in an environment if we don’t enjoy it. Life is simply too short to be miserable in our job, , , so we look elsewhere.

What can you do to create a “fun” environment?

1.  Define your targets –  Your employees need to know what the objectives are just as much as your clients need it.

2.  Communicate with your staff –  Your IT staff hungers to know what’s going on, how they are doing, , , and they look to their manager to keep them informed. Take every opportunity to communicate regularly with your employees. I use several methods and recommend all of them for you to use:

• Monthly staff meetings
• Team meetings
• Project meetings
• Individual coaching sessions
• Employee performance planning and review sessions
• Walking around and “visiting” your employees in their area

Not only will these sessions motivate your staff and gain their loyalty, it gives you such a great opportunity to stay close to what’s going on in the organization and stay in touch with your employees.

3.  Invest in your employees –  Technical people want to learn more and develop their skills. This is one of the strongest motivators you have, even more so than salary. Most of our technical employees respond well when they know you are investing in them and developing their skills to help improve their capabilities.

4.  Coach employees for better performance –  Help your employees achieve more success by coaching them on what it takes to be more successful. Be positive and constructive, never criticizing.

5.  Reward positive behavior –  Rewarding the behavior that leads to success will cause other employees to follow that lead. We all want to succeed and when we see what gets rewarded, we will try to make it happen for ourselves.

6.  Be a positive force –  Employees watch your actions and attitudes. Maintaining a positive outlook even under difficult circumstances helps your team stay positive.

7.  Appreciate your staff –  Be genuine in your appreciation of your IT staff’s efforts. They can sense whether you are sincere or not. Caring for people and their success is a strong element in creating loyalty. Loyal employees will go the extra mile for you and the team, but it’s a two-way street. Give true appreciation and you will receive much better efforts.

8.  Initiate “fun” activities –  Do things to break up the day to day grind and routine. One of the fun things I always liked to do was to bring in boxes of ice cream sandwiches or popsicles and pass them out in the afternoon. Little things like this are inexpensive, easy to do, and show that you care about your employees, , , plus if you like ice cream like I do it really is fun.

9.  Take your vacation and require employees to do the same –  Getting away recharges you and helps you maintain a positive focus. It is important for everyone to take time away from the office and the pressures of the job.

10.  Be your team’s advocate –  Telling others about the successes of your team and the progress the IT organization is making is vitally important. Employees appreciate a manager who promotes what they are doing and who works to see that others realize the hard work and effort that’s being put forth.

11.  Remind your team of their successes –  It’s very easy to forget the accomplishments and to focus on the problems. Positive things happen throughout the year. Track them and remind your employees of these successes. Remember, small successes lead to bigger successes. Positive reinforcement is one of the best ways to create the right kind of momentum.

Working in an IT organization can be tough work and stressful for all of us at times. Help reduce the stress of your organization by making the environment more fun for your employees. Productivity will increase and everyone will enjoy the work more. It will also help you retain your good employees and will create loyalty among your staff like you’ve never seen before.

Best of success, , , and have some fun along the way, , , and wish me well in this weekend’s golf tournament.