January 2012 Archives

It is important to remain "present" as a leader. That doesn't mean simply "being there" for your staff. Successful leaders take advantage of "leadership moments" to provide examples to others.

With several articles now openly discussing Apple's PR problem, the world is becoming increasingly aware of worker conditions at Foxconn, one of the major manufacturers of Apple's devices. One example:

[The New York Times] detailed allegations that workers at Foxconn suffered in conditions that resembled a modern version of bonded labour, working obscenely long shifts in unhealthy conditions with few of the labour rights that workers in the west would take for granted. It also mentioned disturbing events elsewhere in China among supplier firms, such as explosions at iPad factories that killed a total of four people and another incident in which 137 workers were injured after cleaning iPhone screens with a poisonous chemical.

Right now, Apple is in the spotlight. And Tim Cook, as the new CEO, is experiencing his leadership moment. Leaders need to have positive presence, to be able to bring some energy into the room and energize others. What he does in the next few days or weeks will demonstrate his leadership presence, and define his legacy at Apple.

I sometimes notice leadership lessons hiding in odd places. They are around if you look for them. You can find leadership lessons from such unexpected places as Superman II, Pulp Fiction, and other odd sources. Here's another:

Are you familiar with the leadership lessons of Shan Yu? No, not that Shan Yu from Sci Fi's Firefly. I mean Shan Yu from Disney's Mulan.

Sure, Shan Yu may be the bad guy in that movie, but who says that movie villains can't also be good leaders? And it turns out that Shan Yu is pretty good at developing his team through coaching.

There's a key scene in the movie where Shan Yu decides to return a doll to a little girl in a nearby village. Shan Yu is present as a leader, and takes advantage of a coaching opportunity:

(Shan Yu scans the landscape from the top of a tall tree. His hawk flies overhead and drops a small doll. Shan Yu investigates the doll, jumps down from the tree, and throws the doll to his Hun leaders.)

Shan Yu: What do you see?

Hun #1: Black pine ... from the high mountains!

Hun #2: White horse hair ... Imperial stallions.

Hun #3: Sulphur ... from cannons.

Shan Yu: This doll came from a village in the Tung Show Pass, where the Imperial Army is waiting.

Hun Archer: We can avoid them easily.

Shan Yu: No. The quickest way to the emperor is through that pass. Besides, the little girl will be missing her doll. We should return it to her.

Note how Shan Yu uses this opportune moment to coach his staff. Before offering his own opinion, he asks his team leads for what they can learn by examining the doll. In turn, they each respond with an answer that offers new insight: the doll comes from a village high in the mountains, and the Imperial cannon brigade is there too.

The "coaching button" is something that sticks with your listener. Like the button on a shirt or coat, a "coaching button" doesn't do the whole job, but over time as you use more "coaching buttons" the whole picture comes together. They key is to make those "buttons" easily understood and memorable, able to stand on their own, but part of a larger story.

Shan Yu's comments are brief, memorable, but not overpowering. He is able to offer his own opinion (and decision to return the doll) without discounting the team leads. From what we see in the movie, it seems that Shan Yu has taken advantage of other coaching moments to help his future leaders develop.

"Coaching buttons" are wonderful conversational gifts. Take any available opportunity to do brief coaching conversation with your team. For example, you might find yourself early for a meeting, only one staff member is there, giving a short time for a "coaching button". Never waste an opportunity for coaching, however brief. The "coaching button" might only cover one question without an opportunity for follow-up questions to delve deeper - but if you can find frequent opportunities for several "buttons", I find it can be helpful.

Just like Shan Yu.

In reviewing the importance of "lead-manage-do", Brian McDonald of MOR Associates shared with me his essay on "Leading, Managing, Doing - A Balancing Act" (which you can find on the MOR web site.) I've discussed the "lead-manage-do" triangle before, but I'd like to review the key points from Brian's essay.

First, the definitions:

• Leading The focus on the more strategic aspects of our role: tracking trends, anticipating future needs, developing vision and strategies to achieve goals, engaging others.
• Managing Working to organize, allocate, and coordinate people & processes: drafting goals and operational plans, allocating resources, budgets, assigning responsibilities.
• Doing The actual tasks: collecting data for a report, providing help of a routine nature, developing basic business processes, dealing with day-to-day email and phone calls.

So, what can leaders do to "do" less and "lead" more? Brian lists these 4 steps to help:

1. Be clear in setting your priorities. Do you know your top priorities? Spend time only on the important things, not just the "immediate" items.
2. Reduce the amount of time spent doing by handing some of these "doing" tasks off to others (delegating.) Set direction, establish priorities, and hold people accountable.
3. Ensure that you have sufficient resources - and in right places - to get your organization's tasks done. Hire the best and continuously develop.
4. Become more efficient in how you use your time. Be decisive, use defensive calendaring, avoid multi-tasking, organize, reduce the time spent on email, use meeting time wisely.

Predicting the future of IT is a difficult job. Generally, technology changes very quickly, so that the landscape may be entirely different in only 2 or 3 years. But you can examine the trends to see where things are headed over the short term, in the next year.

eWeek looked at the emerging themes in this article: "IT 2012, It's all about control of the data".

Their conclusion: IT trends will focus on how data enters a system, where it resides, how it is processed, and who can access and manage it, as well as who can store and archive data. The critically important technology trends include cloud services and systems; data centers that use less electricity; the larger-than-life workloads and storage capacities we call "big data"; the increasing use of automation in systems of all kinds; the integration of business intelligence into just about everything; and the ever-growing volume of stored data in all its formats.

The most important developments, according to eWeek:

1. Full automation of major IT systems will continue as a major trend
2. The availability of more cloud-based software and services than one can imagine
3. The rapid ascendance of hybrid cloud systems
4. Exabyte-scale storage systems (thousands of petabytes!)
5. Data center systems that use less electricity, yet churn out more and larger workloads
6. Vastly increased usage of data analytics deployments--and not just inside large enterprises
7. New and improved unified data center controls that include monitoring of data flow and storage, as well as all the physical facilities.

Also worth noting:

• Doing more with less.
• Proliferation of personal devices at work (or "BYOD")

Consider the devices entering your IT landscape: smartphones, tablets, laptops, desktops, connected cars, Web-connected systems, and other technologies. There is certainly no shortage of choices out there. Organizations that do not find ways to adapt to "BYOD" will find themselves falling behind. Moreso for higher ed, where students and faculty often are the users who bring in new gadgets that need to connect to your network.

I was going through some old notes that I'd taken a few months ago, and found this gem from an ITLP discussion. We were discussing how we lead during times of change, and managing through change, especially now when the University is in a period of transition. I thought I'd share my notes here:

1. Focus on your core competencies, but also the value proposition to your clients. What adjustments does this call for?
2. Consider what areas you might be able to influence.
3. As always, it's important to remain transparent about the decision process.
4. Acknowledge what is happening, don't ignore it.
5. To open a conversation, you might ask for a one-word thought from each person in a group, and address the themes.
6. Recognize where there is ambiguity. Address it as best you can, but don't gloss over the questions.
7. Change is rarely about "us" or "you" or the merit of the work. Doing "more with less" is about a financial situation.
8. Think creatively, but rationally. Consider openly how you might do business differently under the new changes.
9. Turn it into an opportunity. What other changes might you make to improve the situation?
10. Nothing can stay one way forever, things will always change. Life will go on.

At the end of the day, keep focused on the work that needs to get done. Don't let other changes distract you.

Lt Col. Dan Ward (USAF) from the Defense Acquisition University presented an interesting acquisition lesson from an unusual source: Star Wars. His article, Don't Come to the Dark Side (PDF), highlights why "Death Star"-like projects are a bad idea, for both operational and programmatic reasons.

The article acknowledges, but skips over, the standard fare of "Darth Vader as leader." ("I don't think we really want PMs to walk around in capes and black armor ... his path is not one we should follow. I'm pretty sure it leads to suffering.") Instead, Ward talks mostly about why a project the size of the Death Star was a big mistake:

The truth is, Death Stars are about as practical as a metal bikini. Sure, they look cool, but they aren't very sensible. Specifically, Death Stars can't possibly be built on time or on budget, require pathological leadership styles and, as we've noted, keep getting blown up. Also, nobody can build enough of them to make a real difference in the field.

The bottom line: Death Stars are unaffordable. Whether we're talking about a fictional galaxy far, far away or the all too real conditions here on Planet Earth, a Death Star program will cost more than it is worth. The investment on this scale is unsustainable and is completely lost when a wamp-rat-hunting farmboy takes a lucky shot. When one station represents the entire fleet (or even 5 percent of the fleet), we've put too many eggs in that basket and are well on our way to failing someone for the last time.

The answer isn't to build more, partly because we can't and partly because the underlying concept is so critically flawed. Instead of building Death Stars, we should imitate the most successful technology in the saga: R2-D2.

Ward concludes that, rather than sinking your energy into huge, expensive projects like a Death Star, you should instead focus on smaller, more reliable systems like astromech droids:

The key is exercising design restraint, focusing our requirements on the essential requirements rather than the endless list of desirements, living within our budget and resisting the temptation to extend the schedule. [...]

There are all sorts of ways to simplify a design, to reduce a set of requirements to the bare minimum, to make sure we build what we can afford. Don't believe such a thing can be done? That is why you fail. But those who do believe will find the system they built just might be "the hero of the whole thing."

If you are part of the University of Minnesota system, you probably saw the announcement via email last week:

We are pleased to announce R. Scott Studham as the University of Minnesota's new vice president and chief information officer, pending approval by the Board of Regents in February. Scott has served as the chief information officer at the University of Tennessee since 2009, where he was responsible for the strategic direction and management of the university's information resources.

More info at www.oit.umn.edu/vpcio.

I was proud to represent Morris as part of the search committee for the new VP/CIO.

We believe Scott has an extraordinary vision for building on the existing strengths of the Office of Information Technology (OIT) to ensure the strategic and operational excellence of both academic and administrative information technology to support and advance all aspects of the University's mission. Scott will begin in his new position on February 13, 2012. Welcome, Scott!

Rick Gilbert, founder and chairman of PowerSpeaking, gives this advice for how to prepare yourself for a presentation:

Do:

• Make your first line your "bottom line". Tell them what you are proposing, and why.
• Be clear about expectations. Are you looking for funding? Support? Approval?
• Use the 10/30 rule: if you have 30 minutes, plan only 10 minutes of material. That leaves plenty of time for discussion and questions.
• Slash your presentation to 2-3 slides, if possible.
• Get your head in the right "place" before stepping into the room.
• Don't go into the room looking for a pat on the back; don't start with how hard your team has been working.

Don't:

• Never get defensive or argumentative; it takes away from your presentation.
• Passion is good, but keep it calm and open to input.
• If the room starts arguing with each other, or gets too far off track, calmly bring the discussion back to topic.
• Never forget to check and double-check your numbers before showing them. If they are off, you're dead in the water.