Beyond Blinking Lights and Acronyms

Enjoying Spring

Two weeks ago I wrote that Bruce Kingwell had sent me 2 stories and now it is time to write about the second one.  This story perfectly illustrates the concepts that I wrote about when I reviewed a book by Frank Luntz - Words That Work: It's Not What You Say, It's What People Hear.  I don't know if it is a true story but if it isn't it ought to be.

One day, there was a blind man sitting on the steps of a building with a hat by his feet and a sign that read: "I am blind, please help.''

A creative publicist was walking by and stopped to observe. He saw that the blind man had only a few coins in his hat. He dropped in more coins and, without asking for permission, took the sign and rewrote it.

Dinner with Orville

My good friend Gerry Fusco contacted me last week to let me know that Orville Pierson would be back in town.  Orville is Senior Vice President, Corporate Director of Program Design and Service Delivery at Career Transition / Outplacement firm of Lee Hecht Harrison and the author of The Unwritten Rules of the Highly Effective Job Search.  He was in town to talk to the folks at Between Jobs Ministry (BJM) about Job Search Work Teams (JSWTs).  Orville was kind enough to help get JSWTs started back in 2006 and came in to see how they were doing and help kick off additional training from more team leaders.

Since I've now landed a position I wasn't able to attend the BJM sessions.  Gerry reports that they were standing room only and very well received.  Fortunately I was able to join Orville and the original group of JSWT leader for dinner that night.  It was great to see Orville and the team again.  My landing a new position is due in large part to the effectiveness of JSWTs and I highly recommend Orville's book (and website) and the JSWT process.

Lead Well and Prosper

I just completed reading Lead Well and Prosper (93 pages Be Good Publishing) by Nick McCormick.  This is a fast read book that outlines 15 strategies for becoming a good manager.  McCormick lays this out in a very simple straightforward manner.  He illustrates each strategy with a real world example and then follows this up with a brief discussion.  You can quickly read the whole book or just a chapter here or there as an occasional refresher or reminder.

As an IT guy it was encouraging to learn that in his other life Nick is an IT manager for an information services company.

I especially like that at the end of each chapter he list a couple of quick bullet points on  "Do's", "Don'ts" and "Actions".  One that caught my attention was at the end of the Chapter 1, "Adopt a Serving Attitude".  One of the Don't items was "Constantly refer to the team as 'my team' or 'my group'.  Rather, use the team name (e.g. the accounts payable team) or simply 'our group'."  Some very practical and actionable advise that says a lot about how you think of the team you are managing.

Are Your Projects "LAME"?

I'm a big advocate of Lean methodologies as a way to improve a company's operations and therefore I follow a number of Lean related blogs.  Jon Miller in a recent posting, Here are 4.5 Signs that Your Lean May be L.A.M.E. at Gemba Panta Rei talks about Lean is getting a unjust reputation due to poor implementations.  Miller refers to Mark Graban at the Lean Blog who coined the term L.A.M.E as "Lean As Misguidedly Executed".  In essence, the problem isn't with the concept of Lean but rather how it is implemented.

The same holds true for many of the IT related projects we work on.  Our projects start out with a lot of hope and great expectations and as time goes on people become disillusioned and disappointed with the outcome.

It's Not What You Say, It's What People Hear

My wife Bridget recently heard a radio interview with Dr. Frank Luntz about his new book and the power of words to shape our thinking.  She suggested that I read it and I always try to follow her suggestions for many reasons one of which is that they are always worthwhile suggestions.  Luntz's book Words That Work does a great job of helping you craft your message.  It is all based on one recurring theme which happens to be the subtitle of the book:

It's Not What You Say, It's What People Hear

That is an extremely important concept -- considering our message from the listener's perspective and not our own.  As Luntz states,

You can have the best message in the world, but the person on the receiving end will always understand it through the prism of his or her own emotions, preconceptions, prejudices and preexisting beliefs.  It's not enough to be correct or reasonable or even brilliant.  The key to successful communication is to take the imaginative leap of stuffing yourself right into your listener's shoes to know what they are thinking and feeling in the deepest recesses of their mind and heart.  How that person perceives what you say is even more real, at least in a practical sense, than how you perceive yourself.

Fortunately, he provides us with Ten Rules of Effective Language.

The New Leader's 100-Day Action Plan

I just finished an excellent book, The New Leader's 100-Day Action Plan (John Wiley & Sons, ISBN 0-471-78977-1) by George Bradt, Jayme A. Check, both of PrimeGenesis and Jorge Pedraza formerly with PrimeGenesis and now with Unison Site Management.  As the title implies this is about starting a new job with an action plan in place.  The reason an action plan is important is that it helps you to quickly establish yourself as a leader by taking you through the critical steps of communication and engaging the culture followed by implementing your people decisions ultimately leading to early wins.  They also point out that your action plan actually starts before you start your new job.  The driving imperative behind all of this comes from a study they cite that 40% of all new leaders fail within the first 18 months.  That is a pretty sobering statistic and one that should encourage you to do all that you can to improve your chances of succeeding.

I recommend this book to anyone starting a new job at a new company or with your current employer.  As good as this book it is a shame that they may be missing a large potential audience where this could be of tremendous help.

An Interesting Day in my Career Management

Yesterday was a very interesting day in my career management.  I had the opportunity to discuss in person career management issues with 5 people who I think are at the top of their field.  They were:

• Jason Alba is the founder of JibberJobber which is a web based software program that that is a job search/career management tool. It helps you keep track of your network contacts, your job postings, resumes etc. and action items. It can serve as a central focal point of your Outlook directory, LinkedIn etc. to pull all of this myriad information together in one place.
• Kent Blumberg is a process and manufacturing industry executive general manager who is on the cutting edge of using a blog to "brand" yourself as part of your career management strategy.  He's been recognized a number of times for the quality of his blog and is the one who was the motivating factor in my blogging efforts.
• Rick Gillis is a Houston based author (Really Useful Job Search Tactics), speaker and has is own radio show - "Everything Employment-On The Radio!" Sundays 4-6PM on the Biz Radio Network 1320 AM Houston & 1360 AM Dallas/Fort Worth.
• Robin Kessler runs The Interview Coach and is author of two books, Competency-Based Resumes and Competency-Based Interviews. She also acts as both a job search and as a career management coach.  In the small world category, Robin and I are classmates from the Kellogg School of Management in Evanston, IL  and have recently re-connected here in Houston.
• Dan Sweet is a Houston based recruiter the runs FRACAT (Free Resume and Career Toolbox) that is a great resource for the job seeker by providing "how-to" tips and job listings.

The impetus for all of this was Jason being in Houston for the holidays which presented some very unique networking opportunities.  It was a day of many meetings starting with breakfast with Jason and his father Dave, Dan, and Kent.  Followed by a Jason presenting at BJM which Rick moderated followed by a JibberJobber demo at DBM hosted by Michael Grove.  A phone call with Robin ensued to see if she could meet Dan and Jason last night at the "Take Charge of Your Career 2007" event Dan arranged.  A rather hectic day I must say -- and I had the easy part.

Jason, Rick, Robin and Dan are all in the "career management" field but in very different segments.  During the discussion it was interesting to see how all these segments fit together.  Needless to say when you get a group of people like this that are enthusiastic and passionate about what they are doing some rather interesting conversation ensues.  Some tidbits:

• Your job security is not how valuable you are to your employer but how "employable" you are. 
• Being "employable" isn't just about how attractive your skill set is but how well you market it.  The greatest skill set in the world doesn't do you any good if prospective hiring managers don't know about you.
• Ultimately you are the only one responsible for your career.  There are a lot of "experts" that will tell you how to manage your career.  Many are excellent and really know their stuff (like the group above).  At the same time many so-called experts really aren't.  It is up to you to make a wise "buying" decision when it comes to accepting advice.
• A polished resumé by itself isn't enough.  You need to distinguish yourself from the crowd.  Blogging can be an excellent way to do this.  It conveys something about your personality and thought processes.  It also helps to answer the all important "fit" question with prospective employers.  Blogging along with a well written resumé is a very strong combination for branding your product, i.e. you.
• Career management doesn't end when you land a new job.  It is an on-going program of knowing what you like, what you want to do, what you can offer and of keeping your network alive.
• Networking is all about forming relationships.  The best networking contacts ones are founded on a basis of "how can I help you?" rather than "what can you do for me?"

I also want to briefly mention the JibberJobber product.  Jason has done a fantastic job of creating something that allows you to manage your job search all in one spot.  This includes network contacts, a log of contact activity, action items, target company information, and files of related documents.  Sure you can use Outlook, and notebooks, and Excel spreadsheet but it doesn't take too long before things start slipping through the cracks.  Believe me, I've been there, done that.  JibberJobber does a great job of keeping you organized and on track.  One great thing about JibberJobber is that it isn't just about a job search.  You can use it to manage your career by keeping your network up-to-date and fresh along with collecting information about possible future career moves.  The second great thing about JibberJobber is that it is FREE!  That's right, FREE.  Jason also offers a premium service for $10 per month but with 90% of the functionality available in the free version you don't have to subscribe.  Go to the JibberJobber home page and sign up.  Give it a try.

The Right Job, Right Now

If you're thinking of starting out the new year looking for a new job, run out and get Susan Strayer's new book, The Right Job, Right Now: The Complete Toolkit for Finding Your Perfect Career, before you do anything else.  Being in the midst of my own job search I've had the opportunity to survey the market of job search advice books.  The Right Job, Right Now offers sound, practical advice I haven't found anywhere else.

If you're like most of us the first thing you do when starting a job search is to write up your resumé, right? -- Wrong!  Using her trademarked Career Kaleidoscope Model, Susan starts out walking you through a determination of what you have to offer in terms of skills and competencies and what you want in return in terms of environment, culture, benefits and financial rewards.  How important is this? -- Very!  My favorite business school professor was "Gene" Lavengood who taught us "When you don't know where you're going, any road will get you there."  The Career Kaleidoscope takes you step-by-step through the process of determining of where you want to go. 

As an indication of the importance of determining where you want to go, Susan doesn't even begin to talk about how you should prepare your resumé until about page 100, a third of the way through the book.  And when she does talk about your resumé she wisely tailors it around the outcomes of what you determined through the Career Kaleidoscope.  In this way your resumé goes beyond being a mere listing of job descriptions to highlight your skills, competencies and what you have to offer and focuses it on the types of companies/industries where you want to work.

The second unique feature of the book is that it takes you through the entire process from determining what you have to offer and what you want, searching for a job, through the interviewing and negotiating process, starting and subsequently growing and succeeding in your job and revisiting the entire process as necessary.  It is the Complete Toolkit, just as the title promises.  Because of this it is much a career management book as it is a job search book.  Many people in IT are faced with a decision during their career, should I follow the technical career path or go to the managerial career path.  Susan's book and the Career Kaleidoscope can help you work through issues such as this and be a success at whatever path you choose.  I started out by saying that if you were thinking about looking for a new job that you should run out and get The Right Job, Right Now.  The same holds true if you are happy in your current job but want to grow and have a successful career in the company you're at now.

The Right Job, Right Now is well written, easy to read and loaded with practical advice and tools.  The Career Kaleidoscope Model and the span of advice from goal determination to career success is truly unique.  It is an essential for anyone thinking of searching for a new job or looking for a more fulfilling career.

A Variation of the 5 Whys? - How Do You Know?

One of the more popular Six Sigma techniques to get at the root cause of a problem is to ask the 5 Whys.  By repeatedly asking the probing question of why (5 is just a rule of thumb) you can probe down through the layers of symptoms to get to the root cause of the problem.  For example:

Q: Why are there scratches on the machined part?

A: The part moved slightly during machining

Q: Why did the part move?

A: It wasn't held firmly in place.

Q: Why wasn't the part held firmly in place?

A: The operator didn't engage the locking mechanism.

Q: Why didn't the operator engage the locking mechanism?

A: The lock is in a location that is difficult to get to engage.

Q: Why is the lock located that way?

That was the original location before the equipment was rearranged.

Root Cause - The locking mechanism being inconveniently/improperly located results in it not being used every time.

Solution - Re-locate the lock so it can be easily used every time.

Although this is a greatly over-simplified example I think it illustrates to power of the probing questions of why?

I bring this up because we in IT are often asked to do things such as customize the ERP program that we don't always think make sense.  Maybe it is just our lack of understanding of the business needs or maybe it a case of the user not wanting to change to a new process or acting on age-old assumptions that may or may not be still valid.

The use of probing questions can help clarify this both for IT and the business.  Sometimes the requester either acting on an assumption or in an attempt to get IT to stop questioning them, uses the "nuclear option" of saying - "Our customers want it this way".  In this case asking why may only elicit a response of "I don't know, they just do".

I recently came across 2 blog postings that discuss a different form of probing question that may be more useful than why.  In do you know? Don Blohowiak shows how instead of asking "Why?" asking the probing question of "How do you know this?" may lead to clearer results.  As he states:

If your experience is like mine, with the tiniest bit of scrutiny you may find that your colleagues are too often implying facts and reaching conclusions on the flimsiest of foundations. They do this not because they intend to mislead but because the pressures of a chronologically crunched work pace lead well-intending people into sloppy thinking. And that can lead to poor decisions and costly actions.

The point of the questioning exercise is not to “trap” or embarrass anyone. Asking, “How do you know?” is aimed at helping your associates see each situation fully — appreciating what’s known about it and what’s not.

Excellent observation.  Earlier Terry Seamon also addressed this question in Whatcha Thinkin'? where he suggested questions of:

• What do you mean?
• How do you know?
• What then?

Great questions. 

I'd like to add another question: What would happen if  . . .?  The customer wants it this way. What would happen if we didn't provide it that way?  This can help determine just how important it really is to the customer and why we feel they want it.  Who knows, maybe what they want is really something different and what they asked for was just a means to getting it.  If we provide what they really want by other means may be we don't have to fulfill the original request.

The whole point of this is that by properly using probing questions we can get to the heart of the issue.  Although neither Don nor Terry were trying to link the art of questioning to root cause analysis they implicitly knew the value of this discipline.  Fortunately they also provided some reference links.  Don recommends Dr. Marilee Adams' book Change Your Questions, Change Your Life: 7 Powerful Tools for Life and Work .  He also provides a link to his interview with her about the art of questioning. Terry recommends Living with Change the Semantics of Coping by the late Wendell Johnson.  I haven't yet had the opportunity to read either book and would love to hear your comments about them.

Do you have any examples of where the probing question technique has been helpful?

The Art of Influence / The Influence Continuum

The November 1 issue of CIO has a very interesting leadership article by Allan Holmes on The Art of Influence.  In this article he shares some techniques for convincing others to do what we feel is needed.  This is especially critical for CIO's since this is probably (at least in my opinion) one of the most difficult parts of implementing a project.  Sales and marketing of ideas and concepts is a skill a CIO needs to be successful but is typically one that we are not comfortable with.

For me the key is his statement “To sway opinions and convince others to act, CIO’s need expert knowledge of their subject and its relationship to the business, the ability to adapt their message to how their audiences like to learn . . .”  This covers two themes that I think are critical to CIO's. 

Truly being connected with and understanding the business is essential to give your message credibility.  You have to be able to show the linkage between the business issues and how IT can help address them.  You also need to have them convinced that you are in this process along with them - that you are part of the team.  I call it ITBWA - IT By Walking Around.

The second aspect is making sure you get your message out properly.  Understanding how others learn will allow you to communicate that message effectively.  Facts alone aren't enough.  It is how you communicate them so that your audience understands and accepts what you are saying.  To communicate effectively you have to match your method of communication with the listener's method of learning.

In a sidebar entitled The Influence Continuum, Holmes points out that the need for strong influencing skills doesn't end with project approval.  You will need these skills and have to apply different influencing techniques throughout the project life cycle.  Holmes presents a synopsis of the various project stages from a book Managing the Dynamics of Change: The Fastest Path to Creating an Engaged and Productive Workplace by Jerald Jellison at the University of Southern California.  Jellison’s “J Curve” is a good description of the project life cycle and the various influence methods needed in each step.  I only wish Holmes had put even more emphasis on the statement “Inform business leaders and the CEO that change will temporarily decrease productivity and morale, but both will improve over time.”  Too many CIO’s fail to do this when they sell the project.  They present it as going right from the Plateau to the Mountaintop.  Unfortunately this is unrealistic and the result is it is often their successor that must take the company from the bottom of the Cliff, through the Valley and up the Ascent to the Mountaintop.  Skip that communication at your own peril!