“To be humble to superiors is duty, to equals courtesy, to inferiors nobleness.”
- Benjamin Franklin

Rock Concert or Business Conference?

The scene resembled a large rock concert. There was a massive stage, huge projection screens, a booming sound system, laser lights and special effects that would make Broadway jealous. To say there was a great deal of excitement and anticipation for the presenter would be a major understatement. His name was announced, the music boomed and onto stage strode the classic image of a powerful, confident executive. Navy suit with pin stripes, tall, slender, salt-and-peppered hair, power tie and polished shoes. The audience’s applause roared. He walked to the podium, the music faded, applause stopped and the stadium settled to perfect silence in anticipation…

Narcissism Defined

“How’s everybody doing today?!” The keynote speaker began, with excitement in his voice. “Wow, what a year it’s been!  Since last year’s conference, a lot has changed. For example, I reorganized our division and product lines into….” he continued into details of how he, apparently personally, completed some organizational and product line restructuring. Then he continued, “in addition I introduced 12 new products, including some of the hottest new items on the market, such as…” he described a number of top selling products. “And what about services? Well, I introduced the following new service lines…”. Then, he launched into series a corporate acquisitions, “I purchased….”, “I merged…”, I… I… I…

BUZZ KILL.

Within the first 5 minutes of his presentation, all the excitement turned into disbelief at the narcissism displayed by this executive. Really?! Did they really just send that massive of an ego-maniac onto the stage?! This guy specifically said he did all these things – not once did I hear him mention the contributions of another individual or his team.

If you were a member of his organization, how would you have felt? I am sure his team put in a lot of hard work and many late nights. Without these contributions, many of “his” successes would never have come to fruition. If I worked for him, I think my resume would have hit the job boards the next day.

MORALE KILL.

His Narcissism, Our Lesson

Confronted with his narcissism, the executive would likely brush it off as an oversight on his part. He would likely reassure anyone inquiring, “of course I meant the team did all this” and follow up with a commitment to be more clear in the future. But how many stadium-sized opportunities does one get? These platforms are rare. The damage was done.

I hope your narcissism does not compare. Still, if we’re not careful, our own oversight can turn into narcissism. At the very least, oversight can easily kill the morale of our own teams. So how can leaders avoid narcissism and keep their team’s morale alive? Here are a few suggestions:

1. Thank someone every day: If not one, then two, three or twenty. Always be sure you reflect your gratitude.

2. Thank publicly: Most people appreciate public recognition. Given the opportunity, share your platform.

3. Document Credit: When creating communications, especially those for distribution, credit those that contributed.

4. Accountable, not Responsible: Toxic leaders tend to confuse accountability for responsibility. Remember, just because you’re accountable does not mean you are responsible for the success.

5. Serve First: Remember your role as a leader is to serve the team first, not for the team to serve you.

Question: What other ways do you or your leaders avoid narcissism and maintain humility?

1. Evaluate Competitor Products: Within your company and beyond, what are the most admired leaders offering as a part of their “product”? Look at the managers within your organization with the best 360 feedback scores. Also, look at some of the greatest leaders outside your company – those highlighted from Fortune’s Best Companies to Work For or similar studies. The leadership products offered from these competitors are ones you should consider adopting features from for your own leadership product offering.

2. Conduct a Market Study: When was the last time you conducted a survey of your team’s reflection on the quality of your leadership product? 360 Feedback is great, but consider going beyond the standard HR processes and policies. One of the greatest tools I’ve seen is an anonymous Q&A session. In this process, employees on the team submit their questions to a human resources representative. The HR representative filters the questions, rephrases them into their own words to ensure anonymity, then asks the leader these questions live, in an open dialog with the team. Why not conduct your own, similar, marketing study?

3. Invest in Research & Development: Over time, the best products evolve through investments in R&D. Your leadership product should be no different. To maintain the interest and support of your team, you should continuously improve your leadership skills. Invest time with mentors and perhaps even a professional coach. Devote time to personal development and reading the latest leadership books and industry periodicals. If you fail to evolve your leadership product over time, your competitors will become more attractive while your product remains stagnant.

Your leadership is a product purchased by your followers. The team invests time, effort and creativity into your organization, at least in part due to your leadership. Therefore, as you serve the organization, it’s employees, customers, investors and other stake holders, you owe it to them to develop your leadership product. Failure to continuously develop this product could be more costly than failures in your organization’s end product and services.

Questions: What other ways do you invest in your leadership Product? How does your leadership develop their product?

Benefits to Attending Leadership Conferences

I’m about to attend the Chick-Fil-A Leadercast, presented by John C. Maxwell and Giant Impact. The event is only one day, but the great lineup of speakers and topics has me anxiously awaiting it. As I reflected on this, a thought occurred to me: most of these great speakers have published plenty of material and lessons, so why do I find it important to attend leadership conferences at all?  I came up with the following short list. Perhaps it will help you convince your boss the next time this event, or a similar opportunity comes around.

1. Education: The obvious. As a leader in the organization, you must continuously develop your leadership skills. Conferences are among the best ways to do this.

2. Networking: Whether you’re an extrovert or not, be sure to reach out to co-participants. Those in attendance are like-minded, particularly if the conference focuses on a particular theme, like Greenleaf’s Servant Leadership conference and you may find them excellent references for bouncing new ideas.

3. Focus: You could spend weeks, even months reading books in small snippets, but you can’t always focus consistently and key topics are often lost in translation. In contrast, by attending all day events and longer conferences, you are able to absorb the information continuously. From my experience, this results in greater retention of the information.

4. Setting an Example: As a leader in your organization, you need to set the example by honing your skills and leadership capabilities. As your team and peers see you make the commitment to be out of the office for these experiences, you lead by example and set expectations for them to follow.

So the next time you contemplate whether you can afford the time away from the office, consider these benefits and more, then commit yourself to, as the Chick-Fil-A Leadercast says, “Be The One”. If you seek suggestions for leadership events, definitely check out the Chick-Fil-A Leadercast and Greenleaf’s Annual conference.

Question: Why do you attend leadership development events?

As I rushed outside in the still dark morning, a shuffling of leaves by the door made me pause. I stopped to let my eyes adjust and found myself practically within arms reach of two beautiful deer. One was bracing to sprint, but the other seemed calm and curious. Impressed by the pleasant surprise, I took in the moment. Then, backing away slowly, I loaded the car. In the small magic of that moment, my new friends reminded me to focus on what was important. Had I been “on time” I would have missed that special experience. I then realized I needed to make the time to serve my family by helping them start their day right.  I also needed to serve my colleagues by ensuring my mind was focused on the right topics and preparation for our meeting on my drive in.

I went back inside, more calm now, strolled up to wife and kissed her gently on the forehead. I then smiled at my son, tickled him a little and slowly carried him into his awaiting car seat. My deer friends had gone, but I was content. My morning was set right. I made it to the office just in time and was in the right state of mind to lead the important dialogue that morning.  Afterward, I thought to myself what a difference those few extra minutes made for my family, ultimately my colleagues and how important it was to foresee the need for a moment of pause at work as well. As a result, I compiled a few…

Signs you may need to take a “minute” and pause at work:

1. You are in a constant state of reaction, rather than planning

2. You make decisions to get them off your plate rather than to address the problem

3. You delegate without full guidance and communication of the situation to the recipient

4. You know you could do a better job, “if you only had more time”

5. You find your team questioning your decisions more than normal and you don’t understand why

We’ve all been there before.  While you won’t have the benefit of deer roaming through your office, these signs may remind you to stop and focus on what matters. You owe it to those you serve to make the time to get it right.

Question: When did you find a moment to pause at the office, or at home, helped?

Ask the Right Questions at the Right Time

Great leaders ask the right questions at the right time. While great leaders are better at this than others, there is no magic to asking the right questions. By focusing on serving the organization, one can position themselves to identify the right questions at the right time. Below are some tactics that may help you serve the organization and ask the right questions:

1. Active Listening
It all begins with listening first. The meeting multitasker often misses key concepts and asks the dumb question. The person that actively listens, repeating back what they hear to ensure comprehension, is best positioned to ask the right questions.

2. Speak Your Mind
If you have a burning question and you’ve been actively listening, it’s likely others have the same question. Whether you’re right, wrong or simply asking for clarity, you are where you are for a reason and the team is counting on you to speak your mind.

3. Timely
Asking the right question at the wrong time is useless. If you have a concern or issue to raise, be timely in raising it. Waiting for the perfect moment or every detail to evolve may be too late.

4. Owner
When in doubt, ask yourself, “if I was the sole proprietor of this organization, how would I respond to this investment / topic?” Would you be happy about it? Or would it keep you up at night worrying about an adequate Return On Investment?

5. Independent
Remember all those great questions and ideas you had when you first joined the organization? Go back to that time and clear your head of all the methods in which you’ve “conformed” to your organization’s way of doing things. What would you challenge? Challenge them now.

6. Customer
If you were the customer or end consumer, what would you think of the project or matter at hand? Would it excite you or make you take your business elsewhere?

Of course, I need ways to remember tactics like these. So, if you’re like me, the next time you’re in a meeting and trying to find the right questions, just remember: A STOIC (Active listening, Speak your mind, Timely, Owner, Independent & Customer) individual remains calm and asks those great questions.

Question: When did the right question at the right time, save you, your project or your team from making a big mistake?

We Forgive Because, Together, We Work

It was my last night in Italy on what was was a particularly draining, transatlantic business trip.  The average day included 12+ hours of working sessions, followed by 2 or 3 hour email marathons.  The trip was immensely successful, but I was drained – physically and emotionally.  I plopped down in a leather chair in front of the fireplace.  It was nice to finally appreciate the comfort our Italian villa bed & breakfast intended.

Soon after I sat down, two fellow business travelers struck up a conversation with me.  The British pair were account representatives for another manufacturing firm and were wrapping up “aggressive negotiations” with one of their partners.  As the dialog progressed, I was struck by how well these two balanced each other.

The more senior gentleman was more reserved and filled the role of the conservative, voice of reason and patience in negotiations.  The younger gentleman was much more tenacious and referred to as occasionally ”unrelenting”.  Throughout the conversation, there were comments from the superior such as, “that’s why I didn’t bring you along on that negotiation – you would have destroyed them!”  Yet the younger gentleman did not mind, responding “of course!  I understood and agree with you – I would not have been a good fit in that trip.”

This trip had been a success for them because, as they confided in their new found friend, “our partner had every right to be angry with us – frankly, we’ve got some issues to work on.  But we were able to leave with what we needed.”  No doubt due, at least in part, to the great balance of these individuals.

Shortly before retiring for the evening, the older gentleman summed it up well:

“I’m not perfect and he’s not perfect.  We both have weaknesses.  However, he forgives bits of me and I forgive bits of him, because together, we work.”

I went to bed pondering that thought and the implications for Servant Leaders.  Serving our organizations includes making the necessary sacrifices to balance our own weaknesses.

As I look back on my greatest success stories, they’ve often been in positions where I had a great partner – someone that balanced me well.  A great partner is not someone who is perfect, but someone that fills your gaps to make both of you, together, better.  It is when we can focus on our strengths and we have someone with strengths in our weaknesses to balance us, that we are most successful.

Question: Who balances you?  Do you forgive bits of that person because, “together you work”?

Leaders Who Cry Wolf May Leave Their Flock to be Eaten

As the story goes a child shepherd, seeking attention, cries false alarms of “Wolf! Wolf!” on several occasions.  Over time, the townspeople and neighbors learn to ignore his cries and soon, stop responding at all.  As a result, when a wolf really does come and the boy shouts for help again, he’s left to fend for himself.  The wolf eats the flock and, in some versions, even eats the boy.  This tale offers wisdom to us in a business context as well.

Have you ever seen someone jump from fire drill to fire drill because their boss believed every issue was a crisis?  Often, this stems from the culture of the organization and the overreaction is simply passed down the chain of command.  Regardless of their source, constant fire drills may:

1. Burnout employees

2. Reduce creativity and innovation

3. Emphasize expedience over quality

So what can you do in response to unending cries of “crisis”?  Here’s a couple ideas that may help:

1. Clarify Priorities – Ask your boss which “emergency” must be addressed first, calling attention to the potential of multiple emergencies you must address.

2. Define Timelines – Be sure to understand by what date / time each emergency must be addressed and the driver fot that time.  By understanding the driver behind timelines, you’ll be better equipped to juggle priorities as you hear more cries of “wolf”.

3. Gauge Others - If you’re not sure something is really a crisis, observe how others, especially your peers and those of your boss are responding to the matter.  Communicate the response to your boss in this framework (for example, “Jason’s boss has given him a longer timeline – are we aligned to deliver on the same date?”).

Certainly, there are plenty of true emergencies in business.  The trick seems to be learning to distinguish between an actual crisis and exaggerated enthusiasm.  With the right response, hopefully we can avoid losing our sheep when the real wolf comes.

Question: Have you had a boss that cried Wolf?  How do you manage expectations in similar  situations?

Crashing Into a Ditch Teaches A (Leadership) Lesson

At 7:15 AM, I was already well on my way down the hour-long commute.  On that morning I drove “the wife’s car”, because my regular vehicle was in the shop.  It was a classic Midwest winter day, with plenty of lake effect snow, but the region was prepared for the conditions.  As such, the roads were fairly clear. Still, occasional sections looked suspiciously like ice.  As a result, I drove under the speed limit, but still passed a few people who “probably shouldn’t be on the road anyway”.

It was during one of those passes that I felt the back end start to slide out.  After several counter-steering attempts, the fishtailing continued and I realized there was no escaping it.  The car crossed from one shoulder to the other, traversing two lanes and back, before crashing into the median.  Thankfully, with the exception of my ego, there was virtually no damage.

I counted my blessings and pulled up the maps on my iPhone.  The GPS located me precisely.  I called AAA, which had me back on the road in an hour.  A quick inspection by my regular mechanic and I was still in the office by noon.

Making the best of an unfortunate situation, I realized there were several leadership lessons in this experience that were worth sharing:

1. Observe Warning Signs – Remember those people that “probably shouldn’t be on the road”?  Their caution was a warning sign.  They had experiences (or lack thereof) which caused them concern.  Don’t ignore the warning signs in your organization.  Nay sayers may not just be pessimists.

2. Manage Change – I drove a less familiar vehicle.  This should have created more caution, especially in poor weather. When have you treated a new environment in business as “the same old situation”?

3. Balance Risk / Reward - As discussed in Project Tailgaters and Brake Checkers, it’s important to understand the risks and rewards or cost / benefit of each decision.  Here, by passing other cars, I could arrive 15 minutes earlier.  I assessed the road and it seemed clear and safe, but was it worth the risk?

4. Monitor Progress - As I sat in the ditch, covered in snow, I had only a vague idea of my location and was not certain how to guide someone to me for the tow.  If your project goes awry, will you know the quickest route to recovery?

5. Have the Right Tools - Thankfully, I had the right technology tool (GPS) to support a quick recovery. Do you have the right technology to support your needs?

6. Have the Right Team - With a AAA membership, the right people were just a phone call away. I also had a trusted mechanic who fit me into his schedule quickly and provided an assessment I trusted. When you get into trouble at the office, do you have a team to do the same?

7. Learn From Mistakes - Hence this post.  If I end up in a ditch again, after sliding on ice, hopefully I can say I learned from these mistakes and it was something new, that caused the crash this time. Will you learn from mistakes at work?

Question: Now the fun part.  After looking at all the things I did wrong, what other lessons can you take away from my mistakes?  Go easy on my ego though, please.  I’m already doomed to months of jokes at the office for my failure to stay on the road.

What are your Leadership New Year's Resolutions?

Thinking about your New Year’s resolutions?  Here’s a quick list of ideas for leaders.  The list includes a few of the standards, but aims to inspire some new ideas for each of us:

1. Physical Fitness - Whether it’s weight loss, increased exercise or dropping a bad habit, this standard is important for leaders to maintain stress levels.  You may also find increased productivity.
2. Listen More – Find yourself speaking more than you listen?  Did your latest 360 feedback suggest the team may not feel their input is valued enough?  Commit to listening a greater percentage of the time.
3. Succession Planning - Too many leaders let real succession planning wait too long, if they do it at all.  Why not start the new year right with specific steps to ensure strong succession planning throughout the organization?
4. Development Planning – Does everyone reporting to you have a strong, specific and measurable professional development plan?  If you’re not growing the organization, who is?  Perhaps this is the year to really tackle the matter.
5. Multi-Channel Communication - Often, as leaders, we forget that people benefit from different mediums of communication.  Perhaps this year is a good time to ensure your messages are spoken, written and broadcast.
6. Open Door Policy - Were you “too busy” to maintain that open door policy last year?  Try opening it again.  If not all day every day, perhaps hold open door office hours and stick to them this year.
7. Responsiveness – Is your inbox volume out of control?  Haven’t cleared that voicemail in a long time?  Try setting aside an hour a week or a daily block to review and respond to your messages regularly.
8. Strengthen Relationships - How well do you really know your coworkers?  We want to help those we care for and support.  This year, maybe we need to make more time to understand colleagues and building relationships.
9. Emphasize Credit – (and Minimize blame).  It’s too easy to give blame out as “accountability”.  This year, maybe we need to ensure for each accountability message, we provide at least 10 praise / credit messages.
10. Serve More - Of course, I had to suggest this one.  This year, why not commit to asking yourself regularly, “how will this decision / action / message serve the organization better?”

Question: What are your New Year’s Resolutions?

Below are 5 tips that help me achieve greater alignment:

1. Be Yourself at Work
2. Work for a Mission You Believe In
3. Prioritize Your Work
4. Find a Boss You Trust
5. Establish Friendships at Work

1. Be Yourself at Work
Are you putting on a different face when you go to work? The business term is a lack of diversity or individual acceptance. We’re not talking just about skin color, religious beliefs or personal lifestyle. Instead, we’re talking about who you are at the core. You could be in a room full of people that look like you, have similar philosophies and even follow the same interests outside of work. However, you could be miles apart in your personalities. You may be a boisterous, outgoing individual, who likes to tell it like it is. Meanwhile, your coworkers may discourage this in preference of a calm demeanor, a quiet office or a more formalized interaction. Neither approach is right or wrong, just different. One may be more appropriate than another for certain companies. Regardless, you need to find the environment where you can be yourself to be happiest. Personality tests, like the Myers Briggs Personality Type Indicator can help you better identify and align your personality with others.

Howard Behar, former president of Starbucks Coffee International wrote about a similar challenge early in his career. After a big promotion, the CEO of the furniture company where he worked pulled him aside and told him how, now that he was an executive, he needed to stop wearing his heart on the sleeve so much. Behar was crushed as he tried to contain his attitude, bottling up his personality and forcing himself to act like someone he was not. He was uncomfortable and unhappy every day. In the end, Behar left that company and joined Starbucks, where he helped the company become an amazing success – all while being himself and wearing his heart on the sleeve. Two for-profit companies, one allowed him to be himself, resulting in remarkable success for both Behar and the company. The other company you’ve likely never heard of before.

2. Work for a Mission You Believe In
Where you work does not have to be an altruistic non-profit, but it needs to have a mission in which you believe. Do you work for a company that makes clothes, or a company that improves people’s lives, by providing the fashions that make them look good, feel more confident and be more comfortable? Does your company have moral and ethical standards that align with your own? Even if the company does not produce products you use or fully comprehend, it may have a mission to support non-profits, benefit the community in which it is located or otherwise provide some greater good to the world through a mission you can believe in. If it does not, how can you justify the effort you put into that company? And if you can’t reasonably justify your work for some greater good than your financial income, you’ll always feel like you’re spending too much time at the office.

Now, if you can’t find a mission at your company you believe in, must you leave that company? Perhaps, but not necessarily. First, try creating that mission. Perhaps organize the next community support event or non-profit fund raising campaign. Whatever your passion, chances are there is some way you can create a mission within or closely aligned to your company. If not, then yes, maybe it is time to find another employer with a mission that moves you.

3. Prioritize Your Work
All too often we believe that to be successful, one must do everything that is asked of them, as quickly as possible. We believe working 60 hours a week, month after month after month assures recognition and success. However, that is often not the case. How many people do you know that work ridiculous hours and ultimately achieved more senior levels? The reality is that the work horse in the room is often appreciated, but rarely promoted. The greatest leaders tend to be those that know how to prioritize. They do not say “no”, but simply, “not now”. Successful alignment means recognizing that many ideas have great merit and value, but only those with the greatest value should be prioritized against finite resources.

Look at your favorite leaders and mentors, for example. Most successful leaders are not running around in a hectic pace or seemingly under a great deal of stress to address everything possible. Instead, the leaders most people would like to emulate seem calm, cool and collected. These leaders have enough time to do what is right – what they prioritize as most important, now. These are the leaders that have their work and personal life aligned, in part, because they know how to prioritize at the office.

4. Find a Boss You Trust
When you work for someone you respect, both parties benefit. When you are encouraged by a superior and believe they want to help your career, you want to do the same for them. In such a scenario, you will find a way to achieve what your supervisor needs you to get done and often, more. The inverse is also true. When you do not trust your boss or believe they only seek their own success over the team’s, you will have little motivation. People with bad bosses find the quickest way, to the easiest solution, to provide just barely what their boss needs. Nobody’s going above and beyond for a boss they do not trust.

The book Five Dysfunctions of a Team (on the recommended reading list) explains how trust is at the heart of every team. Without trust, there will be an inattention to results, a fear of conflict, lack of commitment and an avoidance of accountability. Therefore, without trust, there will be little professional success, without success, limited professional fulfillment and your personal life suffers.

5. Establish Friendships at Work
In the last post, I mentioned the Gallup Poll that highlighted the importance of employees having friends at work. This study shows the benefits to the business, such as greater morale, higher levels of quality and strong alignment to the company’s mission (for more, see the links above). In addition to the benefits to the employer, there are strong benefits to the employees. Friends at work also provide a support network when one needs to blow off a little steam or has a personal emergency. The friend network improves an employee’s ability to feel comfortable at the office and strengthens their feeling of belonging. When a team member has friends around them, the office can shift from just work to a place where they see friends while accomplishing tasks.

Try this for yourself. If you already have friends at work, great – imagine what it would be like without them. Where would you turn to relax and how comfortable would you feel? If you do not have friends at work, try harder. You’ll be amazed how anxious some people may be to get to know you on a more personal basis. If you are really not comfortable making friends at work directly, try to at least find some manner of friendship aligned with your work, such as in a professional network.

Too many people today still try to balance separate lives. “Try” is the key word here. Like a teeter-totter, you can not stay perfectly balanced all the time. However, if you seek alignment rather than balance, you find greater, more sustainable results. When you are aligned, you are equally happy addressing personal life at the office and professional matters at home, as necessary. While there will always be a primary focus on one or the other, both will offer equal comfort, confidence and success in any environment. When this occurs, you know you have work-life alignment and not just a balancing act.

What better time to kill low value projects? For example, that project draining resources for months, producing little value, but is allowed to drag on because it is the “pet project” of another CxO. With a constrained budget, something will have to give. Now you can make that case to the rest of the executive committee that either this “pet project” or the plan to narrow your product margins, delivering bottom line results next quarter, will have to be, at least, postponed. Even the CxO in question would find it difficult to oppose shelving the project in lieu of more timely, cost saving initiatives.

What better time for talent management? There are, sadly, many people losing their jobs today. As an IT Servant Leader, one can see few if any positives in this scenario. However, with some companies outsourcing entire divisions, others cutting to the bone and being required to cut even further, there is amazing talent available today that was not there a year ago. Now is the time to bring them onto your team. And what about the great staff that you already have? Employees are very appreciative to have a job today. Now is the time for you to show how much you appreciate them. But, you say, your budget is cut, preventing celebration dinners? No problem – have BYO events. Just set a time and place for the team to meet for drinks or dinner. It doesn’t always take money to make people feel appreciated. Sometimes just having a job and a little extra time from their manager to say “thank you”, especially outside the office, is all someone needs.

What better time to decommission overhead drains? How many servers do you have laying around, running antiquated software, creating heightened security risks and yet rarely seeing the front of a user’s screen? Come on! Now is your time to stop all that. Make the case to your customer they no longer need it. Point out the countless other applications they could use for the same work. Suggest enhancements to more current applications that could be adapted. Do you think there will be a better time than now to make the argument that maintaining these applications is not worth the overhead?

What better time to innovate? Yes, the budget is tight – virtually nonexistent some would say. But innovation does not always require a lot of money. What are the students in the IT program at your local college working on? Would they be open to researching an idea for your department? What about that new team member in your Business Intelligence area – wasn’t she working on a new idea after hours? Leverage that passion already residing within your team by simply supporting their ideas. With most other IT leaders focused on cost control, few are considering this opportunity to innovate. Those that do, are more likely to emerge with the best products, services and people to tackle the challenges when the economy recovers.

Every time I am confronted by another person in the IT field – be it a college student, manager, or CIO, who sings the “poor me” song, I think back to opportunities like these. It reminds me of that great RE/MAX commercial, where people are kicking themselves for not buying now. As IT Leaders, our problem is not “deliver more, with less”. Instead, our opportunity is to “deliver more value, with less waste”. Rarely before and possibly never again in our careers, will the opportunities and support be greater to gain alignment on this goal. Instead of singing “poor me”, why not view this as an opportunity to ensure you’re not kicking yourself later?

Turn Whiners Into Winners

For technology executives, the one constant is change. However, as humans, we are by nature, creatures of habit. This could easily explain why so many folks are resistant to change. Change does not, by definition, feel familiar. It’s awkward, different and for many, uncomfortable. But like all things new, we can choose how we respond to change. My experience suggests there are not many folks that respond to change with indifference. Instead, it seems most people fit into one of two categories: Winners or Whiners.

Winners
When I was working on turning around a large back-office technology project, there was one individual who was thrilled to be a part of the “new solution”. Although she had a vested interest in the old way, she looked to the future, realized things were broken and was anxious to be recognized for a successful project. As a result, she often came with a proposal for improvements, new technologies, processes or ideas. She understood the need for change, would lay out the problem in detail, explain why it was a problem and often have two or more recommendations for solving the problem. She was a winner because she embraced the change, identified roadblocks and problems with the old school of thought and proposed solutions based on solid examples.

Whiners
Of course, at the opposite end of the spectrum are individuals that resist change with a defeatist attitude. While the term may seem derogatory, “whiner” underscores where most of the effort is placed by these individuals. Certainly, it is not intentional. I don’t think anyone, regardless of their frustration level, says, “today, I am just going to complain about what’s going on at the office”. Instead, some personnel, when faced with change, spend a lot of effort thinking about the negative side (not unlike their winner counterparts). The problem is, whiners stop there. And why not? It’s easier to stop there and just tell their coworkers about the pain. Where whiners turn into winners is when they make that extra effort, they go that extra mile and do something about the negatives. Instead of simply communicating the problem(s), they become a part of the solution.

Whiners and Winners are in every organization. When you find winners, great, leverage them as examples to the whiners. When you find whiners, remember – they’re not setting out to just complain, they’re just stopping too soon. Ask them what they would do about the problem they mentioned? How would they improve the environment? What process would they use to avoid it from happening again? Then make them a part of the accepted solution. Without commitment and a role in the solution, it will be too easy to revert back to the Whiner.

Whatever you do, do not become a whiner yourself. Anytime you catch yourself complaining – especially in front of your team, be certain you come up with a solution and communicate it to them. This holds true for commiserating as well. Nodding in agreement with complaints without putting the complainer to task at finding a solution, makes you a whiner too. So make sure you’re thinking like a winner and presenting solutions to your problems while putting your team to task, doing the same. Go the extra mile, set the example for your teams and build winners out of the whiners.

I went back for my MBA after approximately 4 years in the workplace. During those 4 years, I held 4 different IT roles. While I am certain I would have still benefitted from the MBA right after undergraduate, the experiences in those 4 years clarified my studies.

To put it another way, whenever I have read books on leadership they always made sense. However, it wasn’t until I held a leadership role or two that these books suddenly made REAL sense. Instead of reading the text and thinking, “cool, I like that idea”, the thoughts now are “Ah-Ha! Why the heck didn’t I think of that, I must make sure and do that next time”. The lessons stick better, you retain more and the reading seems more exciting.

In essence, this is what “real world” experience gains you before an MBA. There is no magic formula, no secret timeline. But in the end, I do believe you will be better served getting a few years under your belt before going back for an MBA.

To give some examples, I have been interviewing candidates for a rather senior technology role recently. The nature of this role results in a number of applicants with greater experience than I have. I have met some amazing folks, with incredible accomplishments and great personalities. Still, these folks need to have “been there, done that” in very challenging roles with organizations of similar scale. I could go on for hours trying explain why this experience is necessary, but it would not help.

The simple fact is, there are certain attributes of the SMB sector you can’t gleam from the Fortune 500 and vice versa. The challenges in high growth organizations are simply much different than plateaued ones. No ammount of reading, research or other preparation can ready you for this.

So, the next time somebody says, “we went another way”, please don’t be offended. Look at your experience, the organizations you worked for and any other relevant factors. Chances are the hiring manager is feeling really guilty about not being able to provide you a more detailed explanation…

When I was preparing for graduate school, I was torn over whether to pursue an MBA or a Masters, when a professor asked me: Do you want to be a CIO or a CTO. This advice stuck with me.

If it’s a CIO you want to be, you may want to consider the MBA. The business skills, strategy and management expertise will server you well. If it is a CTO you want to be, the Masters degree, especially in a Science field, will gain you the respect of the technical staff and establish more technical credibility. Of course, both will truly server you very well in either role.

If you are incredibly smart, or just a glutton for punishment, you can, of course, do both. I’m no glutton though.