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.

From Servers to Servant Leadership - Data Center Leadership

The slides complimented the presentation and were not written to stand alone as an independent communication. However, if you have questions about the content or seek a speaker on the topic of Servant Leadership for your next meeting or conference, please contact me.

1. Best Friends At Work
Who still believes that work is impersonal? When was it necessary to ensure that your business contacts are not also friends? Need we remind some organizations of the Gallup Organization’s findings from their study of high performing organizations:

Gallup… observed that employees who report having a best friend at work were¹:

• 43% more likely to report having received praise or recognition for their work in the last seven days.
• 37% more likely to report that someone at work encourages their development
• 35% more likely to report coworker commitment to quality.
• 28% more likely to report that in the last six months, someone at work has talked to them about their progress
• 27% more likely to report that the mission of their company makes them feel their job is important
• 27% more likely to report that their opinions seem to count at work.
• 21% more likely to report that at work, they have the opportunity to do what they do best every day.

2. Companies Don’t Buy & Sell, People Do
When it comes to major agreements and long term commitments, people do not simply buy something from a company. Instead, they build partnerships and gain understanding from those partners about that company and their products. Then, business partners create mutually beneficial, value generating agreements together. The net result, after years of success on both ends of those deals is a stronger relationship, often extending into friendships. Those friendships can generate trust and efficiency which transcends employers, creates stronger networks and brings value to the next company by which either partner is employed. No longer does a person bring only their experience and skills to a company that hires them, but they bring the skills, experience and trust of their network as well.

3. Who Do You Want in Your Foxhole?
When times get tough, who do you want in your foxhole with you? Someone you only know based on their numbers, contracts, functional requirements and other formalities? Do you really think such an individual will stick their neck out for you or go that extra mile, unless the compensation is there? Or, do you want someone you’ve known well, whose family you know by name and whose favorite charity you supported last year? If nothing else, it helps to know your business partner’s spouse will yell at them if they screw up a deal they committed to you on.

4. Innovation
Structured, internal, corporate innovation alone is too constrained for today’s global economy. Innovation does not work well in a vacuum. The more creative outlets and inlets you provide your entire staff, the greater the chance they will discover breakthrough innovations. As your staff listens to their friends complain about how the products your competitors make, fail to meet their needs, they will better understand the implications of your engineering, research & development. The more your teams hear their contacts mention the need for someone to invent a solution to xyz problem, the greater the chance your company will create and solve that new market problem.

5. Mass Dialogue
Never before in history, has the opportunity for mass dialogue existed in such a manner as what social media provides. Print media creates mass, one way communication. Television does the same. Static website are no better. Previous communications technologies equate to shouting at your customers. With social media, feedback mechanisms like rated reviews, number of views and frequency of comments provide a means by which leaders can proactively hear the unified voice that is their consumer mass. This creates, in essence, a platform by which leaders can carry on a mass dialogue, like never before.

Dark Side
Don’t get me wrong, their are risks inherent to social media as well. Yes, your employee could reveal some deep, dark, corporate secret. Or, someone claiming to speak on your organization’s behalf may slip and act unprofessionally in a business forum. There may even be a greater volume of technical risks, such as computer viruses, worms and social engineering in these mediums. However, the solution to these risks are the same they’ve always been: education, training, policy and appropriate network security. The solution is not cutting off your company from opportunities for fear of the unknown.

In the end, as technical leaders in your organization, it is up to you to set the expectations of the company with regard to innovative opportunities. This evolution in communication technology is no different. The next time you debate blocking the latest social media site, consider, instead, joining the site and putting your great staff to task in finding the right way to keep that channel open for the corporation to leverage all benefits, without exposing you to the usual risks.

1. http://gmj.gallup.com/content/511/Item-10-Best-Friend-Work.aspx July 10, 2009.

Hasso Plattner file photo from SAP Sapphire 2007 / CC BY-NC 2.0

Speakers & SAP Executives (Positive)
While commitments back at the office prevented me from catching all of the keynote speakers and SAP executives presenting, I was able to get to most of the top keynotes.

Opening Keynote: Abbe Mulders & Steven Levitt (Neutral)
Major themes for this conference included clarity, transparency, Sustainability and, of course, advances in technology. A promising start for SAP Executive leadership and speaker expectations. The conference kicked off with Ms. Abbe Mulders, ASUG Vice Chairperson, Dow Corning Corporation CIO and Mr. Steven Levitt author of FREAKONOMICS. Abbe provided a good welcome and spoke of the power of ASUG, (the American SAP User Group). Again, a plus for recognizing the power of users, collaboration and support. Levitt provided a very revealing life history that included the fact that his father was not stellar in medical studies and practice, but chose the very uncommon field of intestinal gas. It worked for him – he became recognized as an expert in his field, even including a GQ article dubbing him “The King of Farts”. Following in his footsteps, in a manner, the younger Levitt found himself terrible at Math – a bad sign for economists. However, he focused on very unique circumstances in which very few “self-respecting” economists practiced. It worked for him as well. This emphasis on “anything’s possible” when you focus on the right area, was also a positive for leadership.

The only real negative from the opening Keynote was Levitt’s surprising factor that drunk walkers are 8 times more likely to die than drunk drivers. Shocking as this may be, he avoided addressing the risks to others in equivalent detail. One would think drunk drivers are far more likely to kill others than drunk walkers. A setback for transparency by speakers at the conference.

Léo Apotheker (Positive)
Well rehearsed and spoken, Apotheker presented the importance of clarity and transparency SAP provides its clients to their customers. Also surprisingly strong was this Co-CEO of SAP’s message on sustainability. Apotheker claimed the SAP sustainability roadmap is the first in their industry and set a goal for the organization to make every business process sustainable. Strong points for good leadership. Apotheker’s style tended toward a traditional corporate leader – befitting his role.

Ian Kimbell (Positive)
Mr. Kimbell, SAP’s self-proclaimed “Demo Boy” was first introduced at the conference while demonstrating solutions for Mr. Apotheker’s keynote. Probably the most polished of all presenters, Kimbell seemed more comfortable on stage than most people are simply in their own skin. Kimbell’s demonstrations, humor and general ease on stage was so good, in fact, that some people have questioned the reality behind his demonstrations and the effort required to achieve similar goals – was the demonstration too simplified? Still, Kimbell is to be applauded, especially for his later performance, balancing the ever-dynamic Hasso Plattner. Kimbell presented strong leadership through thorough preparation and charisma. A traditional leadership style, perhaps leaning a bit toward the hero-worship model, but positive nonetheless.

Hasso Plattner (Positive)
Co-Founder of SAP, he’s been called the company’s “Rock Star”. In a conference that touted transparency, there were none more transparent than Hasso Plattner. His presentation was very technical for the crowd, but still remarkably clear given his to-and-fro speaking points. With comments like, “SAP may not want to tell you this” or speaking to examples that were still in proof-of-concept phase, Plattner suggested the most down-to-earth mentality of those on stage that day. If you wanted the reality of a situation, you knew Plattner was your person. Whether he could be considered a servant-leader would take much more research, but Plattner’s ability to operate at a remarkably senior level while balancing in-depth technical details was very promising. One thing’s certain, he did not over-rehearse his presentation.

Vendors (Negative)
Vendors with positive leadership were too difficult to identify from brief interactions on the conference floor. Poor leadership, on the other hand, was all too easy to spot. A wide variety of vendors were represented. From behemoths like IBM and Accenture, to companies most have never heard of. One vendor surprised me by asking if he could scan my badge without even speaking to me (a practice which would only add my name and contact information to his undoubtedly growing spammer’s list). Also standing out on the floor were the obvious ploys to attract attention through any means possible. I remained disappointed by the number of “Booth Beauties” (other terms are more common). I still find it hard to believe that companies with quality products should have any need for these tactics and therefore, made it a point to avoid these stands. Milder marketing ploys, were also prevalent, such as the expensive sport cars, power equipment and sizable freebies. While there were undoubtedly plenty of well-led organizations on the floor, unfortunately, the negative still stood out. This resulted in a set-back for overall conference leadership impressions. (Note: I am pleased to say that the vendors I work with were all professionally represented at the conference).

Bloggers (Positive)
Contributing to the discussions and education was a great group of bloggers. Twitter was a popular means of sharing thoughts and feedbcak on the presenters, while other bloggers shared their proposed articles to come, following the conference. Watching these groundswells in action at any conference is always exciting. Within minutes of a presenter’s notable commitment, the quote and feedback on that quote, was already online for the world to see and being discussed. Yes, social technology has truly brought the power to the people. Throughout the conference, though disagreements arose, it remained constructive on Twitter and blogs – another positive for the good guys and strong leadership from the Blogging community.

Now the conference is over, we’ve returned to offices piled full with issues to be addressed and fires to put out, and what have we learned? Besides the excellent lessons on SAP technology, strategy and opportunities, what have attendees experienced from a leadership perspective? They saw a positive side to SAP’s executives, a negative side from many vendors, and a positive leadership example from the blogging community. Net result? Kudos to SAP for not only presenting their technologies, strategy and people in a positive light, but for also a providing a net-positive leadership experience.

* Observations are from the conference only, I did not take into account their character or broader leadership methodologies.

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?

Benefits of Enterprise 2.0

I recently had someone challenge the benefits of social networking for the enterprise, suggesting there was no real value for such technology in the workplace. I came up with a quick list and decided to post it here:

Examples of benefits to social networking in the workplace include:

1. Collaboration: The more your employees can find out about each other, the quicker they can share ideas. For example, if you have a large number of staff, there is a great potential for duplicating research efforts. Through digital networking, it will be easier for your staff to self-identify complimentary projects and align their efforts.
2. Innovation: Your staff may have a great deal of common interests outside the office that could transfer into a profitable new line of business. For example, perhaps you produce electronics and an office club forms around bicycling. The result may be the greatest electronic innovation for cyclists in generations, produced by your company and not the competition.
3. Resource Identification: Content Management systems are great, but what if your staff does not use the right search term? Identifying experts within your company can be much easier, quicker and more cost effective through networking tools than traditional, structured, data hierarchies.
4. Stronger Community: As the famous Gallup Poll pointed out, employees with friends at work are much happier and more productive. Social networking will empower your staff self-identify individuals with similar interests, resulting in larger and stronger community within the workplace.
5. Increased Communication: Industry experts have predicted that social networking is much like email or the web itself – another evolution in communication mediums. As a result, it is not a question of whether to adapt social networking, but when. Mechanisms like chat and forum discussions further empower your staff to communicate more effectively and in a manner that is easy to capture and compile.

These are very high-level and I suspect there will be more as I think about it. However, I will keep running list here as I come across them. If you have some to add, I welcome your comments.

The Wii system itself is pretty interesting. The use of relatively simple technology that is only moderately evolved from the days of the original Nintendo’s Duck Hunt emphasizes the ability of innovation in user interface to produce results as great as, or better than evolutions in graphics. But take that one step further and make these relatively simple technologies an open source platform for others to tweak and you have a plethora of opportunities for new Virtual Reality applications of inexpensive technologies.

Johnny Lee has shown how a nominal additional investment in hardware can produce a digital white board and highlights the benefits for educational institutions. He also shows how reversing the sensor bar and controller can produce a head tracking, VR helmet-like imitation. More recently, the Wii Balance Board has been hacked by guys in a German Artificial Intelligence lab and can be used to navigate Google Earth and virtual environments like World of Warcraft and Second Life. Who wouldn’t love to surf, both physically and figuratively, over their city anyway?

It is fascinating how, like so many successful evolutions of technology, Virtual Reality is not hitting us overnight with some single leap in evolution like so many predicted. Instead, it is creeping in among us through the continuous evolution of innovative interface implementations.

For more material on this topic, check out YouTube Wii Hacks and / or the clips below. As a bonus, in Johnny’s Lee’s famous hack video below, he mentions how YouTube has really expedited the evolution of innovations like these. Roughly quoting Johnny, “In 5 months an idea has gone from experimentation on my desktop to a commercially available product.”

Johnny Lee’s Hack Video, including VR head sensor:

The Wii Balance Board Hacks from Germany:

I was recently browsing one of the leading websites for IT management content, when there was an error in their application. The resulting screen display was the default error page for the web server (blocked out in the copy below):

Within an hour or so, the site was back up and functioning properly. Still, in that short period of time, the organization likely suffered a small impact to their credibility and provided lots of great information (web server version, database and version, method of connection between the two and application code structures) for would-be hackers. What (black-hat) hacker would not love to bring down and IT management content website?

In this case, it was an organization known for IT content that had (apparently) not yet customized their default website error pages. A simple, 15 minutes or so and the developers could have tailored the site for a more appropriate message.

All that said, it is easy to overlook these concerns. I confess, when I came across this error, the first thing I did was double check my own error page (on www.lichtenwalner.net). It is better now…. click here if you don’t believe me.