When technical skills aren't enough

Robert Half Technology's Midyear IT Employment Outlook notes that 41 percent of CIOs are planing greater emphasis on job candidate's knoweldge of business fundamentals compared to five years ago. Here are the competencies your IT leaders need to succeed:

1) Business Acumen
2) Communication and Interpersonal Skills
3) Critical Thinking and Problem Solving
4) Coaching and Mentoring
5) Managing Change
6) Financial Acumen

We can help you with our existing learning materials or build custom learning experiences for you. For more info on our leadership development consulting, check out www.russellmartin.com or purchase our books IT Leadership Alchemy and Leadership Training.

Lou Russell, CEO
Russell Martin & Associates

How to do leadership development

In order to develop a leadership development program, you have to be able to answer the following questions:
1. What kind of company do you want to be in 10 - 15 years?
2. Which business will you be in?
3. What type of culture will you have?
4. What do you need in the leadership space to get there?
5. What can you offer employees in terms of career advancement to attract top talent?
6. What is the best way to develop the leaders you will need?

Competencies will be built and measured around the following categories:
SELF AWARENESS - clarity of personal strengths and weaknesses, including personal goals and motivators
WORKING WITH OTHERS - communication, coaching, customer service and collaboration
ALIGNMENT - getting the right person in the right job at the right time

For more info on our leadership development consulting, check out www.russellmartin.com or purchase our books IT Leadership Alchemy and Leadership Training.

Lou Russell, CEO
Russell Martin & Associates

What training dollars will be spent this year

From ASTD's T&D 2/08: www.astd.org

150 global companies share that the will spend MORE budget on the following training this year:
Supervisory / management skills 42%
Leadership / exec development 41%
Will spend the SAME budget on:
Basic skills 62%
Business Practices 48%
Change Mgmt 46%
Project Management 47%
Strategic Planning 47%
Will spend LESS budget on:
Communications 12%
Change management 11%
Basic skills 12%

Since we provide services around leadership and project management for the middles of organizations, we are pretty excited about this future. Our books IT Leadership Alchemy, Project Management for Trainers, Leadership Training, and 10 Steps to Successful Project Management should sell well also. Want your own copy? Check out www.russellmartin.com

How to Lead a Great IT Team

IT Teams bring their own challenges. How does a leader lead a highly intelligent and specialized team, especially when the team members may not value communication as much as other efforts? Here are some ideas:
1> Empower the team members - sounds cliche, but IT people really want to play a role in making decisions that impact them. They are problem solvers - let them solve problems.
2> Create a Learning Environment - IT people tend to be highly theoretical, and love to learn new things. Allow them the opportunity to do that - it costs money but it's much less costly then hiring a replacement.
3> Evaluate frequently - as perfectionists, IT pracitioners desire and avoid feedback. Don't wait until the once a year performance review - give them feedback at least every 6 months or more.
4> Build a team - make sure everyone's role is clear.
5> Encourage communication - ask for their opinions, help them learn to speak in business terms. Teach them how to describe technology challenges in a way non-techies will understand
6> Ensure alignment - keep the focus on how the technology serves the business, not the technology itself.
7> Watch their backs - protect them from stupid meetings, cranky SMEs, et.

For more tips on managing IT people, check out my book IT Leadership Alchemy at www.russellmartin.com.

I'm stuck in an Infomercial

Like I'll small business owners, I live, breath and sleep (and ya, and drink) while thinking about how to grow revenue and market share. I carefully observe my fellow business owners. Lately, with the continued evolution of Internet marketing, I'm starting to feel like the only option is Informercial-ism. I'm getting tired of the "As seen on tv" feel of book promotions, service promotions, etc. I've played with it in my head, but somehow

QUICK! Sign up for our 10 Steps to Successful Project Management webinar and receive FREE GINZU knives!!!

It just doesn't seem right. I'm really proud of my books because they really help a lot of people. I don't think they need gimmicks. But are we only able to focus through the chaos at LOUD marketing?

Lou

What new hires want - not what you think OR what you want

From Saturday's New York Times...

Turns out the OLD STUDY we all learned in the 70s may be outdated (surprise!!).

DO human resource executives know their employees?

When the professionals were asked to list the three things employees would say were the most important to them in deciding whether to stay with a company, the executives missed on all three, reports Workspan, a magazine that focuses on attracting, retaining and motivating employees.
Employees said benefits were most important. Compensation was second and “growth and earning potential” third.
The human resource executives guessed that the top three would be “management climate, supervisor relationship and work environment.” The executives predicted that compensation would come in seventh place, exactly where employees put “supervisor relationship.”
“Perhaps the H.R. executives placed ‘supervisor relationship’ at No. 2 because they believe what is published and said so often: that people don’t quit organizations or jobs, they quit their supervisors,” wrote the magazine, published by WorldatWork, an international association of human resource professionals. “But the data from the employees indicates that axiom might not be so rock solid.”
The survey was conducted by Spherion, a recruiting and staffing company, and by the market research firm Harris Interactive.

Lou Russell
Fun, fast, flexible and measurable learning
http://www.russellmartin.com/

Crazy interview questions

From Market Watch this morning...


""Why aren't you married yet?" "Would you join a church to get a job?" Those are just two examples of questions job seekers said hiring managers asked them in a job interview, according to a new survey of more than 3,000 job seekers and 1,000 hiring managers worldwide by Development Dimensions International and Monster, the career-resource arm of Monster Worldwide.
Others included "Are you happy in your relationship?" "Who is your favorite Beatle?" and "What is your perception of the painting in our lobby?"

The survey findings are "a wake-up call for organizations that this is happening behind closed doors when the applicant is face to face with their potential boss," said Scott Erker, DDI's senior vice president of selection solutions. DDI is a human-resource consulting company in Pittsburgh.
Questions pertaining to family status or religion can easily venture into illegal territory under antidiscrimination laws. That means potentially exposing the company to litigation -- and hindering the firm's efforts to find talented workers.
But even questions that are simply inappropriate, though legal, can pose problems.
"If you could be a dog, what kind of dog would you be?" and "What would you do if I gave you an elephant?" are two examples of the bizarre questions asked, according to survey respondents.
"Candidates perceive these questions as not related to the job," Erker said. "You've got candidates scratching their heads, 'What do I say to this?'"
Forty-three percent of job seekers surveyed said "asking questions unrelated to job skills" is among the most annoying of managers' interview habits. Thirty-eight percent said "asking personal questions" was annoying.
Two-thirds of job seekers said the interviewer influences their decision to accept or reject the job.
The survey did not assess how prevalent or widespread the practice of asking inappropriate interview questions is, but the survey yielded "hundreds of examples of bad questions," Erker said. "I think it's more prevalent than we think." "

Liberal Fascism

Jonah Goldberg had a ridiculous editorial in today's paper, taking his book marketing campaign to the editorial page by whining about abuse.

In his sidebar, he cries that Jon Stewart abused him with his interview questions and editing on "The Daily Show". Jonah explains that the reason Jon was offended by the caricature of Hitler (yes, Hitler) on the cover of the new book and the title was because people in general do not really understand what fascism really means - it's more than Nazis. Then why is Hitler on the book!?

The title and cover were obviously created to drive sales, as was the visit to the Daily Show. Give us a break...

Lou

Being Nice and Successful is Possible

There is a new 'parable' book out by Bob Burg and John David Mann titled "The Go-Giver". In this fable, the authors try to make the point that business is not an excuse for being selfish and a jerk. They push the point a bit far with the following points:

* Your true worth is determined by what you give versus what you get (I think that the Bible should be footnoted on that one...)
* Your influence is determined by how well you place other's interests
* The most valuable gift you have is yourself.

I agree with the premise, and I agree with the third bullet completely. I do not think there are different rules of behavior in business and personal life. However, I do think as leaders and business owners we have to balance our responsibility to help others with our responsibility to keep ourselves healthy. As a person who has a great deal of difficulty saying No to anyone, this is a challenge for me. If I cannot do this, I cannot lead well because I am unbalanced, unhealthy, and not very smart. You will see this thread run through my book IT Leadership Alchemy http://www.russellmartin.com/.

Lou

I'm guessing EI is emotional intelligence (tho I usually see that as EQ).

Response 1)

I do quite a bit with the Lominger suite of competencies (www.lominger.com). One of the authors, Bob Eichinger, during one of the training sessions, gave Goleman a sidelong thank-you for bringing to EI people's attention. Then Bob noted that after careful examination, he found nothing new in EI - nothing that was not already accounted for (and in a much superior fashion) within the competencies they had been using for years.

BTW, the Saint Paul Public Schools built (with Eichinger's help) a model of leadership based on the Lominger competencies. Those EI-oriented competencies comprise only part of the model.

Response 2)

If we're going to take apart the broad world of 'intelligence' then should we not also look at PM and other 'intelligences'? Long ago I read about them (Howard Gardner), don't remember them in detail, but a quick Google returned:
Linguistic intelligence ("word smart"): Logical-mathematical intelligence ("number/reasoning smart") Spatial intelligence ("picture smart") Bodily-Kinesthetic intelligence ("body smart") Musical intelligence ("music smart") Interpersonal intelligence ("people smart") Intrapersonal intelligence ("self smart") Naturalist intelligence ("nature smart")

Intrapersonal intelligence and PM? Musical intelligence and PM (you know, getting that "I need more resources" song-and-dance down to a fine art? )

More recently, Gardner has written on Five Minds for the Future (extract available). These include:
"The disciplined mind has mastered at least one way of thinking – a distinctive mode of cognition that characterizes a specific scholarly discipline, craft, or profession. … The synthesizing mind takes information from disparate sources, understands and evaluates that information objectively, and puts it together in ways that makes sense to the synthesizer and also to other persons. … Building on discipline and synthesis, the creating minds breaks new ground. It puts forth new ideas, poses unfamiliar questions, conjures up fresh ways of thinking, arrives at unexpected answers. … the respectful mind notes and welcomes the differences between human individuals and between human groups, tries to understand these ‘others’, and seeks to work effectively with them. … the ethical mind ponders the nature of one’s work and the needs and desires of the society in which one lives." (p 3)
then
"The first three kinds of minds deal primarily with cognitive forms; the last two deal with our relations to other human beings. One of the last two (respectful) is more concrete; the other (ethical) is more abstract. … What are my obligations [ethically] as a scientific researcher, a writer, a manager, a leader? If I were sitting on the other side of the table … what would I have the right to expect from those ‘others’ who research, write, manage, lead?" (p 8-9)

PM and the synthesizing mind? PM and the respectful mind? PM and the ethical mind?

Response 3)

Goleman did write an article called "Leadership That Gets Results", focused of course on EI. In my and my partner's work, we talk quite carefully about the difference between 'being the leader' and 'doing leadership'. We try to get people to use more precise language than that. So we talk about administration and management and leadership as practices or sets of skills. We talk about the person in charge as the PPA - the person in position of authority. Way too often, the PPA is skilled at neither management nor leadership (but occasionally is good at at administration), but is nonetheless the PPA. (Don't get me started on public education!) I am out of touch with the world of IT, I admit. Patricia Pitcher wrote in The Drama of Leadership that people come in three essential varieties: artists, craftsmen, and technocrats. Her warning:
"Technocrats are not, I repeat, evil. They are immature. They are handicapped. They are blind. Led by the blind, is it any wonder, then, that we are lost? … They are dangerous not because they are evil. They are dangerous because they are too cold-blooded. Just as we do not let children play with fire, we should not let emotionally immature people play with power. The Technocrats are no more to blame for their attitudes than are children for their immaturity. Unlike children, however, they can’t be expected to grow up, and they can’t be educated to change their ways. So, all we can do is ensure that they don’t get access to power." (p 190 - 195)
It used to be that IT was 'led' largely by technocrats. I don't know about today. I do know that public education is largely 'led' by technocrats. Arghhhh ....


Michael A

Michael Ayers
mbayers@earthlink.net <=> www.TheCommonwealthPractice.com
612.308.0501 (mobile)

"Don't ask yourself what the world needs. Ask yourself what
makes you come alive, and go do that because what the world
needs is people who have come alive." -- Howard Thurman

EI - What the heck is it?

I have to say, I'm puzzled by the whole EI thing but I think you both can help. Maybe we can talk about this at Medco in 08... it isn't really an email thing, so keep it in the back of your mind and let's talk.

1) I remember Gardner intially defining EI in his 1987 white paper as the ability of a person to correctly identify the emotional state he/she was currently in AND a identifying a rational, behavioral way to address / manage that emotion. The OPPOSITE of EI was slamming kitchen cabinet doors when I'm mad at my husband.

Goleman seems to have broadened the definition a bit, to a point that it really begins to look like leadership competencies, at least interrelationship skills. I don't really understand the difference except that you can work on EI without being a leader - is it just the context that's different?

Finally, the secret to project management is communication. SO, it makes perfect sense that you would be a better project manager if you were a better communicator which you would be if you had grown your EI. However, these articles and workshops I found in the Google search seem to be repackaged EI classes or repackaged PM Communication Skills. None of them seem to have the big secret - what are the actual things you do behaviorally (in terms of PM techniques, tools, philosophies as well as 'how-to' grow EI). It all seems very vague, do you have these things, etc. but not very concrete, actionable. Do you think there's a niche for a true combo of both?

Recess or Progress

Scary stuff out there... economy trying to crash, people getting laid off, lots of gloom and doom. But I don't see it! Do we GET a recession because we are brainwashed into thinking we are going to get a recession, or are recessions real, independent of our perception of the economy? There are certainly mixed signals in my business.