Posts in category: IT

This article was published on ComputerWorld on September 8, 2009 –

 

I can sum up every article, book and column written by notable management experts about managing IT in two sentences: "Geeks are smart and creative, but they are also egocentric, antisocial, managerially and business-challenged, victim-prone, bullheaded and credit-whoring. To overcome these intractable behavioral deficits you must do X, Y and Z."

X, Y and Z are variable and usually contradictory between one expert and the next, but the patronizing stereotypes remain constant. I’m not entirely sure that is helpful. So, using the familiar brush, allow me to paint a different picture of those IT pros buried somewhere in your organization.



My career has been stippled with a good bit of disaster recovery consulting, which has led me to deal with dozens of organizations on their worst day, when opinions were pretty raw. I’ve heard all of the above-mentioned stereotypes and far worse, as well as good bit of rage. The worse shape an organization is in, the more you hear the stereotypes thrown around. But my personal experiences working within IT groups have always been quite good, working with IT pros for whom the negative stereotypes just don’t seem to apply. I tended to chalk up IT group failures to some bad luck in hiring and the delicate balance of those geek

Recently, though, I have come to realize that perfectly healthy groups with solid, well-adjusted IT pros can and will devolve, slowly and quietly, into the behaviors that give rise to the stereotypes, given the right set of conditions. It turns out that it is the conditions that are stereotypical, and the IT pros tend to react to those conditions in logical ways. To say it a different way, organizations actively elicit these stereotypical negative behaviors.

Understanding why IT pros appear to act the way they do makes working with, among and as one of them the easiest job in the world.

It’s all about respect –
Few people notice this, but for IT groups respect is the currency of the realm. IT pros do not squander this currency. Those whom they do not believe are worthy of their respect might instead be treated to professional courtesy, a friendly demeanor or the acceptance of authority. Gaining respect is not a matter of being the boss and has nothing to do with being likeable or sociable; whether you talk, eat or smell right; or any measure that isn’t directly related to the work. The amount of respect an IT pro pays someone is a measure of how tolerable that person is when it comes to getting things done, including the elegance and practicality of his solutions and suggestions. IT pros always and without fail, quietly self-organize around those who make the work easier, while shunning those who make the work harder, independent of the organizational chart.

This self-ordering behavior occurs naturally in the IT world because it is populated by people skilled in creative analysis and ordered reasoning. Doctors are a close parallel. The stakes may be higher in medicine, but the work in both fields requires a technical expertise that can’t be faked and a proficiency that can only be measured by qualified peers. I think every good IT pro on the planet idolizes Dr. House (minus the addictions).

While everyone would like to work for a nice person who is always right, IT pros will prefer a jerk who is always right over a nice person who is always wrong. Wrong creates unnecessary work, impossible situations and major failures. Wrong is evil, and it must be defeated. Capacity for technical reasoning trumps all other professional factors, period.

Foundational (bottom-up) respect is not only the largest single determining factor in the success of an IT team, but the most ignored. I believe you can predict success or failure of an IT group simply by assessing the amount of mutual respect within it.

The elements of the stereotypes –
Ego — Similar to what good doctors do, IT pros figure out that the proper projection of ego engenders trust and reduces apprehension. Because IT pros’ education does not emphasize how to deal with people, there are always rough edges. Ego, as it plays out in IT, is an essential confidence combined with a not-so-subtle cynicism. It’s not about being right for the sake of being right but being right for the sake of saving a lot of time, effort, money and credibility. IT is a team sport, so being right or wrong impacts other members of the group in non-trivial ways. Unlike in many industries, in IT, colleagues can significantly influence the careers of the entire team. Correctness yields respect, respect builds good teams, and good teams build trust and maintain credibility through a healthy projection of ego. Strong IT groups view correctness as a virtue, and certitude as a delivery method. Meek IT groups, beaten down by inconsistent policies and a lack of structural support, are simply ineffective at driving change and creating efficiencies, getting mowed over by the clients, the management or both at every turn.

The victim mentality — IT pros are sensitive to logic — that’s what you pay them for. When things don’t add up, they are prone to express their opinions on the matter, and the level of response will be proportional to the absurdity of the event. The more things that occur that make no sense, the more cynical IT pros will become. Standard organizational politics often run afoul of this, so IT pros can come to be seen as whiny or as having a victim mentality. Presuming this is a trait that must be disciplined out of them is a huge management mistake. IT pros complain primarily about logic, and primarily to people they respect. If you are dismissive of complaints, fail to recognize an illogical event or behave in deceptive ways, IT pros will likely stop complaining to you. You might mistake this as a behavioral improvement, when it’s actually a show of disrespect. It means you are no longer worth talking to, which leads to insubordination.

Insubordination — This is a tricky one. Good IT pros are not anti-bureaucracy, as many observers think. They are anti-stupidity. The difference is both subjective and subtle. Good IT pros, whether they are expected to or not, have to operate and make decisions with little supervision. So when the rules are loose and logical and supervision is results-oriented, supportive and helpful to the process, IT pros are loyal, open, engaged and downright sociable. Arbitrary or micro-management, illogical decisions, inconsistent policies, the creation of unnecessary work and exclusionary practices will elicit a quiet, subversive, almost vicious attitude from otherwise excellent IT staff. Interestingly, IT groups don’t fall apart in this mode. From the outside, nothing looks to be wrong and the work still gets done. But internally, the IT group, or portions of it, may cut themselves off almost entirely from the intended management structure. They may work on big projects or steer the group entirely from the shadows while diverting the attention of supervisors to lesser topics. They believe they are protecting the organization, as well as their own credibility — and they are often correct.

Credit whoring — IT pros would prefer to make a good decision than to get credit for it. What will make them seek credit is the danger that a member of the group or management who is dangerous to the process might receive the credit for the work instead. That is insulting. If you’ve got a lot of credit whores in your IT group, there are bigger problems causing it.

Antisocial behavior — It’s fair to say that there is a large contingent of IT pros who are socially unskilled. However, this doesn’t mean those IT pros are antisocial. On the whole, they have plenty to say. If you want to get your IT pros more involved, you should deal with the problems laid out above and then train your other staff how to deal with IT. Users need to be reminded a few things, including:

• IT wants to help me.

• I should keep an open mind.

• IT is not my personal tech adviser, nor is my work computer my personal computer.

• IT people have lives and other interests.

Like anyone else, IT people tend to socialize with people who respect them. They’ll stop going to the company picnic if it becomes an occasion for everyone to list all the computer problems they never bothered to mention before.

How we elicit the stereotypes –
What executives often fail to recognize is that every decision made that impacts IT is a technical decision. Not just some of the decisions, and not just the details of the decision, but every decision, bar none.

With IT, you cannot separate the technical aspects from the business aspects. They are one and the same, each constrained by the other and both constrained by creativity. Creativity is the most valuable asset of an IT group, and failing to promote it can cost an organization literally millions of dollars.

Most IT pros support an organization that is not involved with IT. The primary task of any IT group is to teach people how to work. That’s may sound authoritarian, but it’s not. IT’s job at the most fundamental level is to build, maintain and improve frameworks within which to accomplish tasks. You may not view a Web server as a framework to accomplish tasks, but it does automate the processes of advertising, sales, informing and entertaining, all of which would otherwise be done in other ways. IT groups literally teach and reteach the world how to work. That’s the job.

When you understand the mission of IT, it isn’t hard to see why co-workers and supervisors are judged severely according to their abilities to contribute to that process. If someone has to constantly be taught Computers 101 every time a new problem presents itself, he can’t contribute in the most fundamental way. It is one thing to deal with that from a co-worker, but quite another if the people who represent IT to the organization at large aren’t cognizant of how the technology works, can’t communicate it in the manner the IT group needs it communicated, can’t maintain consistency, take credit for the work of the group members, etc. This creates a huge morale problem for the group. Executives expect expert advice from the top IT person, but they have no way of knowing when they aren’t getting it. Therein lies the problem.

IT pros know when this is happening, and they find that it is impossible to draw attention to it. Once their work is impeded by the problem, they will adopt strategies and behaviors that help circumvent the issue. That is not a sustainable state, but how long it takes to deteriorate can be days, months or even years.

How to fix it –
So, if you want to have a really happy, healthy and valuable IT group, I recommend one thing: Take an interest. IT pros work their butts off for people they respect, so you need to give them every reason to afford you some.

You can start with the hiring process. When hiring an IT pro, imagine you’re recruiting a doctor. And if you’re hiring a CIO, think of employing a chief of medicine. The chief of medicine should have many qualifications, but first and foremost, he should be a practicing doctor. Who decides if a doctor is a doctor? Other doctors! So, if your IT group isn’t at the table for the hiring process of their bosses and peers, this already does a disservice to the process.

Favor technical competence and leadership skills. Standard managerial processes are nearly useless in an IT group. As I mentioned, if you’ve managed to hire well in the lower ranks of your IT group, the staff already know how to manage things. Unlike in many industries, the fight in most IT groups is in how to get things done, not how to avoid work. IT pros will self-organize, disrupt and subvert in the name of accomplishing work. An over-structured, micro-managing, technically deficient runt, no matter how polished, who’s thrown into the mix for the sake of management will get a response from the professional IT group that’s similar to anyone’s response to a five-year-old tugging his pants leg.

What IT pros want in a manager is a technical sounding board and a source of general direction. Leadership and technical competence are qualities to look for in every member of the team. If you need someone to keep track of where projects are, file paperwork, produce reports and do customer relations, hire some assistants for a lot less money.

When it comes to performance checks, yearly reviews are worthless without a 360-degree assessment. Those things take more time than a simple top-down review, but it is time well spent. If you’ve been paying attention to what I’ve been telling you about how IT groups behave and organize, then you will see your IT group in a whole different light when you read the group’s 360s.

And make sure all your managers are practicing and learning. It is very easy to slip behind the curve in those positions, but just as with doctors, the only way to be relevant is to practice and maintain an expertise. In IT, six months to a year is all that stands between respect and irrelevance.

Finally, executives should have multiple in-points to the IT team. If the IT team is singing out of tune, it is worth investigating the reasons. But you’ll never even know if that’s the case if the only information you receive is from the CIO. Periodically, bring a few key IT brains to the boardroom to observe the problems of the organization at large, even about things outside of the IT world, if only to make use of their exquisitely refined BS detectors. A good IT pro is trained in how to accomplish work; their skills are not necessarily limited to computing. In fact, the best business decision-makers I know are IT people who aren’t even managers.

As I said at the very beginning, it’s all about respect. If you can identify and cultivate those individuals and processes that earn genuine respect from IT pros, you’ll have a great IT team. Taking an honest interest in helping your IT group help you is probably the smartest business move an organization can make. It also makes for happy, completely non-geek-like geeks.

Jeff Ello is a hybrid veteran of the IT and CG industries, currently managing IT for the Krannert School of Management at Purdue University. He can be contacted at jello@techoped.com.

Jump to part 1…

II – Use the Resources you have –

Damn, if I had a nickel for every organization that bleeds money on unimplemented technology and underutilized, or more accurately “inappropriately utilized” staff…

Companies, the world over, could save billions in IT, and operational costs, if they just used what they already have.  It doesn’t matter if you’re Unix based or windows based, it’s 99% likely that there’s something you could automate, today, in a few minutes, to chop out half an FTE or more of useless labor.  Most organizations are paying for hardware and software they don’t need, or don’t use… and most organizations have no process for assessing or innovating what they do, how they do it, or why.

There’s just no focus on operations in this day and age.  Everything’s gotten so filled with buzz words (like IT alignment, CRM, ERP, Web 2.0) that there’s no leadership in the area that actually provides the business its greatest cost savings (or losses)… Operations.  I have yet to see an organization that isn’t throwing away big money on senseless human labor, unnecessary software and hardware.  It’s just a fact (because I say so).

Start automating today, and then, instead of firing employees when you’ve freed up some FTEs, get them into a 50/50 training scheme, so the organization can become even more effective over time. 

Oh, but you don’t have anyone to do automation.  BULL.  Every single IT professional should be able to do basic administrative scripting.  Every single IT professional can be trained to automate enterprise level work.  Every single IT professional should be on the lookout for better techniques… and the organization should be prepared to make changes.

If this isn’t how it is in your organization, it’s a management issue, plain and simple.  The benefit of good operations is the currency upon which you get CRM and ERP projects to fly.  I’ve said it before, automation is the fundamental purpose of computers, so it simply has to be a primary task of the IT group.  Automate as much as possible… then spend the time savings on more education and bigger projects.

To sum it up:  Start using what you’ve got, and make it a priority to investigate and squeeze out unnecessary labor and costs wherever they can be found.  If someone has to do a process more than once, you should consider automating it.  Making computers do the work is the fundamental reason for having the computers!

I – Manage output.  Treat IT like IT, business like business –

I don’t know how many times I’ve heard this question/complaint in different organizations, “How do I get my IT people to come in 9-5… they take 2 hour lunches, etc.”  Now, to be fair, you can pretty much tell the state of the IT department when the question is asked… and it never seems to be asked by anyone with direct knowledge of the work… it’s always a Business manager, HR rep, or other type of manager. 

So this problem is not necessarily endemic to IT, but rather endemic to the integration of IT and other kinds of industries.  Also, the question itself has the unintended consequence of showing why outsourcing seldom works. 

In the ancient world, people showed up for work in the morning… they ate lunch for an hour, and later they went home to forget about work til the next day.  That was all that was possible…. and sure, there are still many jobs for which it’s a necessity.

Just as modern technology makes the world your office, more efficient management scenarios are also possible. Sure, if you have a help desk, the help desk has to be manned for certain hours, so a presence is a given – does that presence have to be in the office? Maybe not.  Your systems have to be up 24/7, and remote management is child’s play, so why would your systems admin be a 9-5 employee?  Development can happen anywhere, anytime… so why would you constrain your creative thinking developers to a tie, a water cooler, and a 1 hour lunch break?  

Turns out that good developers like to work in their underwear at 3 am, high on Mountain Dew. No one has dissected one to find out why… it’s just a fact (because I say so). 

I’m not saying the IT people are special and should be treated special.  I am saying that even if your IT group is part of a manufacturing company, running IT like an assembly line will ensure low productivity.  In fact, anything resembling micro-management is universally despised amongst IT professionals.  It’s not even a debate.

Of course this is about far more than a timeclock, it’s about the whole culture of work and finding ways for people to be more productive, less stressed, more responsible, more loyal, etc… not because you have to, but because it’s good for business.  Efficiently managing the 24/7 modern world is about placing expectations on the output, not monitoring the input.  Set goals for your IT teams and let them figure out what they need to do to be successful.  I’d certainly rather fire an unproductive 9-5er than a productive developer I only see on webcam.

Coincidentally, the root problem is the same in outsourcing failures.  If one can’t manage the output expectations of employees, one certainly can’t manage the output expectations of non-employees… which is all an outsourcing relationship is.  That, of course, comes back to having competent management.  They who set the goals need to know what the goals are… and more importantly, they need to have the respect of the IT team to achieve any of it.

To sum it up:  The 40 hour work week does not ensure results, managing results ensures results.  Explore working options with your IT staff.  Productivity increases by adapting to the nature of the work, and the nature of the worker. 

Jump to part 2…

I’ve seen my share of IT gone wrong, and I pay attention when it does.  Sure, the problems and solutions may seem obvious, “do good, don’t do evil” as a CIO colleague of mine likes to say… but making the conscious effort to recognize and stand up for the most critical values takes something you don’t often see in today’s IT workplace.

So here’s 17 years (oh god, is it 18 now?) of watching successes and failures, wrapped up in the form of 4 Habits:

IV – Competence and Character above all else –

Sure, it seems obvious… but most IT organizations in decline can trace their woes to incompetency and/or lack of character amongst their ranks.  It’s all the more disastrous when these characteristics emerge in upper management.

No matter how well integrated to a business, IT is, by nature, an organizational island… albeit one in which the natives fear the beach, sunlight and are allergic to everything. 

The business as a whole has to trust, almost blindly, that the IT management has things in hand.  This makes Character and Competence the two most important qualities of IT professionals at all levels. 

Sure, we think about those things when we hire people, but they aren’t the focus… and they need to be.  

With all due respect to managers, it is no great feat to keep geeks in line and pointed at a goal.  Most IT groups consist of members whose skills do not generally overlap, so most organizations already depend on IT staff managing themselves, whether anyone realizes it or not.  This is, in fact, an increasing trend.  For most IT pros, independent management is just part of the job.  

This aspect of IT is a key oversight when finding IT people, particularly CIO’s.  IT pros don’t look toward a boss for management, rather, for their competent, engaged and coherent input on the technical and policy issues that are facing them in their work.  The CIO is responsible for the grand scheme, making the cogs fit together, so a lack of technical competence at this level is a grave, yet pervasive liability the industry currently endures.  Technically competent CIOs are both more useful to subordinates, and make better decisions.  It’s just a fact (because I say so).  

Also, IT professionals who find themselves responsible for the livelihood of an organization also realize how important it is to be trusted implicitly.  The job simply can’t be done without the trust of the users.  If the group loses that trust, it takes forever to earn it back.  All it takes is one bad hire.

Competence and Character are simply indispensable, no matter how technical, ceremonial or managerial you think the job is.  IT staff are extremely sensitive to these two characteristics.  So instead of looking for generally “good” candidates, using whatever arbitrary factors may be in play, the first question that should be asked of your HR people is “how to we verify the technical competence of IT hirees” and the second is “how do we assess their character”.  If there is no current method, create one.  ALWAYS involve the rest of the IT staff in the decision making process, and DEMAND their unrestrained opinions.  You’ll be sorry if you don’t.

To sum it up:  Obvious or not, a little respect goes a long way at all levels of IT.  Hire people you and your IT staff respect, and foster a culture of doing the right thing, or expect major problems.

III – IT Employee Development and the 50/50 Rule –

In failing IT organizations, IT employees often work 100% of the time or more.  In successful IT organizations, IT employees often work 50% of the time or less.   It’s just a fact (because I say so).

You may grumble about that assertion, but the old adage about working smarter, not harder, is pretty much the mantra of the successful IT organization.  A good IT employee in a successful IT organization consumes and applies a PhD’s worth of information every couple years of their career.  Those who don’t, simply become irrelevant, or even a hindrance in short order.  Continuous education and retraining is an absolutely essential part of the job, from the CIO to the technician.

But you say, “The CIO doesn’t need to know how to configure a router…”  No, but it is the process of obtaining education in IT related disciplines that gives them the insight to contribute intellectually on other technical topics… in fact, it’s even more important for the CIO because a tech competent CIO will see possibilities well beyond what’s available on the shelf… and generally save their organizations large amounts of cash.

Of course, the shape of such education for IT staff need not be defined.  Certifications and degrees have no more value than the education derived from tinkering, experimenting, and reading Slashdot or Digg.

In order to progress and do things cheaper, faster, better… IT employees must both have the time, and be expected to learn and implement new concepts, technologies and strategies.  If your group is overtaxed just to get the daily work done, then you’re not only failing at employee development… but you aren’t providing a competitive advantage to your organization. The competitive advantage comes from doing things better than the other guy, and customizing the IT solutions to the benefit of the organization.  

Of course, the current management norm is to cut FTEs to the bare minimum any time there’s an excess of man power for the immediate work.  This, however, ensures that what you do today is all you’ll ever do, and likewise ensures that what your employees do today is all they’ll be able to do.  At that point, there’s little value to having an IT department… and is a major reason why organizations wind up unable to deploy new technology or adapt to unforeseen changes.
  
The more desirable outcome, indicative of both good management and employee development, is to have challenging goals being achieved, reasonable expectations being met, and employees that only spend 25%-50% of their time working, and the rest educating themselves.  Organizations in  this situation have the best chance of retaining employees and providing exceptional service.

To sum it up:  Education is half the job.  Organizations that make it a priority are more effective than those that do not.

4 (Uncommon) Habits for Better IT, part 2…