Alarming News: I like Morgan Freeberg. A lot.
American Digest: And I like this from "The Blog That Nobody Reads", because it is -- mostly -- about me. What can I say? I'm on an ego trip today. It won't last.
Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler: We were following a trackback and thinking "hmmm... this is a bloody excellent post!", and then we realized that it was just part III of, well, three...Damn. I wish I'd written those.
Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler: ...I just remembered that I found a new blog a short while ago, House of Eratosthenes, that I really like. I like his common sense approach and his curiosity when it comes to why people believe what they believe rather than just what they believe.
Brutally Honest: Morgan Freeberg is brilliant.
Dr. Melissa Clouthier: Morgan Freeberg at House of Eratosthenes (pftthats a mouthful) honors big boned women in skimpy clothing. The picture there is priceless--keep scrolling down.
Exile in Portales: Via Gerard: Morgan Freeberg, a guy with a lot to say. And he speaks The Truth...and it's fascinating stuff. Worth a read, or three. Or six.
Just Muttering: Two nice pieces at House of Eratosthenes, one about a perhaps unintended effect of the Enron mess, and one on the Gore-y environ-movie.
Mein Blogovault: Make "the Blog that No One Reads" one of your daily reads.
The Virginian: I know this post will offend some people, but the author makes some good points.
Poetic Justice: Cletus! Ah gots a laiv one fer yew...
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.
:
It’s all about respectFew 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.
There’s certainly something to this, although I have to question the “always and without fail” part of it. All in all, on balance it’s one of the most accurate and dead-on articles I’ve ever seen about management in the technology field, if not the most.
If you’ve booked the conference room for an hour, and forty-six minutes into it the business is all settled — adjourn. Adjourn now.
If you tell the guy you’ll have his discs back to him by three, get them back to him by one-thirty.
Give credit to the guy who came up with the idea, by all means. But also give credit to the unsung hero who ironed the bugs out of it.
If the guy works all night and leaves things a small disaster, but if he didn’t work all night it would have been a huge disaster, make sure the big boss knows all about the huge disaster that might’ve been. Don’t assume people know about this stuff.
If the guy does something positive for your project he didn’t have to do, you do something positive for his career you didn’t have to do. No exceptions.
Everywhere “a bunch of work” exists, there needs to be a list saying what it is. If there’s a bunch of work somewhere with no list saying what it is, the work will be tripled…and talented dedicated people will be paid for about one hour out of every two. See to it the list gets made. Do it yourself if you have to. Make sure people know when they can stop working something over, and move on to the next thing…just like you want a firefighter to know when a fire’s out, and he can turn his hose on to the next thing. That’s really what these guys are. Firefighters. Make sure they have water, and they know where to spray it.
Every minute your technical dude has to spend talking to a pissed-off customer about why the pissed-off customer’s demands played second-fiddle to something else, costs your organization four times. The pissed-off customer is losing time thinking he’s talking to someone who can do something for him, when this is not the case; the technical guy is losing time he should be spending working on whatever took the greater priority, instead listening to a pissed-off customer; the thing the pissed-off customer wants worked over, is lying around in limbo, gathering dust, rather than sitting in a stack in the second slot from the top which would be a much better place for it; and I’ll be willing to bet there are a few more technical people working under the technical guy who’s talking to the pissed-off customer, waiting for him to tell them what to do, which he can’t, because he’s busy…you know the drill. Stop the insanity. There’s customer-relations stuff and there is technical stuff. YOU talk to the customers so the technical guy can do what he’s there to do.
Oh, one other thing. You need to jump in if the same people are always asking the same questions, about the same things, of the same people.
It’s a fire-fighting business. Learn to smell the smoke.
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Everyone in a specialized field has a whole bunch of people who need things from them. The flaw that so, so many people in these fields possess is in thinking that they somehow have the right to be discretionary about providing it.
“Few people notice this, but for IT groups respect is the currency of the realm.”
Not exactly stunning insight. The same is true of every single person in every field of any kind everywhere on planet earth. Except maybe politics and professional sports.
The whole article is like an Obama speech: Everything you don’t like about me can be explained by a flaw in you. Now sally forth and earn my approval.
- Andy | 09/11/2009 @ 08:30Unforgivably off topic.
Can’t wait to use it though. Going to practice it in front of the mirror tonight.
“You’re right, He’s a wonderful, wonderful speaker. Every time He talks I realize everything I don’t like about Him, can be explained by means of a flaw within me.”
You’re right, of course; the customer deserves respect too, and customer service is rapidly becoming extinct. I think we can agree, since it’s just a matter of common sense, that in order for any transaction to be fulfilled to the ultimate benefit of the two sides involved in it, both sides have to communicate functionally or else whatever hope there is diminishes to the level of random chance. I think we notice the dysfunctional human traits first & foremost in the technology field, because there “random chance” is one in a billion, rather than the one-in-three or one-in-four we experience in “real” life.
Ordering food is a great example of this. Noise from the industrial cooking/cleaning appliances, language barriers, et cetera — how many side dishes have I “ordered” by simply answering back “yeah that’d be fine” when I have no clue whatsoever what I just answered. The older I get, the more convinced I am that the human species simply isn’t designed to communicate with others of its own kind. We seem to place a lot of value on this ability, but we aren’t willing to sacrifice anything to develop it in ourselves, or reward it when we see it in others. To plagiarize Prager, our tendency is to value agreement over clarity rather than the other way around.
- mkfreeberg | 09/11/2009 @ 08:48Obama is never off topic – He is all-topics. Just ask Him.
- Andy | 09/11/2009 @ 08:51Neither of you mentioned the prima donnas. You know, those that enjoy jerking the boss’ chain by dragging out a project just because s/he’s the best coder in the group.
- franklaughter | 09/11/2009 @ 09:54I’ve been in the IT business since I repaired computers in the USAF back in 1973. Yours is a very concise and, IMO, accurate assessment.
But can you find an article about how to find bosses that understand these things? PLEEEASE?
BTW thanks for a very informative and entertaining blog.
- kdaunt | 09/11/2009 @ 14:20