My Most Valuable Leadership Lesson

It has been way too long since I posted.  I must do better.

Many of you know that I am a retired US Air Force Reservist, having made the rank of Lt Col.  I did not get there on my own.  A lot of great people helped me on the way.  Officers in the military are the managers and executives who decide direction, and strategy.  It is a lot of authority, because lives are at stake.  But there is a difference between "acting in charge" and "being in charge."  Thankfully in ROTC, I was taught that a brand new second lieutenant will fail by acting in charge of enlisted folk who have more experience.

That was the major take-away from ROTC.  Sure we spent many hours discussing leadership, management, organizational theory, command responsibility, supervision, force employment.  A lot of us felt our oats when we pinned on.  But we also were warned and humbled to know our place and respect the enlisted folks who could also mentor us.

People-Centered Model of Business

By: Ramla Akhtar, CC BY-NC-ND 2.5

I have mentioned the work of Dr. Fernando Flores many times before in this blog. I also keep an eye out for other authors that speak on similar topics to gauge how Fernando’s work is influencing the broader conversation.  Recently I thought I had stumbled on something that was evidence of this influence. A paper entitled Why Do We Do Business? Introducing PC MOB – The People-Centered Model of Business, by Ramla Akhtar.

Unfortunately I was disappointed. The paper was posted in her blog on 6 May 2006. What disappoints me is there seems to be no further development of this model. Ms. Akhtar calls it a first draft, and invites comments and suggestions. I wish there was more, because this has potential. As it stands, there is a lot missing.

Building Trust

Image: Nutdanai Apikhomboonwaroot

Trust in the workplace has been a hot topic for some time. At some level, we all know what it means to trust, and that trust is important. We have also seen the ‘fall back, I will catch you’ exercise for building trust in teams (usually on a sitcom where the catcher is distracted at the last second creating a predictable laugh-track moment). We can recognize when trust is lacking: micromanagement, not wanting to bring up bad news for fear of reprisal, overly burdensome red tape, etc.

Ignore Culture at Your Peril

Image: jscreationzs

Edgar Schein, MIT Professor of Management and author of Organizational Culture and Leadership: A Dynamic View, contends that many of the problems confronting leaders can be traced to their inability to analyze and evaluate organizational cultures.  Attempts to create a new vision, or make wholesale organizational changes, fail because they run counter to the culture.  Major changes must at least address culture, and they may even require work to change the culture.

EVs: so what?

Image: Nutdanai Apikhomboonwaroot

Electric Vehicles (EVs) are here, to stay? Nissan delivered the first Leaf to a San Francisco Bay Area resident in December. The first one in Texas arrived in January. Chevrolet delivered the first Volt to a New Jersey resident in December and to the SF Bay Area later that same month.

I remember the Chevy EV1 and the claims GM “killed” the electric car. I think the world was not ready back in the early 90s. Gas was cheaper, tax loopholes subsidized car purchases for small businesses, the economy was better. Infrastructure: we have gas stations at every corner, but how do we charge our cars away from home? Lots of changes have come since then: gas costs more, tougher economy, better batteries, better charging technology, more experience with industrial EVs, and now the smart grid.

A foundational organizing principle, for IT!?

No, seriously, I actually mean it. We’ve all heard the consulting world stumping about corporate vision mission and values being necessary for business success. And what company that completes these exercises doesn’t have something that says they value people (employees, customers, both)? Especially here in the USA, where most industry pundits talk about supporting knowledge workers as being a holy grail for management.

So given that you value employees, their talents and creativity and want to support their knowledge work, what is your foundational principle for Information technology? I wager that most of you do not have one. Actually, more to the point, you do, but instead of formulating it yourself, it was delivered to you by your hardware/software vendors.

Consultants' web resources.

Image: graur razvan ionut

I've been dabbling with website development since 1998.  It started out of necessity as a consultant and program manager for an IBM/Lotus business partner.  Part of my job required not only Lotus Notes development (using Lotus Script), but adding content to the company website.  I'll be blunt, even though it was rewarding to solve a script/HTML issue to get the desired results, I hated coding.  I found it tedious, and frustrating.  There were other folks who loved it, and were loads better.

Since then I have been keeping aware of tools and services that make it easy to build and host websites.  Not because canned sites are necessarily better, but because they are good starting points for getting online & building your business.  If they are free or cheap, even better.