Archive for the 'Business' Category

What we’ve become

Published
by
cdeagle
on October 9, 2008
in Business, Economy and Life
. 2 Comments

“It isn’t like it used to be” I said, “You can’t just get an IT job because you have a ponytail and a Unix shirt.”

There was a bubble several years ago, fueled by the misapprehnsion that the internet was a magic portal to riches.  Companies created a visionary product that they would deliver over the internet, they pitched this idea to investors who knew it would make a killing, and invested heavily.  They put real money into an idea because they thought that the future of that idea was profitable.  Venture Capitalists, people who risked money for a living, did this.

During that era, we’ll call it the DotCom bubble, it was easy to be in IT.  In fact, for a period of time the mythos of the “IT Guru” rivaled that of the Lawyer or Doctor.  To say that we had ‘arrived’ would be an understatement.  I say “we” because this time was validation for a subculture which had been broadly and harshly denigrated up to that point, and with which I freely identify: the computer geeks.

It isn’t that we hadn’t been respected in our fields prior to the dotcom bubble, but the width and breadth of our desirability knew no bounds between 1998 and 2000.  We were rockstars.  No expectation was out of reach, no demand went unmet for the expert who knew everything and could get your idea on the internet.  Armed with a Dungeons and Dragon player guide, a witty and incomprehensible t-shirt, and a hairstyle nearly as surly as the affectations of it’s arborist, the Guru’s will was law.

But it wasn’t just the dedicated in our field who benefited during this time.  In conjunction with enrollments in nearly every collegiate Information Technology program increasing, anyone who knew how to turn on a computer was able to easily land a job as an “IT” guy.  

This situation was fueled more by ignorance than the Law of Supply and Demand.  It isn’t that there weren’t enough IT people to get the job done, but that no one knew exactly what kind of IT person they needed to do the job they wanted done.  Lacking clear direction, businesses hired the smartest person they could, allowed that person to set the agenda, and then hired several less competent (sometimes completely incompetent) people to shore up any possible holes in their infrastructure.  

And they should have known better.  Business ought not to allow any support personnel to set its agenda to the extent that IT people were allowed to call the shots during the Dotcom bubble.  That’s not why the bubble burst, but it is a lesson to be learned.  We exist to serve business, business does not exist to fuel interesting ideas, convoluted technologies, or hobbies that we couldn’t otherwise afford.  I digress.

The outrageous pay, the wide respect, and the perks lead even more people to declare themselves Computer Science majors.  Maybe we should have put up signs, but probably it wouldn’t have helped if the gateway to MIT and Rensselaer Poly-Tech said “Abandon all hope, ye who enter”.  The lure of promising, well paid positions in a new, exploding field was too much for some people.  They went, they got degrees, invariably they were given jobs that they either loved or hated, and either did well or failed at.  Because they came to the game late, because their motives were not “pure”, should they be dismissed?  That’s ridiculous.  And it is, again, beside the point.  The point is this: For a period of time, IT was the field to be in.  People flocked to it.

We know what happened next.  The dotcom bubble burst.  Suddenly, it wasn’t enough to have unfortunate hair and know how to work a computer, or say nonsensical things to your boss.  From 2000 to 2002 it was as if corporate America woke from a deep sleep, shook its head to clear its thoughts, and realized that it was being ridiculous.  Information Technology was standardized.  Expectations were laid down.  The attitude of entitlement was no longer accepted.  The technical workforce, no longer the golden child of industry, was forced to grow up and become professional.  

There are fewer of us now, because hundreds of thousands of people couldn’t cut it, or didn’t want to cut it.  Those who never really understood their jobs, or who felt that they were being treated appropriately during the ‘boom’, were the first to go.  Who was next and last are irrelevant, but who stayed matters.  The sharpest, the most reliable, those who integrated well with the business side of the shop, those who had a degree of professionalism, took their jobs seriously, and were committed to the work of Information Technology.  Oh, we still have our laughs.  Though we’ve gotten haircuts and wear ties, we haven’t changed all that much.  We still get more excited about technology than anyone should.  We still feel more alive in a humidity controlled room that’s 68 degrees fahrenheit, and too loud to converse comfortably in, than anywhere else.  And the ties carry the encrypted inside jokes that the t-shirts once did.

What’s the point?  After the dotcom bubble sorted itself out, there was another bubble, fueled by the misapprehension that home values would increase indefinitely, and that it was safe to buy a home of whatever price you could get a loan approved for.  During that era, it was easy to be a Realtor…

 

Autumn

Published
by
cdeagle
on October 7, 2008
in Business, Life and Writing
. 1 Comment

The sun shone down, turning the leaves to fire. We walked through their blaze, hand in hand.  Through the autumnal air rich with the scents of the small town, of lavender and somewhere in the distance a wood fire. We walked, as we had every day for the last 50 years, and though our bodies protested more now, our hearts soared as ever.

—

I’m leaving for Virginia tomorrow, on a business trip to coordinate one of the most difficult tasks of my career thus far.  I’m excited.  I mean, excitement is the primary emotion.  There’s a bit of trepidation in there as well, but mostly, excitement. 

It occurs to me that the things I do now, in the springtime of my life, are meant to prepare me for the greater victories that autumn will bring.  I can only hope that those victories require less labor, and reward me not with material things, but with the respite that I already long for.

I’m up and out the door in six and a half hours, so I’d best be off to bed.

The Importance of Culture and Vision in Industry

Published
by
cdeagle
on July 8, 2008
in Business
. 2 Comments

I’ve read a few Jack Welch books.  I want to talk a little bit about one point that he makes in a few different places.  I’ll summarize here.  Imagine you have two employees.  One of these employees is your star performer, beats every deadline by several days and turns in projects to spec every time, though his attitude about the company is cavalier.  The other employee is a middle-of-the-road employee, who is fully bought in to the Vision statement of the company, and is well integrated with its Culture.

I guess I should step back for a moment and define some terms.  A Vision statement describes the goal that a company has set for itself.  The Vision is the purpose that the company exists to serve.  A great example of this is the Vision statement of Google, which reads, “To organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.”  A Vision statement is a “high level” document, it does not describe the steps needed to accomplish any goal, it simply sets the goal in writing for all to see.  It is then the duty of every employee to function with the company’s Vision in mind, and particularly of Management and Product Development to drive the organization toward its Vision.

The term corporate culture (”Culture”) describes the attitudes and beliefs of a business.  As it does for individual people, it is the belief system of a company which determines how it behaves.  From how it hires its employees to how it interacts with its clients, the beliefs and attitude of a corporation, the “culture”, give it the ability to respond consistently in a myriad of different situations.

These two elements are critical to the success of large businesses, and must be clearly and purposefully defined.  Within smaller organizations, there is more room for error, because the head of the organization is still well connected to the lower ranking members, and by proximity he or she is able to pass on goals and a framework of behavior that take the place of a Vision statement and corporate culture.  When numbers of employees and layers of management increase, Vision and Culture are critical tools in communicating corporate goals and standards of behavior to employees at all levels of the organization.  An understanding of these two key elements should give employees a good handle on how to behave in situations that may not be documented in their employee handbooks.

Back to our two employees.  The super-star understands the Vision, but doesn’t care for it.  He constantly bucks corporate culture, ignoring it when it interferes with what he wants to do.  On the other hand, the mid-level employee, who consistently meets his deadlines and may make one or two little mistakes here or there, believes in the Vision, and is fully invested in the corporate culture.  Downsizing requires that you lay off one of these employees.  Which one should you lay off?

While it may seem that the super-star is the obvious keeper because of his superior production, the human element must be considered.  The mid-level guy loves not just his job, but what his company stands for.  He is able to take pride in what he does and who he works for.  The super-star doesn’t care, and is only coming to work for a paycheck.

The result?  The mid-level employee is more likely to invest personal energy in his job than the super-star.  This may take the shape of studying and recommending new technologies, becoming more invested in the Research or Planning phase of projects, or suggesting better, different, or new ways of doing things.  The super-star will do better at what’s expected of him than is expected because it fans his ego, but without any real reason to stay with the organization he will likely leave at the first sign of a better offer.

Retaining the person who is a better fit for the organization is always a better choice, even if that persons performance is not as strong as the performance of the top player in the department.  Making this choice is very difficult for managers at any level, because they see only the loss in productivity.  To be successful you must look beyond what you are producing, selling, and designing now.  How will it be sustained in a year?  2 years?  Over any longterm time-frame, an employee who is more invested in what your company stands for will contribute more to the overall success of the organization.

People can be trained.  People can gain skill through experience, and a mid-level guy today might be a super-star in a year, but a super-star today can never be convinced to believe in what you stand for unless he wants to.

Your responsibility?

1. Stand for something.

To have a Vision that means anything to anyone, you have to mean it.  Googles’ Vision aims to serve the world, and it’s clearly something that they believe in.  Something that simultaneously transcends and gives meaning to the relatively simple idea of “indexing web pages to be searched.”

2. Say it clearly

The best way to get your Vision ignored is to take a long time explaining it.  One sentence works best.  If it takes more than three sentences, you’re probably not talking about your actual vision, but about how you plan to accomplish it.  Move to a “higher level”.

3. Put it in front of your employees, every day.

These are the people that need to believe in it.  If they believe it, they’ll communicate it to the customers.  If they don’t see it, how can they believe it?  Every employee in your company should know where the Vision statement is located, and should be able to communicate the gist of it.

4. Decide how you want your company to behave, and behave that way yourself

Culture only happens from the top down.  If you want a company that’s loose on dress-code and strong on innovation, encourage an open-door policy amongst your managers, give credit where it’s due, and don’t stress the small stuff.  If conforming to an image of professionalism is important to you, enforce that idea with your managers, make sure they understand what the standard is, and that you expect it to be met.

Vision and culture are very easy to ignore, and very important.  By forgetting about them you can get into a lot of trouble, by spending some time thinking about them you can help your organization find an identity that yourself and others can identify with, and  really get behind.

Hiring Preferences

Published
by
cdeagle
on June 27, 2008
in Business and Life
. 0 Comments

In the world there are somewhere in the neighborhood of 5 billion different types of people.  Because I wouldn’t even COUNT to five billion (I could, but I wouldn’t) I’m not going to talk about each type.  But I will take 5 billion people and greatly simplify their astonishing uniqueness.  When hiring for a technical position I’ve run into four broad types of people.

1. Qualified / Unmotivated

This person is perfect for a position as a mall security guard, but may not be proactive enough to look for problems before they occur.  The problems with the Qualified / Unmotivated candidate often stem from their qualification.  Because they have experience with XYZ and know enough to recover from most major issues with the system, they’ve become lax in upkeep.  It costs them less time to repair a problem that has occured than it does to be proactive and take steps to prevent that problem, so they wait for disaster to strike before doing anything.

2. Unqualified / Unmotivated

The best combination of useless traits, the Unqualified / Unmotivated candidate often comes with an interesting Fringe Benefit: they think they’re the best thing since sliced bread.  These people either delude themselves, or know the truth and grossly exaggerate their own skill level.  In addition to being completely unqualified for the position you’ve advertised, they are so impressed with themselves that they feel no obligation to even pretend like they’ve studied, or are willing to study, the systems that you work with.

3. Unqualified / Motivated

These candidates can become the rock-stars of your team.  They know they’re starting out at a disadvantage, and if they’re sufficiently motivated and interested in their jobs they’ll expend Personal Energy* to bridge the gap, often learning more about their given responsibilities than a Qualified / Unmotivated person would ever learn.  The Unqualified / Motivated employee can be a boon to a manager that is only authorized to hire a Junior level resource.

4. Qualified / Motivated

This combination does not exist.  It has been rumored in several organizations, but I have seen no direct evidence of it being real.  People who are motivated by a desire to learn and excel (to be elite) are constantly putting themselves into positions for which they are unqualified.  By refusing to linger in a job that they are totally qualified for, but unchallenged by, they push themselves through often rapid and extreme personal and professional growth.  These are the only types of people that will ever reach the pinnacle of their profession, and when they get there they often take a very “Meta” view of their profession.  They look down at the mountain that they have climbed and start innovating, making the mountain better.  What else is there to challenge yourself with when you’ve mastered something, except improving the thing that you’ve just mastered?

I think that the best employee to hire is the one who has shown evidence of their ability to learn (growth within each previous position) evidence of responsibility (growth of duties and tenure), and that can articulate a desire to learn and a motivation for that desire.  Irrespective of their experience with the specific technology that your company specializes in.  If you find this person, and you can hire either them or a lukewarm but well qualified individual who has been doing the same job for 10 years, there is almost no scenario in which it will be better for your department or company to hire the lukewarm “Qualified / Unmotivated” candidate.

In fact, hiring this person would be actively detrimental to your productivity.  Maybe next week I’ll write a post on the importance of Culture vs. Consistency.

On a completely unrelated note, is it tacky to Share your own blog post in your Google Reader?  ;)

*: Personal Energy is a broad term that I use to describe the chi, the animus, the life-force of an employee outside of work hours.  This “personal energy” is usually used to hang out with friends, or go to Borders, or watch Lost.  Sometimes, it’s used to read technical manuals, write or tinker with programs that are work related, or think about better ways of doing ones job.  If a person is passionate about what they’re doing, and about the Vision of their organization, they will expend Personal Energy to accomplish Work Goals.