Consulting

Why are the first job titles in the management chain usually called "team leaders", but then quickly change into "managers" and then "directors"?

If we think in terms of stewards, shepherds, tour guides -- pick a metaphor that works for you -- you have an active, engaged person who is charting or scouting ahead in order to bring their team forward.

Managers by comparison walk perimeters, to check on fencing and boundaries. They often describe their job as "herding cats".

Directors normally don't walk anywhere -- they are far removed from the teams they are charged with leading, often focused on their own fiefdoms and concerned with the activities of rival princes.

In typical, silo (or stovepipe, again, pick the metaphor you like the best) -- the information flows upward, filtered at every level -- distilled if you will, by someone who is presenting (or word-smithing) the information in a way that they think (or hope) the next level up wants to hear.

Time for some humor to illustrate the point, and lets reach back and pull a classic management telephone-game style joke:

The Plan.
In the beginning, there was the Plan. And then came the Assumptions. And the Assumptions were without form, And the Plan was without substance. And darkness was upon the face of the Workers. And they spoke among themselves, saying, "It is a crock of shit and it stinketh."
And the Workers went into their Supervisors and said, "It is a pail of dung and none may abide the odor thereof." And the Supervisors went unto their Managers, saying, "It is a container of excrement and it is very strong, such that none may abide by it."
And the Managers went unto their Directors, saying, "It is a vessel of fertilizer and none may abide it's strength." And the Directors spoke amongst themselves, saying one to another, "It contains that which aids plant growth and it is very strong."
And the Directors went unto the Vice President, saying, "It promotes growth and it is very powerful." And the Vice Presidents went unto the President, saying, "This new Plan will actively promote the growth and vigor of the company with powerful effects."
And the President looked upon the Plan and saw that it was good. And the Plan became Policy. This is how Shit Happens.

Sound like a project or two or ten that you've worked on recently? They all have secret code names, usually named after wild-life

How is it that projects that are doomed to fail, and everyone knows it, continue to get funded and proceed in a death march towards oblivion? The kind of projects that sap financial resources from companies, stealing shareholder value, and wasting time which translates to lost opportunity.

I would argue it comes down to the fact that the "management chain" isn't about leading at all. A leader would stand up and pull the chain and stop the factory -- it's that whole "you can't inspect quality into a product" mantra.

Today's Big Idea: People follow the leaders. Stop managing and start leading.

Start by Walking Around....

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Change happens. When it does, someone, somewhere has to figure out what the implications of that change are. Little, seemingly innocuous changes can have long-lasting and far-reaching ripple effects.

Take my friend Ivan, a Security Systems Engineer for a manufacturing and service company. He works in an environment where change to the current products and services he's charged with protecting is only half of his problem. The other half is the fact that about every 9-13 months he has a new boss he has to re-educate thanks to the constant mini-reorg's that ripple through large companies. It's hit or miss for Ivan, and lately his latest string of bosses don't have a clue as to what he does nor the value of the role he fills. His latest manager has hamstrung and marginalized his contribution and seems to think that what Ivan does should be some other groups responsibility. That's the bad news. The good news is that he's probably due for a new manager in a couple of months.

Here's a short quiz to get the conversation started:

1. When you board an airplane, are you more secure in the knowledge that:
A. the fact that there are now locks on the cockpit doors, or
B. you bought trip insurance

2. When you visit your doctor or clinic, are you comforted by the idea that:
A. your personal data is encrypted on their computers and thumb-drives or
B. the fact that the clinic has you sign a HIPAA disclosure form?

3. When you log in to your bank, brokerage, or retirement account, do you pay more attention to the fact that
A. you have to select a personal image, a phrase, possibly validate the computer you're on, answer a few questions the first time if you haven't used this computer before -- or
B. are you just glad that the website shows that your deposits are FDIC insured?

If you answered "A" above, you can thank a Security Systems Engineer like Ivan!

Security, as embodied in the "holy trinity" of C-I-A : Confidentiality, Integrity, and Availability, has to be "baked in, not bolted on." It's about understanding the first principles of Systems Engineering and that change has consequences.

From the six-sigma/lean world:

"You can't inspect quality into a product"

The same is true of security in terms of Information Risk Management. You have to consider the people, the places, and things that touch and interact with the system under consideration. It's about understanding situated context.

Today's Big Idea: Systems are complex and any change requires thoughtful analysis to understand the butterfly effects.

It's not about compliance. You can't buy an insurance policy big enough to cover your loss of goodwill.

Hopefully Ivan's next boss will understand that.

Who are you guys and what are you doing here distracting me? The Big Idea Blog is written by David Duccini & David Walbridge

If there were an HTML tag for "rant" I'd use it to give you the heads up that I was going to, so lets just pretend:

<rant on>

Stop calling your reports or work-products "artifacts".

Seriously.

You are not creating something for some future generation to dig up and contemplate about the role and use of whatever it is you think you are producing!

an artifact is an object recovered by some archaeological endeavor, which may have a cultural interest*.

The only people that really should be using that word are called archaeologists. If you're not an archaeologist, or if you aren't having a conversation with one, using the word "artifact" doesn't make you one.

Now, it's probably true that the work-product you're promising to deliver is going to get lost in some filing cabinet, or a hard drive or network share and probably will never see the light of day again requiring an archaeological effort to find it (unless you're lucky enough to have an audit, in which case it magically transforms into "evidence" as in "Exhibit A").

If anything your work-product is likely a by-product of some procedure or process that amounts to little more than a check-box on someones "deliverables" list.

</rant off>

See how useful that tag would be? While we're at it, try to go just one day where you don't use (or hear!) one of the top 10 overused business buzz-words:

Stakeholder

Heads up

Mission critical

Bandwidth

Touch base

In the loop

Low-hanging fruit

Moving forward

At the end of the day

On the same page

The author of this top ten list points out that:

"When overused or misused, however, buzzwords can overshadow or even distort the overall communication. Using too many buzzwords can lessen an individual's credibility as an independent, intelligent, creative thinker. At worst, it can make him/her look like a wishy-washy wannabe."

Some random links of other top overused buzzwords, jargon, and phrases for your amusement:

Commonly Used Business Jargon -- Includes some of my favorites: "Solutioning", "efforting", and the obnoxious "learnings" as a noun...

Overused Business Buzzwords -- You could probably build a 100% buzzword compliant status report generator from this list suitable for any project occasion!

100 Overused Marketing Phrases -- For fun, read through any advertisement to a friend and omit the adjectives and see if they can figure out what it is

Maybe adopt a "buzzword jar" that people have to put $.25 in every time they get caught using one of these puff phrases?

So, today's Big Idea is this: "Have a meeting (or just follow-up!) with someone instead of "touching-base" or "circling-back". Find the courage to call your spreadsheet/powerpoint/report what it is instead of what you want people to think it is."

The only artifact you might be leaving behind is the impression that you are a poser.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
* Yeah I know that software people have co-opted the term, but that doesn't mean they know what they are talking about. I have a Master's in Software Engineering and I can tell you that they are just kidding themselves and you. I recommend negative reinforcement, like a water-spray bottle used to re-train cats.

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