HL Arledge

What Managers’ Expect from their teams

Larry Bossidy’s article,“What Your Leader Expects of You,” provides a thoughtful and thorough list of what managers’ expect from the members of their teams.

This is that list with some of my additional thoughts here and there:

1. Get involved: Bossidy says, “Good managers know when to delegate…but more importantly, they know when to get involved.” I say, “Good managers trust staff to deliver, but they also trust staff to alert management when they’ve hit a brick wall or they’re stuck in quicksand. In other words, stay transparent. From a Scrum perspective, this means update the team, the ScrumMaster  and the SOS Master every step of the way.
2. Generate ideas: Team players should provide ideas rather than playing it safe. Don’t offer random ideas that you haven’t thought about, but ones you’ve considered and have merit.
3. Be willing to collaborate: Team players sometimes work in cross-functional team where collaboration is required.
4. Be willing to lead initiatives: Team players should take initiative rather than avoiding the risky projects for the sake of having a good track record. How else will direct report learn to take initiative on their own if they don’t think it’s of value?
5. Develop leaders as you develop: Good Team players are leaders and teachers, constantly helping others develop. For the good of the company or for the good of the team, leaders and managers coach, mentor, and help team players to be leaders and grow into future managers.
6. Stay current: There’s nothing more embarrassing than seeing anyone not know what’s going on in their own industry, the market, or with their customers. All managers should scanning and watching the environment for opportunities or competitive threats.
7. Anticipate: Team players and their management should anticipate what the industry, market, competitor, or customer changes mean for the company and department.
8. Drive your own growth: Team players should want to learn more and take initiative without waiting for the manager to hand out growth opportunities. Find the white spaces in your job function that allow you to learn something new or expand on existing skills. Take control of your career path within the company.
9. Be a player for all seasons: Business is good. Business is down. Team players need different flavors of the same skills sets for good times and bad times. Action plans against competition when you’re the market leader can be vastly differently when you are not. Be a well-rounded player for any business circumstances.

Next, we’ll look at the other side of the coin: What Teams expect from Managers.

Bing! – And thanks for saying so.

Just back from vacation, I decided to try Bing!, the new search engine everyone’s been raving about. And like everyone who tests a new search engine, I entered my own name. Doing so, I discovered a PDF from the Center for Aggression Management entitled, Addressing the Loss of Teamwork: Identifying, Measuring and Minimizing Trust-Destructive Behaviors.

The following is a quote from that essay…

“HL Arledge, a leadership expert defines leadership with four “Ts”: trust, truth, team and transparency. He says Trust is a cornerstone to leadership, the development of loyalty and teamwork.”

Real Nice.

BTW, I also found my name on a page entitled “Words about the Dalai-Lama”, but that’s a different story.

Now, that’s a real team!

Friday night, Joey, one of the leaders on my team got married.

Mike, another on our team played guitar, and Dave, a friend of ours, conducted the ceremony. My wife, Janna, said it was a beautiful reception, but men only attend such events for the reception—so I’ll skip ahead.

Mike, Janna, and I sat at a table with folks from Joey’s father-in-law’s old neighborhood. They still keep in touch, meeting annually for a combination golf tournament and old neighborhood reunion.

We were the only ones at the table not from the old neighborhood. We didn’t mean to crash their party, but all of the other seats were taken. More people had shown than had originally RSVPed.

“Who are you?” One of them asked.

“I work with Joey.” I replied.

“What does HL stand for?”

“Hard Luck.”

“Really? That should be my name.”

And this conversation repeated every time another from the old neighborhood joined us. However, over the music, one of the wives missed my introduction, and asked Mike, “Who is he?”

“He’s mine and Joey’s manager.” Mike said.

Her husband heard and said—loud enough for the whole table to hear, “Hey! HL is Joey’s boss. He said he just worked with the guy.”

And someone else said, “Now, that’s a real team.”

Indeed, it is.

Building a better Vulcan

Outside of the office, I love nostalgia, but inside, I am the first to promote change. Keep the things that work. Build on those things, and throw out the bad.

However, when Paramount Pictures took this approach with Star Trek, I was afraid of the change. I did not trust that JJ Abrams would be able to handle the job.

This was because I was not Paramount’s Product Owner, and their team did not ask me for buy-in, when they gathered requirements to fix something that I didn’t think was broken.

I was wrong. The movie was great, and I learned a lesson I have been preaching to others for years…

“The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.

–Mr. Spock, Wrath of Khan”

This became clear today, as I was reading new words of wisdom this week from Joel “on software” Spolsky…

It’s really not Swine Flu

Folks, I’ve been out a few days with the flu.

I suppose it was one of the regular flu’s and not the super-came-out-of-the-blue-hard-to-treat flu’s, as I am back at the office today. I feel a little stuffed up, and my limbs still ache, but otherwise I’m back to normal.

Believe me, you don’t want to hear descriptions of my symptoms when I was not “back to normal”.

Anyway, the purpose of this post is to point out something you may not have realized. This so-called “Swine Flu” is really not the traditional Swine Flu we’ve had for hundreds of years.

This thing is a morphing of one of the traditional Swine Flu strains, a strain of one of the common strains of human flu, and the ever-popular newsmaker, bird flu.

If I were a conspiracy theorist—which of course I am not—I’d think someone was cooking this stuff up in a lab somewhere.

Is your software safe from covert secret agents?

I mentioned the other day how Microsoft was working with the CIA to monitor US computer networks.

Apparently, this Big Brother partnership was just in time. The major news networks and publications reported yesterday that some countries are using computers to steal your electricity.

Didn’t we read this in a George Orwell book, or see it in some Tom Cruise movie?

Beware the Wizard of Oz

Sometimes you’ll find team members or leaders pushing for something really hard—something that you struggle to understand why, because they have trouble articulating why it is important to them.

Beware the Wizard of Oz.

Pay attention to the man behind the curtain.

In most cases like these, the person making the case doesn’t have all of the facts, because they are just acting as mouth-piece for another team member or members.

The person talking can’t convince you of the importance of the issue, because they may not personally have a stake in it themselves. Their objective is simply to not let those down who coerced them into speaking on their behalf.

Dig deeper, and you will uncover the Wizard of Oz—and maybe even a flying monkey or two.

Bill Gates joins the CIA

Do you remember back in ‘98 when the United States Department of Justice filed the antitrust case against Microsoft? The media speculated that the software monopoly would be broken-up like Ma Bell was in the ‘70s, but in the end, Microsoft got off with a slap on the wrist—and everyone wondered why.

Perhaps, an article in the New York Times last week can offer some clues…

“The electronic spy game has had some real-world impact, they said. For example, they said, after an e-mail invitation was sent by the Dalai Lama’s office to a foreign diplomat, the Chinese government made a call to the diplomat discouraging a visit. And a woman working for a group making Internet contacts between Tibetan exiles and Chinese citizens was stopped by Chinese intelligence officers on her way back to Tibet, shown transcripts of her online conversations and warned to stop her political activities.”

The article went on to quote intelligence analysts who said that many governments and some business organizations use sophisticated computer programs to covertly gather information. This group of 103 countries, they said, includes China, Russia and the United States of America.

The antitrust suit was settled in 2001, shortly after the attacks of 911, when much of our government’s errors were blamed on the Department of Justice’s “antiquated computer systems”.

Happy Teams will weather the crisis storms

Alex Kjerulf calls himself a CHO—Chief Happiness Officer, and he is one of my favorite bloggers.

He has a new book in the works that explores the economic crisis and it’s effect on happy teams.

The book has three central claims:

1: Most of what companies traditionally do in a crisis doesn’t work.
The way many organizations typically handle crises is by cutting back on all expenses and doing mass layoffs. While this can be necessary, studies actually show companies who choose this approach recover more slowly.

2: It is possible to be happy at work even in a workplace in trouble.
Of course it’s easier to be happy when everything is going swimmingly, but people can still be happy at work in a crisis. It takes determination and focus, but it can be done. Surprisingly, a crisis can make people happy at work, provided that it becomes a reason for people to focus and pull together—rather than an excuse to give up.

3: Happy workplaces get out of a crisis faster.
Especially in a crisis, an organization needs to get the best out of its people—and when we’re happy at work we are more motivated, creative and productive.

I can’t wait until the book comes out. I predict it will be a worthy read.

I never “assign” work to anyone

Although I am very good at delegating work, I never assign a task to anyone.

Day to day, I prioritize my workload, and then ask myself…

“Okay, which tasks can be delegated and which am I uniquely qualified to tackle?”

This daily decision is the key to being a good manager.

If you are doing too much, you are saying to your team: I don’t trust you to do as good a job as I will do.

On the other hand, assigning work is a command and control vessel. To “assign work to someone” is to say that their current tasks are unimportant.

Instead, explain why you believe the team member is suited for the task, and then ask them to accept the task, weighing and prioritizing the task against their current workload.

By asking someone to commit to a task, you are building teamwork and proving that you trust that teammate’s skills and judgment.

When you say that you are assigning work, you are essentially saying what you parents told you as a child…

“Do it, because I said so. I am the boss.”

Whether you realize it or not, a simple word like “assign” will lower morale and hurt your team(s) and the culture of your organization.

It’s not really Friday, is it?

This has been a busy week, but its the start of one of our best sprints ever.

We are overhauling sections of our flagship software that will knock our users’ socks off, and my team is focused tighter than they have been in a long while.

In the meantime, teams from various departments are working more closely to increase transparency and provide customers with solutions faster.

—and we’re growing! We added two team members in the last 30 days, and we are still interviewing.

More and more potential customers are getting excited about EnvisionConnect, and our newly established Customer Communications Task Force is getting off to a great start.

Great week, but I’m exhausted from all of the excitement, and I’m still happy to see Friday.

[For you youngsters out there, the photo is Sergeant Joe Friday.]

The customer is not always right

I’ve spoken much lately about the importance of working with the customer and creating a transparent environment, where everyone knows the best ways to do everything with our software, and I’ve spoken of the importance of getting customer input on priorities and direction.

I am one of our customers’ biggest advocates, and most of them will tell you so, but let me make this perfectly clear… The customer is not always right.

As I pointed out last Friday, often what one customer wants is detrimental to another. This is why it is so important that customers are allowed—no, encouraged—to share ideas, problems, and solutions with each other.

In other words, the customer as an individual is not always right, but the customers as a group nearly always are.

That said, check out this article from Alexander Kjerulf.