OK now lets all get into the holiday spirit and sing with me. "You better watch out, you'd better not pout", "you better not cry I'm telling you why", "Your manager is doing your review!"
Thinking of past performance reviews given and received I realized that the very first one I was taught was by Santa himself. I have been conditioned from the age of 3 to know that if I were nice and not naughty I would be on Santa's bonus list. We even bribed Santa with cookies and carrots for his reindeer to show up. I compared my haul to my siblings to see who performed best by counting each other's piles. Luckily for me my parents had not applied a bell curve and eliminate Christmas for the bottom 5%. They must of had a short memory as there was always something I wanted under the tree in good and bad economic years. If you are not of Christian faith I'm sure you can substitute a like ritual of your particualr faith. As it turns out many will receive a lump of coal this year as bonus pools dwindle to a trickle. So be prepared for some unusual discussions with your boss this year.
There has been an article running on the online version of the Wall Street Journal that basically calls out the failings of performance reviews and seeks their abolishment. The author, Samuel A. Culbert, describes many of the bad attributes like being one-sided, abused for control, too subjective, static goals that shifted during the year, lack of inquiry and partnership between the manager and employee and more stuff that we already know. The answer he proffers is to throw the one sided performance review away and build meaningful relationships by having two-sided reviews where the manager and employee jointly own the outcome. All I can say is that this guy has been in academia too long and isn't current with modern techniques. Wait till he finds out that you can listen to thousands of songs out of a small plastic and metal device!
Any manager worth their salt has learned it is about the daily interactions where you maintain a continuous dialogue with your employees. You discuss the work, how is it going, what are the challenges and how are you going to approach them? How can I help? Repeat your expectations and affirm understanding via inquiry. As a leader you measure and intercede or support as needed. There are many ways, styles and techniques to build strong relatinships and to maintain honest and genuine dialogue.
Everyone deserves a scorecard on some agreed cycle. It validates the interactions, understandings and outcomes achieved. The associated salary increase and bonus should make sense in the context of the economic, business, group and personal results. If the content of the performance review is a major surprise to either party then the relationship was not effective and should be evaluated and remedied to the satisfaction of both. But let's face reality it is more to the satisfaction of the manager. The manager is accountable by definition as his or her goals are mostly the cumulative product of the subordinate's results. Employee satisfaction scores are another measure of manager whippings, I mean accountability.
If you can put aside poor quality reviews due to people being jerks, or non-confrontational or emotionally bankrupt or just generally inept I believe most reviews are done with good intent. Here's how it gets all screwed up. Let me use a scenario to clarify.
You have just entered the busiest cycle of your business year and you get a really long and convoluted email from HR with a new calendar of timelines for this year's new and improved review process. As always they shield themselves by regurgitating the company values, what it means to be a leader and the 462 steps in this year's simplified process. The email proudly announces that HR has automated the process on a new technology and will release it for your mandatory use in two days. Click on the help button for instructions. It's so simple a caveman can do it. We want all reviews completed, signed and returned in 12 days. That translates into you the manager having to drop everything else, decipher the process, communicate it to your team and they have to do the same until you hit bottom. HR will require that employees complete their self appraisals first on a different form than last year's which should be available on the HR portal had they updated the content with the right form. The manager will review each self appraisal to confirm it is on the right form, applies to the goals from last year which haven't been relevant for 364 days. The manager will evaluate the employee across 42 leadership, teamwork, technical, communication, innovation and execution attributes based on the job title and role definition provided by HR that is at best three years out of date. The manager will apply specific cases observed and measured throughout the year and communicate the employee's behavior and results, pro or con, in a clear and confident tone. You will provide a final rating from 1 through 5 (the really clever companies use colors now) where 1 means "walks on water" and 5 means "why the hell are you still here". You will schedule the 18 reviews, have a meaningful exchange, update all documents based on feedback and revert to employee for final alignment and signature. The manager will now have to make the ratings fall nicely into the designated bell curve of 1's,2's, 3's, 4's and 5's provided by HR and blessed by the CEO (really the CFO who has the algorithm for converting ratings into money). The manager will meet with their HR represenative usually before the reviews are done to get an early read on where the ratings are falling out. Just in case you didn't get the hidden message HR will illuminate your employees failings and yours to aid you in fixing the results. You complete the reviews prior to any discussions and get to have round 2 with HR where you find out you have too many 1's and 2's and 3's and not enough 4's and 5's. You plead your case that you eliminated the weak last year, set clearer goals, provided training and support and have the results to back it. That night you get to present with your peer managers to your boss and the HR reps boss the Chief of People (COP). The COP explains that her secret inquires into your business partners revealed that they would rate your team a 3 at best and your cumulative average is 2.7. Unencumbered by facts she announces that clearly you are out of touch with your partners. However, you are in touch enough with reality to know your personal hope of a 2 or higher rating has vanquished and you will be lucky to get any bonus and forget the options dude. You glance over at your boss for support but he is unable to speak due to the previous unnatural acts performed on him privately and simply nods his head in support of the COP not you. You cull new learning from this exchange. Specifically, you are aware that your performance has little to do with the work, effort and results delivered against the goals by you and your team. You must keep the COP happy as she gets to whisper in the CEO's ear. With your tail slung tightly between your legs to protect your genitals from further embarrassment you adjust the ratings and reviews and deliver them to your employees over 36 hours straight.
At least 14% are really surprised by the results, pissed off and now hate you. The COP is pleased you acquiesced but lets you know of her concern over rumblings amongst your team regarding your leadership. Oh SHIT! By the way she lets you know that she needs you to complete your list of high performers and breadown their attributes in a spread sheet they just devised with the CEO for presentation to senior management tomorrow. Oh, and how are the new goals coming? You protest that you need the business to complete their goals so you can align and partner effectively and they won't be done until next month. That's nice she says but she needs them by tomorrow anyway. Also she just got an update from the CFO and it seems the executive bonus pool wasn't large enough so IT has been cut by another 10%. Let your team know will you? By the way where are your PIPs (performance improvement plans) done for your 4's & 5's. Pips are aptly named. It provides 30 days for a really weak performer to turn it around. The poor bastard has a better chance of winning Lotto. I'd seen it happen once but it was just a head fake. The guy had a lot of political support, possibly a naughty picture of the COP, and screwed up so big his boss had to make it look good. He was saved and the COP openly praised his turn around. Finally, she says the annual employee satisfaction survey starts next week and it is really, really important your scores come up at least 5 points this year so we can get on the 100 best places to work list (and I get my bonus).
Here's the rub. This year it will be easier to give higher ratings. Why? Consider that everyone knows the economy is in the shitter so no one expects much money let alone bonuses (CEOs excluded). To soften the blow and assuage your fears of losing your job leaders will gladly proffer higher ratings knowing their is no cost attached to this year's performance. If you are still there you must be good since the employees already let go were last year's 5's,4's and some weak 3's!
Since I display an obvious contempt for all things HR I will take it upon myself to address it and offer ways to improve it in my next posting. Hoping your Thanksgiving was truly a chance for a respite from the daily grind and a chance to reflect on the many blessings we all have. I hope that in addition to the ton of turkey and stuffing digested you had room left to wash it all down with a pint of this blog.
Yours Truly,
SGV
Sunday, November 30, 2008
Thursday, November 20, 2008
SillyGoneValley
LEADERS, LEADERSHIP AND OTHER SHIPS OFF COURSE
As I sit here and watch the CNBC talking heads prognosticate as the Dow slips below 8000 again it is easy to get overwhelmed and trapped into despair, fear and even depression. For me two thoughts come to mind that keep my spirits up. First, no one really knows what's going on but people ( for that matter all organic matter) will prevail. Here are some examples; Donny and Marie Osmond are on TV again, I saw a tree growing out of the side of the 59th St. bridge in Manhattan, Barack Obama is President-elect, a small white dude was MVP of the NBA twice, Keith Richards is still alive, a legally blind man is Governor of NY, there was a dog on TV born with no front legs that walked upright. My dog just sits by my feet waiting for his share of my meal. In any case the list of survival and overcoming adversity goes on and on and on.
The second thought I have is that you can never predict who will step up and when, but someone always does, it is our nature. We do our best work when the shit hits the fan and our back is up against the wall. We love a disaster just so we can make the shoe string catch and be heroes. Let's face it if planning and execution were our trump suit we wouldn't be holding the economic hand we have. Without even a blink Paulsen and Bernanke are ready to go all in on the river card! We as a people love disaster so much so I think we unconsciously put ourselves into problems just for the chance to be heroes. Arsonist by night firefighter by day. Give me a medal! Why not it's what we reward. The biggest bonuses and accolades go publicly to the hero of the day. "We would like to acknowledge the heroic efforts of the systems operations team to restore our systems back to normal operating status. The problematic change that left all our customers unable to access their funds for two days was solved by Joe and his team of engineers that worked for 82 hours straight through the weekend! Here is a check for $1000 each for a job well done". Never mind that Joe's change control team applied the server patches incorrectly due to lack of planning, but by God he got us back to normal! Why not Joe the Systems Engineer, Sarah gave us Joe the Plumber. Gotcha. (wink)
But let's not confuse leaders of purpose or predicament with the less compelling professional leaders like CEO's, business line presidents or elitist CIO's. I'll just classify them synthetic or manufactured leaders. These people are not evil or of malicious intent. OK maybe a small percentage are but I believe most started out as human beings. Then they started B-school and read books and scored pretty high on tests or at least said they did. They found that by taking the obvious and labeling it as unique and their own they could create a brand beyond reproach. Look at Jack Welch, the world's greatest leader! It's just a damn shame he and GE left all those PCB's in the Hudson River. I saw it on a public television broadcast so I guess it's true. It looks so clean now if only the poor bastards fishing off the bank of the river didn't get cancer from eating the fish. It should be fine in about 80 years.
There is nothing wrong with creating new thought and process to be tested and applied against the real world in the hopes of greater productivity and profits. It's just that they are so damn smug about their thought and apply it with religious sanctimony. It becomes their hammer and everything is a nail. If you don't blindly adopt it as your leadership mantra you are segregated as a weak leader, a nay say er, a Judas with a large scarlet letter on your forehead as in "L" for loser. You don't get it. Other leaders disassociate from you and tell the other Believers that they knew you were never really one of them. Who hired that person anyway? Maybe they should be punished too? Oblivious to the fact that they participated in the 42 interviews and stressed the company values of honesty and entrepreneurial stuff. As one must chafe the wheat from the husk you must also remove the non-Believers. If you check the sign on the door of the Executive VP of Human Resources, now often referred to as Chief of People , so they too can be C level execs there is teeny, tiny print below the title that says "Eliminator of Non-Believers"! The COP calls you into, almost always, her office. I guess women have been telling guys to get lost for so long and defending their man from loose women that they got good at getting rid of others? Just a theory. Anyhow, she explains how strongly she appreciates your individuality and accomplishments, but the other leaders, your peers, have confided to her that they, not her, have lost confidence in you. Why? Well, it seems to be that your communication style is weak. Who new? You wonder why didn't they pick that up during the 42 interviews? As the brain matter begins to pour out your ear she says softly let's stay in touch, look me up on FaceBook and we'll be friends....I'll just walk you out for your own good. In the hall out of view of the security cameras she frisks you and does a cavity search for your id, cell phone, VPN stick, corporate purchasing card, PDA, magnetic security card and laptop. Feel free to keep all the useless shit with the companies logo emblazoned on them. Like you will ever wear them to remind you how you got canned?
So getting back to the Leadership I was watching the heads of the three major, that's a euphemism if ever there was one, American automobile companies with their hats out looking for a senator to throw in $25Billion dollars in to start or else the whole freaking economy and free society as we know it will be destroyed. "I am new in the job", they said, "only two years, so don't blame me. I'm part of the solution". Luckily they each had a private Jet to bring them to Washington. You would think these jokers would have at least Jet-Pooled if for no other reason to use the HOJ (high occupancy jet) lane given the traffic over DC from the financial guys. It sadly reminds me of the joke where a guy is in the airport, goes to by a ticket to Europe and finds himself $0.25 cents short. He asks person after person in line for a quarter to get to Europe. Everyone ignores him until finally one kind person says, " here's a buck buddy take a trip around the world". What trip and how far will our buck go with these leaders?
There is so much-packaged leader lingo to go around you forget it's not new. For instance, what is that leader's "say/do ratio"? If you don't do what you say your are going to do it is less than 1 and that sucks. You learned that in basic algebra? You learned that from your parents when you were 5 for Christ's sake. When did being straightforward and honest become a fucking ratio. When was less then 1 OK? Probably the same time oral sex didn't constitute an extramarital relationship. As long as I find my personal "true north" then I will be empowered to live my life well and lead well. Only in California can this crap fly. When did I have to become spiritually cleansed by my whore mongering CEO to do a great job? It's probably because I didn't have the right 'what' therefore my 'hows' were all misaligned. And you wonder why employees don't feel connected? Corporate America told most of us non-union types that we are now responsible for our careers and they will fire you in a heart beat to meet quarterly analyst expectations you dumb-ass employee at will! That was 1985 after the last recession. Leaders now are trying to extract loyalty by manipulating social thinking and have employees believe in their dogma. Thanks Jerry Jones! Fill 'er up I'm thirsty as hell! They are pitching self actualization while everyone is fighting for shelter and food. Mazlow's model has been around for decades....read it leaders! Leaders have become so disconnected from mainstream thought and needs. It shouldn't be surprising. If you made $80 million last year and stress over $75k curtains for your living room how can you appreciate that saving for college is hard or paying for medical care is costly. The average person is only a few paychecks from homelessness. Back when the bubble burst I heard a leader who made millions and had to lead through the first round of employee cuts attempt to relate to the little people. To her defense she made the effort and went online and took questions openly. To show her compassion she described the anxiety one might be feeling from a loss of a job to the stress she had trying to get her child into the right school. OK I thought getting accepted to the right college is hard and a concern for any parent and she is trying to connect. I found out later the child was 4 years old and it was pre-school! Good person that had lost all connectivity to the mundane world we all live in. She probably got it after the subsequent 10 rounds of lay-offs she said wouldn't come.
We need to think differently, 'out of the box', OK, just teasing. Really we need to remember to be genuine, considerate for what is truly happening around us and remember that everyone is impacted by current events. Speak in simple and straight forward language. Not everything has to be rah, rah and immediate. By setting clear aspirations and goals we can focus on doing our jobs and finding new ways to do things better. By being determined to deliver value each day we can achieve great things over time as a whole, not as heroes. A person may dissappoint but people will always surpass our expectations given the opportunity to do so.
I'm jumping off my soap box. That's all I got for today...this was draining but I feel better like after a long run, just stinky and wet. Time for a shower. Next time I think I will get into fun stuff like performance reviews as the year end approaches or maybe innovation as we embrace change with our new President...we'll see how I'm feeling. Stay well. Later..
As I sit here and watch the CNBC talking heads prognosticate as the Dow slips below 8000 again it is easy to get overwhelmed and trapped into despair, fear and even depression. For me two thoughts come to mind that keep my spirits up. First, no one really knows what's going on but people ( for that matter all organic matter) will prevail. Here are some examples; Donny and Marie Osmond are on TV again, I saw a tree growing out of the side of the 59th St. bridge in Manhattan, Barack Obama is President-elect, a small white dude was MVP of the NBA twice, Keith Richards is still alive, a legally blind man is Governor of NY, there was a dog on TV born with no front legs that walked upright. My dog just sits by my feet waiting for his share of my meal. In any case the list of survival and overcoming adversity goes on and on and on.
The second thought I have is that you can never predict who will step up and when, but someone always does, it is our nature. We do our best work when the shit hits the fan and our back is up against the wall. We love a disaster just so we can make the shoe string catch and be heroes. Let's face it if planning and execution were our trump suit we wouldn't be holding the economic hand we have. Without even a blink Paulsen and Bernanke are ready to go all in on the river card! We as a people love disaster so much so I think we unconsciously put ourselves into problems just for the chance to be heroes. Arsonist by night firefighter by day. Give me a medal! Why not it's what we reward. The biggest bonuses and accolades go publicly to the hero of the day. "We would like to acknowledge the heroic efforts of the systems operations team to restore our systems back to normal operating status. The problematic change that left all our customers unable to access their funds for two days was solved by Joe and his team of engineers that worked for 82 hours straight through the weekend! Here is a check for $1000 each for a job well done". Never mind that Joe's change control team applied the server patches incorrectly due to lack of planning, but by God he got us back to normal! Why not Joe the Systems Engineer, Sarah gave us Joe the Plumber. Gotcha. (wink)
But let's not confuse leaders of purpose or predicament with the less compelling professional leaders like CEO's, business line presidents or elitist CIO's. I'll just classify them synthetic or manufactured leaders. These people are not evil or of malicious intent. OK maybe a small percentage are but I believe most started out as human beings. Then they started B-school and read books and scored pretty high on tests or at least said they did. They found that by taking the obvious and labeling it as unique and their own they could create a brand beyond reproach. Look at Jack Welch, the world's greatest leader! It's just a damn shame he and GE left all those PCB's in the Hudson River. I saw it on a public television broadcast so I guess it's true. It looks so clean now if only the poor bastards fishing off the bank of the river didn't get cancer from eating the fish. It should be fine in about 80 years.
There is nothing wrong with creating new thought and process to be tested and applied against the real world in the hopes of greater productivity and profits. It's just that they are so damn smug about their thought and apply it with religious sanctimony. It becomes their hammer and everything is a nail. If you don't blindly adopt it as your leadership mantra you are segregated as a weak leader, a nay say er, a Judas with a large scarlet letter on your forehead as in "L" for loser. You don't get it. Other leaders disassociate from you and tell the other Believers that they knew you were never really one of them. Who hired that person anyway? Maybe they should be punished too? Oblivious to the fact that they participated in the 42 interviews and stressed the company values of honesty and entrepreneurial stuff. As one must chafe the wheat from the husk you must also remove the non-Believers. If you check the sign on the door of the Executive VP of Human Resources, now often referred to as Chief of People , so they too can be C level execs there is teeny, tiny print below the title that says "Eliminator of Non-Believers"! The COP calls you into, almost always, her office. I guess women have been telling guys to get lost for so long and defending their man from loose women that they got good at getting rid of others? Just a theory. Anyhow, she explains how strongly she appreciates your individuality and accomplishments, but the other leaders, your peers, have confided to her that they, not her, have lost confidence in you. Why? Well, it seems to be that your communication style is weak. Who new? You wonder why didn't they pick that up during the 42 interviews? As the brain matter begins to pour out your ear she says softly let's stay in touch, look me up on FaceBook and we'll be friends....I'll just walk you out for your own good. In the hall out of view of the security cameras she frisks you and does a cavity search for your id, cell phone, VPN stick, corporate purchasing card, PDA, magnetic security card and laptop. Feel free to keep all the useless shit with the companies logo emblazoned on them. Like you will ever wear them to remind you how you got canned?
So getting back to the Leadership I was watching the heads of the three major, that's a euphemism if ever there was one, American automobile companies with their hats out looking for a senator to throw in $25Billion dollars in to start or else the whole freaking economy and free society as we know it will be destroyed. "I am new in the job", they said, "only two years, so don't blame me. I'm part of the solution". Luckily they each had a private Jet to bring them to Washington. You would think these jokers would have at least Jet-Pooled if for no other reason to use the HOJ (high occupancy jet) lane given the traffic over DC from the financial guys. It sadly reminds me of the joke where a guy is in the airport, goes to by a ticket to Europe and finds himself $0.25 cents short. He asks person after person in line for a quarter to get to Europe. Everyone ignores him until finally one kind person says, " here's a buck buddy take a trip around the world". What trip and how far will our buck go with these leaders?
There is so much-packaged leader lingo to go around you forget it's not new. For instance, what is that leader's "say/do ratio"? If you don't do what you say your are going to do it is less than 1 and that sucks. You learned that in basic algebra? You learned that from your parents when you were 5 for Christ's sake. When did being straightforward and honest become a fucking ratio. When was less then 1 OK? Probably the same time oral sex didn't constitute an extramarital relationship. As long as I find my personal "true north" then I will be empowered to live my life well and lead well. Only in California can this crap fly. When did I have to become spiritually cleansed by my whore mongering CEO to do a great job? It's probably because I didn't have the right 'what' therefore my 'hows' were all misaligned. And you wonder why employees don't feel connected? Corporate America told most of us non-union types that we are now responsible for our careers and they will fire you in a heart beat to meet quarterly analyst expectations you dumb-ass employee at will! That was 1985 after the last recession. Leaders now are trying to extract loyalty by manipulating social thinking and have employees believe in their dogma. Thanks Jerry Jones! Fill 'er up I'm thirsty as hell! They are pitching self actualization while everyone is fighting for shelter and food. Mazlow's model has been around for decades....read it leaders! Leaders have become so disconnected from mainstream thought and needs. It shouldn't be surprising. If you made $80 million last year and stress over $75k curtains for your living room how can you appreciate that saving for college is hard or paying for medical care is costly. The average person is only a few paychecks from homelessness. Back when the bubble burst I heard a leader who made millions and had to lead through the first round of employee cuts attempt to relate to the little people. To her defense she made the effort and went online and took questions openly. To show her compassion she described the anxiety one might be feeling from a loss of a job to the stress she had trying to get her child into the right school. OK I thought getting accepted to the right college is hard and a concern for any parent and she is trying to connect. I found out later the child was 4 years old and it was pre-school! Good person that had lost all connectivity to the mundane world we all live in. She probably got it after the subsequent 10 rounds of lay-offs she said wouldn't come.
We need to think differently, 'out of the box', OK, just teasing. Really we need to remember to be genuine, considerate for what is truly happening around us and remember that everyone is impacted by current events. Speak in simple and straight forward language. Not everything has to be rah, rah and immediate. By setting clear aspirations and goals we can focus on doing our jobs and finding new ways to do things better. By being determined to deliver value each day we can achieve great things over time as a whole, not as heroes. A person may dissappoint but people will always surpass our expectations given the opportunity to do so.
I'm jumping off my soap box. That's all I got for today...this was draining but I feel better like after a long run, just stinky and wet. Time for a shower. Next time I think I will get into fun stuff like performance reviews as the year end approaches or maybe innovation as we embrace change with our new President...we'll see how I'm feeling. Stay well. Later..
Sunday, November 9, 2008
SillyGoneValley
To blog or not to blog? I always wanted to write something other than a business document or email. I want to express, strike that, I need to express my self-indulgent sense of humor and share my musings on what is really going down between business and IT because I unlike others truly understand. I hope to combine humor with learning to create new dialogue and a few laughs at the water cooler. And I look forward to getting trashed and enlightened by your responses. There will be no real names of people or companies so I don’t get sued. So OK, don’t even try it, OK?
The scenarios and circumstances have been crafted from my real experience to suit my ego. Any interpretation or assignment to real people by you, the reader, is your own damn fault. Then again, perception is reality….how any times have you heard that lame excuse for why you are under performing or need to be replaced? Sure you got everything done on time, under budget and with all the functional requirements of the business met and your employee scores are world class, but the customer didn’t like it so who the hell else are we going to blame? We perceive it’s you, CIO, as it certainly can’t be the fault of anyone IN the business! Whew, that felt really good….thanks I’m better now.
But I digress; we all have roles we adopt at work to survive. In no other functional unit of a company is it truer than in Information Technology (IT). IT is a mystical place, more accurately it is like Purgatory, neither heaven nor hell, just eternally frustrating. Although I could be wrong as it might be hell. As I mentioned before in order to survive we adopt persona's, take on new roles, to get through the daily scene we are each acting in. Even in the surreal environment of IT we the technologist, I mean business person, no really I mean technologist. OK, no matter who I need to be today or at this moment there are certain truths or axioms we must reference to maintain our balance. Remember from your 10th grade geometry that axioms are statements that are true without proof or generally accepted as fact (pretty much anything the CEO says), such as two points determine a straight line or the world of IT should never, never be confused with the world of business. I think Peter Drucker would agree. One more proviso, I am going to make many references to companies, people, books and statistics that will be wrong or inaccurate as long as I think it’s funny. No different than our recent presidential and vice-presidential candidates. Wait a minute; aren’t the police detectives that work the prostitution crimes called vice? Never mind.
So what better fodder is there for the ironic, nonsensical and always entertaining situations for a guy like me than the world of business and specifically the world inside a world, IT? When you are a 50 year old CIO (like me) and have a lot of time on your hands (read that temporarily unemployed, I hope) you get to thinking about a lot of stuff you normally couldn’t dwell on before because you have a job to keep you from thinking. Add to that having experienced the shock of being diagnosed with colon cancer, getting your colon tailored and imbibing on the chemo cocktail for six months you get downright philosophical; as alcoholics anonymous would say you experience ‘a moment of clarity’. During my recuperation and subsequent time out ( it’s a time out because I must have been a bad CIO and now have to go to my room to think about it before I can come out and play again) I have had the luxury of doing new and interesting things to expand my emotional intelligence.
I created my profile on LinkedIn, 100% complete thank you very much. I even answered a question and was voted the best answer so don’t you go questioning my credentials to wax philosophically on IT! Strengthening my credibility are the many, many recommendations I received from my closest of friends. Yes, of course they were in exchange for my recommendation first, but I got them didn’t I! A recruiter called me about a job and at the end of our discussion he asked me what my peers would say about me? I suggested he read my LinkedIn profile for recommendations. He laughed very hard then said, “no, really what would they say?” So much for social networking. I guess I will have to really talk to people.
What else have I done with my new found freedoms you ponder? Well, I have read numerous articles in CIO magazine, CIO Online, CIO Insight, Gartner Reviews, HBR, eWeek, Dilbert, Baseline, Wired, Playboy, 451,….and a few books I had told people I read before like Good to Great, which I don’t think was all that good let alone great. I even participate in Google Forums like Cloud Computing….the most prolific group of BS artists yet. Talk about pondering your navel. One becomes keenly aware that conceptually it’s often the same old crap all over again. Yes there are new tools and incarnations of old ideas but few of them work on a commercial level or if they do it can cost you your career to deploy them. In IT when we can’t get the first ten iterations to work right, change the name, spin the value and we’re off to the races again! For chronological reference I programmed in IBM’s VM/OS in 1982. What a revelation that a server can do the same thing 25 years later! Of course new terms are created to rename and repackage and most importantly re-sell. Virtualization sounds so nifty right? Try it in production when the hardware craps out and you are virtually f@#$’d because the recovery capabilities aren’t ..oh I don’t know…ROBUST! Oops. Take a deep breath. Now madam CIO you are considered an imbecile by your CEO. That’s right the same guy who pressured you to deploy it because he parties with the CEO of the company that makes it and he said it never fails! “But, but, but, but you said”…..you stutter as the head of HR escorts you from the building.
New application and hardware architectures that make it easier to integrate existing applications and build composite systems from stuff already built is about as new an idea as the tie dyed bell bottoms with a 34 inch waist I have had in my closet for 30 years. I got down to a 36 during chemo and squeezed my largess into the jeans to surprise my wife. She laughed so hard she almost soiled herself. That’s when I believed I’d be OK and reminded myself not to take the CIO thing too seriously. So accounting systems became ERP systems to consolidate many good things into one bad thing. Low and behold along comes SaaS solutions to decouple the functionality so you can buy only what you need and use and you don’t have to run and maintain the crap. I think they used to call it a bulletin board service in the 1970’s? Great idea except the integration path to your other applications is non-existent. The good news is the sales folk tell me is that if you adopt a services oriented architecture and encapsulate all your other stuff as services it will only take you 3 to 5 years to complete the integration. Three out of the top four PSOs agree and are willing to take it on for only $80MM over five years. Hmmmm. One more dumb question I ask, “what if you guys go belly up?”. That’s simple the salesperson said, "I’ll go off and sell the next thing that will replace my current employer. You know I was an ERP salesperson before". The CIO is so screwed. If you like equations simply substitute ERP with CRM, HRMS, eCommerce and so on and so forth and you will end up with the same result. You’re screwed! I think it is called the associative property of IT or is it the communicative? No matter you’re screwed.
That brings me to the key attribute required by a CIO…the ugly L word. LEADERSHIP. Stay tuned for the next installment of SillyGone Valley where I will ask questions like why does it only apply to me and not you even though you created the values? Why must each CEO create their own language to do the same crap. OK, you already know the answer to that one. So they can make more millions selling their book after they are in jail, I mean retired. Why do leaders use words like ‘disingenuous' ? Isn't simply using that word not genuine? All that and more as I continue to relive my painful, but fun past with my current state solely for your enjoyment…. So long for now and take your work seriously but not yourselves.
Yours Truly,
SillyGoneValley
PS - Believe it or not I have enjoyed my career and IT...it's just so funny some times.
The scenarios and circumstances have been crafted from my real experience to suit my ego. Any interpretation or assignment to real people by you, the reader, is your own damn fault. Then again, perception is reality….how any times have you heard that lame excuse for why you are under performing or need to be replaced? Sure you got everything done on time, under budget and with all the functional requirements of the business met and your employee scores are world class, but the customer didn’t like it so who the hell else are we going to blame? We perceive it’s you, CIO, as it certainly can’t be the fault of anyone IN the business! Whew, that felt really good….thanks I’m better now.
But I digress; we all have roles we adopt at work to survive. In no other functional unit of a company is it truer than in Information Technology (IT). IT is a mystical place, more accurately it is like Purgatory, neither heaven nor hell, just eternally frustrating. Although I could be wrong as it might be hell. As I mentioned before in order to survive we adopt persona's, take on new roles, to get through the daily scene we are each acting in. Even in the surreal environment of IT we the technologist, I mean business person, no really I mean technologist. OK, no matter who I need to be today or at this moment there are certain truths or axioms we must reference to maintain our balance. Remember from your 10th grade geometry that axioms are statements that are true without proof or generally accepted as fact (pretty much anything the CEO says), such as two points determine a straight line or the world of IT should never, never be confused with the world of business. I think Peter Drucker would agree. One more proviso, I am going to make many references to companies, people, books and statistics that will be wrong or inaccurate as long as I think it’s funny. No different than our recent presidential and vice-presidential candidates. Wait a minute; aren’t the police detectives that work the prostitution crimes called vice? Never mind.
So what better fodder is there for the ironic, nonsensical and always entertaining situations for a guy like me than the world of business and specifically the world inside a world, IT? When you are a 50 year old CIO (like me) and have a lot of time on your hands (read that temporarily unemployed, I hope) you get to thinking about a lot of stuff you normally couldn’t dwell on before because you have a job to keep you from thinking. Add to that having experienced the shock of being diagnosed with colon cancer, getting your colon tailored and imbibing on the chemo cocktail for six months you get downright philosophical; as alcoholics anonymous would say you experience ‘a moment of clarity’. During my recuperation and subsequent time out ( it’s a time out because I must have been a bad CIO and now have to go to my room to think about it before I can come out and play again) I have had the luxury of doing new and interesting things to expand my emotional intelligence.
I created my profile on LinkedIn, 100% complete thank you very much. I even answered a question and was voted the best answer so don’t you go questioning my credentials to wax philosophically on IT! Strengthening my credibility are the many, many recommendations I received from my closest of friends. Yes, of course they were in exchange for my recommendation first, but I got them didn’t I! A recruiter called me about a job and at the end of our discussion he asked me what my peers would say about me? I suggested he read my LinkedIn profile for recommendations. He laughed very hard then said, “no, really what would they say?” So much for social networking. I guess I will have to really talk to people.
What else have I done with my new found freedoms you ponder? Well, I have read numerous articles in CIO magazine, CIO Online, CIO Insight, Gartner Reviews, HBR, eWeek, Dilbert, Baseline, Wired, Playboy, 451,….and a few books I had told people I read before like Good to Great, which I don’t think was all that good let alone great. I even participate in Google Forums like Cloud Computing….the most prolific group of BS artists yet. Talk about pondering your navel. One becomes keenly aware that conceptually it’s often the same old crap all over again. Yes there are new tools and incarnations of old ideas but few of them work on a commercial level or if they do it can cost you your career to deploy them. In IT when we can’t get the first ten iterations to work right, change the name, spin the value and we’re off to the races again! For chronological reference I programmed in IBM’s VM/OS in 1982. What a revelation that a server can do the same thing 25 years later! Of course new terms are created to rename and repackage and most importantly re-sell. Virtualization sounds so nifty right? Try it in production when the hardware craps out and you are virtually f@#$’d because the recovery capabilities aren’t ..oh I don’t know…ROBUST! Oops. Take a deep breath. Now madam CIO you are considered an imbecile by your CEO. That’s right the same guy who pressured you to deploy it because he parties with the CEO of the company that makes it and he said it never fails! “But, but, but, but you said”…..you stutter as the head of HR escorts you from the building.
New application and hardware architectures that make it easier to integrate existing applications and build composite systems from stuff already built is about as new an idea as the tie dyed bell bottoms with a 34 inch waist I have had in my closet for 30 years. I got down to a 36 during chemo and squeezed my largess into the jeans to surprise my wife. She laughed so hard she almost soiled herself. That’s when I believed I’d be OK and reminded myself not to take the CIO thing too seriously. So accounting systems became ERP systems to consolidate many good things into one bad thing. Low and behold along comes SaaS solutions to decouple the functionality so you can buy only what you need and use and you don’t have to run and maintain the crap. I think they used to call it a bulletin board service in the 1970’s? Great idea except the integration path to your other applications is non-existent. The good news is the sales folk tell me is that if you adopt a services oriented architecture and encapsulate all your other stuff as services it will only take you 3 to 5 years to complete the integration. Three out of the top four PSOs agree and are willing to take it on for only $80MM over five years. Hmmmm. One more dumb question I ask, “what if you guys go belly up?”. That’s simple the salesperson said, "I’ll go off and sell the next thing that will replace my current employer. You know I was an ERP salesperson before". The CIO is so screwed. If you like equations simply substitute ERP with CRM, HRMS, eCommerce and so on and so forth and you will end up with the same result. You’re screwed! I think it is called the associative property of IT or is it the communicative? No matter you’re screwed.
That brings me to the key attribute required by a CIO…the ugly L word. LEADERSHIP. Stay tuned for the next installment of SillyGone Valley where I will ask questions like why does it only apply to me and not you even though you created the values? Why must each CEO create their own language to do the same crap. OK, you already know the answer to that one. So they can make more millions selling their book after they are in jail, I mean retired. Why do leaders use words like ‘disingenuous' ? Isn't simply using that word not genuine? All that and more as I continue to relive my painful, but fun past with my current state solely for your enjoyment…. So long for now and take your work seriously but not yourselves.
Yours Truly,
SillyGoneValley
PS - Believe it or not I have enjoyed my career and IT...it's just so funny some times.
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