Who asked for this?

Who asked for this?  "Energy Dome"

Who asked for this?
Who asked for this?
Who asked for this?

My staff during the 27-year gig was encouraged (by me) to think creatively.  Often IT people are labeled as nerds, slightly above accountants of the fun scale.  That was not the case under my mentorship.

We led our industry and our clients in the emergence on corporate email, intranets and company websites.  That might be worth a "what?" but in the late 1990s these were not the norm many industries.  Around 2005 we released our sixth or seventh version of our company intranet.  It was a bit progressive at the time providing not only resources for internal operations but culling press releases and news from our clients, industry and partners.

Apparently someone thought that unnecessary.  I was asked to demo the intranet to a senior C-level staff member. At each point in the demonstration I was asked "who asked for that?"  In most of the many responses to that question it was truthful to say "No one did.  We thought of it?"  This was trouble.

Just a few years later "innovation" became the hot buzzword of the management world.  The organization created a formal structure for "innovation" which included submission of ideas, formal review of the suggestions by those without ideas of their own and limited funding. Implicit in that effort was reigning in IT innovation and it was successful at curtailing IT leadership in the industry.

As managers we spend far too much time on problem employees and the the slight shortcomings of decent employees.  The opportunities for your own leadership is to focus on the good performance of employees and the people inherently bringing about change.

It was my wife who reminded me of this "Who asked for this?" conversation.  It put a bit of a damper on an otherwise pleasant holiday weekend.  I appreciate that.  Actually the Norwegian half of me appreciates it.  Good weather is not really all that enjoyable.  It simply means you can get your outside work done.  The damper kept me from a few accomplishments.


Authoritative Versus Charismatic Leadership? 

Not everyone is cut out to be a manager and fewer as executives.  You have to be comfortable with the unknown, ambiguities, politics, criticism, performance issues, etc.   For two days I've been thinking about Emile Durkheim and his discourse on authoritative versus charismatic power and leadership.  This has been a recurrent theme in my perception of management opportunities.  In it's simplest explanation we follow some leaders because they are charismatic.  They have have the presence, the ideas, the voice and the looks and your belief in them that makes you follow them without question.  Since I think about WWII a bit I'll suggest FDR and Winston Churchill.  The counter is authoritative leadership/authority.  Of course we might think about world leaders who kill or suppress their opposition but we see it in all organizations regardless of size.  Authoritative leaders have their power because of the rights and authority assigned to their organizational position, now because of their charismatic influence.  We follow them because we have to.

Of course I've used this simple dichotomy over the years many times, and long enough to forget that this was not Emile Durkheim's work but Max Weber.  It's been forty years.  I should still remember.

Steve Jobs = Charismatic
POTUS (current) = Authoritative
POTUS (previous) = Authoritative
POTUS (FDR) = Charismatic
POTUS (Reagan) = Charismatic

Who has your back?

People who have served in the military have a unique perspective on organizations.  The training is focused on making you efficient on core activities and good at a narrow range of skills.  While non-military organization's departments and functions are frequently at odds in the military you rely on the guy or woman behind you knowing and doing their job and even more importantly covering your back.  It's a bit of a commitment, and often to people who are friends, non-friends but under the same mission and rules of engagement.  I'm going to look at the Zappos training world.  They put new employees through a rigorous training program focused on customer service.  At the end of training everyone is offered a cash settlement to quit.  I'm curious how much of the training focuses on covering each others' back?

For those not having served on land, sea or air I recommend Restepo.

Outplacement Firm...

My goal is to wrap up my time with the outplacement firm who has been very helpful.  At completion I'm going to write a review of their contribution to this "next phase" of my life.  My personal consultant is currently on a sabbatical and I'm on a sabbatical so two sabbaticals lead to, well...nothing at the moment.

Turkeys...

The coyotes have kept the turkey population down but there are two males courting three females in my front yard daily.  The other neighbors chase them away.  I find that the turkeys keep the neighbors out of my yard and that is fine.