One of my deep interests is in the "art & science of process improvement". Maybe this is due to the fact that I've had the misfortune of having worked at some organizations that were seemingly mired in an endless purgatory of making the same mistakes over & over. Or maybe it's due to the nature of my personality. Probably a bit of both.
In the past, I've noticed the most fundamentally repeated mistake is the treatment of skilled employees as an expendable resource, however that's a subject for a different post :-)
The Japanese even have a word in their business terminology for the "art & science of process improvement". It's 改善, which in Chinese we would say "gai shan". In Japanese they say it "kai zen". The meaning of these two characters are: 改 (gai: to improve), 善(shan: gentle like a sheep). Together this word means improvement, but it stands for an entire methodology.
It's interesting because they have a formal methodology for something that alot of companies here in the US don't even take seriously. It might as well be the tooth-fairy.
I think this concept is important to truly take to heart, because process improvement not only helps companies gain competitive advantages, but it makes the lives of employees better, through the strengthening of "collective purpose". Companies can only be as good the quality of their employees.
So I've been studying this concept in my spare time. I found a great article on it here.
星期一, 12月 31, 2007
星期五, 12月 07, 2007
IT Gets The Geek Staff it Deserves
POSTED BY: Laurie M. Orlov in Rants
TOPIC: IT Organization Management
BLOG: Reinventing IT
TOPIC: IT Organization Management
BLOG: Reinventing IT
Forget what CIOs say. IT organizations keep their tech profile by recruiting geeks.
Last year, forty-one percent of CIOs surveyed by Robert Half said they place greater emphasis today on a job candidate's knowledge of business fundamentals than they did five years ago. Today’s Robert Half study results indicated that there is no hiring downturn for IT, at least not in Q1, and that windows administrators remain the top position CIOs are trying to fill, then network administrators, followed by database managers and firewall administrators.
Who are CIOs kidding? CIOs repeatedly say that they want to be better at their jobs, have more business impact and do a better job of delivering and communicating business value. They want to be aligned with the business, blah, blah, blah. Forget it. With the tech-centric focus of IT hiring -- at all levels, if you review websites like CareerBuilder and Monster -- CIOs may soon go the way of UK’s Boots CIO, gone and not replaced, with the computer services staff now reporting into the COO, and their “IT transformation done."
星期二, 12月 04, 2007
10 Career-killers To Avoid
Like other workers, IT pros can unintentionally sabotage their careers
Nov 7 2007
To help IT professionals become more aware of potential career blunders, Computerworld spoke with John M. McKee, president of BusinessSuccessCoach.net, a Thousand Oaks, Calif.-based career coaching and consulting firm. McKee is the author of author of Career Wisdom: 101 Proven Strategies to Ensure Workplace Success. Here are 10 career-killers, with McKee's advice about how to recognize and avoid them.
1. Failing to have a life plan. "This is the No. 1 biggest mistake that I run into with my clients. I work with a number of clients in IT, many of whom are in C-level roles. A life plan is a business plan, in the same way that a company leader creates an annual business plan for what the future is going to bring from a corporate perspective. Three life aspects to focus on include one's career, personal and family, and financial goals. If someone has a good title and a satisfactory personal and family life but they're struggling to make monthly payments, then they're not going to be satisfied. They should look at those aspects for themselves. They should look at the competitive environment, the job marketplace and whether their skill set is current. If someone can replace them because they're cheaper, faster or better, it's no different than looking at your IT requirements. Most importantly, this plan should be written down. Only 14% of people do that. 86% are putting their futures in the hands of others. It's not a good place to be in."
2. Not keeping your skills current. "The business landscape is ever-changing and there is more demand for jobs than supply. Not staying on par with colleagues and those vying for your job will be a death knell. With individuals able to do the same work that someone is doing anywhere in the world today and the prospect that organizations will chase skill sets around the world, if you're not up to date with your skill sets in IT, you're significantly at risk of being replaced. This includes the need to stay up to date in technical skills, business skills and soft skills."
3. Failing to deliver results. "Winners in business know that it's all about accountability. Those who harbor a sense of entitlement for simply having put forth effort, irrespective of the results of those efforts, are guaranteed to fall by the wayside. It's very easy in a corporation to believe that becoming more efficient will translate into becoming more effective. So becoming preoccupied with creating greater efficiency may be a short-term solution to helping the bottom line, but it doesn't help the organization to grow. I rarely see people get the big bonuses in the organization simply because they understand the policies and procedures of the company. It has to do with delivering the goods. You have to know your customers, know what your marketplace wants. Great leadership is all about asking questions."
4. Confusing efficiency with effectiveness. "Those who think that communicating via e-mail replaces the need to actually talk with people around them fail to recognize the importance of personally connecting with others in today's highly automated and technological environment. Communicating in person whenever possible is imperative for success-seekers."
5. Believing that you are irreplaceable. "There is no room for divas in the workplace. As soon as you convince yourself that you and only you can do the job 'right,' your star will surely start to fall. In any organization, any person can have a good couple of ideas, a good couple of years and a few successes under their belts and they start to think that the company can't do without them. They start to sit on their laurels and find themselves in greater jeopardy of losing their jobs. Comparing notes with others in the organization helps keep people grounded. It helps anyone in the organization to have different trusted advisers' perspective on what's going on and how their performance is being viewed."
6. Knowing all the answers. "This old adage remains true: Knowledge is power. Professing to know it all can readily stagnate a career. Winners remain unceasingly interested in learning new ideas and approaches. Asking a lot of questions is a hallmark of great leaders and great managers. When one stops asking questions and starts believing they've seen it all, they are devaluing the amount of change going on in the world today."
7. Surrounding yourself with "brown-nosers." "Losers like having people tell them how smart they are, whether or not it's true, while successful managers and other professionals accept and encourage intelligence and creativity in others. If you're constantly being told by your peers that everything you're doing is wonderful, you need a better group of advisers. If your supervisor believes that you're doing a great job, that's terrific -- it's probably reflecting well on him or her."
8. Forgetting to give credit to others. "Losers inappropriately take full credit for positive events despite the help or input received by others, while winners give credit where credit is due. Losers inevitably reap what they sow. If your boss is a real pumpkinhead, you can probably get away with this a few times. But if you keep doing this, chances are your boss is going to catch on that you're a glory hog."
9. Failing to self-promote. "Bragging is one thing, but letting colleagues throughout your industry know of your success through case studies, promotion bulletins, or other such tools is quite another. Losers often fail to recognize the importance of letting others know about their successes, or go about it in entirely the wrong way. In today's disconnected business world, where many people work at a distance from their supervisors, it's important to let your boss and leadership know your contributions and that you are a valuable asset. This could be as simple as providing your supervisor with an e-mail once a week to inform him about what you're working on and your progress. By doing that, when decisions are made for promotions or job transfers, you're more likely to get what's due to you."
10. Losing perspective. "Intuitive businesspeople recognize that, despite their best attempts to do everything right, sometimes they approach roadblocks and seek the advice and perspective of a respected friend, colleague or even a business coach. Those who fail to recognize their shortcomings are destined for the unemployment line. It has everything to do with forgetting the reasons why their business exists, why they're in this business, and what it is they intended to accomplish when they entered this industry. You need to be excited about what it is you're doing, and you need to put more enthusiasm into what it is you're doing. If you're not looking forward to getting out of bed in the morning, you're working on a downward trend -- you just don't know it yet."
This article reprinted by permission of www.computerworld.com
Nov 7 2007
To help IT professionals become more aware of potential career blunders, Computerworld spoke with John M. McKee, president of BusinessSuccessCoach.net, a Thousand Oaks, Calif.-based career coaching and consulting firm. McKee is the author of author of Career Wisdom: 101 Proven Strategies to Ensure Workplace Success. Here are 10 career-killers, with McKee's advice about how to recognize and avoid them.
1. Failing to have a life plan. "This is the No. 1 biggest mistake that I run into with my clients. I work with a number of clients in IT, many of whom are in C-level roles. A life plan is a business plan, in the same way that a company leader creates an annual business plan for what the future is going to bring from a corporate perspective. Three life aspects to focus on include one's career, personal and family, and financial goals. If someone has a good title and a satisfactory personal and family life but they're struggling to make monthly payments, then they're not going to be satisfied. They should look at those aspects for themselves. They should look at the competitive environment, the job marketplace and whether their skill set is current. If someone can replace them because they're cheaper, faster or better, it's no different than looking at your IT requirements. Most importantly, this plan should be written down. Only 14% of people do that. 86% are putting their futures in the hands of others. It's not a good place to be in."
2. Not keeping your skills current. "The business landscape is ever-changing and there is more demand for jobs than supply. Not staying on par with colleagues and those vying for your job will be a death knell. With individuals able to do the same work that someone is doing anywhere in the world today and the prospect that organizations will chase skill sets around the world, if you're not up to date with your skill sets in IT, you're significantly at risk of being replaced. This includes the need to stay up to date in technical skills, business skills and soft skills."
3. Failing to deliver results. "Winners in business know that it's all about accountability. Those who harbor a sense of entitlement for simply having put forth effort, irrespective of the results of those efforts, are guaranteed to fall by the wayside. It's very easy in a corporation to believe that becoming more efficient will translate into becoming more effective. So becoming preoccupied with creating greater efficiency may be a short-term solution to helping the bottom line, but it doesn't help the organization to grow. I rarely see people get the big bonuses in the organization simply because they understand the policies and procedures of the company. It has to do with delivering the goods. You have to know your customers, know what your marketplace wants. Great leadership is all about asking questions."
4. Confusing efficiency with effectiveness. "Those who think that communicating via e-mail replaces the need to actually talk with people around them fail to recognize the importance of personally connecting with others in today's highly automated and technological environment. Communicating in person whenever possible is imperative for success-seekers."
5. Believing that you are irreplaceable. "There is no room for divas in the workplace. As soon as you convince yourself that you and only you can do the job 'right,' your star will surely start to fall. In any organization, any person can have a good couple of ideas, a good couple of years and a few successes under their belts and they start to think that the company can't do without them. They start to sit on their laurels and find themselves in greater jeopardy of losing their jobs. Comparing notes with others in the organization helps keep people grounded. It helps anyone in the organization to have different trusted advisers' perspective on what's going on and how their performance is being viewed."
6. Knowing all the answers. "This old adage remains true: Knowledge is power. Professing to know it all can readily stagnate a career. Winners remain unceasingly interested in learning new ideas and approaches. Asking a lot of questions is a hallmark of great leaders and great managers. When one stops asking questions and starts believing they've seen it all, they are devaluing the amount of change going on in the world today."
7. Surrounding yourself with "brown-nosers." "Losers like having people tell them how smart they are, whether or not it's true, while successful managers and other professionals accept and encourage intelligence and creativity in others. If you're constantly being told by your peers that everything you're doing is wonderful, you need a better group of advisers. If your supervisor believes that you're doing a great job, that's terrific -- it's probably reflecting well on him or her."
8. Forgetting to give credit to others. "Losers inappropriately take full credit for positive events despite the help or input received by others, while winners give credit where credit is due. Losers inevitably reap what they sow. If your boss is a real pumpkinhead, you can probably get away with this a few times. But if you keep doing this, chances are your boss is going to catch on that you're a glory hog."
9. Failing to self-promote. "Bragging is one thing, but letting colleagues throughout your industry know of your success through case studies, promotion bulletins, or other such tools is quite another. Losers often fail to recognize the importance of letting others know about their successes, or go about it in entirely the wrong way. In today's disconnected business world, where many people work at a distance from their supervisors, it's important to let your boss and leadership know your contributions and that you are a valuable asset. This could be as simple as providing your supervisor with an e-mail once a week to inform him about what you're working on and your progress. By doing that, when decisions are made for promotions or job transfers, you're more likely to get what's due to you."
10. Losing perspective. "Intuitive businesspeople recognize that, despite their best attempts to do everything right, sometimes they approach roadblocks and seek the advice and perspective of a respected friend, colleague or even a business coach. Those who fail to recognize their shortcomings are destined for the unemployment line. It has everything to do with forgetting the reasons why their business exists, why they're in this business, and what it is they intended to accomplish when they entered this industry. You need to be excited about what it is you're doing, and you need to put more enthusiasm into what it is you're doing. If you're not looking forward to getting out of bed in the morning, you're working on a downward trend -- you just don't know it yet."
This article reprinted by permission of www.computerworld.com
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