Partners Blog

ACT-IAC > Education & Professional Development > Partners Program > 2012 Partners Collaborative Site > Partners Blog

4/18/2012

May 8 Breakfast: Telework Questions and Challenges

Fellow 2012 Partners -- our Pod (Anita, Tajuana, Jerry, and me) are planning the subject event and want it to provide as much value to you as possible. Our current plan is to look at telework using the people, processes, and technology framework. We intend to use a panel format to explore the issues in each one of these areas. As we refine our game plan during the next few weeks, we are interested in the questions you have about the topic, and in the challenges and successes you have had in planning and implementing telework policy. Your input will help us frame the issue and prepare our guest panelists. We request that you provide your inputs by COB April 27, either through this blog (which will give other Partners visibility and might inspire additional questions and insights), or if you prefer, an email to our Pod members (please copy all). Thanks in advance for your contributions to this effort...we look forward to seeing you on May 8!

Posted at 10:53 AM by Scott Campbell | Category: Breakfast Topics | Permalink | Email this Post | Comments (0)

4/5/2012

What is it that makes you really THINK

And I say that with emphasis. How can we ever improve if we don't offer ourselves an opportunity for self-reflection.

To move more toward the center of my personality, I have begun looking for pearls of wisdom. I just recently read an article by Jeff Haden of Inc. entitled "The 5 Qualities of Remarkable Bosses". One thing really touched a cord and it was specifically #3 - Rescue your worst employee. This segment dealt with rescuing an employee who had become wolf bait in the organization through a public incident or unfortunate failure. Jeff emphasized that you should not relax your standards but gave some very real-world ways to succeed. This is something that I can do differently and something I would never have considered in the past.

Here's the link to this very insightful article

http://www.inc.com/jeff-haden/the-5-qualities-of-remarkable-bosses.html?nav=next

Now for the question - what is it that makes you look deeper to find ways to improve to make a difference in your personal or professional life.

Posted at 5:59 PM by Sherry Weir | Category: Miscellaneous | Permalink | Email this Post | Comments (0)

3/26/2012

Where do you get your knowledge?

So some of you may know that I have a teeny problem with hoarding books. I have probably 1000 of them. I bought a house with four bedrooms just so I could make one of them a Library. I don't think there is a room in my house that doesn't have a book in it somewhere. They are all over my office too. This doesn't count the 1500 or so I have waiting on my Kindle.

I started thinking about this when I became obsessed with getting the last edition of the Britannica. If you didn't know, it's ceasing print copies after 244 years. Now, I have a perfectly good 1985 edition (which has traveled with me from NY to Denver and back to DC) but I had to have this edition. After all, only 12,000 were printed (compared to 200,000 a year in the 90's). Then to make matters worse I had to go on Ebay and find a 1911 edition, which, if you know Britannica, is the classic edition to have and to own. The last one before the Great War, the last one from, really, a more uncomplicated age. The definition of Woman in that edition, BTW, is "a female Man".

So now I have my new Britannica, my old Britannica (I think I may have found it a good home) and am waiting on my antique Britannica. Yeah, just a little obsessed. But there is something about sitting in a big chair with a fire on in the winter and holding a solid, leather bound book in your hands, turning to pages at random and just sucking in the knowledge. Even better if you can have a cigar and a nice beer with it. NOTE: don't ever get in a trivia battle with me...I know a LOT of incredibly stupid stuff that I never have any use for.

I'm like this with newspapers too. Although I don't buy them every day now, I do like to spend my weekends with New York tabloids (for the sports, of course!) and the Washington Post. Although I love my Kindle and I love my PC's, I will always stop at a bookstore and waste time just browsing. It killed me when Borders went under; now I start my Saturday at Barnes and Noble.

So, I'll ask the question again. Where do you get your knowledge? I find I retain a lot more when I can sit and read a book rather than browse CNN.com. I'm slowly changing but I'll never give up my book habit. What about you?

Posted at 8:44 PM by Rory Schultz | Category: Miscellaneous | Permalink | Email this Post | Comments (0)

3/4/2012

Reverse Delegation

How many times has this happened to you? Your team has a major project due and right before the deadline your PM hands it back to you with "a problem"? Chances are good that if you've reached a senior management or first level executive position that it happens on a regular basis.

Called "reverse delegation" or "delegating up" this problem has become greater in the past decade as we do more and more, quicker and quicker, with impossible deadlines. And technology can't solve the entire problem.

Very often, an extremely proficient PM had all good intentions of finishing the job on time but just ran into unavaoidable delays. That scenario is easily explained. Less easily explained are the times when the project never got off to a good start but your team told you all was fine until just before the deadline.

One potential cause of this is not explaining the project clearly enough. Often people don't want to look unprepared in front of their colleagues and may decide to just wing it only to find themselves in trouble as the project completion date nears. I've always tried to encourage a culture of asking questions and clarifying ideas. I have to do this becuase I'm an ENTP and tend to think big picture. Sometimes I haven't thought through the details, just the end result. So I do value the feedback and when my staff forces me to think about how we're going to make it up that hll I just decided to take.

Another potential cause is inaccurate projections of timelines and resources. Because we're told to "get it done" the team doesn't stop to think about all the other projects that may be impacted, causing a spiral of missed deadlines as they reel from one crisis to another. So it's very important to accurately (as best you can anyway) predict those potential pitfalls up front. Othewrwise you may be the one explaining to the executive leadership why you're reverse delegating up to them.

Finally it may just be that you have some staff that are truly not cut out for this and who will do anything to find a problem and hand it back to you. Although I'd like to think this is rare, it's more common than you might think. Solutions may be engaging those staff on projects better suited for their skill sets or offerring additional training. But if, despite all attempts to rectify the situation, the individual still underperforms it may be time to document the issues and start moving them out of the organization.

As Partners this year, you'll be finding out what some of your unique skill sets and leadership capabilities are. Hopefully you'll be able to take some of that back to your organizations to avoid the reverse delegation trap.

Posted at 8:45 AM by Rory Schultz | Category: Leadership | Permalink | Email this Post | Comments (0)

2/21/2012

Social Networking for the Professional

As you begin your year with Partners it is important to reflect on how you network with other professionals to build your on-line presence. Your on-line personna is one step in establishing that critical "first impression" that counts so much as your career progresses.

As Partners, you are executives in line for the "C" suite which insinuates your ability to think strategically and to support your organizational mission through collaboration and leadership. Your Online Personna should reflect that ability to any prospective employer or collegue.

Take a moment to find yourself in the Googlesphere. If you're missing - you are anonymous. Now - while being anaonymous is better than seeing your grade school photos - according to Tim Bray, director of Web technologies at Sun Microsystems Inc, "over time, the lack of a Web presence — particularly for IT professionals — may well turn from a neutral to a negative."

If you are turned off by the Facebook philosophy, consider professional networking sites like LinkedIn. I'll be building a P12 LinkedIn Group soon and I hope that can give you the confidence to build your own Web presence and to get to know the professional side of your classmates.

Posted at 9:31 AM by Sherry Weir | Category: Career Development | Permalink | Email this Post | Comments (0)

Leaders and Legacies

Monday February 20 was President's Day. Back in the day it used to be Washington's Birthday (well, not really, but that's another blog and another story). Anyway that got me thinking about Presidents and their legacies. Who are the great Presidential leaders?

A recent Harris poll puts Abraham Lincoln at the top as the respondent's choice for Great Presidents. You may be surprised that Washington comes in at number three behind Ronald Reagan. Topping out the top five are FDR and JFK.

Were you surprised? Maybe you shouldn't be. All five men presided over major change and left a lasting impression, whatever you think of their politics (for the record, we have two Democrats, two Republicans, and one Whig - pretty even).

I can make the case that all of them successfully fought and won a war. Washington, the Revolution, Lincoln the Civil War, FDR in WWII, Kennedy started the program that won the race to the moon and Reagan won the Cold War. All meaningful events in American history.

So what about Mount Rushmore? Why are Teddy Roosevelt and Jefferson on the mountain with Abe and George? Simply because they expanded the nation's territory or power, another form of lasting legacy. TR even got himself shot while campaigning and still gave his 90 minute speech before he went to the hospital (they left the bullet in).

I'm not making the case here that you need to get shot or win a war to have a legacy, but you are indeed all leaders. What you do and say has an effect on your staff, your peers and others in our industry. So make sure that the legacy you leave behind is one worthy of monumental proportions and not one that will be relegated to the dustbin of history.

Posted at 8:22 AM by Rory Schultz | Category: Leadership | Permalink | Email this Post | Comments (0)

RSS Feed