Distributed Teams Need Face Time

I've been managing a project/software development team for about six months now. While software development can be tricky in the easiest of times, we have certain challenges with our team which include having team members who are spread out across the country.

Beyond the normal time zone challenges that obviously occur, it is difficult to make sure that information flows and that folks can and do work together appropriately. We have struggled with these challenges since project inception and so I thought that it was time to take the time and invest in the expense to bring everyone together. 

Management, Mistakes and the Pursuit of Perfection

Management books, journals, magazines and podcasts. They are everywhere. And plenty of them are very useful and have great information about the art and science of management. But, it's rare that any of them talk about mistakes. Now, we are all human the last time I checked. (In the event I'm incorrect, I humbly welcome our benevolent alien overlords.) So, we make mistakes. Yes, even managers.

And in management, you can certainly make plenty of errors. Managers new and old can fail to act in the presence of poor behavior, allow bad patterns to develop and so on. Even worse, they can feel paralyzed by the results of their inaction. That can result in a manager who is in a miserable job. Patrick Lencioni ably writes about what happens to a company when employees are unhappy in a easy to read parable.

It's bad enough when a single or even a few employees are caught in that pickle, but an unhappy manager can make a lot of folks life unhappy. They have real or perceived power, the ability change things and they do control peoples' lives. It is a very bad combination when a manager is miserable.

But, there's almost no such thing as a mistake that cannot be undone in the world of business. That's not to say that it might not take a lot of work to right a few wrongs, but it can be done, one way or another. It does require strength of character and a dedication to the pursuit of perfection. If you don't have both, I'd argue that you might want to pursue another career path that doesn't include management.

One fellow I used to work for used to say that there were some "givens" in each job. These givens were immutable laws of politics in an organization. That might be a legacy worker, a certain vendor who was a relative of the owner or just a way of doing things. I agree with him to a point. There are givens at a particular point in time. But everything evolves and changes. In life and in business, we do not stay the same. So we must be alert to those times and opportunities in which we have a chance to make positive change, even if it means acknowledging our own mistake.

A Few Good People

What is the difference between a good company and a great one or a good company and a crappy one? A few good people. No surprise really, since it was in the title... :-)

In all seriousness, every company's production/productivity is driven by the people you employ. The extent to which those people are intelligent, engaged and hard-working is generally going to determine just how successful a company can and will be. Naturally, there are external factors that can influence performance such as a violent economic meltdown, but let's exclude those for now.

There is nothing wrong with going to work for the paycheck, but let's be honest... If that's the only reason you are going there and you are in career mode, you're probably in the wrong place. Each and every one of us spends the majority of our days at work. There is absolutely no reason that we cannot be going to a place that provides challenge, excitement and a chance for advancement. People who look at their jobs like this are capable of improving their lives, their jobs and everyone around them.

This would be the point where folks reading this entry will scoff, point at me and make fun of the "pie in the sky idealist." I'll point back and tell you that I have seen individuals make a difference in a company. Smart, engaged people who can innovate and change the nature of their jobs are capable of raising the bar in a work group, a department, a division. Those people should be celebrated and rewarded, because they can lead a company to success one person at a time.

And to the managers and leaders reading this, you are not that person most of the time. You are not on the front lines, you are not doing the work. You can provide the vision and educate the staff about what they need to do and why, but the only impact you can truly have on staff is to find those good people, reward them, publicize them and above all else keep them. Otherwise, someone else will. Cheerfully.