Your name is Ethan Hunt. You are a x-PMO agent who is working for a top secret agency.

Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to deliver a project on-time on-budget and on-scope, codenamed Project: Impossible.

I’ve already dispatched a team from your usual force – your undercover business liaison, your technical guru, your hacker developers, and a surveillance expert/coordinator to monitor and cover your tracks. Your preferred virtual assistants will be available to you 24/7 to handle all administration needs including transportation and paper work. As always, you know how to reach me if you need to cut through any red tape that is critical for mission success.

In case you are wondering, that was a rip-off from the Mission Impossible TV series that I grew up watching, which was made into a very successful movie series. I think there is a fourth and final installment coming out this year and it’s going to be awesome. Obviously, I am a fan.

But this post is not about the movie. It is about project management.

What if your next assignment to a project was a project initiation email from your boss that read like the message above? Your PM life would get a lot more exciting, especially if it is perceived as impossible to begin with and a question of survival is the undertone. Would you take up the challenge?

What if you had the option to work with your usual team? I am talking about the people with whom you have worked in past projects. They trust you and they work well under your leadership; and you trust them because they’ve always got your back. What if projects in real life would allow Managers to form a team of their liking? Do you think it will lower your chances of failure?

Think about it and now let’s get back to your mission.

Should you or any member of your force be caught or killed during the mission, we will disavow all knowledge of your actions.

This message will self-destruct in 5 seconds.

Good luck, Ethan.

Last week’s blog theme was about our “Trust In The Clouds”. In The World We “Trust”, I touched upon the importance of relationships in our lives and those that are built on trust are the strongest. I pondered upon the effects of social media on our relationships and how the increasing dependence on the cloud will put our trust to test.

A Cloud of Doubt was a result of more thought-time I put into how safe the cloud is in light of the recent news about Dropbox and Whrrl, and the doubt that their statements injected into my simple mind. It was a call to action for you and me to think about who we are entrusting with our data, and question how they are keeping it safe.

I am grateful for the tweets, the re-tweets, the comments and the conversations that I was able to generate, in my own small way, amongst my followers, my subscribers and and my friends. Thank you!

This is my wrap-up post of this theme until a time when it will resurrect again, I’m sure, in a nearby future.

The fundamental question that drives my theme is this: Can we trust the cloud? The answer is three-fold.

1. Make the unknowns known.

When I say trust and you think security, then the answer is: I don’t know.
Security is and always will be a big unknown. This may be the reason why some of the providers of cloud-based services seem as though they are either not openly talking about it or they don’t talk about it in-depth and often enough. Rackspace, Windstream and Amazon’s EC2 are some of the prominent players in the market today and I must point our that Windsteam’s openness to talk about this topic on their blog is admirable. I think providers of cloud computing services need to talk about security more, as it stands today, as it changes tomorrow and then some more. Make the unknowns known and help remove our assumptions and the speculations from the equation.

2. Failure paves the way to success.

When I say trust and you think reliability, then the answer is: Absolutely, Why not?
Reliability, Availability and Flexibility are some of the benefits that I think the cloud is really about. The success of services like Evernote, Dropbox and Foursquare are examples of how we can rely on the cloud to make sure that our data is portable and available to us at all times. We should definitely be able to rely on service providers like Amazon to build the infrastructure that the cloud needs to make us more resourceful and productive. So what if Amazon screwed up last week and somewhat clouded our innocent minds. On our way to a reliable future, I think we can expect there to be some fumbles along they way. The way I see it, the incident at the very least would give Amazon a chance to strengthen their processes and improve their infrastructure. That’s a win in my books for the cloud.

3. It’s about collaboration.

When I say trust and you think privacy, then the answer is: Good point but you are just about 10 years too late on that argument.
Actually, when Larry Page and Sergey Brin met in the summer of 1995 and they released the first version of Google in August 1996, I’d say your privacy was compromised. If the cloud is anything at all, it is not about being private. It is about collaboration and reaching out beyond borders and boundaries, in a way that enables us to engage with anyone anywhere, quickly and cost-effectively.

In closing, it doesn’t really matter whether we trust the cloud or not. The cloud is the future and there is no going back. What matters is whether we care enough to be aware of what the future holds, would we be able to leverage what the cloud has to offer, and who in the cloud will be able earn our trust.

I’ll leave it at that, for now.

I use Dropbox (the free version) quite a bit with my people. I love the service and I think it is one of best examples of how the cloud can work for us. It demonstrates how easily we can use the power of the internet to store and share information.

Then I read a bNET article this week and learned that Dropbox dropped the ball on security with their contradicting statements in their terms of service. Can their employees view my data or not? Are they “prohibited” or “prevented” from accessing my private and must-be-protected information?

Another story this week that came into my inbox is that Whrrl (a service I have used but not extensively) is closing curtains due to an acquisition. They sent this message to their users:

Whrrl has been a “cloud service” for you and your data, and under no circumstances would we ever let your data disappear irretrievably into the cloud. As such, our last engineering effort on Whrrl has been to develop an experience that lets you get your data (checkins, photos, recommendations, your Want To list, etc.) back in a way that we think is pretty convenient and useful. You will be able to continue using Whrrl normally through April 30. Starting today, however, you’ll find on the website that you now have an option to retrieve your data – pretty much everything you ever put into Whrrl.

Pretty much everything? Why not everything?

So that’s two cloud-based services leaving shadows of doubt to its users and the world. I personally don’t care much about Whrrl but I am worried about my files on Dropbox. My love for the service is shadowed by a creeping lack of trust.

What about Evernote, a service I trust unconditionally? Oh, except those conditions I checked and accepted with a click and the flicker of a screen. Should I go back and scrutinize it (read it painfully) to find the safeties they may have skillfully worked in? I don’t want to do that. I am lazy and it’s boring. I don’t have the time. Tell me Evernote, tell me I can trust you. Just tell me and I will believe you.

I talked to a friend about using cloud-based services. He was quick to answer: “I don’t trust the cloud.” Given a choice, he would go with services who have their own servers to store our data and protect it. Somewhat like what the banks do, and the multi-billion dollar companies, who can afford it. But then again he uses Facebook, minimally. Good luck on that.

Folks, I am confused. What are we to do as simple uncaring selfish individuals? Who can we trust enough so we can keep playing Farmville?

I am an extrovert. I like being around people. I rarely turn down invitations to parties, events, outings, anything and everything that I can find time for. I tend to forget the physical exhaustion when I am engaged in conversations with my friends. I am who I am because of these relationships. My relationships are built on trust. I believe that trust enables us to share.

Many of the relationships we build today are on Facebook and Twitter and the likes. This is the age of collaboration and social media. Social media platforms have made it easier for us to connect. I wonder if they have made us trust any more easier? I don’t think so but because trust levels vary from person to person you may feel differently. And what about the relationships we get into with the social media providers in our rush to make connections and build more relationships? Isn’t it odd that we trust Facebook with a lot of information today? It’s scary when you think about all the uncontrolled unfiltered data that flows freely into Facebook every day in the form of our conversations, our photos and everything else we put out there. We trade our private and protected information with strangers to feed our craving to share information with people who we trust or want to trust. Ironic in a way, don’t you think?

The impact of social media on our lives and specifically with our relationships must not be ignored and something we need to think about.

Pundits say “The future is in the cloud.” It has the potential to be a new revolution, like the Internet was. The idea behind the cloud is to make information available to consumers at all times, and by allowing providers a cost-effective and quicker means to put information out there. Many business have embraced the cloud already and others are on their way. The cloud makes it easier to provide as well as consume information, the good and the bad, in abundance. In a world which is already flat, the cloud will make information exchange virtual and scattered. Do we feel excited for the possibilities this new revolution brings or should we be worried of the risks involved? Can we trust the cloud to keep our precious information safe from prying eyes? Only time will tell.

In our collaborative information age, where sharing information to build trusted relationships is essential and sometimes game-changing, I wonder if we are clouded with doubt for what the future holds OR are we making great strides towards an age of trust? What do you think?

Some Managers do the strangest things sometimes. First they go out of their way to make the team happy, to gain trust. Then they do things that are not in the best interest of the team, mostly for trivial things, usually to feed their bloating ego. Have you seen that happen? Have you worked for such a Manager? Would you admit if you are one?

Then there are some Managers who would not de-value relationships, who would make sacrifices to keep the sanctity of teams, and who would never do anything that would kill the trust that they struggled to earn, even if their jobs hinged on it. They are a different breed. Have you witnessed such leadership? Have you had the privilege to serve such a Manager? Are you the one, who would rather be back stage, behind the scenes, out of the spotlight?

Whoever you are, when you sit behind your busy desk in your lonely office room staring through a large window at the outside world, constantly distracted by the ringing of your phone, and removed from the hall-way conversations and the laughter, have you sensed a strange feeling of disconnect? If you have, then get up and find the conversations that you can be a part of and reconnect with the team that worked for your success. Do it once. Then do it again. Do it often. Let the phone ring.

People leave Managers, not companies.

The effectiveness and success to managing people lies in the leadership skills, sense and style of the Managers. When done right, people stay motivated and bend over backwards without complain or regret. The Manager and the Team Member builds a relationship fueled by trust.

According to an article by Business News Daily, a 2010 survey conducted by a career-management agency called Right Management revealed that “84% of workers want to quit jobs, find new gigs in 2011“. The article also quoted the company’s President who said that “Employees’ trust has been seriously shaken and there is a general lack of confidence in leaders.” Almost all the top reasons for why employees leave seem to point towards ineffective Managers and broken trust. If we look beyond the obvious reasons for why that is so, we start to see the trail that leads to a much bigger issue.

A Manager who is mis-managed is almost always likely to mis-manage his team.

Leadership is infectious. Good leadership has a positive impact on the team whereas bad leadership impacts negatively. Whatever the effects of leadership, it surely trickles down from the top honcho to many levels down.

A friend recently told me about his Manager who had begun to show signs of maturity causing a positive change in his leadership ways. Such incidents give me hope that a transition from bad to good leadership is not an impossibility. When experience teaches us how to adopt as well as adapt to changing times and situations, it is not uncommon to see such drastic changes in leadership styles. Most leaders I know strive for that continuous improvement. However, in my friend’s situation, there was one compelling factor that could not be dismissed. The change that he noticed occurred only after a leadership change at a level above his i.e. his Manager’s Manager had changed. So if we were to believe that this is not a lone one-off incident, that mis-management is also infectious, then what next?

We have the power to choose.

Change happes when we are dissatisfied with the status quo. But choosing to change is not the only choice we have. We have the power to choose who we work for. So let’s circle back to the beginning. People leave Managers, not companies. In other words, we change Managers, not companies. And there lies the choice, a rather difficult one because unlike companies the value and worth of a Manager cannot be googled.

But there is an easier choice available to us now, every minute of every day, a choice to strengthen our relationship as a Manager with our Team, and vice versa.  Let’s choose to prepare ourselves for the time when we become ready to leave a company to work for a Manager.

A long time ago, I took a good friend out to dinner. I had a secret agenda. Our friendship had been strained for some reason. I didn’t know why and was troubled by it. I deserved an explanation. So before we ordered dinner, I suggested that we order drinks and appetizers first. At first, he turned down my offer but I kept insisting and he finally agreed to one beer.

One beer led to another and an hour passed by with empty conversations, when I asked him about his beef with me. “Leave it.”, he said, “There is nothing to talk about. It’s all good.” I raised my voice deliberately and with an irritated tone I responded, “Come on! Be a man and admit it. I know there is something wrong. Let’s talk about it and put it past us. How can I fix something I don’t know?” He seemed reluctant but I was adamant. Finally he slammed the bottle on the table and said, “Alright. You want to know what’s bothering me? You want to know what my issue is with you?” I felt victorious. Of course, I wanted to know. That was the plan all along. “Yes. Talk to me. What’s been bothering you, dude? Let’s fix it and move on.”

To this day, the moments that followed and his words are still very clear to me, as it somehow got engraved into my mind, when he told me the reason for why we would no longer be friends. He got up, looked straight into my eyes, and said: “You are manipulative. I can’t trust you.”

That incident changed my life and taught me an important lesson about influence. Our influence on the people who are in our circle of trust, when used in a negative way to feed our craving for control and justification, through our acts of manipulation, can cost us a heavy price. It costs us relationships. It cost me a friend.

Situations that life presents us with become the experiences that teaches us how to manipulate. It is born out of our basic instinct to survive. We instinctively use this method to take control of tough situations and uncontrollable circumstances. Some situations call for it, others don’t. And when we continue to use it for negative and selfish reasons, it becomes a habit and habits are tough to control.

Have you ever manipulated a situation for your own benefit? Did you ever try to influence someone for your own gain? What did it cost you?

Read Part 1 of this post: Introduction

Most of my grown-up life I’ve tried to be a superman, never asking for help, always doing the heavy lifting till my back breaks, trying to be so-called self made man. A self-made man does not exist. Everyone needs someone. We are all dependent beings. To move forward, toward our life goals, we have to depend on someone somewhere. There is no way around it.

Who are we most likely to depend on?
Those who we trust.

And who earns our trust?
Those who we can connect with on a supportive interaction channel, without being judged, with the single objective to help one another succeed.

People who build such support systems have what I call the Intent to Influence. The intent is displayed in our inborn traits of openness, honesty, understanding and generosity. These are people who exercise their active listening skills. They listen, learn and lead us to our goals.

The Circle of Influence is your support system. It is an environment of candid conversations between people who accept each other as who they really are,  who share and discuss goals, and are bound by a commitment of accountability. It is what gives the superman in you your super human strength.

Do you want to get influenced? Do you have the Intent to Influence?

Who influences you?

This question has surely triggered your thoughts and some names have already popped up in your thoughts. It may be your boss, a mentor, a parent, a father figure, a friend, a brother, your spouse or someone else who has played an important role in shaping up the person you are today, or someone you have made a difference to.

But these are not the influencers I am referring to here. Your “circle of influence” consists of people who you interact with very frequently. To be exact, I am talking about those FIVE individuals in your present day life with whom you interact with most frequently, those you commonly categorize as your friends.

Why five? Because it is said that “you are the sum average of the 5 people you spend the most time with”.  A powerful saying which questions the very core of who you are, what makes you tick, how you operate and where you are headed.

As you travel through the different stages of your life into new situations and newer experiences, locate new places, meet new people and make new friends, at any given point in time your circle of friends, those you most hang-out with or you most talk to, are the people who inadvertently influence and shape the journey-man in you.

Who is in your circle of influence? I am guessing you have a narrower list now. Is it a handful or fewer?

It is your restricted group and it is by invitation only. Who have you chosen to invite? Are they helping you grow as a person?

These are tough questions but one that we must ask ourselves, find answers to and be content with; and then we must explore its reverse impact: Whose circle of influence do you belong to? Who gets influenced by You?

Read Part 2 of this post – Intent

… even the tough needs help.

The economy is down, expenses are up. Service costs are frequently on the rise, our income remains more or less the same. It is times like these that we have to reduce our expenses, find ways to cut costs and survive these tough times.

In my books, monthly expenses are generally divided into fixed and variable costs. Variable costs are the money spent largely on household needs, groceries, automotive and dining. Fixed costs are the recurring costs  - the utility bills and membership enrollments that I have opted for and the loan payments (home, car, personal, etc) that I can’t escape from.

In my numerous attempts to save money, I have learned very painfully that the variable costs, our easiest and seemingly most sensible target, cannot be trusted. I’ve realized that ‘variable’ is simply a polite way of saying ‘untrustworthy’. Try to control them and they will stab you in the back when you least expect it.

On the other hand, the fixed costs seem unapproachable at first. It seems to be a common tendency to steer clear of such costs and so they are reviewed usually as a last resort. The reason for this may be our inherent belief that these recurring costs are not within our control. Not entirely true. While basic utility services will remain the same for the most part, interests on loans can be renegotiated and memberships can be discontinued or suspended.

I am no Dave Ramsey. I can’t nor am I qualified to preach about finances. But it does not take a expert to figure out that these are definitely tough times and every dollar counts. With every recession, we have become tougher. We have managed to get through the price hikes and salary cuts before, and we will get through it again. But a little help won’t hurt and if it comes from the service providers, it needs to be recognized.

Not all service providers are worthy of that recognition and my experience has only been with a handful. So when I decided to take a closer look at those fixed costs, I found the ones who clearly stood out from the rest.

Amazon’s Audible is one of them. I was only a few clicks away from canceling my account when I was presented with a few options: a $20 gift card to keep me from leaving “listening book land”, or freezing my monthly payments for a period of time. By giving me the option to suspend my Audible account until I am ready to resume service, is the “going the extra mile” kind of support I am talking about. Not only does it help cut my monthly fixed costs, it also ensures that I remain their customer. Audible.com is not the only one. Costco’s member benefits is another example of members not only getting better products but have flexible return/refund options. I am sold.

To sum it up: Customer loyalty comes from trust. Trust comes from exceptional service. It’s that simple.

What tips do you have for service providers to enhance/improve customer service?

We struggle to get recognized. We make sacrifices. We spend sleepless nights trying to meet unrealistic stressful deadlines. This is our way of showing loyalty. We are looking to settle down. We want a sense of security. We are thinking long term. In a continuous circular motion with no end in sight, as we try to attain job satisfaction, we convince ourselves that we are indispensable. Then when we get showered with words of praise, when we get acknowledged and rewarded, a sense of achievement fulfills us.

Here is what we’ve achieved. A sleep disorder. An addiction to caffeine. A marginal pay hike wrapped in convincing justifications filled with meaningful yet unfulfilling words such as opportunity, future, performance, improvement and growth. A continuous push to rapidly adapt to the changing environment. A sense of distrust along with a realization that we are truly dispensable.

That’s right, dear hard-working sleep-deprived workaholic friends, we are dispensable. We have a saturation point. We have an expiry date.

For the most part of our work life, we are made to feel otherwise. We are trapped into believing that we are an integral part of the environment, one that seems cohesive on the outside, the entities within that give it life are dependent on one another merely trying to sustain. It is a deliberate attempt to manipulate our minds into thinking that our sacrifices equals opportunities to grow. It is a strategic attempt to lure fresh minds into the corporate work culture trap.

The only way out is self-realization, that we are indeed dispensable. Don’t let our egos be fed into thinking that we are not. The sooner we can come to terms with that, the sooner we will get on a path of learning towards adding value to our own brand – the self. We begin to channel our energy in to rebuilding our self-confidence and regaining self-trust.

Do you believe in yourself? If you were to step out into the crazy world, do you have what it takes to survive? Or do you want to be that piece of furniture in an antique shop with a price tag that is set without realizing its true value? Your call.

If you have seen the latest OSCAR nominated movie “Up In The Air” or have the read the book, the following except from it will seem familiar. It is a motivational speech that Ryan (George Clooney) gives in the movie called “What’s in your backpack?”.

How much does your life weigh? Imagine for a second that you’re carrying a backpack. I want you to pack it with all the stuff that you have in your life… you start with the little things. The shelves, the drawers, the knickknacks, then you start adding larger stuff. Clothes, tabletop appliances, lamps, your TV… the backpack should be getting pretty heavy now. You go bigger. Your couch, your car, your home… I want you to stuff it all into that backpack.

Now I want you to fill it with people. Start with casual acquaintances, friends of friends, folks around the office… and then you move into the people you trust with your most intimate secrets. Your brothers, your sisters, your children, your parents and finally your husband, your wife, your boyfriend, your girlfriend. You get them into that backpack, feel the weight of that bag.

Make no mistake your relationships are the heaviest components in your life. All those negotiations and arguments and secrets, the compromises. The slower we move the faster we die. Make no mistake, moving is living. Some animals were meant to carry each other to live symbiotically over a lifetime. Star crossed lovers, monogamous swans. We are not swans. We are sharks.

It gets you thinking, doesn’t it? About our lives and what’s really important to us.

We are the modern day nomads. We relocate easily, away from our families and friends. We go where our jobs take us. We move in pursuit of a better way of life. We live many lives in just one lifetime.

In all that rush, let’s talk a moment to stop to look inside our backpacks. Have we packed everything we hold dear to us? Or have we packed in too much?

Rob Enderle points out in his post “Why Layoffs Should be Avoided” on IT Business Edge:

Rankings are largely subjective and don’t take into account the health of the team. They also don’t take into account informal relationships between groups, executives, customers or the inherent value of the knowledge the employee has. And people certainly aren’t ranked according to their real value to the company. How would you even calculate that?

He’s right. How do we  as leaders rank performance? How can we find the right balance between the measurable and the unmeasurable achievements, between the subjective and the objective?

We are all playing the game one way or another and I think that’s fine but how do we make it a fair game for all? Can we? Or is there too much at stake?

To a great extent, I think it starts with trust and as Rob points out:

Trust is so hard to build and shouldn’t be sacrificed so easily.

But can it all be left to trust? Doesn’t trust make it subjective?

My take: We must trust the system but the system itself cannot be built on trust. Goals needs to be specific and measurable. Ranking needs to be justifiable without prejudice, without emotions, purely on results.

The question I will leave you with is: How do we build such a system?

I am the one behind the wheel. My role is to get us to the destination. All they have to do is to decide on a place to dine. I can understand if the confusion is due to the countless cuisines to choose from or maybe due to our various taste palates. No, that’s not why a simple decision to choose a restaurant turns into a long and overdrawn process for my friends, while I aimlessly drive around. We are too considerate. We want to be non-imposing. So instead of being forthright about our preference we respond with,

“I don’t know.”

“What do you like?”

“You decide.”

“I am ok with anything.”

Well… guess what? Anything’s not on the menu.

Project teams are no different. When there is a problem at hand and we need to make a quick collective decision, we go into long discussions, debates and arguments… till it comes to a point when the leader has to step in and make a decision.

Hey team, why can’t you make decisions collectively?

Are you too creative with your thought process that you find it tough to get the point across and convince anyone?

Are you afraid that your decision will get shot down and you don’t want to look like a fool?

Is it because you don’t want to be held accountable that you leave that decision for others to make, even though you know you know what will work?

Or do you not care?

Whatever your reason, you seem to forget that you are part of a team. You are not alone. There are no bad decisions, no wrong moves. There are only lessons to learn from. So be open minded and give creativity a chance. Encourage and support new ideas. Create an environment driven by accountability and trust.

Make decisions.

How many of you have seen the hit sitcom “House”? I am a big fan of Dr. Gregory House M.D. and I dare to say that I like his leadership ways.

For those who have seen “House” on television, you would agree that he is an unconventional leader. His character as played by Hugh Laurie is unorthodox, insensitive, uncaring, insulting, crazy, irritating, cunning…. the list of names we can associate his character to is endless. He heads a team of young doctors who he ridicules every chance he gets. They hate him and we certainly can sympathize with Dr. Foreman when he says “I don’t want to turn into you [House]“. But they also respect him ‘coz he is a genius doctor who is one of best diagnostician there is. He is a pain they know they have to live with because he gets the job done.

I bet we are all unconventional at times. We dont always follow orders. Sometimes we know a better way to do things and it may be the wrong way, the unprofessional way or the non-compliant way. But we know we can get it done. I dont see anything wrong with that. Do you?

“Pretty much all the drugs I prescribe are addictive and dangerous.”

I guess the difference would be with the environment we work at. Obviously Dr. House has the liberty to do what he wants and get away with it. Even if his boss does not always (read mostly) agree with him or his ways, she believes in the doctor in him, has confidence and trust in his abilities as a diagnostician. You and I may not be so fortunate to work for a boss like Dr. Cuddy and that, my friends, makes a difference.

“You could think I’m wrong, but that’s no reason to stop thinking?”

I say let us be who we are. Believe in us for our talents, our skills, our experience and judgment. We may not follow all the guidelines and may not always be compliant to a predefined process. We may not always be the nice guys around. Trust us, for we are leaders. We know we are accountable for the project and we WILL get the job done. Support us for our unique ways and let the ends justify the means.

Now for those of you who refuse to agree with me, let’s do a bit of role play. You are playing Dr. Foreman and I am Dr. House… and ACTION!

Foreman: “I think your argument is specious.”
House: “I think your tie is ugly.”

Foreman: “House, I have a problem with your methods!”
House: “I am a doctor. You are an idiot!”

House: “I’m convinced. You’re not. Question is, what are you going to do about it? Hmm?”

Foreman: “You’re an ass.”
House: “I know.”

[This post is a continuation of a conversation I had with a good friend and school buddy who graciously set aside one Sunday morning to talk to me about his new role in managing and motivating his team.]

In your new role as a Network Ops Manager, do you have to get hands on? [I ask him]

Yes…very much. Mine is not a pure managerial vertical. I would say 40% managerial 60% technical. A good thing is a couple of them are technically strong.

How do you motivate your team?

Motivation levels vary…it’s up to me to motivate ‘em. The trick is to make ‘em feel that they are not doing redundant stuffs.

Keep giving them some new challenges?

Yes….make sure they are adding values to themselves, being on the cutting-edge… so I need to keep rotating stuff [responsibilities].

Yes.. Very true, which is a plus point in your line of work… they get to work with some good hi-tech stuff.

Yes…basically talk to them and understand what they would like to do, make sure you align their tech verticals accordingly. Some guys would like programming. Some guys would like networking, server setups etc… As their leader, I have to make sure that I manage their expectations well.

In most mid-sized growing companies, that has become the toughest challenge now.

See, redundant stuff would always be there…. you can’t help it but what you could do is they wouldn’t mind doing 40% redundant work if the other 60% is the exciting stuff. And the 40% redundant work, you could try automating stuff to get the redundancy down….that’s an added motivation.

Well.. in the s/w services industry where these companies mainly cater to US clients/projects… the issue is that we don’t get challenging work. New development mostly happens in-house in their own IT wing. All maintenance work goes offshore.

Yeah….good thing in my company is that we don’t do maintenance….we’re still developing on our IP [Intellectual Property]

When u say “could try automating stuff to get redundancy down” what do you mean?

For us it’s mostly scripting, running cron jobs on our server, etc. We automate all these using PERL. So people who are interested in programming also happy.

Got it. But isn’t it like digging your own grave. Once it is automated you don’t need that 40% allocation of a developer.

Don’t worry. We have enough work as it is. My primary objective is to attain a high degree of automation. I would want to free up minds for solid research work, and not waste ‘em on redundant stuffs. We have enough things to do as it is.

Yes. Automating work, Building processes, etc. That’s the way to go. Also, on a technical front, find innovative ways to do what we do better. But i m sure in your arena the challenges are orgasmic.

Yes, very much. Not many companies do stuff that we do.

I can picture it now… 30 odd perverts in your company.

Correction….50 odd perverts

Does anyone in your team not listen to you? Did you ever have to be harsh on anybody?

All that comes with the package…. you need to be diplomatically harsh.

So was that a piece of cake for you? I mean… something u could easily do? Put the point across in a diplomatic way!

Nope. Thought a lot about it and I’ve been observing all these when I was a lead. Incorrigible guys are shown the door.

That brings an interesting question…. What is it that you have seen in your manager that you don’t want to ever be or do? What kind of a manager do you NOT want to be?

Do less bull-shitting hahaaaa

Ha ok… that’s an obvious one but you would have to do some bull-shitting. It’s part of the game.

Hire and fire. You cannot live without it but fire only in extreme cases. You would try to fit in a non-performing guy in another team.

Ok.. Now I have interesting response to that… about firing and hiring. A manager should not or cannot afford to wait too long or act too fast in hiring or firing. You have to do it perfectly. Not making a decision or delaying a decision itself is a bad decision. You’ve got to trust your gut at some point because if you listen carefully, you know if the dude in your team will work out or not

Yes…100% agree. Especially if you have very aggressive schedules, that’s where a technically sound manager would help. He could cushion the impact that a non-performing engineer would generate to a certain extent. That could be your way of evaluating the guy, to see how much of your time you needed to put in.

Yes. True. However, in aggressive schedules u need to have your backup resources planned.

There is an interesting test every manager can try out:

1. Take a blank piece of paper.

2. Take a pen and write “strengths” on one side and “areas of improvement” on the other.

3. Think of any person in your team… anyone.

4. Note down 1 strength and 1 improvement area.

Based on where your move the pen first tells you a lot about what your opinion is about him/her. If the pen moves towards improvement areas first, the next question you should ask yourself is – What is his/her improvement plan? Have you put one in place? What do you think?

Sounds like what we do in our quarterly appraisals.

Yes… but it might be too late by then. It’s a fact that most managers fire people “too slow” because most of us are scared to go down that path.

I know but as I’m involved in a lot technically, I don’t want to do this hastily. I guess that’s all the more reason for going the extra mile of keeping the good guys in the company.

You mean to say… because you are not a full time manager?

Yes.

Ya, but still u have to keep an eye on your team member at all times… the 40% of your time that you are doing true managerial stuff would be enough.

Yes. You can very easily make out if the guy is slipping. I’m not disputing on whether it is required or not. The only constraint is time.

[My time was up. He had to leave.]

Appreciate what you are doing buddy…..really would help lots of budding managers.

Thanks man.

The following are excerpts from a conversation with my brother, on teams and selfless leaders…. read on.

“How do you come to grips with the down and dirty side of the team culture? How does one deal with selfishness, favoritisms, incompetencies and discrimination in a team? Rather than changing or attempting to change the environment, do we complain and wait for an opportunity to take off to another role… to escape? How do you cope in such an environment?

Is the leader to blame? Is the department head to blame for choosing or hiring the wrong person to lead the team? The leader in this case is seen to focus only on the results and not on the unhappy employees in the team. He/She does not realize that unhappy people weakens the team and in the long run, weakens the organization.”

“For a leader, building a ‘strong’ team should be as important as getting the next project. The growth and satisfaction of the team should be always on his/her radar. The performance of a leader must be measured by the success of the team. A leader must spend time & energy with each team member and work towards building their careers and earning their trust – not by being the nice guy or the buddy BUT by being fair to oneself, to the team and to the project.

We need a leader who will stand up for the team, who will put energy and time in grooming them, and who will kick them in the butt when they do something wrong. In the end the success of the team is the leader’s biggest achievement. Instead, when the leader puts his/her own interests and agendas first, the team will fall apart and the project will fail.”

This was the first post of the new “Let’s Talk” series where I talk to some very interesting people and pick their brain on a specific topic. Then I share it with you. I hope you found this conversation interesting and thought provoking. Thank you for tuning in. Let’s talk again soon.

Every once in a while, we are entrusted with the task of presentation. It maybe to demo a new product, to present a plan or to explain a new process that you’ve helped create. Whatever it maybe or how many ever times you have done it, it is not something that everyone is comfortable doing.

Here are some of the presentation techniques that I’ve learnt in my experience that you would find useful and help you conduct an effective presentation.

Setting the stage

Always start with an intro. Take half a minute to introduce yourself to all the attendees. If the demo is between 2 teams, your team has to be introduced as well, in which case it is better to let everyone introduce themselves. I say a half a minute for each person attending. Same goes for the other team in the room or on the phone or on the screen (video conferencing). This way you set the stage for a collaborative interactive meeting. I will talk more about this later in this post.

Do a brief intro on the subject of the demo. If you are doing a demo of a new product or an updated version of the product, take a few minutes to talk about the product, its purpose, the business need, etc. Take 3 minutes tops.

Reserve a minute to explain the structure of your presentation. Obviously, you have thought through the topics you will cover, the depth to which you will go to, etc. So, don’t keep it a secret; provide a “roadmap”. You don’t want anyone getting lost. It is a good habit to give handouts of this “roadmap” to everyone – a one pager.

Setting the stage should take you around 5 to 10 mins, depending on the number of people attending. I say keep the audience to a around 10 people to have an effective presentation, unless of course you are Martin Luther King or Obama.

Force a pause

When you dive into the meat of your presentation, do not talk away as if there is no end. It may sound like you are rambling. You do this maybe because you are fast talker by nature or maybe you’re just plain nervous. In any case, a presentation needs “forced pauses”. To be effective, you have to cultivate this habit. You want to give an opportunity for the audience to digest all the information and think through it for a minute or two. A good practice is to plan your “forced pauses” out such that you can invite questions from your audience.

In the beginning, I know it will be tough to implement this but trust me you will get used to it.

Don’t do all the talking

Make it interactive. Pass the ball around whenever you can. Let everyone participate. Remember when you attended a demo meeting and hoped no one will notice you dozing off. Well, you did that because you were bored. It is not (always) your fault. I say the presenter made it boring. He or She did not invoke your thoughts and make it interesting enough for you. So, when you are the presenter, please don’t make the same mistake. Let everyone participate. Think of it as a few moments you introduce to help you relax and refocus.

Ice-breakers

The most effective presentations or meetings that I’ve attended were those that were informative and enjoyable at the same time. These are meetings where the presenter or an attendee sneaks in some witty remarks – the ice-breakers.

How many, how often and what kind of jokes you introduce will matter here and if you push it too far over the limit, it can kill your presentation and most likely you would never present again. So, I must warn you that this technique is not for everyone. Its success is very dependent on your wits, the timing, the audience and most importantly your presentation style, which will differ from person to person. But if you can work it, you have a powerful presentation tool.

These are some of the many techniques that will make you an effective presenter. You may already be one or you maybe one in the making. Do send in your comments and share your tips and tricks with the rest of the world. Don’t keep it a secret.

Thank you for tuning in.