Over the past few months I have had the privilege of talking at a number of graduation ceremonies around the value of Diversity in IT.
In this case the diversity is that of experience in career, background and skill set.
I have mentored and worked with many people over my career and one thing I can say is that many people do not value the skills they have. Most people focus on what they do not know, rather then what they do know, or they define what they know very tightly.
Knowledge is a funny thing, it has a relevance beyond the initial context in which you gained it. To understand this you need to understand the value of what you have learned and change your perspective on what you know. I have recovered many projects where the cause of failure was a lack of knowledge around the business context and value of what was being delivered. In others words, IT people deliver IT solutions if the only context and experience they have is IT. This is not a bad thing but it can skew the decision making and choices made as the project progressing through delivery.
When we look at what we know, our skills, experience, knowledge and practical abilities I find people tend to focus inwards. They define their knowledge and capabilities to the most granular level.
For example, let’s say you know Azure cloud, and within that you know D365 CRM. You can look at that and say ‘I know Azure D365 CRM’.
The other way to focus is outwards. You know Azure so you have knowledge of how cloud, as a platform, works. You understand the principles and considerations of cloud based infrastructure and delivery of service. You know D365 CRM so now you know about CRMs and what they are, how they function, what role they fulfill.
Your perspective on your knowledge is important. It shapes how you value what you know and can do, what you have achieved.
If we use the example of a nurse who is moving into IT. You might say you are starting fresh but you are not. You understand IT in context already. You understand how it supported (or not, negative experience is experience) your old role and in general how it should be usable and present information that is contextual and usable.
If you go into IT in the medical / health space then your prior knowledge is invaluable. You can use your knowledge to be a BA, a UI designer, a system developer, tester and more. You know the industry (domain knowledge), you know how to help make the product usable and relevant.
In addition to knowledge there is your work ethic, your team experience, your problem solving skills, and much more. All of this is valuable and transcends the specifics of your career choice.
Changing your perspective on what you know, how you work and your experience in the workforce changes how you see yourself, your worth and your ability to achieve and contribute.
First up, apologies for the long hiatus. Life has a way of moving in unexpected ways. Which actually has some relevance to why I have chosen this topic as the next one to discuss.
What is good culture? Good culture in an organisation is something that can be hard to define in the modern world, or at anytime for that matter. Culture can often be conflated with the mix of race, cultural background, viewpoint, lifestyle and many other factors that create the rich mesh which is our modern world.
In a company or organisation though, culture is more about the way in which the organisation enables their people to work, achieve and grow. It talks to fairness, transparency, openness and opportunity. It needs to answer questions such as:
What are our corporate values and how do they support our vision and mission statements? What does that mean for the culture we wish to foster within the organisation?
How do we reward and recognise, in a meaningful way that our peoples value?
How do we allow our people to fail and recover and hence grow and learn? Do we recognise that there is no such thing as always being right or successful?
How do we create opportunity?
How do we support, assess and grow our people?
How do we make sure that toxic behavior and individuals do not take advantage of this?
It is important to note that, especially in companies that deliver services such as IT consultancies, that this focus on people is also effectively balanced against the commercial reality of delivering a quality and professional service that aligns to and delivers against the needs of our clients.
It also needs to embrace the tension that can be caused by differing cultures within industries and companies within industries. Certainly, from experience, working in Oil & Gas is very different to working in Finance or Health. Yet within these differences there is commonality that comes from humans interacting, delivering and problem solving.
So, given all these different facets, constraints and viewpoints, how do we encourage and foster a positive culture?
One of the answers is to make sure that you have clearly articulated the vision, goals and values of the company. Then you have to walk to talk. Aspirations are great, reality and living what you state is harder. It is where I have seen many organisations struggle as their management does not enact, support or foster the culture.
At the same time, you need to make sure that people who don’t value the culture or actively or passively work against it are addressed in an appropriate manner. The rule is that no-one is immune or so special that they can be an exception.
This disconnect is very visible to the people of the organisation and it creates discord and even anger. It can create a sense of injustice, build us/them barriers and allow for toxic behavior to thrive.
To create, nurture, foster and grow a positive and aligned culture you must make sure that it is at the core of how you operate, behave and make decisions. This lends both weight and trust to what you are saying.
This challenge becomes greater the size of your organisation and is something even companies like Google and Meta struggle to get right.
As a final thought, a companies culture, like all things, evolves over time. Whether this evolution is positive or negative will come down to the ownership, thought, alignment and passion of the whole company, not just the leadership. Don’t allow your culture to be hijacked or lost in the sometime all consuming drive to grow and expand.
This is a question I am often asked by my clients, and it one that is both simple and complex to answer. If you start trying to break it down by role and title it quickly becomes a melange of mixed signals, confusing boundaries and responsibilities and a mess of unclear roles.
At a high level there are buckets such as enterprise, solution, cloud and so on which have a sense of uniformity in purpose but to me, these are really just shades of grey. Within these buckets there is still a lot of confusion.
If we step back and look at what architecture delivers to an organisation, we can quickly get to a better picture of what architecture does as a whole. Within that exists skill sets which cover the wide and ever increasing complexity of modern IT, and organisations hire people who have the knowledge and skill to meet those.
Stepping back, architecture is really focused on:
The translation of business goals and vision into realisable IT capability which supports and aligns to the business objectives, cost and target state
The translation of business requirements into designs that deliver applications, networks, cloud capability, security and compliance, data and integrity and integration amongst other things
It requires the architecture to understand both the technological and business worlds and to really understand the limitations within which they work. To be able to partner with the delivery capability and support the delivery of projects and programs to the organisation as well as working to keep BAU humming along •It requires the architect to never stop learning
It is a part of the 3 pillars that form the heart of change, growth and vision for an organisation
Continuing with the break down this post will tackle the next points
They allow people to fail, to learn and to grow
They are able to engage people as they are, value them for their strengths and realise that it is the synergy of different people that is the true strength, not the homogeneity
They aren’t afraid to fail themselves
They are accountable, they own their decisions (the spreadsheet said so is not leadership)
They understand when to follow
They allow people to fail, to learn and to grow
Encouraging innovation and allowing people the space and support to innovate is an important aspect of leadership. Recognising and embedding an innovative culture is key to both building an effective team and creating a culture which not only is supportive of change but also embraces it. It is a balancing act though, not all ideas lead to productive innovation or desired change and being able to handle that conflict is a key ability in the “hard” side of leadership
They are able to engage people as they are, value them for their strengths and realise that it is the synergy of different people that is the true strength, not the homogeneity
This ties back to the focus on why. Once the why is understood you have the ability to break that down into goals and translate them into actions and outcomes. This is not just a project plan or flight plan or any other form of plan that seems to be a popular stand-in for this. Certainly, those have a place and that place is in the mechanical side of delivery and they coexist with the wider goals, actions and outcomes. These goals are articulated to be simple and easily understood and owned by the teams.
They aren’t afraid to fail themselves
Leaders need to build the trust of their people, not only in themselves but in the vision they are aiming to achieve, in the goals they have set and in the changes that will come about. They also need to build trust in the process and reasoning behind the process.
They aren’t afraid to fail themselves
Leaders need to take calculated risks and a part of that is being prepared to have those risks eventuate. If you are afraid to fail you will not act, if you do not act you are not a leader. I did use the word calculated risk. As a leader you are an agent of change and change brings risk and you have to be able to manage and plan for and accept risk, and the associated chance that things can go wrong or fail. This is brings with it the requirement that you accept the fallout that comes with this and own your outcome, good or bad. This leads to the next point.
They are accountable, they own their decisions
Leaders own their decisions, they take responsibility and accountability for the outcomes. This does not mean they make all the decisions or do not seek input from or value the contributions of their teams. It really comes down to a simple thing, you take responsibility for and ownership of the decisions, if things go well share the rewards and praise, if things go poorly be your teams shield, own the fact you are the leader and move forward.
They understand when to follow
Finally, a good leader knows their limits, either in knowledge or experience and aren’t afraid to follow, to allow others to shine. Allowing the team to mature, grow and learn is as much about following as it is about leading or guiding. Teams which are truly self organising and self managing will look to the leader as a mentor and guide rather than a manager or director. They fell safe to lead and and confident that they have the support of their leader.
Continuing with the break down this post will tackle the next three points
They encourage innovation and want to grow others to be leaders
They provide clear goals and can articulate what needs to happen
They both engender trust and give trust, they delegate intelligently and supportively
They encourage innovation and want to grow others to be leaders
Encouraging innovation and allowing people the space and support to innovate is an important aspect of leadership. Recognising and embedding an innovative culture is key to both building an effective team and creating a culture which not only is supportive of change but also embraces it. It is a balancing act though, not all ideas lead to productive innovation or desired change and being able to handle that conflict is a key ability in the “hard” side of leadership
Innovation doesn’t need to be something that is earth shattering or grand, it can be the simple things that are just as important. Allowing innovation to flourish and grow will bring its own rewards as innovation is as much about mindset and empowerment as it is about anything else.
Supporting people, encouraging innovation, encouraging people to take the lead begins them on the journey to being leaders themselves, leaders within their team and amongst their peers. It also builds trust in you and themselves.
Encouraging innovation goes hand in hand with empowering people and giving them the correct framework (the why) in which to innovate. It is not a restrictive framework but a guide. It is about giving people authority, responsibility and accountability.
The other side, as stated at the beginning, to this is that not all ideas are good, not all innovation is appropriate and as a leader being able to handle this and work with the person or group to evolve or align an idea, to assess the idea in a productive manner is critical. You will always have the negative personality that tries to abuse this and you will need to be prepared for them.
They provide clear goals and can articulate what needs to happen
This ties back to the focus on why. Once the why is understood you have the ability to break that down into goals and translate them into actions and outcomes. This is not just a project plan or flight plan or any other form of plan that seems to be a popular stand-in for this. Certainly, those have a place and that place is in the mechanical side of delivery and they coexist with the wider goals, actions and outcomes. These goals are articulated to be simple and easily understood and owned by the teams.
Leadership is about providing a framework for people to operate in and that is wider than just delivery or BAU outcomes and structures. It is about visioning, sharing and embedding the end to end view. What goals are trying to be achieved and why, what are the high-level actions we need to take and what are the big goals, whether it be effective culture change, a new way for the business to work, opening a new market and so on.
Allow teams to define their own as actions and goals as well and validate them, do they align and support the wider goals and the why. If not work with them to bring them into alignment, get that ownership happening from the start and build trust early.
I will note here, sometimes the change required is something that will cause disruption, loss and heavy change. In these situations trust can be hard or even close to impossible to achieve. In these situations ensuring you have a fair, transparent and well understood approach with clear reasoning and an open decision making process can start to turn this around or at least mitigate some of the noise and distrust that may build in those you need to retain or uplift. Leadership is never easy.
They both engender trust and give trust, they delegate intelligently and supportively
Leaders need to build the trust of their people, not only in themselves but in the vision they are aiming to achieve, in the goals they have set and in the changes that will come about. They also need to build trust in the process and reasoning behind the process.
Conversely, they must also give trust, they have to trust the people to do the job. It is about empowering the people beneath you. That said, however, trust is given intelligently. Trust is an earned commodity on both sides of the fence. Being open about that fact is important, as you earn trust you give trust to have also earned your trust.
As a leader, if you feel uncomfortable about something you can bet others will as well, probably more so as they have less insight into the higher decision making process. There will come a time when you have to challenge this, even if it means putting yourself at risk. Being true to yourself is important, it is hard to build trust if your actions and words are at odds. Never play the victim, that is an easy out but it is destructive. Personal courage can be hard.
A large part of building trust is in how you delegate authority, accountability and responsibility. All three go hand in hand. For example, responsibility without authority is just a blame game waiting to happen and will rarely lead to the desired outcomes and in many cases will break trust. This will create bitterness and anger, a sense of futility in many cases.
People talk to people, always remember that as it seems to be forgotten so often. The informal network is far faster and often more powerful at messaging then the formal network.
Delegating tasks effectively means that you are also delegating things that are achievable, that the person understand not only what they need to achieve but why, why it needs to be done and why them.
Delegation is not the end of this though, you then need to support the person or team delegated to, provide assistance when asked, provide air cover and work with them towards success. Delegation is a mentoring and training opportunity.
There is a balance that is at play in delegation. You may feel it would be quicker or easier to do the task yourself but then the team is dependant on you, doesn’t grow or may even not gain any buy in. Linking delegation with innovation, reward and support along with proper authority, responsibility and accountability is an important artform to master.
In my first post, I spoke about some of the attributes or capabilities of leaders and said I would expand on those. I will tackle the first three of those.
They provide people context in which to operate
They understand the organisational and team culture they operate in, the implications of that culture and how to align, motivate and shift the culture in a constructive manner
They provide people with the security in which to act and function
They provide people context in which to operate
Leaders need to give people context, an understanding of why they are doing or trying to achieve a goal. Context allows people to make decisions, understand the reasoning and align to what is needed. It allows them to act independently with the confidence that they are working within the boundaries and guidelines.
It also allows them to innovate or problem solve ‘in the right way’, the solutions they arrive at will be contextually correct.
They understand the organisational and team culture they operate in, the implications of that culture and how to align, motivate and shift the culture in a constructive manner
Leaders need to both motivate and guide people. The culture of an organisation and the people and teams within that culture will inform how to approach, motivate and empower people. Culture needs to align and support the vision and mission of the organisation. It acts a part of the moral and decision making compass.
Likewise, understanding culture and why it has evolved the way it has is also important. Not all cultures are positive or suitable and sub-cultures within an organisation can become fractured or diverge from the desired culture.
A good leader will work to address poor or toxic culture, align and enforce positive culture and, where change is needed, openly and honestly address and mitigate the issues and causes.
Effective leadership encompasses making hard choices to fix issues and, more ideally, identify and address potential issues. It also means this is done in a way which is open, transparent and communicated. Allowing the rumour network to run ahead of you will only undermine the respect and trust you have. Likewise, keeping things secret, not informing people appropriately of the reasoning and decisioning behind something will also lose respect and trust.
People understand that hard decisions must sometimes be made, we live in a commercial world. How we approach, communicate and validate those decisions is what determines the collateral from those decisions. Ask yourself this, how would you want to be treated and informed in such a circumstance?
They provide people with the security in which to act and function
People need to feel secure, have trust and be validated to perform well. If they are fearful, unsure or feel undervalued or ignored then they will withdraw and many start to actively undermine the leadership and management process.
Being a leader means that you build the trust and respect of your people and it also means that you trust and respect the people you are leading. A large part of this is accepting that people will make mistakes, it is inevitable. Time, pressure, skills, experience and other factors all mean that in any endeavour, mistakes will be made.
You give people confidence and security to learn and grow, to take on challenges by the way you address these situations. If you give a person or team space and trust, allow them to make mistakes and worked through with them how to address and move forward from that mistake they will grow.
They will also trust you and become more confident. Other teams and people will see this and also build that trust and respect for you. I know this works, I have applied and seen the benefits of this approach many times, especially in recovery projects where I have inherited broken and often ‘abused’ teams.
Finally, the other side of this coin is that you must ‘go into bat’ for your teams and people. Managing and leading upwards is as important as anything else you will do.
In a world where executive bonuses drive much of the very toxic and destructive behaviour from our executives and board, the hunt for the scapegoat is always there. Allowing this to happen will destroy a team quickly, productivity will go down and it will become a self-fulfilling spiral. Managing this is difficult but it can be done. In many cases I found this to be the most challenging and yet most critical part of achieving success and building an effective and motivat
I was thinking about what I wanted to write next and it occurred to me that rather than diving into the list of characteristics that I need to explain more around the statement I made about the Why
Never lose sight on Why you are doing something, it is important
So what does Why gives us and how does it relate to leadership?
In my view Why we are doing something explains to us the rationale for what we are doing, it explains the goals of what we want to achieve and gives us the guide rails.
It speaks to the motivations, aspirations and outcomes we are trying to reach. If we look at the other three words often used we see that:
“What” tells us what we have done or will do, it is more about the target rather than the journey.
“How” tells us the mechanics of what we did or will do, it about the process and procedures we will follow.
“When” is simply a measure of time, or schedules and allocations to achieve the goals.
Leadership is found in the Why, the ability to articulate Why the organisation, team or individual is doing something, the rationale behind it, the value of it being delivered and the outcomes that are desired to be achieved. It is the inspiration and guide rails, the framework at the strategy and vision level. It is the alignment back to the organisational goals and aspirations, its vision of the future.
It also gives the ability to come back and continuously measure our progress, to understand how we are progressing and if we are on track. It lets us determine if we need to adjust or adapt or let go of what we are trying to achieve.
That last point is interesting as well, letting go. Too often I have seen projects, programs and even organisations lose sight of Why they are trying to achieve something and get caught up in What they are delivering. The What becomes compromised, detached from the Why, and inevitably this leads to partial or failed delivery. How is endlessly refined to hit time and cost targets, people churn ramps up and blame casting becomes rife. The true picture is seldom seen outside the increasingly defensive management layer. Oh, and suddenly there is a spreadsheet to explain everything and all decisions become based on “the spreadsheet said so”. At that point, leadership has left the building…
I can honestly say, from personal experience, that I saw a program where the project managers, of whom I was one, were reporting red and amber. The program office collated these reports but as it would reflect badly the reds became amber, the ambers green. They knew they could fix it and bring it back on track.
The project board received these ambers and greens, and again seeing this as unacceptable and sure they could fix it, changed everything to green and reported to the board. Also, important people had bonuses tied to these milestones…
Each layer forbade the layers below to talk directly to the layer above them. We PM’s sat there watching the lack of action and several us predicted what was happening. We tried to raise the issue but no-one wanted to hear, the allure of green and success was too great.
Six months later it all fell apart, there was nothing to go live with at the first stage-gate, and it became very obvious at that point that it was all lies.
When the board saw the actual reports that we PM’s had been filing (we were the first scapegoats offered up as we were all contractors) they fired the entire PMO and several senior managers but it was too late, the damage was done, several million dollars had been wasted.
As you can see, in my career I have been caught up in or observed projects and programs become so focused on internal milestones, cost and time that they lose all sight of what they were trying to achieve. In over thirty years in IT, I have never seen a program that lost focus on Why ever deliver a successful outcome, no matter how many ways it is painted as a success by senior management with a vested interest in its appearance of success. Sadly the business (or client) ate the ones who suffer from this.
So, how does the above relate to leadership and Why, easy, if the leaders had focused on the Why and were true leaders they would have either re-focused the program or project or had the courage to halt the project or program altogether.
Leadership is about having the courage and commitment to admit to and accept failure and the ability to learn from the mistakes made. It is always about truth and transparency.
Over the next few posts, I am going to explore this concept from my own perspective. It is something that is topical, COVID has certainly changed the political landscape and shifted priorities not only at a societal and governmental level but within companies and the economic landscape.
I have a statement I use and have used in many areas of my life which I believe applies to leadership, certainly it is something I would expect from my leaders.
Never lose sight on why you are doing something, it is important
What this says is that you must understand, fully, why you are doing something, why you made a decision and the context of that decision or course of action. If you do then you can explain it to others, contextualise it for them and gain their buy-in. It also becomes a reference framework for yourself and others, the guide rails.
So on to the leadership and what it is. Leadership is one of those interesting questions which seems to float around a lot in organisations. Certainly, we have, at the company I work at, been focused on the leaders and their styles of leadership. It is an interesting conundrum as leadership is one of those ethereal subjects where it is as much contextual as it is subjective. The culture, nature and current climate, both economic and within the organisation, can influence what is seen as leadership.
Winston Churchill is a great example of this (if you will pardon my simplification), during the war, he was the leader the UK needed and was successful; after the war, he was seen as a liability. The context in which he operated and existed had changed. This says something about leadership: inspiring, guiding and leading people is something that relies as much on the needs of the people as it does on the capabilities and characteristics of the person doing the leadership. Organisations are more static than the world of politics but they are none the less subject to the shift and flow of change, COVID has taught us that.
Leadership is hard, it draws upon and combines your mind, your heart and your instincts. It means you must understand yourself as much if not more than those around you and use both your experience and moral compass to help chart a path. You need to be able to reflect both upon yourself and on the wider whole. You need to adapt and adopt, be flexible and be supportive and yet also be able to make the valid hard calls when needed.
If I look at what people expect (desire as well) from leaders, I would boil it down to a few basic traits or abilities which I will explore in the next few posts.
They provide people context in which to operate
They understand the organisational and team culture they operate in, the implications of that culture and how to align, motivate and shift the culture in a constructive manner
They provide people with the security in which to act and function
They encourage innovation and want to grow others to be leaders
They provide clear goals and can articulate what needs to happen
They both engender trust and give trust, they delegate intelligently and supportively
They allow people to fail, to learn and to grow – success is often learned by picking yourself up, as is resilience. Being able to fail without fear is positive, knowing not to repeat the failings is critical
They are able to engage people as they are, value them for their strengths and realise that it is the synergy of different people that is the true strength, not the homogeneity
They aren’t afraid to fail themselves
They are accountable, they own their decisions (the spreadsheet said so is not leadership)
They understand when to follow
In my next few posts I will look at what the characteristics mean and why I feel they are important
This is my personal blog dedicated to all things IT, architecture and management in general. It is somewhere I will be sharing my thoughts on whatever topics catch my attention.
