======================================================================== THE ADVICE LINE: BOB LEWIS http://www.infoworld.com ======================================================================== Wednesday, November 10, 2004
LATEST WEBLOG ENTRIES ======================================================================== * How to be a CIO * Visibility ADVERTISEMENT -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- HOW BMC SOFTWARE SOLUTIONS ADDRESS GENERAL IT CONTROL REQUIREMENTS Get ready for your Sarbox IT audit! With BMC Software, you can ensure your IT resources are fully aligned with your financial processes. Our leading enterprise management solutions improve general IT controls and ease the Sarbox audit process. Find out more in this complimentary white paper! http://newsletter.infoworld.com/t?ctl=9DCF26:2B910B2 -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- HOW TO BE A CIO ======================================================================== Posted November 7, 2:24 PM PST Pacific Time Dear Bob ... I am the IT Administrator for a small company that recently went public. I have been here 4 years and when I started the infrastructure consisted of 2 servers and 35 workstations. Since then, we have gone public and spent a few hundred thousand on computers, servers, network equipment. Up until last year, I was the only IT person on staff. Seeing that I was a little overworked, they agreed to let me hire someone to help out. We now have 10 servers, and 80 workstations most of which, I personally, have installed and configured. In addition to my personal and management duties, I am a member of the Sarbanes-Oxley compliance team. My dilemma is I am sorely under-paid and under-recognized. No one in senior management cares what I do. They have no idea what servers we have or what OS they run. THEY DON'T CARE!!! All they care about is, "Does my email work?" I have built a solid reputation over the years that, if I say, we really need this server or that software, the CFO doesn't question me. But rarely does anyone ask me what I'm doing. "Hey, I just migrated to a new mail server!" (Nothing but the sound of crickets churping in the back ground) "Hey, we upgraded to Red Enterprise with no downtime." (Silence). Hey, I'm going to migrate everyone to OS2 warp... (Yawn). Now I wouldn't think of doing that but my point is, no one would question it. All in all a great job, but subsequently, I have no successes to trumpet, no one to stand up and say, "You're doing a great job", "Over the past 4 years, our file server has had 100% availability." "We have not lost one computer do to virus outbreaks". Is what I am doing really that easy, that someone else could willy-nilly just come in and pick up where I have left off? What's a guy to do to get credit around here. I have CIO ambitions but how do I get from here to there? - Swinging, but missing Dear Swinging ... If you have CIO ambitions, the best place to start is to think like a CIO. Your problem is easy to diagnose: You've focused your attention entirely on services that are invisible unless they break. You're doing a great job of supporting the core business infrastructure. Yawn. If you want to be noticed, start engaging the business at a new level: Where you'll be noticed when good things happen. Which is to say, stop paying so much attention to infrastructure, and start paying attention to how IT could help the various executives responsible for various parts of the business run their organizations more effectively. To do ... For the full story: http://newsletter.infoworld.com/t?ctl=9DCF20:2B910B2 VISIBILITY ======================================================================== Posted November 5, 8:36 AM PST Pacific Time Dear Bob ...Your column on who receives credit for success ( http://newsletter.infoworld.com/t?ctl=9DCF22:2B910B2 ) hit home, as it describes how I feel about leadership and management.I want to bounce a possible "dark side" to this that I believe happens. I have always given all credit for all successful deliveries (software, projects, support crisis solutions) to people who worked for me on the items, and I have generally accepted responsibility when things did not go right (I'll be honest, a few times I've let someone who really messed up take a hit). While this is (1) truly the way I feel and the honest way I will react; and (2) has helped my effectiveness in managing my groups (managing down), I think it also has had this effect: I am less far along in my career than I could have been, and I have been laid off when I think if I had been more of a grandstander I would have survived (this is pure speculaton on my part, of course, but I feel strongly about it).I have seen numerous people who market their contributions by taking credit ("I did xxx") in situations where I would always give credit ("We did xxx"). I find the constant use of "I did xxx" by managers to take credit for their groups' successes to be unsavory, but I also think it helps your career because much management up the chain doesn't think about the vernacular, they just say "Oh yes, Joe did xxx - he's our guy". I believe that my humility has cost me in my career.Sad to say, in the future I will be more careful about how I use this language when talking to superiors, even if it means I am ultimately taking credit for work that my subordinates actually did. I will not swing over all the way, but I will be better at promoting myself for "the work that I deliver."- Not sure it's more blessed to give Dear Not sure ... You make a good point. No strategy works everywhere, and when it comes to marketing yourself the first step is to know your customer (which, when it comes to your career, consists of the person you report to and the people you'd like to report to). If they're naive enough to be fooled by grandstanding you need to find a way to strike the right balance between giving credit and taking it. In the specific situation I mentioned, the people in question ran the company, so it would have cost them nothing at all to have given credit all around. As a middle manager you need to find a better balance. I still think that in a healthy company, especially a largish healthy company, people who aspire to executive positions do better by emphasizing their ability to ... For the full story: http://newsletter.infoworld.com/t?ctl=9DCF21:2B910B2 Bob Lewis is president of IT Catalysts, Inc., http://newsletter.infoworld.com/t?ctl=9DCF27:2B910B2 , an independent consultancy specializing in IT effectiveness and strategic alignment. Contact him at [EMAIL PROTECTED] . - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Advertisement - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Have you ever wished you could give every manager in your IT organization a practical toolkit of leadership techniques, the way you can for database administrators or developers? You can. That's exactly what I've engineered my IT leadership seminar to accomplish. If you're interested, visit http://newsletter.infoworld.com/t?ctl=9DCF23:2B910B2 - Bob Lewis ======================================================================== ADVERTISE ======================================================================== For information on advertising, contact [EMAIL PROTECTED] UNSUBSCRIBE/MANAGE NEWSLETTERS ======================================================================== To subscribe, unsubscribe or change your e-mail address for any of InfoWorld's e-mail newsletters, go to: http://newsletter.infoworld.com/t?ctl=9DCF1F:2B910B2 To subscribe to InfoWorld.com, or InfoWorld Print, or both, or to renew or correct a problem with any InfoWorld subscription, go to http://newsletter.infoworld.com/t?ctl=9DCF25:2B910B2 To view InfoWorld's privacy policy, visit: http://newsletter.infoworld.com/t?ctl=9DCF24:2B910B2 Copyright (C) 2004 InfoWorld Media Group, 501 Second St., San Francisco, CA 94107 This message was sent to: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
