In the world of IT Management there are typically two types of leaders: “IT Professionals who Manage” or “Managers who work in IT.” A nonsensical distinction to some, I’m sure, but in the IT world, it is always a big source of debate. How often do organizations promote their rock star developer or engineer to [ Read More ]
A recent study conducted by BlessingWhite shows that a full one-third of over 2,000 supervisors interviewed “don’t have time to coach” their direct reports. While I find nothing inherently surprising in that statistic, I do find the reasoning behind it fundamentally flawed: the reason that supervisors “don’t have time” is because they have not made [ Read More ]
There is nothing easy about looking for a new job, though I do usually find something highly invigorating about it. However, there is one aspect of it that is always in need of being balanced: am I approaching a potential employers as a sales person with something I want them to buy or am I [ Read More ]
Like many other of the career IT professionals I work with these days, I took a decent sized paycut for my current job. (As far as political statements go, that was one my former boss found especially telling.) And when you ask any of us why we would do that — particularly given that, at [ Read More ]
People are fickle. We all know that to some extent, but I think it can be especially true when it comes to how people respond to their leaders. People who once inspired us, motivated us, pushed us, challenged us and helped us get better are sometimes quickly cast aside if they stop doing those things. [ Read More ]
I’ve written about this before, but as I look back on my career over the last decade, I’ve had remarkably few good bosses. In most cases, if I was lucky, I had a boss that I liked as a person. But only twice have I had truly good bosses. The first was JP. I adore [ Read More ]
I find it amazing that the times when I typically realize I am having the best days are the days when I am peddle-to-the-metal, no-holds-barred, hair-on-fire busy as hell. Why is that? Today was spectacular… and I’m not entirely sure I can adequately quantify precisely why. I think the bottom line was that I had [ Read More ]
Project Managers tend to be very process oriented. As a group, we like things standardized, uniform and easily repeatable. That is why I tend to find it amusing that every single job I’ve ever had goes through the process of defining and re-defining their own project delivery process every year or two. As an organization [ Read More ]
One of the things that I was bummed about as a result of the re-org here at work was that I lost my direct reports. There were actually two sides to that: On one hand, I wanted to have direct reports as a matter of resume-building, and to cultivate my formal managerial training. On the [ Read More ]
One of the benefits of being good at what I do is that I’m used to being praised and commended. Since I began my career, I’ve never had any boss take issue with my work. I’ve had personality conflicts with some, but they were never about the quality of the work I actually performed. I [ Read More ]
Over the years at my old company, I developed the habit of referring to my bosses just that way — “Boss.” That title specifically stuck with one of them, and it evolved into my general term of endearment for him. I have caught myself slipping a couple of times since starting my new job and [ Read More ]
So, I have two job interviews this week, about which I am feeling highly conflicted. One of them is a contracting position, which holds a tremendous amount of appeal — I like the idea of not having any long-term commitments to an organization, getting the opportunity to sample different environments and roles, and then being [ Read More ]