BrightHill Group

240-668-4799

Schedule a call

Leadership coaching for software development managers

You are here: Home / Archives for Leadership

A simple Test of Leadership Question 2: What About One on Ones?

by 1 Comment

 

Keith teaching agile tools

Today’s Story

My good friend Keith Fuller, a leadership consultant in the computer games industry, wrote a powerful post with several excellent questions about leadership.
Over and over again, I see well meaning people who just don’t seem to “get it” when it comes to leading others.
Sometimes it’s the simple stuff, like making a connection on a regular basis.

Action Point

Today let’s take a look at another one of the questions he asked:
Does every team member get a 1-1 meeting with their boss at least once a month?
It’s simple, isn’t it?
 asian businessman talking concerned to other man
Do your team members meet regularly with their boss to talk about
  • What’s working,
  • What’s not working,
  • What’s missing and
  • What’s next?

Going Deeper

One Final Thought

If you’re not meeting with your boss regularly, why not take some initiative?  Ask for a meeting to talk about short term goals and performance feedback.
Let me know how it goes.  Send me an email tom@BrightHillGroup.com

Cooper News

I have been following some indie bands for more than 25 years. The Internet has been a huge blessing in that respect.   A couple of the bands I follow have recently launched new albums using kickstarter. I was able to support their work, and got backstage passes to a concert.

Last Sunday they came to Charlotte. Here’s a pic of my son and me hanging with Steve Taylor, Peter Furler and the rest of the band.

So much fun to hang with my son and connect him with music I love, too.

backstage at steve taylor concert

Connecting is about others – and I BLEW it!

by Leave a Comment

Today’s Story

Isaac and Stephanie yogurt - Version 2

Last night my eight year old daughter suggested a family walk, and as four of us set out she asked: “Dad, can you talk to me on our walk tonight?  You usually just talk to mom, not me.”OUCH!  It’s true. Most of the time when Holly and I go for a walk we use that time to catch up with each other.

Feeling guilty (because I really want to be connected to my little girl, and I know I’ve been dropping the ball) I decided to talk to her.

I started talking about the home renovations we are planning and the difference between sewers and septic systems.

Shortly after I began, she abandoned the conversation to ride her brother’s bike.

Watching this unfold, Holly observed:
“Tom, you’re a professional at this? You know this would make a great story for your to tell.”
Holly is right (as usual.)

 

Action Point

Connecting is all about others.  What did Stephanie want to talk about?  The only way to find out was to ask, and then listen!On the way home I made a point to ask her about her day.  I listened attentively as she shared her experience in the Easter kid’s choir with me, and then told me about her achievements in a spelling game she had been playing.

Thanks to Holly, I think I recovered from that screwup.

Going deeper

One Final Thought

Who do you want to connect with?  What interests them?  Where do they put their time, money and passion?
Some great topics to ask about are

  • Family
  • Occupation
  • Recreation
  • Message/Mission
Have you tried this?  What happened?  Send me an email to tell me about it. (Good or bad.)

How is your leadership? Question 1

by Leave a Comment

Today’s Story
My good friend Keith Fuller, a leadership consultant in the computer games industry, wrote a powerful post with several excellent questions about leadership.
Action Point
Today let’s take a look at one of the questions he asked:
  • Is leadership the default career path?
In your organization, when someone wants more pay, do they have to lead others?
Is the only way for
  • your accountants
  • your developers
  • your attorneys
  • your salespeople

to move ahead to go from being an individual contributor to a manager of individual contributors?

If you take an engineer and you want to turn him into a leader in an organization you can’t just assume that you promote them and they will learn over time how to become a leader.  Some of them will.  The vast majority won’t.
—Dr. Peter Bamberger,
    professor of Organizational Behavior &
    HR Development, Tel Aviv University

 Going deeper

One Final Thought
What if you made a plan to allow your best and your brightest to add more value to the organization and be more highly compensated without requiring them to move into “management?”
What would that look like?  Drop me an email at tom@BrightHillGroup.com

What can you do if they "just don't get it"?

by 1 Comment

Nikita Mikhalkov_with_attribution_Facepalm_flikr_Oloremo_4349080126_ff49c46461.jpg

Today’s Story

I was working with a client recently who was facing a dilemma.  Her project was being delayed by a key influencer, and that meant that she was not going to deliver on time.

More than her pride was at stake – she was convinced that this delay would be bad for the company – but the key influencers making the decisions were not on board with her thinking.

What can you do when they just don’t “get it”?

Action Point

When they don’t get it – one technique is to walk them through a simple example so that you and the other person have looked at the data together.  Once you’ve walked through the calculations together, you have a much better chance of them buying into your analysis.
Today’s email is a little longer than usual, but I wanted to give you a specific example.
Here’s the situation:
  • You believe it will cost more than THEY believe it will cost (money, time, headaches, etc)
  • Until THEY believe it, there’s no way they will change their behavior.

But how do you get them to believe your calculations?

A tool I have used is the “incidence, expense” tool – Even though you have 100% knowledge of the facts, you “learn with them” as you “discover” the costs together.

For example, let’s say that:

  • You know that something is a problem which will cost $20,000.00
  • Your sponsor (or other influencer) doesn’t believe it.

Right now – “THEY” don’t have a $20,000 problem.

“YOU” have a $20,000 problem.
To help them “get it” you could say:Project Manager (PM):

“What does it cost us when a customer who has not gotten this upgrade calls the helpdesk? “Sponsor: “We’d have to research that.”

PM: “You know, I talked to Joe at the helpdesk – he says it takes 1 hour per call – and our fully loaded rate for a helpdesk person is $50/hour – so I think that means it costs $50/incident.  Does that sound right?”

Sponsor: “I guess so”

PM: “How often does this happen?”

Sponsor: “Do you have the numbers on that, too?”

PM: “Actually, I have done a little research on that, too.  Our helpdesk has been getting 50 calls/week.
50 calls/week times $50/call sounds like $2500/week if calls come in at the current rate – does that sound right?”

Sponsor: “That makes sense”

PM: “And we know from the people who already converted that when the conversion happens, customers stop calling the help desk about this problem.”

Sponsor: “Is that right?”

You: “Yes.  Now we’ve been talking about a potential 2 month delay in the schedule.
If each week is costing us $2500, and we extend the schedule by 8 weeks – hmm – I think that would be a cost overrun of $20,000 – does that make sense?”

Sponsor: “A $20,000 overrun?  Wow.  What can we do to fix that?”

PM: “I’ve looked at that with the team – They tell me that we can hit the original schedule – but it will require a couple of changes.”

Sponsor: “On time?  What do we have to do?”

PM: “The team tells me that if we can make this project a higher priority than Project Y they can get it done when we originally planned.”

Sponsor: “The VP responsible for project Y will not be happy about this, but avoiding a $20K overrun is worth it.  Let’s do it.”

There are always hard dollar costs (as in my example,)  soft costs and opportunity costs.

Usually execs don’t buy into the benefits that are not hard dollar costs,  but even if they don’t, you can mention them after the hard costs.  Execs like to address soft costs (decreased frustration, increased efficiency) to help bolster your argument.

Going Deeper

I came across this idea in a FABULOUS book called Let’s Get Real or Let’s Not Play
It’s a great read on negotiations – and a solid resource for project managers

 

One Final Thought

It doesn’t matter how sure you are that you’re right.  Until THEY know what YOU know, you’re not going to get the buy in that you need.
Walking them through a simple example can make sure that you’re both on the same page.
Have you tried it?  What happened?  I’d love to hear about it.  Send me an email!

Cooper News

Good news!  I’m now in the running for “fun parent!”
My oldest gave me the good news this week.
(I’m usually *NOT* the fun parent.)
In case you want to be in the running (or actually achieve) fun parent status,
here’s what moved my campaign forward:
1. Taking the kids to the Lego movie: “Everything is Awesome…”
      (now I can’t get rid of that earworm tune!)
2. Suggesting they stop the ice cream truck (and funding the purchase.)  It was in the 70’s, and the ice cream truck came trolling through the neighborhood.
I’m not sure what will push me over the edge into full, official fun parent status, but my son tells me I should keep up the good work!Coopers at lego movie 2 2014

 

Today's Action Point: There's a snowstorm! Did I blow the risk assessment?

by Leave a Comment

 

“The Story” 
There’s been a record snowfall here in Charlotte NC.  We’ve had several inches, a ton of sleet, and as I write this, it is snowing HARD!

We’re expecting another 3-4 inches today.   The whole city has come to a standstill.  My kids are thrilled that they can play in the snow, too.

Action Point:
Today I want to talk about projects and risk.  I took a risk when I moved to Charlotte.  In fact, I left my snow shovels in the house I sold.
Who needs snow shovels in the south?  Did I blow it?

Actually, no!

When you evaluate risks for your project, you need to think of two things:

  1. What is the likelihood of INCIDENCE?  What are the chances that the thing will happen?
  2. What is the IMPACT if it does happen?

In this case, the INCIDENCE is actually low – Charlotte North Carolina almost NEVER sees this kind of snow.
The IMPACT is pretty low, too – Sure, we’re “snowed in” for a couple of days, but this snow will be gone soon, and we have everything we need here at the house until the snow melts.

Because the INCIDENCE risk is low, and the IMPACT is acceptable – we chose to ACCEPT the consequences – and shovel with a little shovel.

More Info
For more on this topic, check out this great interview with project risk expert Carl Pritchard

One Final Thought:
What’s a project risk you’re prepared to accept?
When did you mess up by not having a good risk management plan?  What happened?
Please email me and tell me how it went. tom@BrightHillGroup.com

Cooper News:
Our family is having a blast making snowballs and sliding down the hills.  Here’s a shot of my oldest girl catching snowflakes on her tongue.stephanie snow on tongue

 

I’m grateful that the kids do a bunch of the work, too!

Mark shoveling

"You are the worst….ever!"

by 2 Comments

I didn’t know it ahead of time, but I was in a “leadership development laboratory last week.”  I spent time at Scout Camp with my oldest son. We had a blast.  What surprised me was the set of leadership growth experiences I was able to participate in, and to observe.

One of the activities this week involved the rifle range.  Boy Scouts provides a safe place to help boys understand the danger of firearms and how to use them safely and responsibly.  On the range, boys take turns firing a set of rounds at small paper targets 50 feet away.  They can do it from a seated or a prone position.  To help with accurate shooting, shooters can stabilize their weapons on wooden blocks or on sandbags.

Jon_top_shot

Which brings us to today’s story.  One of the young scouts selected a wooden block to stabilize his rifle. Unfortunately he didn’t notice that the sandbag had fallen off the platform and was in the direct line of fire of his rifle.

The small .22 caliber bullet easily passed through the burlap and sand to head toward the target, but in its wake it destroyed the sandbag and covered the rifle and shooter in a mist of sand.  Sand or dirt in a firearm is a dangerous thing, and that meant this rifle would have to be disassembled and cleaned before it could be used again.

The man in charge of the range (the range master) was furious.  I think he was embarrassed that

  1. He allowed the boy to do something unsafe,
  2. He allowed the boy to unwittingly endanger others,
  3. That rifle now needed another thorough cleaning, and
  4. Everyone at the range could see what had happened.

In his embarrassment and anger he did something that I probably have done before.  (OK I’ve done this far more than I want to admit.)  He allowed his anger to boil over as he shouted at the boy.

“You did what?  How could you do that?”

“You.  Are. The. Worst. Shot. I. Have. Ever. Seen!”

Dale Carnegie said

“Give a dog a bad name, and you might as well hang him.”

Carnegie’s point is that once you tell yourself that a dog is a bad dog, you start to tell others, and the dog himself how bad he is. Once the dog thinks of himself as a bad dog, there’s no way you can have him be good for anything.

That’s true for people, too.  I’m sure that the scout was embarrassed that he made a mistake, that he made a mess, that he created work for the range master and his crew, and that he had accidentally done something dangerous.

 

Maya Angelou said:

“People never forget how you make them feel.”

I can’t help but wonder how that boy felt when the authoritative range master called him out and gave him a bad name in front of everyone at the range.  Will that boy ever go to the range without thinking about that mistake?  Will he even go back to the range at all?  If he goes back, will he be able to work without thinking that maybe he really is the word shot in the world?

People never forget how you make them feel.  I can totally relate to being frustrated, embarrassed and angry.  I can even identify with letting my anger boil over and yelling at someone.  That doesn’t make it right, but I can easily see how it happens.

  •  What are you letting yourself do?
  • How do your team members feel about it?
  • About you?
  • About themselves?
  • What is that doing to your team’s effectiveness?

How can you overlook errors and praise progress in your team?

What’s one thing that you can do differently based on this story?

 

Joel and Tom at Scout Camp

Contact Me

BrightHill Group
240-668-4799

PO Box 1561
Harrisburg NC 28075

info@BrightHillGroup.com