There was a question on Linked I spotted today, it asked:

"What will the effect on future leaders, growing up today, spending so much time
online?"

I thought this was an intriguing question. My reply was as follows:

"On-line" is a very generic term to use, I think we need to delve deeper to find what the Gen Yers are really doing on-line to understand the effect it will have on future leaders. At that deeper level, their activities are usually participative rather than passive, i.e. IM, Social Networking sites, Twitter, gathering friends, Second Life, etc. and in addition they're probably doing this alongside watching TV not instead of, not to mention being on the phone and texting as well.

So, if that's the context, what is the effect? I believe leadership with the Gen Yers could totally change the office environment. This all encompassing use of the online social network will result in the concept of an office environment becoming far less important. By design their teams are likely to be scattered geographically or at least frequently working from home. They will cope with that by utilising their on-line social tools they grew up with. They'll multitask far more easily, eschew the 9-5, collaboration will be the key and they'll have a little if any differentiation between their co-workers and friends. Social life and work life will tend towards a merged, co-existing culture. I believe us Gen Xers are in for a culture shock! On the down side, it's going to be far harder for them to distance themselves from their teams, lead from the front, cope with having to tell rather than sell and knuckle down and do the mundane, but essential stuff like budgets, reports and appraisals.

In many ways I envy their online social whirl - I play at it, but can't say I'm an expert. I'm sure we're in for an office revolution, but with such revolution comes risk and that is something they need to realise. Unfortunately it'll be the previous generation telling them of that risk and it's going to be tough to get them to listen unless we start embracing some of these ideas immediately and welcome their flexible, collaborative methods now.

Find the whole debate here: Linkedin Discussion

ODI Series: 1-0

Well, that's a turn up for the books, England win by 20 runs. I thought 275 was 35-40 odd short, but it tuns out I was wrong. Harmison: 10-1-43-2 and KP (90* & 5-0-2-22) & Flintoff (78 & 9.4-1-46-2) sharing a partnership of 158. That's the wonderful thing about cricket, very unpredictable and nothing's certain until the last ball's played.

Not so sure that England won it so much as SA threw it away, although the England bowling attack kept it tight and on target. At the 100 mark, SA were well ahead of the required rate, at one point when it was raining if they'd gone off they'd have won due to Duckworth Lewis rules. Subsequently the wickets were taken and they slumped.

Still, the squad looks together, Prior's done well behind the stumps and got a reasonable number of runs, KP hasn't been affected by the pressures of captaincy yet and Flintoff's back on form. A good results. woohoo!

Harmison out of ODI retirement

Good grief, wonders will never cease. Harmison's back in the ODI squad! KP seems to have far more influence than I ever thought possible. Let's hope Harmison's range-finder is working.

I think I'm pleased, but it's also fairly risky. It could go well, it could go wrong.

It'll be interesting to see whether Sidebottom ever makes it back in to the squad. I think he could be another Hoggard, although I would chose Hoggard over Sidebottom any day of the week. When I watched Sidebottom at Edgbaston on one of the most humid days that I've ever experienced at a cricket ground, he didn't have anything to give. Perhaps he's spent.

And, once more Simon Jones is injured... Hey Ho, he's got another 7 months or so to prove his fitness for the ashes...

To MBA or not to MBA, that is the question

CIO Jury this week asked whether an MBA was worth the time and effort. I decided not. This is what I said:

"There was a time when I believed I should do an MBA but now I believe my personal development and job prospects will be enhanced more through my coach and mentors. From them I have on-going access to vast amounts of experience and wisdom that I can immediately put in to practice in the real business world, that's something two years in a classroom just can't compete with."

The majority thought that an MBA was worth it, but some had reservations. I'm sticking to my guns and still don't feel an MBA would be worth it. Working in a fast-paced sector like IT it seems a folly to want to take a couple of years out of your career to theoretically make you a better person and more attractice to companies. One caveat to that is being in posession of a very generous company that allows you to take a two year sabatical, but even then you'll most likely be funding it yourself, probably supporting a family, have to study like a trojan, lose out on two years of what could be very practical experience and then have to be 120% driven to make up for the sacrifices.

For a similar, if not lower cost you can have the personal attention of a coach for a year or so and with some judiciously provided meals gain mentoring sessions with peers or betters whenever they are required.

Gone are the days when an MBA meant an automatic leg up the corporate ladder and an over-inflated salary to match. Once more experience and wisdom gained through practical application are becoming the most sought after for senior appointments in the IT sector.

I'll stick to the practical experience thanks, never been an acedemic anyway!

Fitting In

I watch Boston Legal whilst I row. It's is a convenient 40minutes and during that time I row about 9200m and enjoy the episode. It's the first time I've found a sustaining exercise method that doesn't involve a bicycle that I actually can enjoy.

Regardless, in Episode 15, Series 2, Alan Shore talks of Epictetus, an ancient Greek philosopher, and I quote: "Epictetus compared people who “fit in” to the white threads of a toga. Indistinguishable. He wanted to be the purple thread. “That small part which is bright, and makes all the rest appear graceful and beautiful. Why then” he asked, “do you tell me to make myself like the many? And if I do, how shall I still be purple?”"

That's a fantastic thought. Do I really want to be one of the white threads when I have the opportunity to be a purple thread? Nope. It may be the harder road and need more work, development and sometimes inflict pain but that's where I want to be.

Operational work vs Projects

A persistent problem I've seen wherever I've worked is operational people, i.e. those with a full-time operational position such as Systems Administration, failing to deliver projects within agreed timescales. Why is this problem so endemic and why do we continue to take this well trodden path when the evidence would suggest failure to deliver on time is the most common result?

The majority of technical people love the idea of a project, they see it as a way to develop and have something interesting to do that's different to the majority of their daily grind. And yet, in the end, they and their managers get frustrated because deadlines come and go and there's usually nothing that can be done about it. Operational "stuff" just got in the way. Can it be different?

With large teams, people can be carved out to concentrate on projects, but in smaller teams this is all but impossible. Utilising external teams seems like a great idea - you gain instant expertise in the project area and you can do it all for a fixed price, but it demoralises the existing team and the specialist knowledge disappears on completion rather than stay in-house - believe me, documentation is not a PM's favourite pass-time!

Fastidious time-management and constant communications will help greatly, but these are two skills that are not often the most advanced in the technicians toolkit so they shouldn't be expected to help. Management could take the time and effort to keep on top of the project work and prioritise it aggressively against the operational work, but in reality there's not usually the time or interest and operational work will get prioritised over project work, period.

So, what's the solution? I'm not sure there is one. If management continue to insist on operational people doing project work, don't put in place a strict framework and don't prioritise it alongside operational tasks then it'll continue to fail. Considering it's management who have to pick up the pieces or take the blame for late delivery when things go wrong, you'd have thought we'd learn! I've not worked out a way of really resolving this problem, I wonder if anyone else has?!

Starting Out

I confess I thought blogging was something best left to others with a greater sense of self-publicity, but here I am. I feel scared! So, why have I suddenly started? In my job, I manage people and I manage technology. Two of the most eccentric things you could manage, particularly at the same time...

So, I thought, why not blog about what I do and share my experience with others. Regardless of all the books on the subject, people often end up learning what to do through trial and error and if this blog can maybe help someone somewhere even just once, then why not.

As a self-confessed geek, the blog's also likely to contain posts about technology and other interests of mine. After all a blog just about management and leadership might be just a little bit too single-minded!