Stuck between mediocrity and excellence

The Consultant says, "I really love consulting, but I hate dealing with clients."  The Doctor says, "I really love medicine, but I'm not a big fan of patients."  The Realtor says, "I love selling houses, but it sucks dealing with buyers."  It may not be that you are in the wrong profession. It may be that you are dealing with the wrong types of clients, patients, and buyers. If you are just starting in a profession, then the statements above make sense. And if that's the case, take your lumps, get the experience, and move on.  If you love what you do and you are good at it, there are customers out there that will appreciate it.  You won't find them if you continue pandering or catering to the crazies. 

Bob Ross - You know who he is One of the biggest things lacking in enterprise software development is creativity.  I'm not talking about creativity during implementation. If there is one thing that all successful IT managers are good at, it's getting creative at getting their project plans executed in corporate bureaucracy.  I am talking about creativity in design and end user usability.  Since when did corporate IT become about compounding solutions that are good enough into solutions that are even more good enough? (And by good enough I mean that it simply works). What I've discovered in the last two years of IT project management is that IT departments in big companies have a mission to "keep the lights on."  Imagine you buy a new Honda Accord and your mission was to keep that thing running for as long as it can go. At some point, you'll upgrade it- but instead of upgrading to a Tesla, you'll upgrade it to another Honda Accord; maybe a few...

"You got to coordinate ..."  I am rereading "The Machine That Changed The World" at the recommendation of a friend.  The book, for those of you that haven't read it, is the story of the rise of Lean Production. It was published in 1990 which for me doesn't seem like a long time ago - but it was - 23 years and change to be exact. As a Consultant turned Contractor, Advisor turned Project Manager, I've been having a hard time making the adjustment to each role. In the book, where it talks about the four basic differences in design methods employed by mass and  lean producers, it says this about leadership, "In Western teams, the leader is more properly called a coordinator, whose job it is to convince team members to cooperate. It's a frustrating role, because the leader really has limited authority, so few team leaders report enjoying it." I wasn't sure what was worse. That this problem existed 23 years ago and hasn...

The path from being a Manager of one to Manager of many to Leader of many is not an easy one. I believe it was Marcus Buckingham that said that if you told someone that becoming a Manager meant, "listening to and dealing with people's problems for most of your day," there is no way anyone would sign up for it. And yet the backbone of corporate America is middle management. Dilbert and The Office aren't parodies of reality - they are reality in many cases. If I had to do business school all over again, I would have taken psychology, neuroscience, and perhaps a hypnotism class. Finance, Operations, Business Law, Marketing -- whatever. Being a successful Manager requires an ability to manipulate other people without them even knowing it. (i.e., the Jedi Mind Trick) It requires an ability to get people to do things that you wouldn't even do yourself-- or possibly can't do. It requires an ability to "manage" your mindset so that the irrita...

The world of staff augmentation is a highly competitive one. The reason is because everyone "has a guy." Just like the Girl Scouts, someone will come knocking at your door wanting to sell your cookie of choice. True advisory services, however, is more of an art.  There may be cookie cutter approaches to accelerating the work, but providing advice that someone will listen to takes as much emotional intelligence as it does academic intellect. So don't confuse "contracting" with "consulting." Contractors have a skill that you need to build something - the project manager, the business analyst, the application developer, etc...  Consultants, real management consultants, have contracting skills , but they would never define themselves by that skill. Too many people get this confused and fool themselves into thinking that they are consultants. I'm guilty of it as much as the next person.  In the words of the great orator, The Rock, ...

In general, a good management practice is to utilize checklists. I remember when I switched companies, I ran across a Manager whose core competency was Checklist Management. He had a checklist for on-boarding clients and projects. He had a checklist for rolling off of clients and projects. He had a checklist for engaging with new hires. Hell, he probably had a checklist for interacting with people in general. You get the idea. If you want to take it to next level, you take the number of checks and turn them into a metric. As an example, I am requiring you to take 5 classes. I'll check off each one that you take and then measure you on how many you've taken. I'll completely disregard how those classes added value to you or to others around you. Therefore, it's in your best interest to attend all of the classes. Here's the thing. By overemphasizing checklists, you are encouraging the automation of a human beings. I like routines just as much t...

Organizations that are in hyper growth mode put the pedal to the medal when it comes to hiring. If you are cranking out widgets, that means you hire more widget crankers.  The more specialized the widget, the more specific the skill set has to be for the widget cranker.  A lot of companies grow their employee base through referrals.  You have friends. Then there are friends of friends. Then you have friends of friends of friends.  But honestly- how many of us can vouch for the friends of friends of friends?  Would you really go to bat for the 1,000th friend on Facebook?  I'm not even sure I would vouch for my 10th closest friend.  I love when companies run referral campaigns without: Vetting the quality of the employee that made the referral; and  Conducting pre screens, screens, and interviews without identifying the standards that are in place What you end up with is a whole lot of people trying out for the NBA...