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Ethics: How do you get around ’em?

Posted on by Posted in Blog, Branding Yourself, Business Musings, Ethics, Getting Personal, IMO Leave a comment

You can’t!  As part of my MBA studies at the University of Indianapolis, I was required to take an ethics class.  It seemed silly at the time.  After all, business was about making money.  As long as your company did that, you were good.  Or so I thought.

Over time, I have come to realize that business is all about ethics, regardless of your position or role.  A single lapse in ethics can be devastating, or even terminal, in the business world.   Corporations such as BP, Exxon, JP Morgan/Chase, Homeside Lending, and Lehman Brothers struggled or closed due to what some my consider lapses in judgement.  Individual careers have been wiped out.  History is littered with ethic lapses in judgement.  Richard Nixon and Bernie Madoff are the most devastating that come to mind.

With examples constantly in our face, why do we do it?  Why don’t we do the right thing all the time?  The politically correct thing to say right now is “It’s not my fault.  Everybody is doing it.”  I believe it is that inner tussle between helping ourselves and helping others that has been the burden of mankind since the days of Adam and Eve.  For me, my inner tussles went away about 14 years ago.  At a department meeting, I was faced with a question from a teammate of mine, Toney Jones.  The question was simple:  “Are there any plans for a Reduction In Force (RIF)?”  I panicked!  The question was out of left field.  What do I answer that question?  I knew a RIF was happening early next week.  I took the easy way out and lied.  I will never forget my reply:  “Not that I know of.”

Wrong answer!  I should I have said something like:  “Toney, if I knew something like that, you know I wouldn’t be able to answer that question if I did know.”  I, to this day, wonder if I ever earned back the trust of my teammates that I lost that day.

Businesses are made up of unique individuals.  Ethics are all about doing the right thing by your teammates and your customers every day.  Do the right thing.

Thanks for coming in today.

Chris

 

There has to be a better way…..

Posted on by Posted in Agile, Branding Yourself, Business Musings, Getting Personal, IMO, Leadership, Software Development Leave a comment

You want to read this if you are in the staff augmentation, consulting, or outsourcing business.  I respond to unsolicited messages in one way:  I hit the delete key.  Every time.  I don’t read your message.  I don’t care who you are.  I don’t even think about it.  I am guessing I am not unique, and that most people do the same.

Why do you clutter up my inbox and ensure that I am not going to give you the time of day?  I get that you are trying to feed your family and put a roof over their head.  Sending random link requests and emails trying to trick me into talking to you don’t work with me.  Everybody seems to be doing it.  A long time ago, I took a job for a short time peddling stocks and bonds in a small rural Indiana town.  I tried the same thing you are doing.  Email wasn’t prevalent, but I sent junk mail.  I called 30 people a day.  I hated it.  If someone answered the phone, they hung up on me more times than not.  I guess they hated my bothering them as much as I hated to bother them.

From that experience, I figured out that trust relationships are the way to do business.  Create a unique opportunity.  Find a connection and ask for a referral.   Understand your customer’s business.  Delight your current clients so that they are singing your praises and calling their buddies.  This is especially true when it comes to working together.  Most of the folks I know want to invest in establishing a mutually beneficial relationship in their business dealings.  It’s hard to trust you just because you send somebody a Linkedin request.  When I get 50 of them, I don’t know where to start.

Who knows?  Maybe Linkedin may have replaced the US Postal Service as the chief delivery mechanism of junk mail.  I sure hope not.  I like using Linkedin ….. most of the time.

Thanks for coming in today.

Chris

 

Losing your soul.

Posted on by Posted in Branding Yourself, Business Musings, Getting Personal, IMO, Leadership, What was I thinking Leave a comment

You know the feeling.  You heard a song a few hours ago, and now you can’t seem to get it out of your head.  That occurred to me this week.  As I was driving, I heard a lyric in a song by TobyMac that has bounced around inside my head for two days.  The lyric was “I don’t want to gain the whole world, and lose my soul“.

What’s your reaction to the lyric?  Does it resonate with you?  The lyrics of the song are provoke the listeners to consider whether they put material things above spiritual.  As I drove, I considered whether I have stayed true to myself?  Have I always done the right thing?

What about you? You spend more than a third of your life at work.  Are you willing to put doing the right thing in your work life over the material gains you might achieve?  Are you willing to out an abusive co-worker at the risk of a backlash?  Are you willing to put your career at risk to save your marriage?  Have you stood up to someone whoAs an executive at a company, don’t you owe it to the company and your teammates to stand up against a tyrant president?  Hint:  Be prepared to lose your job on this one.

Americans pride themselves as entrepreneurs that have changed the world.  Yet, most of us are often afraid to take a stand.  We have a choice.  We can take a stand by speaking up.  We can also take a stand by using our feet (leave the company).

As I have reflected on my career to date, I am pretty satisfied.  I think I have stayed to true to myself.  I am not rich in a material sense, but more importantly I feel like I haven’t lost my soul.  Have you lost yours?

Thanks for coming in today.

Chris

 

Well it only took three days…..

Posted on by Posted in Branding Yourself, Business Musings, Getting Personal, IMO, Leadership Leave a comment

IMG_1028So, I left Indiana Health Information Exchange on Friday for the last time.  Joining Statice Healthcare as the Chief Development (as in software) Officer on Monday, I am excited to contribute to building another development team.

As an Agile bigot, I am certainly anxious to introduce my teammates to a better way of doing development.  After three days, I couldn’t help myself.  I drug out the sharpies and the Post It notes this morning.  All of three days.  Has to be a record for me.

How long can I hold off before I jump into my Boss speech?

Thanks for coming in today.

Chris]

What’s on your book shelf?

Posted on by Posted in Leadership, What was I thinking 1 Comment

IMG_0994Can you tell anything about a person by what books they have on their bookshelf?  Now, I will grant you that some people don’t have physical bookshelves any more.  I have one foot in each camp.  I love my kindle app, have about 90 books on it, and use it all the time.  I also have a number of books on my physical bookshelf at home and at work.  Being an Agile bigot,most of my books center in someway around Agile, Scrum, and Lean thinking.  I try to keep a couple copies of my favorites when someone comes asking “What about…..”

Here’s an idea.  Walk around your office, take a picture of their bookshelf, and upload a pic of the bookshelf, and leave a comment on whether you think the books on the bookshelf says anything about the owner.

Thanks for coming in today.

Chris

Leadership versus manage

Posted on by Posted in Branding Yourself, Business Musings, Getting Personal, IMO, Software Development Leave a comment

Leaders are people who do the right thing; managers are people who do things right. – Professor Warren G. Bennis

So, last week was a crazy week!  The events of last week caused me to start thinking about my legacy.  While I am certainly not ready to spend eternity in a box 6′ under ground, I have been thinking “What will I be remembered for?”  For me, it was ironic that the week started with Martin Luther King Day.  Irony hit me in the face with a 2X4 when I found the quote above by Professor Bennis while I was looking for a quote about leadership.

This isn’t the first time I have thought about my legacy (click here), and it probably won’t be the last.

The words leader and manager are used almost as synonyms by most people.  If you look around in your life, you’ll see both managers and leaders.  What’s the difference between a manager from a leader?  Is it education, genetics, or experience?  Can it be taught or can it be learned?  Why are some people essentially modern day pied pipers, while others can’t seem to get their shadow to follow them?  My opinion is leadership starts with INTENT.

As a leader, is my intent to further my career or to do the right thing for the company?  Is my intent to keep my job or do my job?

Doesn’t it seem obvious?  Think of the great leaders of history.  Dr. King, Gandhi, Abraham Lincoln, George Washington, Mother Teresa, and Nelson Mandela to name a few.  Their actions were guided by their intent to right a wrong, regardless of the cost to them personally.  King and Lincoln were ultimately assassinated for their intentions.  Gandhi and Mandela spent years in jail because of their intentions.  In the business world, most people are not typically faced with death or imprisonment as a result of our intentions.  Yet our intentions play an integral part to whether we are a leader or a manager.  The intent of the top leaders of companies can drive success or failure.  We follow leaders who have genuine intent that we agree with.

What do I mean by genuine intent?  Genuine intent is the intent that is communicated by one’s actions, not by what is communicated.  Think back to a time in your life, where you interacted with a leader.  What was their intent?  Who was got the most benefit?  The leader or those who followed?  Did you feel like the leader was actually somehow serving you?  In my experience, leaders are not even aware they are leaders or even why people follow their lead.

Think about why you follow a leader.  They are all around us.  It could be a minister, manager, peer, or teacher to name a few.  What is their intent?  What is your intent?

Thanks for coming in today.

Chris

Boss vs. Leader

Posted on by Posted in Business Musings, IMO, Leadership 2 Comments

I have been doing a lot of research lately on Servant Leadership.  As part of that research, I came across a quote by H. Gordon Selfridge that validated one of my biggest pet peeves.  Those of you who have worked with me know what it is:  being introduced as or being called BOSS (“B” word).

I always felt that the term had a negative connotation.  I always envisioned a heavy set guy with a cigar hanging out of his mouth, yelling at his employees.  I never wanted to be that type of leader.  I always wanted to be the kind of leader who teammates would respect.  To this day, I cringe every time I am called the “B” word.  Some of my teammates will use the “B” word intentionally to jab at me.  Now that I think about it, I hope they are just having fun.

Sorry, I am back out of the rabbit hole.  Hopefully, this post and the quote will cause you not to say the dreaded “B” word.   Here the quote:

“The boss drives people; the leader coaches them. The boss depends on authority; the leader on good will. The boss inspires fear; the leader inspires enthusiasm. The boss says ‘I’; The leader says ‘WE’. The boss fixes the blame for the breakdown; the leader fixes the breakdown. The boss says, ‘GO’; the leader says lets, ‘GO!’ ” – H. Gordon Selfridge

Thanks for coming in today.

Chris

H. Gordon Selfridge’s quote on Boss vs. Leader

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“The boss drives people; the leader coaches them. The boss depends on authority; the leader on good will. The boss inspires fear; the leader inspires enthusiasm. The boss says ‘I’; The leader says ‘WE’. The boss fixes the blame for the breakdown; the leader fixes the breakdown. The boss says, ‘GO’; the leader says lets, ‘GO!’ ” – H. Gordon Selfridge