PR, part of your complete breakfast.

No, I don't mean "Public Relations", in this case, I mean "Praise and Recognition".

We all like to be told when we are doing a good job. And a kind thank you, or a pat on the back goes a long way in making us feel as if we are appreciated. This is an important principle of leadership. But, it is something that I have noticed is becoming less prevalent. This is a big mistake.

Companies are spending millions of dollars to increase productivity, implement flexible hours, and increase health benefits, yet they still have high turn over. Why is that?

These policies get taken for granted. A company increases their benefits, attracts new people, other companies follow suit to compete. Soon these heightened benefits become the norm, now to differentiate themselves, companies need to raise their benefit packages and policies again.

I think that PR is especially important in a company where we strive for constant improvement. A culture of constant improvement can result in a culture of constant criticism. I have thoughts on that too.

Most people like to be praised and recognized for the work they are doing, most people like it a lot. A leader must strive to make their team feel important, to create environments where people are rewarded for their hard work and successes.

This is the benefit of rewarding, it is one of several ways that a leader can rely on to influence behavior. With rewarding, it is based on a leader's ability (and perceived predisposition) to praise and reward their their teams for positive behavior.

Praising/rewarding people doesn't cost anything, makes the employees feel good, and reinforces positive behavior.

So remember to say thank you, and remember to tell your team when they do a good job. It is just as important as telling them when they didn't.

How to be a good team member

Leadership is often discussed in terms of how to motivate your team, the principles of leadership, and all the other skills and traits that make a good leader. But, one of the most important skills of a leader is actually how to be a good team member. In other words, how to be led. This is the first (key) step in becoming an effective leader.

A bad team member really affects the esprit-de-corps of the whole team. This can lead to:

• reduced productivity
• an unhealthy work environment
• high attrition rates
• negative cliques
• favoritism
• etc

People who are bad team members, will become awful leaders.

So how do you work towards becoming a good team member? Follow these simple guidelines:

• mind your manners, treat your fellow team members in a respectful manner
• admit your mistakes, and learn from them;
• do the right thing for the project;
• comply with the direction set by your team leader;
• be a positive influence on your team;
• accept constructive feedback;
• help your fellow team members;
• be transparent about your status;
• be honest about your abilities.

In reality, these could almost all be summed up by one, "Do not do unto others as you would expect they should do unto you."

Nothing in here mentions that you must mindlessly follow the directions of your project leader in an unthinking drone like manner. Just realize that there is a time and a place to question the direction of your team leader. In front of the customer, or on team call is not the time or place to do so.

Don't be a barking phone

Last night I was talking with one of the other DPMs (I shall call him Toby) here at Macadamian. We were talking about the perception the developers in our global R&D centres have of us.

Toby traveled to Romania and ended up spending nearly 2 weeks there. After he was there, peoples perceptions of him changed. The old perception was that he was an angry person, always mad at something. After Toby visited them in person, they realized hey, he is a pretty swell guy.

Why did they think he was an angry person? It was because most of their interactions with him were not very positive:

• emails that seemed blunt
• VoIP calls when they were not performing, or had made a mistake
• asking them to do something
  
• emails asking for status
• etc

All these interactions where either Toby was in charge, or performing corrective actions.

So what changed on the trip? Well, Toby did these sorts of things:

• talked to them socially
• had dinner with them
• played poker
• drank Romanian plum brandy with them
• etc

In short, they realized that hey, Toby is a person, and pretty swell too! It was not that Toby was trying to butter him up, it is just how he is in person.

You as a team leader need to be seen as a person, sure, you are in charge, and you are accountable for the delivery of the projects, but your team is comprised of people and no matter how many times you tell yourself, yes, you are only human.

So, if you are leading a global team, try to visit them in person, and when you can't visit them in person, make sure to follow these simple tips:

• Prefer voice calls over email
• When you need to send emails, try reading them aloud to see if they seem harsh or overly critical
• Don't talk just about business, try to have a water cooler chat every now and again
• Ask questions like, how has your day been? I heard you were sick yesterday, are you feeling better?
• Try and schedule the meetings in common hours, if you cannot, try to alternate the times they have to stay late versus you have to come in early

Remember, you don't have to be their friend, but it really helps for you not to be their enemy. And in your spare time, start working on the virtual foozball game for those ad-hoc games, err, I mean design sessions.

Congratulations Marc!

Last night our very own Marc Dufresne was honoured as one Ottawa’s Top 40 under 40. This is a pretty impressive achievement, great job Marc! It couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy.

In other nearly as impressive news, our table was named the best table to be stuck at a cottage for a week. Who has team spirit? We have team spirit!

Sales people get no respect

Let's be honest, operations (engineering, QC, IT etc) tend to have a very dim view of their company's sales force. On the totem pole, they are about 6 feet below the HTML/CSS/Javascript developers.

Why is that? Is it their cars, golf clubs, or expense accounts? Or is it just because they are misunderstood? No one really understands their role in an organization.

I was out with our excellent sales team on Friday, and really, they aren't so bad. I was at a sales seminar (no jokes about falling down the totem); the speaker was fantastic, really funny, really insightful, and not very PC. I was talking to one fellow at the seminar (sales guys call this networking) and he expressed amazement that Macadamian was as big, and as successful as we were with only 3 sales people. Kudos indeed.

If you are not in sales, you likely don't really understand. Sure, we developers put in our long hours sometimes to bring a project back to green, but the sales force is putting in those long hours to get that sale in the first place.

The sales people works odd hours, sometimes they work late afternoons, sometimes they are working nights and/or weekends. Sometimes they are flying out at 6am to go see a customer. The difference is they are not in a dimly lit cubicle pecking away at a keyboard surrounded by empty Coke cans and Oreo crumbs on their shirt.

Sure, they are in the box at the Scotia Bank place or the golf course, but they aren't there to watch the game or make a birdie or even a bogey. They are not even really there to sell per se. They are they there to build a relationship with their customer.

The speaker at the seminar had a few nuggets of advice, the one that really relates to what a good sales person does is "Make a sale, make a commission, build a relationship, earn a fortune."

When it boils right down to it, this is one of the things a good sales person is trying to do when they go golfing, or go to the game with their customers. It is with this relationship with the customer that we can get new business, fix old business (relationships) that has gone bad, and work towards becoming that trusted partner that we all want to be.

And most importantly, without our friendly neighborhood sales people, we wouldn’t get paid!

What is the T.R.A.C.C?

"What is the T.R.A.C.C?", one of my co-workers asked, and realized I haven't explicitly mentioned what the T.R.A.C.C was. Well, no time like the present to rectify this.

T.R.A.C.C is a catchy acronym for the values here at Macadamian. These are values we try to live by. Everyone from the President, to the lowliest cubicle dweller in the dustiest part of the office. Every single employee and new hire are taught these. We are graded against these on our year end reviews. Needless to say, we take it very importantly.

Simply put, T.R.A.C.C stands for:

• Transparency
• Responsiveness
• Agility
• Constant improvement
• Collaboration

I have talked about transparency already, and in the coming days and weeks I hope to provide real world examples of applying these values in practice, even when the project goes red. I feel that it is in these times, when the project is red, the customer is agitated, and the team is demoralized that staying true to these values, and providing strong leadership to the team that you will be able to turn that project from red, to green.

Toot toot!

Tooting my own horn, my article on "Global Development vs The Agile Manifesto" was published on the Agile Journal. Yay me!

What motivates you?

This weekend I was out on the year end trip with the cadet corps that I work/volunteer with. For the year end trip we went out into the Ottawa Valley to Wilderness Tours to do some adventure training. The unit did mountain biking, rock wall climbing, and whitewater rafting.

Saturday was a real scorcher, very hot, and very humid. At the end of the mountain biking and rock wall climbing, we decided to let the cadets go for a quick swim to cool off. Cool off being the operative word. As the Ottawa river is quite brisk at this time of the year.

One particular cadet, whom doesn't really like to expand his boundaries was the only one who didn't jump in. He wanted to, but couldn't bring himself to go. He would run up to the edge of the dock and stop at the last possible second. This went on for nearly an hour.

The other cadets tried to encourage him to go, offering to jump with him, or help him to the floating raft etc. I tried to encourage him to go as well. I coaxed, and prodded, and encouraged for about half an hour. Then I remembered something about him. I remembered, he loves chocolate. Well, any junk food really.

I offered to buy him a chocolate bar if he would just take the plunge. He didn't bite at the offer right away, but it opened the floodgates so to speak. Within a couple of minutes of that offer, he made the leap. I was pretty happy that he overcame his fear.

This little story underscores a key leadership principle; know your team member. In this case, I knew he loved chocolate.

You need to know the person on your team as a person. You need to take it past the simple and obvious things like know their name, or the ability to pick them out of a crowd. You should learn a bit about their:

• family;
• their hobbies;
• their likes or dislikes;
• their qualifications;
• their career aspirations;
  
• and leadership ability.

Knowing this information allows you to make informed decisions about how your team member is performing, or what will motivate them to succeed.

Knowing that your team member has an elderly and sick parent can go along way to explain why someone that was previously an excellent employee has suddenly become unmotivated, grumpy, or is out of the office at odd times.

Conversely, knowing that someone wants to be a Project Manager allows you to guide them in their career progression, you can tailor their goals and training to accomplish this. This might also explain why they work longer hours then your average employee.

To be clear, this doesn't mean that you have to be their friend, but it doesn't hurt either.