Collaboration, Operational Excellence, and Dotted Lines

I spent two and a half days this week on the Twin Cities campus of the University of Minnesota, working with colleagues to implement President Kahler's memo, "Operational Excellence:  Administrative Optimization and Dotted-Line Reporting."  My dotted-line reporting line will be to Vice President and CIO Scott Studham.

For more information about operational excellence and IT, I encourage you to attend:
IT Town Hall Meeting
Tuesday, September 25
10 - 11 a.m.
Coffman Memorial Union’s Great Hall (ground floor)
Online viewing will be available via LiveStream.

During our work this week, I became convinced that this change is real and immediate.  The quickening pace of change requires us to be nimble and responsive.  We need to collaborate to align our services in order to achieve operational excellence.  We need to engage in the process and be a part of this change.  I believe there is room for IT staff at the Duluth campus to make a difference, but it will require that we expand our horizons and work collaboratively across the UM system.

A number of IT staff have already stepped up to this challenge.  Tim Biles is serving his second year on the Computer Management Steering Committee.  Debbie Wing has joined the Enterprise Upgrade Project.  Peter Angelos and Jason Davis join me in serving on the IT Leadership Community of Practice.  Other communities of practice will be forming in the next several months.  Watch for announcements and consider joining if you find one you can be passionate about.

Leadership and Inspiration

Last weekend, I watched the movie Invictus, starring Morgan Freeman and Matt Damon and directed by Clint Eastwood.  In this film from 2009, Morgan Freeman plays Nelson Mandela, recently elected president of South Africa in 1994.  South Africa was emerging from the apartheid system in which the white minority ruled the country.  Mandela's release from prison and winning of the presidential election was historic, but his challenges were great.  How could he build a new country from two factions that had long considered each other enemies?

This film is a great study in leadership.  Mandela chose to make a symbol of the national rugby team, the Springboks (with only one black player), which was strongly supported by the white minority and despised by the black majority as a symbol of apartheid.  By supporting the team and working directly with the team captain, François Pienaar, played by Matt Damon, he helped the country unite behind a common symbol.  Mandela had to overcome much opposition to his efforts from many of his closest advisers in his efforts, but they paid off in the end.

The title of the film is also the title of a poem, Invictus, by William Ernest Henley.  Mandela had used this poem as inspiration during his 27 years in prison.  During one scene in the movie, the rugby team and their partners visited the prison on Robben Island, where Mandela had spent much of his imprisonment.

I am not a big sports fan, but I did find the scenes of rugby to be interesting, appearing to be an interesting cross between American football and soccer.  There is leadership and inspiration to be seen here, in the way Pienaar leads the team to improve not only as rugby players but also as important symbols of the newly defined nation of South Africa.

In the actions of both Mandela and Pienaar in this movie, I saw great examples of leadership.  These leaders helped their followers move past barriers from the past, leading by example, standing fast when appropriate, and exhibiting understanding when people struggled.  If you are interested in leadership, consider seeing this film, or watching it again through your leadership lens.

When You Don't Get It All Done

It's the end of the first week of classes, and I'll be leaving today with many things undone.  Actually, I often leave work with many things on my to-do list, but usually they are things that can wait.  I have some things that I try very hard to complete by the end of the week, such as minutes of our management team meetings, and I don't much like it when I don't get those things done.

When I was a new assistant professor many years ago, I felt this pressure greatly.  I had very high standards for what I should accomplish in a given day or week, and I frequently found myself not meeting those standards.  One Friday when I was heading home for the weekend, I ran into a colleague.  I was feeling pretty bad about all the things I hadn't gotten done, so I transferred those feelings into a somewhat snarky comment to my colleague:  "So, are you all done?"  He replied, "I'm not done, but I am stopping for the day."  This comment helped me immeasurably.  What a good thought that I could choose to stop and then start another day or week fresh and ready to go.  From then on, I tried hard to consciously agree to stop working when I was tired and to recognize I could do my best work when I allowed myself some rest and relaxation.

So, what are some things you can do when you recognize you aren't going to get it all done?

• Revise your priorities and schedule some tasks into the next day or next week.
• Use your defensive calendaring to set aside time to get caught up.
• Look for things that you don't really have to do and give them up.
• Depending on your job requirements and your family obligations, you might want to fit some work time into your evening or weekend.  But don't overdo this;  remember how important that rest and relaxation time can be.

Last week I promised a cool prize for the best response to my post, and I got a great response from Mandie Johnson, so she'll get the prize on Monday.  Now I'm rethinking how to encourage responses.  Should I offer a prize to everyone who posts?  Or should I just be happy that some of you seem to be reading this?

Compassion and Leadership

I have been thinking about compassion this week.  I want to be a compassionate leader, but I also want to motivate people to do their best.  Can both of these things be accomplished by a single leader?

As with many things, it is important to balance these characteristics.  If you are too compassionate, you may send the message that everything is just fine the way it is, resulting in a lack of interest in improvement.  If you push for change too hard or criticize too harshly, then you put people on the defensive and make it harder for them to hear your motivational message.

I found this article to be helpful:  How to Lead with Compassion by Roger Schwarz of Roger Schwarz & Associates.  I think this can be helpful for all staff who are showing leadership as team members and co-workers.  In IT, it can be easy to focus on the technology or the preferred solution without recognizing the feelings that can go along with them.

I am particularly challenged by all this when I get a complaint from a customer and need to take it back to staff for review and improvement.  Most complaints from customer involve at least two sides of the story.  Yes, customers can be irrational and rude sometimes, especially when stressed by technology that isn't working properly.  But staff can sometimes forget to turn on their compassion when faced with an angry customer.  It is very easy to get defensive when you are being yelled at, even if the customer has a valid point.  Communication breakdowns often occur as a result, which just exacerbates the situation.  It is important for us all to dissect these incidents when they happen and learn from them.  To do that, I have to press the IT staff to see if from the customer's point of view, even when I agree that the customer didn't handle the situation well.  Is this a compassionate approach?  I hope it can be, especially if it results in better handling of future situations, leading to less stress and fewer tough incidents in the long run.

Now for a change of topic.  I would really love to read some thoughtful comments in response to my blog posts, but I recognize that it can be a stretch to put yourself out there.  In order to entice some comments, I'll make this offer.  I will deliver a cool prize to the reader on the UMD campus who posts the most interesting or thoughtful response to this post.  The deadline is noon, Friday, September 7.  Apologies to readers who are not local, but feel free to post anyway.

Leadership in Online Classes

When students take an online class that requires participation in an online class discussion forum, do their submissions say anything about leadership?

I was interested in this article that I read today in the Chronicle of Higher Education:
What a Tech Start-Up’s Data Say About What Works in Classroom Forums
by Jeffrey R. Young

In this article, a company that manages online discussion forums for 545 colleges and universities did some data analysis and reached some interesting conclusions.  One particularly interesting conclusion is this:  "One of the clearest trends was that students at highly selective universities are far more likely to ask questions anonymously than are students at other institutions."  I will leave you to read the article for thoughts about why this might be a bigger problem at highly selective universities.  But I recall when I was teaching, it was a challenge for my students as well, even though I did my best to create an atmosphere where questions and discussion were valued.

This led me to think about the difficulty many students have with asking questions, either online or in class.  Many seem to have a deep fear of asking "the dumb question" or just generally appearing stupid in front of their peers.  Asking questions in public seems to me to be a leadership issue.  Because asking questions can help lead a group to better understanding, it is a truly valuable skill.  And because it requires some bravery to overcome the "dumb question" fear, we should all value those who are willing to take this step.

For those of you who are practicing your leadership skills, asking a question or posting an opinion on this blog might be a great way to improve your skills.  Hint, hint!

What Does Success Mean To You?

Here is a quote I received from Lori Green of MOR and Associates:

"The talent of success is nothing more than doing what you can do, well."

Henry W. Longfellow 

I have been writing this blog for a number of weeks now, and I can tell from the statistics that I have some readers.  Now I would like to invite some comments from you readers.  Please use the comment feature in this blog to write something back to me.

What does this quote mean to you?  How does it make you feel about the value of your own work?

What are your priorities?

I am a big believer in setting priorities and then working hard to stick to them.  It can be very easy to drift away from your big priorities and to get distracted by inconsequential tasks that are easier to do (reading email, for example).  My primary strategy is to keep a personal task list, prioritize it, and keep it up on my desktop for regular viewing.  I use it to pull myself back to the high-priority tasks when I get distracted.

Here is an interesting article, "Stop Chasing the Wrong Priorities," by Kelly Goldsmith and Marshall Goldsmith.  This article encourages me to take an broader view than I normally do when I am setting my daily priorities.  Happiness, family, friends, dreams, fun, helping colleagues, and striving for the big win are also easy to overlook when I get too focused on my daily task list.  To be a successful leader, one must balance all the important things in life.

I especially liked the advice to be happy now.  When I was younger, I was always focused on the next big goal, the next big accomplishment, and I promised myself that when I got there, I would be happy.  When I finally earned my doctorate, I was shocked to discover that I wasn't happy.  At that point in my life, I took a big step back and made changes in my approach to life so that I could be happy along the way.

In your leadership journey, be happy along the way.