Tag Archives: Florida State University

About 973 days ago Tools on Managing Technology

The Best is the Enemy of the Good

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The Jim Moran Institute for Global Entrepreneurship, at Florida State University, where I work, was recently consulting with an IT manager who spent two days drafting one letter trying to make it perfect. This same manager meticulously examines each and every piece of information that goes out to his staff and frequently reviews letters and e-mails six times before sending. Obviously, this manager feels that perfection or being the best is a worthy goal. Just being good is unsatisfactory. Time is an IT professional’s most critical asset, and you must continually evaluate if you are using it wisely. In order to do so, it is useful to put a cost on your time. Let’s say you estimate your time is worth $100 or $200 an hour. Using this figure, you can quickly see if your time is being spent on the tasks that are most beneficial to your department. Returning to the example of the IT manager who spent two days reviewing a letter, if we assume his time is worth $150 an hour, we see that he wrote a $2,400 letter. I doubt he would agree that the letter was worth that sum, but since he was not aware of his true cost, he let being the best get in the way of being very good. Looking back on all of the managers and entrepreneurs we have assisted, I have noticed that the most successful ones seem to have one thing in common. They never complain about a lack of time. This is particularly true among successful IT managers. Time is worth money The secret that these managers and entrepreneurs share is that they realize their time is worth a lot of money. They constantly — perhaps unconsciously — make decisions about the best use of their time. They focus not on perfection or being the best, but rather on doing what is needed to get the job done. In website design, we can work endlessly at building the perfect site. The cost and the time that would be required to do so, however, are frequently prohibitive. Technology can significantly improve productivity in terms of both outcomes and processes, but as with any tool, you cannot let the pursuit of perfection get in the way of being good. Recently, I was working with some IT professionals who were developing new software. They were unwilling to release this software until it was perfect or met their standards. Because of this, the firm they were working for was incurring large losses. Voltaire once said, “The best is the enemy of the good.” I interpret this statement to mean that perfection is an unreasonable goal and pursuing it ultimately detracts from the viability of a department or an individual. If perfection is an unachievable goal, why reach for something you know is unattainable? Clearly, we all want to be as good as we possibly can, and that is a commendable goal. I can still remember my mother telling me to be the best that I can be. However, I now realize that piece of advice has not always served me very well. What I should have been taught is that tradeoffs must be made and that being very good is wonderful. By pricing your time in a realistic setting, you can make decisions that prevent “the best” from being the enemy of “the good.” If you want to be productive and make the most of your time, take care that you are not trying to achieve goals that are unattainable or inefficient in terms of cost. Jerry Osteryoung has been both a Professor of Finance and Entrepreneurship at Florida State University for over 35 years. While at FSU he headed up the Jim Moran Institute of Global Entrepreneurship. He is co-author of the book “If You Have Employees, You Really Need This Book.” You can read his blog at http://jerryosteryoung.blogspot.com or you can write him at jerry.osteryoung@gmail.com.    

About 1037 days ago Employee Policies

Coping with a Problem Employee in IT

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Coping with problem employees is difficult for every manager, but it is particularly tough for IT managers. In IT, managers have it much harder because, generally speaking, their staff is much less apt to conform than those in other departments. When I say “problem employee,” I am referring to those employees whose undesirable behaviors affect the morale and operations of the entire department. For some reason, every organization seems to have at least one of these employees. Some examples of problem behaviors that I have witnessed are as follows: An employee’s temper causes everyone to tip-toe around them in fear of inciting their anger. An employee just does not do what they are asked even after repeated requests. An employee is habitually late. An employee’s negativity detracts from the mission of the business. A staff member continues to spend way too much time on personal computer stuff even after numerous warnings. An employee complains incessantly about everything. Whatever the problem behavior, there are two ways of dealing with it: do nothing or take action. However, in about 99 percent of cases, ignoring the problem only makes it worse. Why does this happen? In my opinion, it is because doing nothing and pretending the problem will go away on its own is tantamount to encouraging — even rewarding — the undesirable behavior. The impact of doing nothing Of equal importance, you must also consider the effects doing nothing will have on the rest of your staff. Allowing one employee’s bad behavior to persist destroys your credibility as a manager. Whether you acknowledge it or not, your entire staff knows that there is a problem, and when you do nothing, your staff wonders why you do not act. In the end, your inaction dilutes your effectiveness as a manager. One firm that I was assisting had an employee that was habitually 15 to 30 minutes late. Sometimes the manager took corrective action, and sometimes he ignored the problem. When dealing with these types of problems, consistency is critical. If employees perceive you or your policies to be inconsistent, your credibility is non-existent, and problem behaviors will escalate. Where more serious problems are concerned, you must address the issue no matter how important or valuable the employee is. No employee should become so valuable that you cannot do without him or her. The minute an employee becomes invaluable, you allow that employee to take you hostage. The goals and mission of the department must be given a higher priority than the welfare of one problem employee. Problem employees affect every single staff member, and I guarantee you that your staff would rather work harder and longer than put up with bad behavior. They will all be willing to pitch in if it means their working environment will be improved. Effective actions One effective way to approach a problem employee is to ascertain the real issue, then address it in a meeting. The sooner this meeting takes place, the more quickly the problem can be resolved. Begin this meeting by briefly discussing some of the positive contributions the employee has made during his or her tenure. For example, you might say how grateful you are that the employee has worked at your firm for three years, noting the ways he or she has improved the quality of client service. Next, tell the employee the areas that concern you. You might say, “However, I am concerned with the way you are treating your subordinates and the amount of days you have been missing.” Some employees will be argumentative, but most will nod their head in agreement. Before closing the meeting, ask, “What can we do together to work on this problem?” Ask the employee to establish a timeline within which the problem will be corrected. Of course, this timeline will have to be relatively short. At this stage, it is important that you stress how critical the issue is and discuss what the consequences will be if the problem is not rectified. Finally, close the meeting by reminding the employee how much you appreciate their contributions, and ask them to sign a statement that this discussion has taken place. Once the meeting is over, it is vital that you summarize the major points in a letter to the employee. This will reinforce the importance of the issues and serve as written notice of the consequences of non-compliance. Unfortunately, in most cases these problems are so habitual or deeply ingrained in the employee’s nature that they are not able to correct them, and the employee must be terminated. In these cases, it is paramount that you follow through on the consequences you indicated. Without exception, when a problem employee is removed, the morale of the entire business improves drastically. While terminating employees is not a pleasant experience, the price is much higher when you allow a problem behavior to continue. Additionally, in so many cases, termination was exactly what that employee really wanted. They just did not have the courage to quit. Problem employees can have devastating affects on the morale of your entire department. By dealing quickly and fairly with these employees, you can ensure that your IT department remains a wonderful place to work. Jerry Osteryoung is the Director of Outreach at the Jim Moran Institute for Global Entrepreneurship in the College of Business at Florida State University; the Jim Moran Professor Emeritus of Entrepreneurship; and Professor Emeritus of Finance. His newest book with Tim O’Brien is entitled, If You Have Employees, Then You Really Need This Book!, and can be purchased on Amazon. He can be reached by e-mail at jerry.osteryoung@gmail.com.

About 1128 days ago Tools on Managing Technology

IT Staff: What Training Do They Need?

How many times do IT managers or other managers feel that their staff needs training? Sometimes employees request this training and sometimes it comes from the top of an organization. Additionally, managers frequently think that when there is an operational problem, training is always the answer. Too often training is seen as the panacea for most of the ills throughout businesses. However, lately there has been some powerful research that shows that the majority of performance problems cannot be fixed by training. Rather, performance deficiencies are systemic with the organization. That is, most performance problems are generally related to problems that are within organizational structure. Some of the typical problems that I am talking about are vague expectations, late feedback, and inadequate resources. Actual data has shown that in the US businesses spend around $55 billion a year on training. However, only 30 percent of this actually gets applied in the workforce. Therefore, any dollars that you spend on training must do two things: first, it must solve an actual problem and, second, the training must be effective. Best practices are that firms should spend 3 percent of payroll on training. However, there are so many other ways to fix problems rather than jumping on training first. Alternatives to training Understanding what the real problem is the first step in doing an assessment if training is the answer. For example, a firm’s programmers were doing Web work and they were making way too many errors. These errors were very expensive to fix and disappointed the client because of the late completions.  The real problem in this case was that the programmers were using their computers for many personal reasons and lacked attention to the details. In this case, any type of training would not have fixed the problem and the fix was just to reduce the use of computers for personal use. The cost of this fix was so small as compared to taking some type of training. However, the IT management just did not realize this till they went through and identified the problem. The second step in this process is to come up with solutions with the associated problem. Frequently, the solution may not be training. An IT department had a large issue with the morale within the department and the firm was considering training the entire staff in working together through team building. However, the problem turned out to be that the manager just did not have very good managerial skills.  It was not the staff that needed the training but the manager did need some serious coaching which was a whole lot less expensive and much more effective. There is no question that training is useful in learning a new technology skill, but this training must be effective. Having the participants evaluate the training after they have taken the class is really not a relevant measure of effectiveness because the participants are generally going to judge the effectiveness of the presenter rather the amount of material that is both retained and utilized in the work place. The worst type of training The worst training is when an instructor stands up in front of a class and just spews information. Especially for technology, training must be interactive to ensure the material is mastered. I believe the best training is when participants have to apply what they have learned in some fashion such as a computer simulation or role playing. Personally, the style of training that I use, whenever I can, to teach a skill or technology, is to insure that there is time between different phases of training so that I can require homework. The homework allows me to make sure that each participant uses and masters the skills or technology that I have taught and applied them in the work place. The homework normally consists of some sort of log or test to insure mastery of the material when the participants return for second or future sessions. There is no question in my mind that IT departments need to address customer service on top of technical training. The only effective way that customer service training can be accomplished is in a classroom situation with many role-playing activities so that each participant gets involved. When setting up this customer service training it so important that this training be not just a one time event but training that occurs on regular basis to insure the material sinks in. As you consider training of your IT staff, make sure that problem you are trying to solve with the training is the real problem or the root cause of the problem. Second, for all training I believe that you need to look at both the material being taught as well as how the material is going to be delivered. Third, please insure that every staff member in your IT department has customer service training. Jerry Osteryoung has been both a Professor of Finance and Entrepreneurship at Florida State University for over 35 years. While at FSU he headed up the Jim Moran Institute of Global Entrepreneurship where he directly assisted over 3,000 businesses.  You can read his blog at http://jerryosteryoung.blogspot.com or you can write him at jerry.osteryoung@gmail.com.