November 25, 2008 - 14:47, by Dostalek, Kevin
This is Richard St. John from the TED conference 3 years ago. He defines success in 8 simple words in under 3 minutes.
Ted Video
Passion, Work, Good, Push, Ideas, Focus, Persist, Serve
I especially like the term "workafrolics" :)
November 13, 2008 - 12:40, by Dostalek, Kevin
I just finished both listening to the audiobook and reading the paperbook of Seth Godin's newest book
Tribes. Of all the books I've read/listened to this year (and the list is considerable, > 25), this one shot straight to the top of my list.
I highly recommed this book to everyone (I'm buying many copies to give away as Christmas presents). And for those of you with Audible accounts (or the willingness to create one), you can get a
FREE copy of this book
HERE. Also, if you use iTunes (blah), then I believe if you search you will find it for
$0.99.
[Correction: Looks like that was just for a limited time, it's now $5.95] Seth is a great narrator, so I almost would recommend the audiobook over the print copy... but if you're like me, after listening to it, you'll want your own print copy too.
June 14, 2008 - 03:03, by Dostalek, Kevin
Managing information systems is, of course, much more than managing technical infrastructures. It’s managing the flow of information throughout your organization and beyond. This may include the manner in which electronic information is shared and used via technology, but as many of us know, the majority of information is held by people. People share this information via interactions based on responsibility chains and trust.
Just as we perform technical infrastructure analysis to determine optimal configurations for access control, bandwidth, redundancy, and the like, an often overlooked type of analysis known as Social Network Analysis (SNA) is equally (possibly more) important. By analyzing the links between individuals and both objectively measuring (number of interactions) and subjectively measuring (quality of interactions) you begin to see patterns of trust, dependency, and inefficiencies. Given the range of tools now available to help collect this information (via surveys or automated “blind surveillance” using email and phone logs) and visualization tools to communicate the findings, SNA is finally gaining momentum as a mainstream practice.
Typical patterns that you may see emerge from this analysis are:
- Individuals that serve as bridges between functional areas
- Individuals that are key experts (recognized by others)
- Individuals that are critical paths and potential bottlenecks
- Disconnected or untapped peripheral resources
- Gaps or rifts between functional silos
- Knowledge risks
Just as an infrastructure audit will produce action items to be addressed by the technical staff, social network analysis will likely show areas in which optimization, improvement, or risk mitigation is required. For example, if you note that you have numerous key experts nearing retirement, you will need to focus on knowledge and trust transfer soon (trust transfer may take years). If you find individuals acting as information hubs, you may want to build redundant paths so they do not become a bottleneck.
Back in the technology world, information managers should take SNA seriously before implementing large scale knowledge management solutions. While these can be great vehicles to improve the overall social connectivity across the enterprise, remember that while it may be possible to capture “knowledge” it is much more difficult to capture “trust”. With the emergence of other relationship and knowledge sharing vehicles such as corporate blogs and channel partner extranets it has become the information manager’s job to orchestrate the ever changing social interaction network in the same way they do a technical infrastructure if they want to indeed optimize their organization’s information capital.
SNA is also an important aspect of the book The Tipping Point. In it, Malcolm Gladwell speaks of the notion of Connectors (who know everyone) and Mavens (experts who love to teach) which are catalysts of social epidemics. Obviously, what applies outside the organization also applies within.
May 2, 2008 - 03:07, by Dostalek, Kevin
Recently I was out with a collegue having a drink and the question came up as to the real meaty difference between management and leadership. Here is my take-- not my own ideas by any means, but highly distilled from a number of thought leaders.
Management is defined by 1) Position and 2) Things you Do
Leadership is defined by 1) Influence and 2) Other Things you Do
Because influence is greatly dependent on other people it’s much easier to be a good manager because in theory you have more control.
Because influence is usually derived from the “Things you Do” as a manager, I believe it’s USUALLY true that a good leader will also be a good manager, but not necessarily the other way around. The exception to this is that rare leader who lacks the POSITION, but still manages to gain influence and does all the right things.
Finally, I think you can boil down the difference to a matter of focus:
Good managers focus on doing things right.
Good leaders focus on doing the right things.
December 12, 2007 - 03:05, by Dostalek, Kevin
I've often written about leadership out in front. After all, you can't be leading if no one is following-right? Anyone that knows me is also keenly aware that I love being in that trailblazing position and enjoy leading by example. However, recent events have caused me to reflect on this notion and explore the potential traps.
Presumably, if you are leading from the front then you are delegating the tasks of tactical execution to those following in your wake. Great leaders always surround themselves with great people, so on the surface this may be acceptable. However, if you don't stay engaged in the execution phases, how are you to know that the direction you are leading is still the correct one? Perhaps implementation details turned out to be more challenging than you thought and costs need to be reconsidered. Maybe things went really well and now you should tweak your risk acceptance and be more aggressive. The worst case is that without proper follow-through you may end up letting customers down in delivering less than excellent results, hurting your reputation in ways that are immeasurable.
Another problem with leading from the front is that often you tend to fixate on the direction you're headed and develop a sort of tunnel vision. You spend so much of your energy generating enthusiasm amongst your followers that you lose sight of the bigger picture. Visionary leaders are especially susceptible to this. Even though generating enthusiasm takes little or no effort for them, the harness of their own ego keeps their "eyes on the prize".
Leadership out in front can be very glamorous, but it also takes a lot of work. If you, as a leader always take this position and never let anyone else "drive the bus", what you may find is that your best employees leave (they want the glamour) and your worst employees stay (after all, you are doing most of the work). In the mean time you put yourself on the path of burn-out.
So, if leading from the front can cause execution problems, tunnel vision, and staff degradation, what is the alternative? Well, I'm going to call it "leadership from behind." In this model you place your rotating "kingpins" out in the front and manage their overall direction from behind. In this position you can also see the bigger picture, make course corrections and insure proper follow-through for the delivery of excellence. You give your best people the opportunities to shine and don't end up burning yourself out in the process. I firmly believe that any good leader must be able to lead from the front, but I'm now convinced that every great leader must master leading from behind.
I'm sure everyone is familiar with the story of the Canadian Geese and how it relates to teamwork and leadership (if not see this blog), however I'd like to try and add a bit of a conspiratorial twist to it. The next time you look up and see the "Power-V" formation flying overhead and a lone goose flying somewhat out of formation behind the V, maybe- just maybe- that goose isn't being lazy. Perhaps he's actually leading from behind, purposely flying in a zone that takes more work (no drafting) so that he can ensure execution, see the bigger picture, and share the glamorous point position with other valued leaders.