The Retrospector

Today’s post is a continuation of the series for the 5 Steps To Help Your IT Team Concentrate. The full list of steps is recapped for you here, with a link to the previous posts in the series (step 0 being more of an introduction):

0. Coin a cool term for being fully concentrated
1. Identify how your employees concentrate and perform
2. Create a process where team members are most effective
3. Encourage collaboration in the group time, and support total
isolation for the individual time.
4. Create the appropriate atmosphere.
5. Don’t be afraid to change and experiment.

Today we’ll elaborate more on the first step:

1. Identify how your employees concentrate and perform

It is very important to identify how your members are able to concentrate and perform their best in the first place. Being able to concentrate isn’t something you can just tell someone to do. It’s a trait that is different for all kinds of people.

I’ve simply never seen a group of people where everyone was able to concentrate with the same environment. Some like it quiet, some like it loud. Some like it bright, some like it dark. It would be great to have a team full of productivity chamelions, but the truth of the matter is…team dynamics generally implies figuring out how to get the team to work together without expecting much change on the part of the individual team members.

Start with the basics

In order to identify how they concentrate and perform, you need to let them try some things on their own. When getting a feel for a team member, make sure you spend enough time to let them understand what is needed. Then let them loose and see what happens.

Pay attention to everything that happens as they prepare to dive into the project. During implementation, how much interactivity was there? How many distractions did the employee encounter? How often did their eyes wander around the room with a look of boredom? These are key questions to ask when diagnosing what type of environment would be best for a person on your team.

Interactivity

Some people work best when collaborating with others. They like to bounce ideas off of others and feed of other member’s creativity and enthusiasm. Synergy is the corporate term for this phenomenon. I actually prefer this in limited quantities, but if it brings the best out of your employee in long spurts you should definitely note it.

Distractions

I don’t know many people that are able to concentrate through many distractions. However, I’ve witnessed a few multitasking powerhouses too. This almost fits in with the synergy point above because many of the distractions are from other members of the team via chat or phone.

What I want to include on this is people that can interrupt that aren’t related to the project. Noises, music, flickering lights, or a lack thereof can all play a part too. Uncomfortable furniture can really distract someone enough to not focus too. Pay attention to anything that catches their attention too often and too easily.

Boredom

One of the ultimate issues with getting someone to really dig their feet in to concentrate on a task is how interested they are in it. In a state of heightened senses, the athlete that’s “in the zone” can reach their goal far more easily than someone that’s out for a leisurely game just so they can think about other things for awhile. Try to fit appropriate work to each member of the team. Sure, every job has stuff you don’t want to do, but try to keep your people motivated so they don’t let boredom get in the way of their concentration.

Make the work interesting! Managers do cheezy things all the time to get people excited about a bunch of crappy work that nobody wants to do. Give incentives outside the norm to get their minds off how boring the work is and how exciting it will be to get it finished.

Bottom line is, take notice of what the team member perks up about. Get a feel for what their interests are and try to make things easier to concentrate on by taking advantage of their interest level.

All these factors are good ways to get a feel for how someone prefers to get “in the zone” when on a project. Is there some other method you use to discover your employees concentration catalysts? How do you get a feel for a new employee on the team?

The next post in this series will discuss creating an entire process where your team members can be most effective. Continue on to Part III.

Tags: concentration, productivity, focus, IT, team+building, management

The dynamics of a team can be a very fragile thing. As with many things, when properly maintained it can be a very powerful machine. How do you maintain your team? One good way is to help create an environment for each member to reach a fully concentrated state.

Many people have terms for being in a state of total concentration. A state where you are able to focus completely on the task at hand without distractions of any kind. A state where you are the most productive you can possibly be.

Generally speaking, I’ve known most technical people such as programmers, architects, system administrators, or designers to be much more productive when they’re able to concentrate. This probably holds true for a great deal of non-technical employees where a high level of concentration is needed to do the job, but I’m in IT…so that’s what I’ll write about.

So, I’ve managed to quantify 5 steps to helping your productivity machine get to that most optimized state of efficiency. For the next week or so, I’ll be posting the steps in a series for the following topics:

0. Coin a cool term for being fully concentrated
1. Identify how your employees concentrate and perform
2. Create a process where team members are most effective
3. Encourage collaboration in the group time, and support total isolation for the individual time.
4. Create the appropriate atmosphere
5. Don’t be afraid to change and experiment.

The first item may sound pretty unnecessary as a step of its own. Basically, everyone on the team needs to be on common ground with terminology. Managers, peers, and even business users need to understand what it is you’re talking about when you talk about your schedule. The other reason I threw this in here is because it’s probably the shortest piece of this series, and sort of makes for a semi-humorous intro to the rest of the steps. So here we go…

0. Coin a cool term for being fully concentrated

Some terms that I’ve heard to describe the total state of concentration where people can really produce some of their best work are:

• Crankin’
• Totally Focused
• Spewing (as in spewing code)

And probably the best of them all, and one I’ve been using since I first heard it:

• In The Zone (something I only ever heard used in sports-related descriptions for someone that was “on fire” and just couldn’t mess up.)

Now, I have to admit something. When I hear that someone is “In the Zone” I can picture a number of strange scenarios. The best analogy that comes to mind is someone being in the end-zone after making a touchdown at a football game. The person has struggled very hard to get there, and is at a total performance peak. Things are going well, and any slightest penalty could totally slow down momentum of the team as a whole even after one or two people took the ball to the end-zone.

Scientific people, engineers, doctors, etc. all need to be able to reach that “on fire” state where they just perform flawlessly with no mistakes and total coordination of their thoughts in order to really produce. Why wouldn’t you want to help get your team members to be able to focus and perform in the same manner? Stay tuned for more steps on how to help your IT team concentrate…

In the meantime, I’m really curious what other names people call their “zone”. What do you say to someone when you’re in the middle of concentrating on the super-difficult piece of code you’ve been working all morning to get your head around? How to you let someone know you’re going to go get “in the zone” for the afternoon and don’t wan’t to be interrupted? How many of you turn off your phone’s ringer when you’re busy like I do? Continue on to Part II.

Tags: concentration, productivity, focus, IT, team+building, management

This post is a continuation of the Integrity Series, which is a series of posts that stemmed from a few things I think are crucial to anyone wanting to maintain a healthy trustworthy standing with their peers, managers, and subordinates. This particular post follows up on a post on how to Avoid Taking Undeserved Credit.

What I’d like to elaborate on concerns something nobody likes to really think about. What happens when things go horribly wrong? Well, when shit happens…there’s no point in polishing a terd. Someone has to shovel it up and get rid of it while the company has to figure out how to still end up with a jewel. (Or just a pretty rock will do. Some of us will take what we can get when things aren’t as they should be.) Regardless of what went wrong, if you were involved in any way with the problems…the best thing to do is to just suck it up and take what comes. The rest of the post will concentrate mostly on the what-to-do and what-not-to-do action items you should remember if ever caught up with an awry situation.

Take responsibility

Be as informed as possible. If you’re caught in the middle of a bad situation, looking stupid is about the last thing you want to happen. Collect as much information as possible on why things went wrong, the source of the problem didn’t just happen out of thin air. Even if you weren’t expecting something and didn’t account for it, do your homework and find out as much information as you can as fast as you can so that when you’re in the room trying to explain what happens…you at least look and sound intelligent enough to be speaking on the subject.

You most certainly don’t want to get into a meeting to talk about this and not be able to defend facts just because you’re unaware. Even if you aren’t to blame, looking unprepared is just as bad as being guilty because you didn’t help prevent it by being prepared in the first place.

Be honest. If you’ve got your facts straight, what have you got to hide anyway? If the problem was your fault, at least you have a fighting chance at saving yourself by explaining what most likely went wrong and having evidence for it. On the contrary, if you try to lie your way out of it…and get caught…you’re just an idiot and probably deserve whatever comes your way.

Don’t blame anyone else

Don’t mention names. This is probably the most difficult thing to do, but unless directly asked for a name just don’t throw them out there. Marching into your boss’ office and blaming the entire thing on someone else can be just as bad for you as it might seem good depending on the situation.

1. Pointing the finger shows cowardice, irresponsibility, weakness.
2. Burning bridges may gain you a short term way to save face, but sometimes bridges don’t get rebuilt. You may not have the support of your peers in the future.
3. By not blaming others, you show that you are a strong team player willing to take responsibility for your actions and everyone on the team…especially if you weren’t really involved to the point of deserving blame.

Keep it to simple facts. Don’t let any biased opinions creep into the discussion just because you’re angry or flustered. Stick to what’s fact, and let the evidence take care of itself when dissecting a problem.
Have a plan of action ready

Now what? If you messed up, you better be ready to fix it. Being prepared is as good as you can do at this point. If you just shrug the entire thing off, your company may consider you an unnecessary expense. Who wants to hire someone who just messes stuff up and won’t even try to make things right? I sure wouldn’t. If I screw up, you better believe I’m in there pulling double-time until I make it right. Having other people dependent on me to do my part is pressure enough. Forcing teammates to dive in and bail you out all the time just sucks and makes you look incapable.

Regardless of whether you were really to blame or not, be ready to assist in making things right. The only people that are remembered more than screw-ups, are the people that can fix things. If one of your teammates royally goofs up their component and you’re reliant on it being successful, roll those sleeves up and get your hands dirty in solving the problem. You’ll gain so much more respect as a team player and key versitile resource. Just being able to help with brainstorming ideas and fresh perspectives is sometimes enough to push a group effort over the edge to a successful path.

No plan? Find someone who can make one. I don’t care if you’re just some new grunt right out of college, if you can’t make a plan you better find someone who can and be proactive enough to get something going or you could be putting your job on the line as well as your reputation.

Everyone has to learn the hard way, and you’ll probably get some leniency the first few times. Don’t even let it come to that. Being proactive is about the best thing you can do in a situation unless your directed to focus your attention elsewhere while the disaster recovery crew takes over.

Going forward

Obviously being in this scenario isn’t fun. But knowing at least where to start and what direction to head should give a good advantage over the deer-in-headlights-type people in the end. Be informed, hold your head high, and have confidence that you did everything you could…and are going to do everything you can to make things right.

Most important of all, learn from your mistakes AND the mistakes of others. Your experience is gold for your career. If you ignore things that have happened to you and everyone around you, you may as well be a fresh college graduate your entire life. If you plan on moving up in the world, make sure you pay attention to how things happen around you.

What do you do in situations that just don’t go right? How do you react to make sure things can smooth out over time? (Well, besides starting a new job-hunt )

Next posts in this series:

• Avoid Exaggerating
• How to say you don’t know

Tags: integrity, blame, accountability, mistakes, planning

One of my recent articles on Top 10 Ways to Motivate Geeks has gotten some good attention lately and driven quite a bit of traffic to the site. I’ve had some interesting “opposites” approaches show up in comments regarding the things that do NOT motivate geeks. I’ve also stumbled onto some other pages that hit the some of the same points I have. Some good thought and effort went into these, and I think some of the points made are things I had in mind when coming up with my own geek motivation list.

The links:

• Top 10 Ways to Demotivate Geeks
• How to make IT Staff Less Angry (series)
• What Makes People Unhappy at Work
• Why Your Employees Are Losing Motivation

I’m not one to normally post things without something unique to add, but I felt inclined to share a little “link-love” with others that have hit the topic of motivation in a similar manner. I think this also establishes that I’m at least on a somewhat correct track with my own list seeing that many others out there not only agree with me, but have also been posting their own perspectives which aren’t far from my own.
Feel free to add any attitional twists to the geek-motivation topic. I’ll keep my eye out for some more interesting and unique takes on the matter.