Eliminate bottlenecks, beginning with yourself and empower people to get things done. While some items (major accounts and contracts, legal, IP,…) might require your involvement and approval, most daily responsibilities should not depend on your availability. It is essential to empower your teams and provide them with the authority they need to get their daily and weekly responsibilities accomplished. Trust …
This is a team: in or out?
Business is a team sport. All top performing organizations have arrived there through a lot of work by a lot of people, never a single individual alone. Furthermore, on many teams, certain star players with particular functional (technical) skills have been know to take advantage of the environment they are in. This behavior should not be tolerated and allowed as …
Invest in people first
People must come first in all you do and here’s why. If you invest time, attention, focus and financial resources into attracting, retaining and growing the best people you can afford you will be positioned adequately to improve and grow your business. It all starts with people first, then processes, policies, followed by technology and everything else in THAT order. …
Resources follow vision
Complaining about the lack of resources is utterly useless and here’s why. I am yet to meet an organization that has too many amazing people, too much money or too many great ideas, knowledge, technology…and so on. That doesn’t exist, accept it, internalize it and move forward. Instead of complaining, act on delivering value to the entire organization and making …
Build a great team, they are your reflection
The quality of your team, their performance and contributions are directly related to you as a leader. In a sense, they are a reflection of you. You set standards, expectations and instill values across your team and as such you need to use caution in the initial selection process. Furthermore, you need to provide them resources they need to be …
Why you should have a University Service Desk
All of your operations begin or culminate with customer service. The point of contact, and interaction between you and your clients or customers is where the magic happens and it is one of the most important aspects of every business. With this in mind, you should create a single point of contact for all IT services and in due time …
Don’t mistake kindness for weakness
Be kind and respectful to others, but don’t ever allow anyone to mistake that empathy for a weakness. People should be treated with respect, professionalism and common courtesy, but none of those gestures should be mistaken as a “free pass” by select individuals to perform outside standards, policies and processes that apply to all others.
Why are we doing it this way?
?That question mark can mean many different things, so use it carefully. As you come across areas that may need some attention and care, start with a simple question, why are we doing it this way? Do your best not to attack or offend people, but rather focus on the solutions and better ways of achieving desired outcomes. Your new …
Business logic goes before technology
Business logic, processes and policies need to be in place before a technological solution can be selected. Additionally, start from the desired outcome then reverse engineer the process and steps needed to get there. During this process you must establish ownership and accountability of each of the steps and a clear timeline and what happens when and by whom. Only …
Excuses don’t matter, your work does
Excuses are frequently irrelevant, cheap and everyone has at least a few. While it is important to learn from previous decisions and actions, it is equally as important not to spend too much time stuck in the past. Learn from the past, assess your current state, communicate present outcomes, but spend all of your time, effort and energy on moving …
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