Soft Skills: Effective Leadership

Leadership. Everyone talks about it. There are volumes of books on it. Entire industries have been dedicated to promoting, building, fostering and developing leadership. It’s a soft skill in high demand. It’s not as complicated as it’s made out to be. I didn’t say it was easy. It’s just not complicated. Doing what needs to be done isn’t always easy. Leaders fail when to be effective when they fail in key areas.

I’ve worked very closely over the last 20 years with many leaders. I’ve been in the inner circle and I’ve seen “how the sausage is made”. There was a time at Microsoft when the prevailing thought was that if you were really good at coding or debugging, you must be great with people. Therefore you get to be a lead. Fortunately, that is no longer the prevailing school of thought. Conversely, having a great personality isn’t grounds for a promotion either. It goes deeper than that. In my observation, these are the things that make effective leaders.

Effective leaders don’t ask to lead, they just do it

It’s not about telling everyone what you’re going to do and taking surveys to find out how people feel about it. Lots of people like to talk about what they’re going to do. They talk about starting a business, but it never happens. My teenage son tells me these folks are called “wantrapreneurs”. They talk about writing a book or starting a project and it never becomes enough of a priority to do. There isn’t enough “do” in our world. If you take the step of simply doing something, you’ve begun the most important step of being a leader. Effective leaders get stuff done and others take notice.

Effective leaders are unselfish

The most important part of any project is completing it well. If you start with that as your end goal, it’s easier to not worry about who gets credit for what along the way. If your team has the same focus, they will have the security they need to give you their best effort. When you lead teams that get things done and perform at a high level, those that matter will take notice. If you happen to be at a company where the culture is less enlightened, practice for when you aren’t. It will either change the culture or prepare you for bigger things. When you have a broad perspective that isn’t locked into a small window of time, you’ll be able to make decisions that have an enduring impact. It’s not about you. It’s about getting things done.

Effective leaders are humble

Realize you’re replaceable. CEOs are replaced. Politicians are replaced. When it comes to work, everyone is replaceable. The only place you’re not replaceable is in your family. Perspective can keep us humble.

Effective leaders genuinely care

You can’t fake caring. People see right through it. “People don’t care what you know until they know that you care”. I first heard that about 20 years ago. As I’ve aged and become a husband and a father, I’ve come to have a new appreciation for this statement. Life happens. It happens in and out of the office. It can have both a positive and negative impact on work performance. You have to meet people where they’re at. That means understanding they have more important issues than work at times. You don’t have to become best friends with everyone you work with. You do have to acknowledge the human element in your line of business.

Effective leaders run interference

A lot of politics happens at the senior leadership level. A lot. This is not the forum for stories, but man, I could tell stories… The further up the chain you get, the more intense the gamesmanship and lobbying can become. I got to a level of interaction with senior leaders where I saw some were genuinely great people, in direct contrast to their peers. Some would rise above it, others would wallow in it. Effective leaders filter through the crap and only relay the information that their leadership team needs to know. Doing so reduces stress levels for the team and increases productivity by eliminating distractions.

Effective leaders don’t worry about assigning blame. They just solve problems.

“I don’t care how it got f**ked. Just un-f**k it.” That’s probably the most profound line I’ve heard from a manager at Microsoft. In fact, I heard it on more than one occasion and from more than one manager. However, the first time I heard it, it changed me. Yes, some would say it’s vulgar. The beauty is in its simplicity. It cuts to the heart of the matter with surgical precision. I had been conditioned to expect perfection and be responsible for everything. Even things I had no control over. I was concerned about not making a mistake. When you do that, you become overly cautious and make different choices. When you have room for error but the end goal is that the job is done right, you are more prone to experiment and try new ways of being efficient. The human condition is imperfect and as such, we make mistakes. The failure is not in making them, it’s not learning from them. When you understand this about yourself and others, you begin to extend grace to others. The wonderful thing about extending grace to others is that in the future, they’re more inclined to extend it to you. It’s admitting that we’re all imperfect and just trying to do the right thing. It doesn’t always work out as we planned. If it did, life would be pretty boring. That first manager had two employees that would later go on to lead the group. Both were great leaders and great people like their manager. That leads me to my next point.

Leaders beget leaders

When managers are worried about building their own kingdoms and ensuring their own legacy, they surround themselves with lesser people. When the focus is on getting the job done and doing it well, leaders surround themselves with amazing talent and don’t worry who gets the credit. I believe it was Donald Rumsfeld who said “A’s hire A’s and B’s hire C’s”. Nothing beats being on a team of A’s. It was the most highly productive time of my career at Microsoft. My LinkedIn profile is full of quality people from that team that went on to be great leaders and do great things.

Effective leaders are accountable

Leadership has a lot to do with being self-aware. It’s not always easy to stay that way and you’ll find that you need help along the way. Having an inner circle of leadership on your team can make you a better leader by helping you to be accountable. There are two types of qualities you need in your inner circle. First, you need people who can keep you humble and help you keep things in perspective. Second, you need people who feel safe enough to be honest and point out your blind spots. It’s a process of continual improvement because no one is perfect. The end goal is not perfection, it is effectiveness.

-Michael

Tech On A Budget – Monitors

Working at Microsoft, I was fortunate enough to be ahead on tech trends. I was also budget conscious because I knew that working with product teams, there would always be unexpected hardware expenditures and if I could save money on the expected purchases, it would leave money for the unexpected. As a result, I developed a “never pay retail” mantra when it came to purchases that is with me to this day.

Multiple monitors or “multi-mon” was common place for many of the engineering groups I worked with as early as 2002. At the time, it was 21″ Sony Trinitron CRTs that weighed about 65 lbs. each. It’s fairly common in corporate environments today and the trend is picking up in home offices as workers migrate to telecommuting part time or even full time. I’ve had as many as three monitors with one dedicated to mail and two for projects. I’ve seen as many as 8 monitors set up for daily use. The office with that set up would get frequent requests to facilities because of heat issues. Keep in mind, that the more equipment you pack into your office, the greater the impact on your work environment. Multi-mon is really about allowing you to visually organize your work and make you more productive. If eight monitors makes you more productive, then go for it. If you really only need two, then do that. It’s not a competition. It’s about being more productive with your work.

Today, I’m using one large monitor to extend my laptop display, not duplicate it. This allows me to take

Dell S2740L

advantage of an existing display (the laptop) without spending more than I need to. My ideal set up was dual 27″ displays. It gave me plenty of real estate and the model I was using (Dell S2740L) has actually gone up in price from the time I originally purchased it for use at my previous company. It wasn’t a standard model, but it was still larger and cheaper than the standard at the time. I settled on 27″ because it was the sweet spot where prices were close to the rest of the monitors without a considerable jump. Going any larger and the price nearly doubled. It continues to be that way. If you look at a 30″ monitor, you’re going to find off name brands for a little under $1,000 and name brands running over $1,000 and upwards. Granted, some of them have amazing resolution, but if you don’t need extremely high resolution then why spend the extra money? You should check the maximum screen resolution for your computer. You can find that information by right clicking on your desktop and selecting “Screen Resolution”. The second drop down “Resolution” will display the current resolution. If you select the drop down, it will show all possible resolutions. If the second number in the resolution isn’t greater than 1024, you won’t benefit from having a 1080p capable display. My laptop maxes out at 1366 x 768, so I wouldn’t be able to take full advantage of a 1080p capable display. For those of you 30+ who find that you need a little extra visual support (maybe just some standard reading glasses) keep in mind that higher resolution equals smaller print.

Being even more budget conscious with my limited start-up funds, I looked for alternatives. Most new laptops now come with HDMI ports. That got me thinking, what about using a TV? Again, this is all about use. When it comes to laptops, not everyone needs an Alienware class desktop replacement. When it comes to monitors, not everyone needs extremely high resolution displays. After a lot of research, I settled on a 32″ LCD TV. The model I picked up was a Sharp Aquos 32 inch display (LC-32LE451U Aquos 32″) for $199.

LC-32LE451U Aquos 32″

While working in Xbox and Windows Media, I purchased a lot of televisions. Sharp Aquos have been pretty consistent at being high quality products. This is not the latest model and it’s only 720p, not 1080p. The 1080p model was available for an additional $50, but the 720p display met my needs. That’s 80% less than some of the standard monitor displays of similar display class and they don’t even have a TV tuner. I had considered a Smart TV, but the additional cost is usually equivalent to or greater than an OTT (Over The Top) device like a Roku or Chrome. The OTT devices continue to get innovation and access to more channels while innovation on Smart TVs usually only continues with new models of televisions. Having a laptop hooked up to the display also turns it into a smart device. It simply wasn’t worth the additional expense.

I purchased the display from Amazon and in the last month it has increased in price to $249.99. I guess the real lesson here is to do your research, find what fits your needs and if you find a good deal, take advantage of it. Seeing the price increase after purchase only validates that you got a great deal. I would encourage you to be creative and to never pay retail. Feel free to ask questions in the comments feed.

-Michael

Venturing Out

In January of 2014, I made what seemed to be a very difficult decision in leaving my employer of nearly 13 years. When you add in the contract work, it was more like 15 and if you add in the time I spent around the company, it was closer to 25 years. I grew up with Microsoft. Company Picnics in North Bend and filing paper purchase orders at fiscal yearend for a summer job is where it all started. Truth be known, it wasn’t a difficult decision at all.

In life, you have to know what you value and more importantly in what order you value it. I had already done that exercise when the time came to make the decision. I’m a husband and father of three. That defines me more than my career. When it became clear that a move to a warm and dry climate would benefit both my wife and my son, the only question was “How?”

I’m currently ten months in to the largest “project” I’ve ever managed. The relocation of my family from Seattle to Phoenix in addition to starting my own business. I like to take on big challenges. In the end, they’re just small puzzles to solve as part of a much larger puzzle. We left Seattle in early March and spent a week driving down the coast before hanging a left to Phoenix. We had to rent out our house in Seattle, find a new place to rent, schedule delivery with the movers (movers never work out as planned), get the kids registered for school, settle into a new community and then I could get my business up and running.

My business is service based. It’s the skills I’ve learned over the years in business operations, project management, event management, communications, soft skills and training. I registered with the state of Arizona earlier this year. My company is M&H Consulting, LLC. The name has a double meaning. My first two initials are M and H. I joke that I’ve always done the work of at least two people. The H stands for Harrison and comes from my great-grandfather, “Harry”. He had a twin brother named Morton, who we called Uncle Mort. They were brilliant business men who were ahead of the times. M&H is also a tribute to their entrepreneurial spirit. I’ll share some of their stories in future blogs.

I feel as though I’ve inadvertently stumbled into the future of work. I didn’t set about to start a company that was virtual. It just happened out of need and circumstance. I’m working remotely for multiple companies. All work is done from my home office. I’m responsible for my own healthcare and benefits (another future blog…). Vendors and contractors are becoming more common place with rising healthcare costs and an uncertain economic future. It affords both the company and the vendor to have more flexibility. For the vendor it offers more independence and a different quality of life. I don’t have to worry about the commute and when I buy a home in the greater Phoenix area, I can get more home for less money by going a little further out from the city. There are tradeoffs, but I’m very content with the way things have worked out.

That’s a brief summary of the journey so far and a general idea of where I’m heading. In future posts, I’ll write about technology, home office set ups, setting priorities, setting expectations, soft skills, social media, working remotely and whatever else I might come across that I think is useful and/or meaningful. It’s my hope that you’ll find value in what I share. Feel free to use the comments section and I’ll do my best to answer any questions you might have.

-Michael