HL Arledge

18 definitions that can make you a better leader

When I first took this job, I started jotted down notes, regarding different ways to interpret words. I've come to believe that real leaders have a slightly different dictionary than managers, bosses, dictators, and elected officials.

Here are my top 10 definitions used by real leaders...

Attitude–A state of mind, an emotional and intellectual inclination and predisposition to actions based on what you convince yourself is the truth.

Communication–Refers to anything, verbal or nonverbal, that imparts information, thoughts, or feelings. It is a vehicle than enables leaders and followers to connect with each other and to learn about their respective worlds.

Defensive Culture–A world in which people are more concerned with their image than they are with solving problems.

Desires–Unexpected bonuses or other pleasant surprises. The items that complete a staff member's statement that begins with, "It sure would be nice if..."

Expectations—Refers to perceived entitlements, any deliverable or treatment staff considers essential to happily performing their jobs.

Fertile Workplace Culture—An environment that encourages individuals to grow, learn, and be as good as they can as employees and as people.

My team's success is built on Trust

Michael Hopkin reported today is his blog "Lead on Purpose" that "Trust is essential to building a successful team"—something readers of this blog have seen proven time and time again.

Michael said...

"One of the best ways to gain trust is to be up front with the people you lead. Great leaders are not afraid to admit mistakes. At first blush it implies weakness; however, admitting mistakes actually helps leaders gain credibility because the people they lead see them as down-to-earth and genuine."

A recent article in Investors Business Daily discusses the importance of winning the trust of your team. Some leaders waste time trying to win acceptance—or even popularity—with their teams, rather than being vulnerable—open, honest, and transparent—about their strengths and weaknesses.

Trust is ultimately more important than popularity.

Patrick Lencioni, one of my favorite authors of wrote...

“Ironically, pretending you’re strong when you’re not is a sign of weakness. Trust is the most important thing a leader can have. People will walk through walls of fire for you if they know they can trust you. Without trust, nothing else matters to them.”

Leaders fulfilling promises and providing feedback—on both desired and undesired behaviors—will gain the trust of their teams and strengthen their organizations.

Lead, Follow, or Get Fired!

After a few false starts, I still have not been motivated to get my podcast up and running, and I am beginning to think I need a co-host. With a team in place, perhaps we can push each other forward.

Afterall, that's what the phrase Lead, Follow, or Get Fired is all about.

Teams must be perpetual—where each member is a moving part pushing the other moving parts forward. When one of those parts stops working, that part must be replaced.

I know that sounds harsh, but it is a reality.

To believe anything else is to fool yourself and damage the morale—and the throughput—of your team.

This is not to say that a part cannot be repaired. The team itself should work to oil and adjust its parts to keep them from failing, and the mechanic—the manager—shouldn't be called until such repairs are beyond the abilities of the team.

Successful teams lead themselves, and within each team, there are strong members that will push for improvements.

However, those leaders must not be allowed to dominate, as one persons improvement is often another persons impediment.

You must have strong leaders that counter other strong leaders, ensuring the team is always moving forward and weighing options based on everyone's input, in order to find the optimal solutions to all problems.

Any who sees a problem with current processes should lead the team to improve it, just as they would any other problem.

If a member cannot identify a problem with current processes, it is that member's responsibility to support those processes—continuing to move forward and to push other members to move forward.

Those old tried-and-true words of Thomas Paine are still alive and well today: "Lead, follow, or get out of the way" of those who are trying to improve and/or support the team.

Yea, I know what you are thinking—and you are wrong.

There is nothing negative about this perspective for two simple reasons:

• REASON ONE: The process is a fair one. Everyone has the opportunity to support the team as is or help change the team and its processes for the better. Finding a team where you are a better fit is truly a last resort.
• REASON TWO: The process has proven time and time again that it works!

So, about my podcast: I need to get a partner who can lead me, follow me, or fire me. This has gone on long enough.

Any takers?

15 Scrum facts that can make or break your team

If you follow Scrum, it can work miracles in your organization, but I've explained many times before that it is far from being a silver bullet. Without making the effort to built and maintain a solid team, Scrum is completely useless.

Scrum is a tool. 

Use it properly, and it will accomplish what is was designed to accomplish.

Abuse it, and you will fail.

To confirm that this is not news to anyone, I offer Scrum Founder Ken Schwaber's text on the subject:

Scrum is Hard and Disruptive!

1. Scrum is a framework for iterative, incremental development using cross-functional, self-managing teams. It is built on industry best practices, lean thinking, and empirical process control.

2. Scrum is optimized for high yield product management and product development. Scrum is particularly appropriate for high risk, complex, large projects and can be used when other parts of the endeavor are hardware or even waterfall development.

3. If waterfall suits current needs, continue using it.

4. An enterprise can use Scrum as a tool to become the best product development and management organization in its market. Scrum will highlight every deficiency and impediment that the enterprise has so the enterprise can fix them and change into such an organization.

A doctor's call on finding new blood for your healthy team

When your organization moves from a command and control environment to a network of self-managed teams, productivity will increase dramatically—as can turnover.

"There’s good fit – like a glove – or there’s bad fit – like socks on a rooster. In terms of an organization, fit has more to do with adapting to, and embracing an organization’s culture."

In a post regarding hiring for a medical team, Dr.Carol Westfal not only defines the problem, but the solution.

"Different personalities can help you define the cultural orientation of your organization. Becoming aware of the importance and value your organization places on these characteristics will help your interview team identify and define its own culture and make it easier to discover the candidate’s relative fit."

Here are some traits Carol says defines an organization’s culture:

Scrum Teams: weighing Individual Performance Appraisals

According to a recent Wall Street Journal headline...

“Teams have become commonplace in U.S. Companies.”

Of course, that is common knowledge to readers of this blog.

It is also descriptive of a problem that I am trying to solve this week.

As I've noted before, most performance appraisal techniques are formulated with individuals in mind—they measure and rate the performance of the individual employee. Therefore, with the number of teams increasing in the organizations, it becomes difficult to measure and appraise the performance of the team.

The problem is in defining how to separate the performance of the team from the performance of the employees.

One solution being adopted by many companies involves measuring both individual and team performance. Sometimes, team based objectives are also included in the individual performance plans.

From a software development perspective, I am pondering how this can be applied to a Scrum team.

I would love to hear any ideas you may have.

Hiding unjustified stress from your team

Someone said to me today...

"You hide stress really well."

I thought of all of the people in my life that would disagree with that statement, and then, I realized that I do act differently at the office.

Don't misunderstand me. I do try to be vulnerable and honest with my team at all times, but I also strive to guard them from the sky-is-falling types. If my team knows I am concerned, they may lose confidence in our work or in the company as a whole.

For this reason, I try to expose my stress only when I am 100% certain there is a real problem.

Steve Jobs once said...

"Remembering that you are going to die is a sure fire way to remind yourself that you have nothing to lose."

I prefer that my teams think this way.

Don't ignore the risks, but don't run away from them either.

If a team has a leader that is constantly in panic mode, no risks will be taken, no one will focus on mitigating risks, and innovation will die.

How's that for a doom a gloom viewpoint?

Grizzlies lost last night, but our team won!

Last night, Decade Software teams from all departments gathered their families and made another trek to Chukchansi Park for an all-you-can-eat BBQ outing.

The Fresno Grizzlies lost to the Portland Beavers, 4-2, but the July temperatures were lower than expected, allowing a good time to be had by all.

I wanted to thank Kevin for funding the event and to thank all who attended for coming out and supporting the DSC team.

Thanks! It was a blast.

How not to hire a developer

This is from a job posting I found on the net...

"Knowledge of agile development methodologies (e.g. SCRUM, RUP).
A BS/MS degree in Computer Science or related technical field is required...One of our guiding principles is no meetings across the team one day a week—great for heads down work and potentially where you do your best work."

This is a place I would never work.

Let's look at the problems individually...

"Knowledge of agile development methodologies (e.g. SCRUM, RUP)."

Any shop that thinks that Scrum is an acronym and that this project management tact somehow equates to the Rationale Unified Process development methodology has no idea how to succeed.

"A BS/MS degree in Computer Science is required."

This requirement has always been one of my favorites, and my perspective on the issue is likely to offend many among you.

Fireside Chat provokes Spooky Actions

Yesterday, I received a nice note from Michael DeWitt...

"HL, I heard your Fireside Chat with Lisa Haneberg and was very impressed with what you had to say.  I decided to check out your blog, which is great.  I was particularly taken with your Agile / Scrum / HueyLong post.  It's probably in my top 10 all time in the blogosphere, because it was entertaining and right on the money!"

Michael also pointed me to a related article on his rather famous blog, Spooky Action. If you liked my Hipopalorum and Lopopahirum post, I recommend checking out Michael's take on the subject as well.