Over the years I have embarked on many efforts to ensure I had the right skills and right capabilities within the teams I have lead. Often times I had been moved into an organization or inherited a team through mergers and acquisitions that went through a period of time of discovery. Time was spent trying to gauge who knew what they were doing, and who was really good at baffling the crowds with their BS. I have called it different names and or designed the process to work differently depending on the situation, but it always had some basic repeatable tenants. Assessment, Statement, Evaluation, Feedback, and Roadmap. Failing back to my Marine Corps ways, lets call it the enterprise 5 Paragraph Order of Organizational Alignment, and assign then the acronym, ASEFR.
So before I begin explaining each segment, why am I even bringing this up, might be a great place to start. Periodically there are transformations that we must undertake in our IT organizations to ensure we are ready to meet the changing needs of the business. We get enamored all the time by technology, but its only when technology is applied that we have any hope of beating the expectations of our end users, and meeting the scale needs of the business. We did this when we left mainframes to open systems, and again to virtualized and now cloud systems. We have done this through different software languages and architectures. Today we are again on the edge of what needs to be pervasive across all of our applications, and that is the integration of social media constructs. Companies are facing competitive pressure to engage with their customers in whatever means requested, and not confine them to just the phone or email. I can remember a time, when we had the 'Unix team' or 'Web team' in IT, but then over time, eventually everyone was expected to have these tools in their bag in order to be effective. I would contend we are at that point today for social media, but the question is where do you start, and hence my ASEFR plan. (that acronym is coming in handy now, huh?) I am also a big fan of not waiting until the business asks you if you are ready, but rather plan ahead, and be sure when you are called upon, you are able to execute against their needs.
Assessment - In this phase I am usually assessing the architectures of the applications and topologies of the underlying infrastructure required to support my enterprise, both legacy and in the foreseeable future. Changes underway today are certainly around what cloud platforms might you be adopting, what external and internal gates or measures do you have for social media, and more importantly what are your operations on the business side ready to absorb, and take advantage of. Its not sufficient to think of the social media engagement team as your target user, rather they should be the evangelists for how to drive this behavior across every function, from sales, to marketing to customer care. So what new skills do you need in IT to ensure you are ready.
Statement - Be CLEAR to your team. I hate 'wishy washy', and that is why this is one of my favorite parts. By job title, I lay out what is expected as it relates to these skills. Do you simply need to be familiar with these technologies, or are you expected to be able to teach a course on the subject matter if required. In any case, I don't worry about where people are at this point. This is a chance to set the bar, and be clear about what it takes to succeed. I always talk about it like a roadmap. You might know where you want to go, and if you can read a map, there are usually many ways to get where you are going, and those routes, might be as distinct and individual as the people you are leading. Let them decide which they want to accomplish first, but have confidence in their ability to rise to the occasion and plan what is best for themselves. In my experience, people will surprise you in this business, as they love to learn.
Evaluation - This is where is starts to get a little more difficult. Here you have to be ready to put a stake in the ground and claim who is going to be the judge, of where a persons skills lie. Hopefully, you are able to leverage your management for this. As Managers and leaders it is what they should be doing all the time. A former boss of mine, once said, your job is no longer to be the expert, but rather to pick and choose who the experts are.
Feedback - As Managers and leaders we are bound to evaluate job performance all the time, so I like this to be lead by my managers, but they have to be consistent, and getting that alignment is part of the magic of good camaraderie and leadership. This also sets the benchmark for the individual so they are as aware as they can be about what it takes to succeed, and how much ground they may need to cover to be ready for that next role, or in some cases to get caught up with their current role.
Roadmap - The evaluation and feedback loop can't be a one time thing. For this to be successful, it should be revisited at least twice a year, and people need validation that they are making progress, and that what you said was important last time is still important today. This is also the point I like to ensure the team member tells their manager about what they want to accomplish by the next period of evaluation. This is the personalization part, and we all know that the plans or commitments we personalize are the ones we are most likely to accomplish.
Assessment - In this phase I am usually assessing the architectures of the applications and topologies of the underlying infrastructure required to support my enterprise, both legacy and in the foreseeable future. Changes underway today are certainly around what cloud platforms might you be adopting, what external and internal gates or measures do you have for social media, and more importantly what are your operations on the business side ready to absorb, and take advantage of. Its not sufficient to think of the social media engagement team as your target user, rather they should be the evangelists for how to drive this behavior across every function, from sales, to marketing to customer care. So what new skills do you need in IT to ensure you are ready.
Statement - Be CLEAR to your team. I hate 'wishy washy', and that is why this is one of my favorite parts. By job title, I lay out what is expected as it relates to these skills. Do you simply need to be familiar with these technologies, or are you expected to be able to teach a course on the subject matter if required. In any case, I don't worry about where people are at this point. This is a chance to set the bar, and be clear about what it takes to succeed. I always talk about it like a roadmap. You might know where you want to go, and if you can read a map, there are usually many ways to get where you are going, and those routes, might be as distinct and individual as the people you are leading. Let them decide which they want to accomplish first, but have confidence in their ability to rise to the occasion and plan what is best for themselves. In my experience, people will surprise you in this business, as they love to learn.
Evaluation - This is where is starts to get a little more difficult. Here you have to be ready to put a stake in the ground and claim who is going to be the judge, of where a persons skills lie. Hopefully, you are able to leverage your management for this. As Managers and leaders it is what they should be doing all the time. A former boss of mine, once said, your job is no longer to be the expert, but rather to pick and choose who the experts are.
Feedback - As Managers and leaders we are bound to evaluate job performance all the time, so I like this to be lead by my managers, but they have to be consistent, and getting that alignment is part of the magic of good camaraderie and leadership. This also sets the benchmark for the individual so they are as aware as they can be about what it takes to succeed, and how much ground they may need to cover to be ready for that next role, or in some cases to get caught up with their current role.
Roadmap - The evaluation and feedback loop can't be a one time thing. For this to be successful, it should be revisited at least twice a year, and people need validation that they are making progress, and that what you said was important last time is still important today. This is also the point I like to ensure the team member tells their manager about what they want to accomplish by the next period of evaluation. This is the personalization part, and we all know that the plans or commitments we personalize are the ones we are most likely to accomplish.
