When managers don't notice the little things

Earlier today I had a situation which has created some, shall we say, distrust with a person in an upper-level management position. Distrust may be too strong of a word, but they at least rubbed me the wrong way. We'll look at this as a teaching/learning moment in management skills: noticing when people do the little things.

For the past six or seven months, I have been a member of the IT Planning committee, a weekly gathering of managers in IT to discuss all projects that are submitted to IT. It's a comprehensive group of people, with members and decision-makers representing each of the IT departments, as well as IT Leadership. The room in which we meet has a large table with a dozen leather chairs, and about a dozen other stacked mesh bottom chairs. I always arrive at 8:00am for this 8:30 meeting (my personal office is across campus, so I just go to the meeting at the start of my day and go through email). Since I'm always the first to arrive, I unstack the chairs and place them around the room, because we fill up every seat, every week. For the past month, I have led this meeting as the facilitator, and as such, make sure that all of the chairs are unstacked and positioned.

Except this week, I had not gotten to it yet. Whether it was my bruised ribs, or dislocated shoulder from the weekend, it was 8:15 and I had not gotten the chairs out. There is no rule on this committee as to who is supposed to unstack the chairs... people usually grab them as they come in. This one manager walked in, and began unstacking the chairs, making a comment on how this other manager (who was sitting in the room working at their computer) and myself had not done this, and that they were going to do this so no one would have to cause a commotion and interrupt the meeting when they arrived and tried to find a seat. There was inference that we should help this person, or should have already done this, and that they were doing something extraordinary by unstacking the chairs. Somewhat disturbed, I commented that for the past three months, I had come in early and unstacked all the chairs before the meeting, but had not gotten to it yet this week. Their response was, 'Well, if you say so, but last week the chairs were all stacked up,' as they continued to unstack the chairs with attitude.

I can assure you that last week, and the week prior (and all the weeks back several months) the chairs were unstacked and available for people to use. This nonchalant comment got a rise out of me, but then I realized: the reason they are saying this is because they never noticed that the chairs were unstacked, until they were left stacked. In essence, people do not notice a thing until it is not done. By unstacking the chairs every week, no one noticed, but the week that they are left stacked, suddenly they have always been stacked.

As a manager, people need to pay attention to the little things. Why did I unstack the chairs every week? Mostly because I arrived to the room early and once the meeting began I did not want there to be interruptions behind me with people getting chairs. Maybe I did it so that one day it would be recognized, and I could take comfort in someone noticing that I had done one little thing to make our meeting start more efficiently. But now, a manager in a high position had just called me out, not believing, caring, or even thanking me, but rather in attitude and voice, saying that something I did... never happened.

And that is what managers need to be careful about. We need to take notice when our staff do things, no matter the size. We need to provide recognition to these small things, so that the staff will continue to do the small things. What we don't need is to not believe or blow off their small things, and put them into a position where they don't think they are valued. Even something as small as unstacking chairs...

An inside hiring job

I recently read an article that stated 75 to 80% of all hiring done in late 2009 and early 2010 was done internally. In short... for all of those positions that are opened, three-fourths were filled by an internal candidate. While this does not sound good for the unemployed, it is also not ideal for the currently employed. There are reasons that people are hired within, so let's take a look at some pros and cons.

Why do companies hire within? Quite simply, to retain their employees. If someone is performing exceptionally and a position is opened at the next level, a promotion is in the works. Normally a company will be required by HR to post the open position, regardless of whether an internal candidate is slated for the job. On the downside (for society and those looking for work), this creates a false sense of hope. A person who is completely and overly qualified for the position, submits their resume, believing that this could be the position to get them back on track. They were born for this position. Little do they realize that the company already has their person, in-house, with no need for additional training or needing to get up-to-speed; no having to set up email accounts, or get them access into restricted areas, do paperwork or payroll submission, no background checks, possibly not even having to move their office, purchase new computers or equipment... all of the things that would have to happen should this position go to someone outside of the company wall.

Companies will do this to consolidate and save money as well. What happens to the position of the person who was just moved/promoted? Is that position now open for hiring? Not exactly. Companies will take that position and never refill it, instead spreading the work of that employee among the remaining staff in that area. This does not always happen, but it is a good cost saving measure for the company. That is one less salary plus benefits, one less computer to buy, office to fill with a person (more space for other projects), but the company still gets the same work or productivity.

However, you cannot get discouraged. Certainly, I have been on the bad end of this, getting a rejection email stating that the position was filled internally. But at least once, I was the outside applicant, who got the job over the person who was slated to fill the position. Between two finalists, an insider and myself (the outsider), it came down to the interview, presentation and the ideas that I brought from seeing the situation from the outside. And that is sometimes what is important: a fresh view on the situation. If you can convince the company that one of your greatest assets is your vision without knowing the history, the company will take a greater look at your potential.

NOTE: Some of the above statements behind why companies hire internally vs. externally are speculation on my part. I do not know all the reasons, however these do make sense to me.

Wired Online - 7 reasons to avoid Windows 7

http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2009/08/7-reasons-to-avoid-windows-7/

Yesterday, Wired Online published a piece of '10 Reasons to Upgrade to Windows 7,' which was a decent overview of the upgrades from XP or Vista. By no means was it a glorious profession of 'this is the greatest OS ever!' but it did make a good argument that people should seriously consider the upgrade. And why not? Vista, for as much as people hate it, was a significant upgrade to XP, and if used properly, was all-around better: faster, more secure, a bit flashier.

I have one problem with today's reasons to avoid Windows 7. All of the points made were very logical, from price to some of the installations. However, this stuck out:

"Snow Leopard Is Almost Here
Apple’s next-generation Snow Leopard is arriving September — a month before Windows 7. Apple is promising its OS will deliver on many of the improvements Microsoft highlights in Windows 7 — 64-bit addressing, improved efficiency with task management on multiple processors, and others. It’s undetermined which OS is better, but from my own perspective as a long-time Mac user, I will say I already prefer the current Mac OS X Leopard to Windows 7. If you’re looking (or willing) to switch to a radically different OS, then OS X Snow Leopard is an option to consider before committing to Windows 7."

Seriously? Wired, you should be ashamed. Brian X. Chen, "From my own experience as a long-time Mac user?" Why did you get a long-time, Mac user to write an article about the bad things in Windows? I understand that the person to best see the downside to Windows is a Mac person, but if this is the case, you need to find people who are BIOS (BI-OS, it's a pun, get it?) or tri-OS (throw Linux in there, AND DON'T TELL ME THAT MAC OS IS THE SAME AS LINUX!), and have them write an article. I use Mac and PC (though I am PC dominant, and use Linux second), but I could tell you what's wrong with Windows 7... and tell you what's good about it. I could tell you what's good about OS 10.5, and what's bad about it.

It might be time to start taking this blogging and freelance thing seriously...