When Your Employees Know More Than You

Written by: Marshall Goldsmith

Managing today's highly skilled professionals takes special skills — and not the ones that you may think. Oftentimes, knowledge workers know more than you do about their jobs. So, how do you manage people who know more about what they do than you do?

In such instances, you have to look at leadership through the wants and needs of the worker as opposed to the skills of the leader. Here are some quick tips for effectively managing knowledge workers.

Demonstrate passion
In days past, working 40 hours per week and taking 4-5 weeks of vacation meant that people often focused less on loving what they do. Today people work 60-80 hours a week and it's crucial that they love their work to avoid burnout. Those who lead by example and demonstrate passion for what they do make it much easier for their followers to do the same.

Strengthen abilities
With less job security and more global competition, it's critical that people update and refine their skills continuously. Leaders need to look beyond skills needed today and help their workers learn skills they will need tomorrow.

Appreciate time
People have less time today, which means the value of that time has increased. Leaders who waste their workers' time are not looked upon favorably. Leaders will be far more successful if they protect people from things that neither encourage their passions nor enhance their abilities.

Build networks
Today, job security comes from having ability, passion, and a great network. Leaders who enable people to form strong networks both inside and outside the company will gain a huge competitive advantage along with the loyalty of their workers. These professional networks allow people to expand their knowledge and bring it back to the organization.

Support growth
The best knowledge workers are working for more than money. They want to make a contribution and to grow in their fields. Leaders who ask their people, "What can our company do to help you grow and achieve your goals?" will find it comes back tenfold.

Expand happiness and meaning
No one wants to work at a meaningless job that makes them unhappy. Leaders must show their workers how the organization can help them make a contribution to the larger world and feel rewarded for doing something about which they are passionate.

Managing knowledge workers is a challenging and rewarding job. Leaders who do so must look beyond the work and think about the person who does the work if they are to be successful. By appreciating and encouraging the dedication, time, and experience of their workers, leaders help shape not only the futures of the professionals they lead but also the future of their organizations.

muskhpuri

This place is an aboslute heaven on earth. A must go for everyone living in Islamabad. The trek starts from Nathia Gali near Shangrila resorts and goes all the way up. Its around 3 hours. The trek is fairly safe as compared to others I have been on. It can get slippery if its raining so I would recommend carrying a walking stick.

Operating Models of IT in an Organization

Came across this very interesting framework on the four types of operating models when it comes to understanding value IT can play in an organization. The framework developed by Ross and Weill looks models with respect to the standardization and integration it can provide. You can find more details on MIT open course ware.

The CIO's Dilemma

Check out this SlideShare Presentation:

The CIO's Dilemma

View more presentations from Abbie Lundberg.

CodeSOD: Check Digit Check

CodeSOD: Check Digit Check: "

Seen any absurdly bad code lately? Send it on in!

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Anne K has worked in the direct mail industry for almost twenty years, and has seen a bazillion ways to put names and addresses onto paper. One thing that's common across all mailing houses is that, in order to get discounts from the postal service, a postal barcode must be printed on every piece of mail. The barcode is made up of the ZIP code, the ZIP+4 code, and a couple more digits indicating (often) the house number. There's also a check digit on the bar code, which is calculated by adding up all the digits of the barcode, modding the result by 10, and then subtracting from 10. So, if all the digits of the barcode add up to 39, (10 - (9 mod 10)) leaves a result of 1.

It couldn't be simpler, right? It takes a teeny little loop and a mod. At least, that's what Anne thought. When she was doing developer training at a certain mailhouse, she just happened to be looking into the program that printed a simple name and address block on the piece. Curious as to why it was thousands of lines of code, she dove in and saw this.

counter=0;
if (zipcode >= 34200 AND zipcode <= 34299){
 zzipcode = zipcode - 34200
 counter = counter + 3 + 4 + 2;
}

if (zipcode >= 34600 AND zipcode <= 34799){
 zzipcode = zipcode - 34600
 if (zzipcode > 99){
   counter = counter + 1
 }
 counter = counter + 3 + 4 + 6;
}

... snip ...

if (zzipcode < 10){
 counter = counter + zzipcode;
}
if (zzipcode = 10) counter = counter + 1
if (zzipcode = 20) counter = counter + 2
if (zzipcode = 30) counter = counter + 3
if (zzipcode = 40) counter = counter + 4
... snip ...
if (zzipcode = 98) counter = counter + 17
if (zzipcode = 99) counter = counter + 18

Naturally, this is just a small subsection of the code (with proper indentation added). The original programmer apparently didn't realize there were math or, at the very least, string manipulation functions.

As for the most wondrous thing about this program? The coder took special care to find out exactly what ZIP code ranges aren't used by the postal service, so as to avoid unnecessary coding for those ranges.

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