Follow the Leader?
March 25, 2008
More and more in today’s spin zones, trade magazines, training classes, and blogs, a focus on leadership continues to grow - a trait that many feel everyone must be good at. While this is not necessarily a bad thing, there’s becoming a more and more noticeable lack of focus on what it takes to be a good follower. After all, if no one’s following, why lead?
Leadership demands great capacity for learning, communication, discipline, humility, vision, execution, initiative, and host of other characteristics and traits bantered about by today’s leadership “gurus”. All of which are good and essential, to one degree or another. Interestingly enough, these same traits are essential to good followership as well. Think about it. As a leader, don’t you look for people to be a part of your team that have these traits? I certainly do!
Another way to look at leaders and followers is to consider that our leaders today are actually followers too. Think about it for minute, the VP’s unto the SVP’s, unto the C-level, unto the board of directors, unto the people (public company example). So while the SVP for business development is certainly in a leadership role, they’re following someone higher up on the corporate ladder.
Is there a difference between leaders and followers? Absolutely. Is everyone in a leadership position, absolutely not. Is everyone in a state of followership, absolutely.
I believe that in order to be a great leader, one must be a great follower. And since we’re all followers to one degree or another, who better to place responsibility on for the development of followers than on ourselves! Confusing? Not really. It’s a state of reality that we too often choose to ignore, especially if we’re already in a “leadership” position.
So what then can be said about good followership? Well in today’s media, the hyper-competitive market, Wall Street, you name it, not very much is said about being a good follower. Why is this? I’ll argue that much of it stems from humanity’s inner will to appear stronger, smarter, “better” than the next person. Our own egos. Admit it, we’re all afraid of embarrassment. Maybe we think that we won’t make enough money simply being a good follower (…don’t forget the SVP example above). The list goes on…..
How then can we make a difference? By becoming better examples to others in our current follower roles. Some spin this as “Managing up” or “Leading your boss”. Call it anything you want, bottom line is most of us have as much room for improvement as we have to offer others. Without attempting to pull together an exhaustive step-by-step recipe for success, let me suggest a few principles to guide us.
Start by recognizing that everyone’s (including you) following something/someone. There’s our (your) baseline.
Next, place yourselves in the position, for example, of wanting to get a promotion, a raise, etc. (this shouldn’t be hard to do) How would you go about getting that? Would supporting your boss be a good start? I would think so. What can you do better, different, more of, less of? Sorry, no hints here, you all know these answers.
Next… put your ego on the shelf. Pride cometh before the fall.
The Journey. We must ask ourselves what is the true purpose of being a good follower or leader. The Whats, the Whys, the Where To’s…. To what do we aspire? Is there an end? Is it just money? Hopefully not. I say it’s a journey…one on which we’re all traveling. Becoming an effective follower or leader is a journey….the journey is about people working together in many different roles to achieve a worthy ideal. To cultivate others, to learn, to live, to perform, to decide, to take risks, to laugh. When we focus our time talents and energies here, leaders will emerge, followers will rise up, and there”ll be no end to the possibilities that we can achieve. This is the paradigm shift we all can help make happen.
Go and make a difference,
John
Sphere: Related ContentLUCRUM in The News…
March 21, 2008
If you happened to pick up the March 21st edition of the Cincinnati Business Courier, you might have read an article about LUCRUM. The article outlines some of the highs and lows that we experienced in 2007, and goes on to talk about some of our future plans for growth. The great thing about having a company blog is that I can immediately share my feedback on the article as part of our ongoing conversation - one that you are welcome to join by placing comments below.
There is only so much information that can be published in a 1/4 page article, so I will elaborate more on it here. LUCRUM is very excited about our partnership with Diane Egbers of Leadership Excelleration Inc (mentioned in the article). Diane has been working with the senior managemnt team to develop a 5 year strategy to address some of the shortcomings mentioned in the article. With her assistance, LUCRUM has made changes to both personnel and policies in an effort to become more nimble and better able to serve the emerging needs of our clients. This effort began in late 2007, and we are already seeing positive results. The Business Development Group has added 4 senior members in the last 4 months, and will be joined by another new member next week. We are not stopping there. Look for LUCRUM to add Business Development personnel in the coming weeks. Along with the new Business Development team members, comes new opportunites and clients. LUCRUM has engaged 10 new clients in the past several months, and is working on exciting data warehousing and business intelligence projects. In addition, we continue to leverage our partnership with Salesforce.com, as we are Cincinnati’s only certified Salesforce provider. The new marketing team led by David E. Bowman, is making great strides in changing our approach to Marketing. We are shifting from the traditional approach of marketing as a monologue to engaging the world in a dialog. My invitation above, seeking comments on this post, is a direct result of that shift in mindset. David is bringing in great young talent like Greg Levine, a recent Xavier graduate, to help further his efforts.
Not only are we investing heavily in restructuring our Business Development Team and Marketing Department, but our Delivery Organization, led by Jodie Heflin, is focusing on providing world class technical solutions for our clients. LUCRUM does not take client satisfaction lightly. In fact, we view it as the key to our future growth and success. Jodie and her team have worked hard to address the systemic problems that led to the issues listed in the Business Courier article. Since her tenure as leader of the Delivery Organization began in September 2007, LUCRUM has been delivering a level of service that is unmatched in the industry.
Ultimately, LUCRUM is a company that is about people. With Andy Erickson as the leader of our talent acquisition effort, LUCRUM is hiring the best and the brightest to join us in our goal of creating world class technical solutions. Be sure to check the People section in future editions of the Business Courier, as I plan on having new hires to LUCRUM making regular appearances there.
In summary, while not all of the information about LUCRUM in the article was positive, the negative information it contains is a part of our past. These problems have been dealt with. We have moved forward. And ultimately we are now a stronger company as a result. We have amazing people, a renewed sense of purpose, and a strategy for success. LUCRUM is focused on the future, and in the spirit of the 2008 theme for the Business Development kickoff meeting in Florida, “the future’s so bright we’ve gotta wear shades.”
Thanks to Laura Baverman for thinking enough of our company to write about us. I have attached a link to the article here. I hope you give it a look. Even more, I hope you will leave your thoughts on the article in the comments below.
Sphere: Related ContentGiving Back
March 19, 2008
The purpose of this post is twofold. First, I want to use this platform to promote an upcoming charitable event that I am involved in organizing. It is a pancake breakfast that is going to be held this Saturday, March 22nd, at F&S Harley Davidson in Dayton, Ohio. The event is being held to raise money for the Epilepsy Foundation of Western Ohio, a group with which I am proud to be involved. It is going to be from 8:00am to 11:00am. It should be great fun, and if you are interested in finding out more or RSVP’ing for the event - visit PancakesPancakes.com I hope you can join the fun and contribute to a great cause in the process.
More importantly is the second purpose of my post, which is to talk about how rewarding it is to work at a place that encourages employees to get involved in making the community better. During my short time here at LUCRUM, I have been encouraged to continue my work with the Epilepsy Foundation. Many of my co-workers have gotten involved as well. It has been very moving to get such an overwhelmingly positive response from people whom I just recently met. Many are even getting up early on Saturday morning - sacrificing free time - to come to Dayton for the pancake breakfast. Pretty amazing. What’s more, shortly after starting here, I learned that LUCRUM is actively involved with supporting the Epilepsy Foundation here in Cincinnati - a coincidence that made me feel even better about my choice to come to work here. From the Fine Arts Fund to the Boy Scouts to countless other community organizations, we demonstrate our commitment by contributing time, money, and effort to the cause.
Some will ask “Does this take away from profitable, billable time?” Yes, of course. However, the value of giving far outweighs the cost of some billable hours here and there. It adds meaning to our work and out lives. This is something that makes our company unique. I am thankful to senior management for their commitment to the community, and their willingness to let everyone make a difference. I appreciate it, and I just wanted to let you know. Not only to I love the work I get to do, I am proud of where I get do it.
Sphere: Related ContentData … as a Service
March 18, 2008
It seems that IT is in a permanent state of flux - we just left this old technology/ methodology/ philosophy, currently we are jazzed about this new way of doing things - most likely we are in the middle of an implementation of the new cool thing… And we are seeing on the horizon even better things! However, there is one thing in common - things are getting better, faster and cheaper. The economy is shaped by competition and the competition is fierce - We need to carve out opportunity before our competition does?
So, I am wondering why we still continue to invest in, maintain and support email. With all the ‘email as a service’ models out there, it seems that we are set to outsource this function to the specialists. Personally, I have a Gmail account. Why not ride on Google’s checkbook for a bit. Sure, there are trade offs and we need to look at them. As time goes by, ROI will drive us the other way.
While we are at it, when are we going to chuck our expensive office products for free open source products. Again, at some point, we would do well to jump in and capitalize on this opportunity. I can throw some open source development tools and databases out there while I am at it. But, my real point is data….data as a service.
I was chatting with John Wheeler, a senior data architect at The Kroger Co. recently and we thought this through. Yeah, of course we are putting our livelihood at risk, but it’s going to come down to this sooner or later. The magic is in the model. Canonical models form the foundation of the business. They must both support the business now and be able to take us where we need to go. We have really smart people doing really great things here. That’s not the commodity. What is the commodity is taking this conceptual work and generating the physical environment, optimizing it and maintaining it - Yawn!
Why not put our energies into the important things and just throw that model over the wall and have Google implement it. Competition will deliver capability. Think about it - we focus at the enterprise level on the business, providing business value, looking at risks and adjusting to the competition. While we are delivering solutions, we indicate what is or should be master data, how it relates to our business. We trigger the capturing of meta data and render the delivery method - then throw it over the wall. Meanwhile, the data as a service folks get better and better at their offerings and we are off to think about better things!
Just thinking out loud….DaaS!
~ Scott Felten
Sphere: Related ContentCrisis Management and Data - Do You Have a Plan?
March 18, 2008
Recently, I attended a sales and marketing luncheon put on by the Cincinnati Chamber of Commerce. The topic was crisis management. It was a very good presentation featuring speakers from GameDay Communications and P&G. They spoke mostly about traditional disasters, and how to deal with them - offering some great tips for managing a crisis. First was “have a plan.” What will you and your team do if a crisis emerges. This got me thinking about what we do here at LUCRUM and how “crisis” has evolved in the digital age. What would happen if you have a “digital” crisis list this one from today’s Wall Street Journal:
Grocery-store chains Hannaford Bros. and Sweetbay, both owned by Belgium’s Delhaize Group SA, reported a credit-card data breach, exposing 4.2 million cards to potential fraudulent charges.
Stories like this don’t conjure up the vivid imagery associated with more traditional crisis situations (hostages, plane crashes, robbery, injury), and as a result they often go overlooked. None the less, they can destroy people’s lives and companies reputations forever. In this digital age, with companies having more and more data about customers and citizens on file, having a plan for how to deal with this type of potential crisis is critical. Will your company offer credit restoration services to clients? Will you bring this to the attention of the media? Will you go beyond that to take measures to stop repeat events from occuring? Will you do something to salvage your customer relationships?
Even more critical than having a plan for what you do after this happens is is the idea of having a plan to keep this from happening at all. What are you doing to secure your data? What is your plan? An ounce of prevention…
Sphere: Related ContentAre People the Answer? Not Necessarily…
March 17, 2008
Happy St. Patty’s Day. We owe much of our country’s early infrastructure development to the large group of Irish immigrants that came over in the 1800’s. Masses of capable workers were the solution to getting the canals, railroads, and roads built in this country over a century ago. My wife’s family is Irish. She’s the 6th of 10 kids and has quite a nice family. In the 1800’s “people” were the answer to most economic growth initiatives. Nowadays, I’m not so sure that’s still the answer.
In a March 4th article in the Dayton Business Journal (Dayton, Ohio….the one team that should have made it into the NCAA March Madness and didn’t) there’s an article that quotes Robert Half, the Menlo Park, California-based IT Staffing firm, that shows Ohio has a robust hiring plan in IT for 2008. By polling CIO’s at Ohio-based Headquarters of large firms, they see a “fertile job market” where 10% of them are predicting adding staff in Cincinnati while 4% are predicting staff reductions. There’s other cities mentioned as well that show an increase in hiring people into IT. I have a problem with the very concept the article was written on. It’s really a “nothing article” since IT isn’t about “how many people are in your organization” but rather how are you increasing productivity of your end users, your vendors, your clients! We are in a race to add more computing power unleashing the power of DATA. Everyone defaults their focus on IT meaning Technology and thus, Technology is taken care of by PEOPLE. Then we talk about “how many people are in your organization?” as if one has an army of talent to lead into battle in the world economy…not so, from my viewpoint. The article didn’t say what the other 86% of the CIO’s are doing in the Cincinnati market??? The stronger companies are focusing on creating collaborative environments where the power of INFORMATION and not TECHNOLOGY is the key to their value proposition.Nick Carr in his recent book The Big Switch is espousing that the IT world is going to change significantly one more time. This metamorphosis is going to close down separate Data Centers just like the industrial revolution 100 years ago reallocated individual power generation dynamo’s into a centralized power generation model shared through the electric grid. In their case, the grid had to be built after the centralized power generation facilities went up. In our case, the grid is the Internet and all of that fiber that started to be laid 10 years ago and is now providing huge bandwidth. Centralized data centers needed centralized people to run the physical aspects of them. Frankly, the logical attributes are virtualized just in the same manner the centralized data centers’ hardware and processing infrastructure are being virtualized. Everything from developing logical architecture (SOA), application requirements, application development and testing, and even managing all of the databases once in production can be done “anywhere, anytime, by anyone.” People are certainly needed and yet, processes are even more important. For maximum productivity, the people shouldn’t be in Ohio. Let’s be frank. The people should be where the processes are most mature and their costs become the lowest common denominator (read: Asia although our falling dollar may make other places and even the US more competitive). By providing computing power “just in time” with managed services on a “just in time” basis as well, there isn’t much of a need for an IT organization. Perhaps we rename IT the “Processes and Measures Services Organization.” Even the word “Information” is not needed since Information is an assumed need every time!
Ironically, Robert Half does have a division called Provititi whose main services offerings are centered around “Processes and Measures!!!” Now that’s cool! So, next time, I hope the Dayton Business Journal writes a story about Productivity Improvement measures for the Ohio-based companies! (I would be happy to serve as a source.)
Move Forward One Step…
March 16, 2008
As we continue to experience the global economic correction in the US economy, we hear about the perfect storm: inflation, recession, credit markets becoming unbelievably tight, and the general struggle with the value of the dollar. Day after day, this is all we hear, and yet, if you read a lot of financial performance news, you understand that many companies are at or ahead of their forecasts and the economy is more sound. Who’s right?
What you can’t do is bury yourself in the sand. “No action” tends to be the less-than-optimal solution, for sure. “Back to the basics” theory historically says, “one step at a time” and you’ll have a lot of progress in anything you try to accomplish.
It is the same way for the world of Fine Arts. Cincinnati, Ohio, has historically made an economic name for itself as a predominant manufacturing economy. It is more likely that a person outside of this area knows Cincinnati as a sports town with the Cincinnati Reds and the Cincinnati Bengals. In fact, Cincinnati is really a “Fine Arts” town. At the center of the Fine Arts is the Cincinnati “Fine Arts Fund.” It is distinguished by having the oldest arts fund in the United States. Founded by the esteemed Charles Taft in 1923, the fund has continued to grow and prosper supporting hundreds of fine arts organizations and programs over the years.
Did you know that a lot of IT professionals are also artists? I know several that are musicians and still play in bands. Others are artists using paint and other medium. We once even had a former ballet dancer as a client-server developer! I’m a brass guy (trumpet) that now is constantly playing jazz on my Gibson Les Paul guitar. On this last week’s business trip to New York, I crashed in on Stanley Jordan at the Iridium Jazz Club, one of my favorite hideouts in New York. Stanley is still young looking and fresh. In fact, he told me afterwards that he’s 48 and playing as well as ever. I purchased a CD from him that I have never heard of before: “Relaxing Music for Difficult Situations.” It’s a 60-minute jazz guitar solo. Perhaps we play it for our economy!!!
LÛCRUM continues to be a great supporter of philanthropic causes in the greater Cincinnati community. This year, LÛCRUM is proud to participate in our first Fine Arts Fund Campaign. As you may or may not know, the Fine Arts Organization is also one of our clients. In addition to being a client of LÛCRUM, the Fine Arts Fund (FAF) does wonderful work within the Cincinnati community and throughout the region supporting more than 95 arts organizations, promoting the arts, and developing outreach programs to thousands of area schoolchildren.
Recently, LÛCRUM and the Fine Arts Fund co-hosted an “IT Entrepreneur Leadership Networking Event” late last month with Chris Hjelm, CIO, of Kroger, as the guest speaker. Chris’ talent outside of being an IT executive, is that he’s a weekend chef. Cherry pies, chili, and other delights can be found at the Hjelm residence.
LÛCRUM put a lot of time and effort into making this year’s campaign as well as making a modest monetary commitment. From a time and effort contribution, I am committed to doing as much as possible to support the FAF in their efforts to reach the $12 million goal set for the 2008 Campaign.
Did you know that if you give a personal gift this year of $75 or more, you get to receive the “Fine Arts Fun Card.” This discount card allows you to enjoy the arts and save money at the same time! There are even more benefits for donors at the $150 and $500 levels in 2008. Please go to
Breathe deep and keep taking “another step!”
Sphere: Related ContentApplying Exponential Principles to Personal Growth
March 14, 2008
I recently had an opportunity to listen in as our CEO, John Bostick, spoke to and fielded questions from Xavier Professor Tim Kloppenborg’s project management class. John captures an audience’s attention with his wisdom and propensity for great story telling. And he’s not afraid to share the hard lessons of his experience founding and running multiple multi-million-dollar businesses. This talk, although about project management and the trade offs of time, scope, and budget, hit so many inherently valuable life principles.
John reads voraciously. I’ve known this. Over my four years at LUCRUM I’ve listened to John apply lessons to his life and our business taken from content that he’s read and shared with us. Today I found the source of his motivation.
John described a very simple principle that he called the principle of exponents. I’m not sure that’s the clearest title, but the concept became as clear as day as he explained it. In essence, the principle is that if you spend 15 minutes each day improving yourself you will become exponentially stronger in character, will, knowledge, and understanding than the average person over time. Not that your goal is to be better than the next guy, but to become a generally stronger person with more to give.
John broke it down like this. If the average person can read, say, a bit less than a page a minute, then in 15 minutes that person can read about 12 pages. If the average book is about 350 pages long, then a person can read about a book a month. That is 12 books a year. Read three books purely for entertainment purposes (because all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy). Read three personal growth books, like Covey’s 7 Habits, or Dale Carnegie’s How to Win Friends and Influence People. And then read 6 books about the business and profession you’ve built your career on. 12 books a year, every year, and you will have come a long, long way in a relatively short amount of time.
Then John graphed the principle on the chalkboard, and it looked something like this:
At point 1, both person A and person B graduate from college and enter the workforce. The graphs measure personal growth over time as the two people apply growth principles and life lessons learned. Person A out of the gate begins reading about his business and profession, networking into relationships that will help forward his career, takes entrepreneurial chances and learns some great lessons. Person B doesn’t.
Clearly, with the passage of time, person A experiences personal growth at a rate that far exceeds person B. 10 or 15 years down the line we might look at person A (point 2) and talk about how lucky that person has been in his life and career because we’re looking at a point in time. If we look at history, though, person A established a pattern on day-1 that guaranteed the trajectory of personal growth if it didn’t all but guarantee personal success.
And all that from just 15 minutes a day.
Tell us: how much do you read? How do you apply habits to guarantee personal growth? We’d love to hear about them.
- Andy
Sphere: Related ContentExcellence Without Exception - 2008 Heath Care Conference Recap
March 13, 2008
Last week I attended the Greater Cincinnati Health Council 12th Annual Health Conference & Expo, where LUCRUM was an exhibitor. The theme of the conference “SOLUTIONS 2008 EXCELLENCE WITHOUT EXCEPTION,” and the event was very well attended. This was LUCRUM’s 2nd year as an exhibitor, and my first year working the booth.
Attendance at our booth was GREAT the whole day! I spent the day meeting and speaking with a variety of healthcare personnel discussing Healthcare and IT. There was a lot of talk about the unique challenges that Health Care organizations face in implementing and capitalizing on Information Technology to reduce costs and improve the patient experience. This was a huge opportunity for LUCRUM to get recognized and educate attendees on our capabilities. We handed out dozens of invitations to our upcoming webinar - 5 Simple Steps to IT Health. I am looking forward to hearing my colleague, Marlene Schrand, give this presentation next week, as I know that she will deliver 30 minutes of insightful information.
As for the seminar, The LUCRUM Logo Triangle Highlighters and Globe Stress Balls were a hot item! Talk about getting your name out there where it hasn’t been before! LUCRUM Globe Stress Balls will be flying around Hospital ER’s, Conference Rooms and Nurses Stations for quite a while! Hopefully they don’t result in any new admissions or ER visits.
These regional industry conferences are a great way to make contact with a large number of prospective clients and re-enforce our commitment to current clients. I look forward to representing LUCRUM in future conferences. It is encouraging and exciting when I see our Sales, Delivery, and Marketing departments work so well together at these events.
To register for the March 20 webinar, simply visit the Contact LUCRUM page here on the site. I hope you will join us.
Sphere: Related Content30 Minutes
March 13, 2008
For those of you who managed to get to Orlando for the HIMSS08 conference, you know one of the important topics was how to make IT projects successful within Healthcare. But when it comes right down to a practical, ‘how do you really do this’ plan – where do you start? So I’ve put together a ‘to the point’ webinar to discuss 5 key steps you need to take when implementing a new IT system. And you’ll probably be surprised to find that none of those steps have anything to do with technology – it’s all about people, process, and planning. Get that right and you’re 80% of the way there. So please join me for 30 minutes – (that’s it – I promise!). It will be time well spent.
To Register simply visit the Contact LÛCRUM page and select register for webinar.
Sphere: Related ContentLatest Headlines
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Recent Comments
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