Just Add Management: Seven Steps to Creating a Productive Workplace and Motivating Your Employees In Challenging Times

241 Pages·2002·1.51 MB·English

by  Farzad Dibachi

Just Add
Management
Seven Steps to Creating a Productive
Workplace and Motivating Your
Employees in Challenging Times
FARZAD DIBACHI
RHONDA LOVE DIBACHI
McGraw-Hill
New York Chicago San Francisco Lisbon London Madrid
Mexico City Milan New Delhi San Juan Seoul
Singapore Sydney Toronto
Copyright ©2002 by Farzad and Rhonda Love Dibachi. All rights reserved. Manufactured
in the United States of America. Except as permitted under the United States Copyright Act
of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced or distributed in any form or by any
means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the
publisher.
0-07-141687-0
The material in this eBook also appears in the print version of this title: 0-07-140800-2
All trademarks are trademarks of their respective owners. Rather than put a trademark
symbol after every occurrence of a trademarked name, we use names in an editorial fash-
ion only, and to the benefit of the trademark owner, with no intention of infringement of
the trademark. Where such designations appear in this book, they have been printed with
initial caps.
McGraw-Hill eBooks are available at special quantity discounts to use as premiums and
sales promotions, or for use in corporate training programs. For more information, please
contact George Hoare, Special Sales, at [email protected] or (212) 904-
4069.
TERMSOFUSE
This is a copyrighted work and The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. (“McGraw-Hill”) and
its licensors reserve all rights in and to the work. Use of this work is subject to these terms.
Except as permitted under the Copyright Act of 1976 and the right to store and retrieve one
copy of the work, you may not decompile, disassemble, reverse engineer, reproduce, mod-
ify, create derivative works based upon, transmit, distribute, disseminate, sell, publish or
sublicense the work or any part of it without McGraw-Hill’s prior consent. You may use
the work for your own noncommercial and personal use; any other use of the work is strict-
ly prohibited. Your right to use the work may be terminated if you fail to comply with these
terms.
THE WORK IS PROVIDED “AS IS”. McGRAW-HILLAND ITS LICENSORS MAKE
NO GUARANTEES OR WARRANTIES AS TO THE ACCURACY, ADEQUACYOR
COMPLETENESS OF OR RESULTS TO BE OBTAINED FROM USING THE WORK,
INCLUDING ANY INFORMATION THAT CAN BE ACCESSED THROUGH THE
WORK VIAHYPERLINK OR OTHERWISE, AND EXPRESSLYDISCLAIM ANY
WARRANTY, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO
IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITYOR FITNESS FOR APARTICU-
LAR PURPOSE. McGraw-Hill and its licensors do not warrant or guarantee that the func-
tions contained in the work will meet your requirements or that its operation will be unin-
terrupted or error free. Neither McGraw-Hill nor its licensors shall be liable to you or any-
one else for any inaccuracy, error or omission, regardless of cause, in the work or for any
damages resulting therefrom. McGraw-Hill has no responsibility for the content of any
information accessed through the work. Under no circumstances shall McGraw-Hill
and/or its licensors be liable for any indirect, incidental, special, punitive, consequential or
similar damages that result from the use of or inability to use the work, even if any of them
has been advised of the possibility of such damages. This limitation of liability shall apply
to any claim or cause whatsoever whether such claim or cause arises in contract, tort or
otherwise.
DOI: 10.1036/0071416870
We especially want to thank our good friend, Joan Hamilton, for all of
her assistance, encouragement, and advice. She knows, more than anyone else,
that it would not have been possible without her.
This page intentionally left blank.
For more information about this title, click here.
Contents
Foreword by William J. Raduchel, CTO of AOL Time Warner vii
Acknowledgments ix
Introduction: The Myth of “It” 1
Chapter 1: The Knowledge Work Murk 7
Chapter 2: Getting the Basics Straight 27
Chapter 3: Inspiring and Rewarding Employees 41
Chapter 4: The Vision Thing 61
Chapter 5: Doing What Matters 75
Chapter 6: Figuring Out How to Do It Right Every Time 95
Chapter 7: Progress Tracking 123
Chapter 8: Working Smarter 145
Chapter 9: The Diba Diaries 165
Chapter 10: The Transparency Payback 189
Appendix: Checklists and Templates 201
Endnotes 221
Bibliography 223
Index 225
v
Copyright 2003 by Farzad and Rhonda Love Dibachi. Click Here for Terms of Use.
This page intentionally left blank.
Foreword
W
HEN I STARTED WRITING SOFTWARE more than 40
years ago, it was an intellectual curiosity of limited practical application.
After all, what could you usefully do with much less computing power
than is in a modern digital watch? How times have changed! There are
very few—if any—material business projects today that don’t have crucial
dependence on software and information technology. Firms have evolved
from informal networks of informal systems communicating using impre-
cise protocols to complex, formal networks of complex, formal systems
communicating using precise protocols not only within the firm but with
customers, suppliers, and regulators. A firm, after all, is only an informa-
tion system at its core. John Kenneth Galbraith foresaw all this in his
seminal The New Industrial Statenearly 35 years ago.
Every company has its mavens, and these mavens can turn the cor-
porate power structure upside down. In my experience, technology
befuddles many executives and leads them to managing it incorrectly.
There are many reasons for this, and I still find myself confused and
bemused when I witness it. Personal computers have turned millions
into self-proclaimed technology experts, and firms that would insist on
hiring a litigator with world-class experience for a major lawsuit are
more than willing to hand a complex system implementation to an
often-talented, but amateur, amateur. Partly it is because technology
experts frequently come across as difficult to fathom and manage. And
vii
Copyright 2003 by Farzad and Rhonda Love Dibachi. Click Here for Terms of Use.
viii FOREWORD
partly it is because business executives don’t like most of the laws of
physics that apply to technology and therefore often want the impossi-
ble. The maven phenomenon can also occur in nontechnical, but spe-
cialized fields such as international marketing or corporate finance—any
realm where the knowledge worker’s job mechanics are beyond the ken of
a manager. Tales of U.S. executives’ hiring a foreign manager primarily
on the person’s ability to speak English rather than a track record of
making money in that market are all too familiar.
As a result, in countless situations a shaky détente has been reached:
Tell the mavens what you need, leave them alone, and pray they deliver
(and augment that prayer with results-oriented compensation). Of course,
they often don’t deliver much more than tales of late and over-budget pro-
jects. Even more commonly, but less understood, project teams often
delete features to make the date, so you don’t get what you expected. By
cutting corners in software in particular, you end up with a product that is
less an asset and more a liability than anyone had intended.
Why does this happen? First and foremost, it does not happen
because the technologists or other mavens are somehow flawed. In my
almost universal experience, they are among the best, hardest-working
and most dedicated employees in the company. When you build sys-
tems, truth is an absolute and ambiguity is death. Second, it does not
happen because the business objectives are bad, although that is some-
times the case. Executives get to where they are because they have skills
and abilities, and they usually make the right calls.
As do the authors, I believe so many projects collapse because the
interface between the business executives and the mavens is flawed—
the mavens are managed poorly. They talk past each other. Meaning
well, they end up doing harm. I don’t believe in simple management
formulas, but I do believe every good executive has to have a theory of
how to do his or her job. What Farzad and Rhonda lay out here is the
foundation for effective, results-oriented technology management, and
I commend it to all with that need—which today means just about
everybody in any kind of organization.
William J. Raduchel
Executive Vice President
Chief Technical Officer
AOL Time Warner, Inc.
Acknowledgments
W
E THANK OUR FRIENDS, colleagues, and most of all our
customers for helping us understand the many ways of managing
knowledge workers. Thanks to everyone at Niku, especially Mark
Moore, Stjepan Morovich, Jules Ehrlich, and Kurt Steinle. Thanks to
every person at every company who participated in all of our conversa-
tions that we had during the course of this project. Special thanks go to
Terry Ash, Robert Atkinson, Tom Berquist, John Birge, Carol Bobbe,
Volkhard Bregulla, Phil Brown, Stephen Cooke, John Elliott, Dave
Ewert, Frank Gill, Joe Gillach, Harriet Girdley, Arnold Goto, Fred
Jewell, Brendan Kennedy, Licia Knight, John Lambeth, Geoffrey Law-
son, Bill Lehrmann, Bill Leonard, LeeAnne Lewis, David Meridew,
Leslie Mullis, Jo Myland, Dave Phillips, Bill Raduchel, Dave Raspallo,
Stuart Read, Debbie Russell, Steve Saba, Bob Schwartz, Nancy
Simonson, Ed Soladay, Bill Stewart, Peter Thompson, Dave Veach,
Bernhard Vieregge, Maynard Webb, Richard Whelchel, Jeremy
Wilkes, and Paul Yaron for being so generous with their time and sharing
so many useful insights.
ix
Copyright 2003 by Farzad and Rhonda Love Dibachi. Click Here for Terms of Use.