You Are a Professional, So Speak Up
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Technical personnel are not always invited to help solve a mission-critical business problem during the initial brainstorming stage. They're often involved later when they can be assigned specific tasks and responsibilities. So this is a unique opportunity. It's a litmus test to see if a technical person can relate to business decision-makers in a constructive way using both soft skills (communication and interpersonal) and technical skills.
Let's assume you can contribute technically, but due to lack of opportunity and experience, you're not especially strong on those soft skills. What are some general principles that can help you make a contribution? Let's break the scenario apart into two stages - the brainstorming stage and the proposal stage.
The brainstorming stage:
1. It's brainstorming session is a collection of equals - so be mindful of this point of etiquette. Technical personnel, due to lack of tact, can come across as patronizing, condescending, egotistical or demeaning. On the other side, there's no reason to act shy, apologetic or self-depricating. The chemistry you're after is friendly, helpful equality. Remove competing interests, politics and competition.
2. Try one helpful idea at a time. One doesn't have to worry about constructing a formal proposal right away that covers all aspects of the project. For instance, one might suggest: "I think I can help simplify the project by running a documentation tool against the databases. I can deliver a descriptive audit for us to work with in a short period of time."
3. Try suggesting an action item rather than just questions. In the scenario proposed, there are hundreds of obvious questions swirling around the air. They need to be asked and answered at some point. But the project moves forward toward completion from action items. Demonstrate that you're a person of action.
The proposal stage:
1. Set up a basic structure for your ideas. Good speeches and good essays have a basic structure. There's a beginning, middle and end. There's an introduction, a body of details and a conclusion. There's a thesis or a specific topic. For the body, consider making three main points. Sure you could make more points - but who's going to remember them? The basic structure is for the benefit of your audience. It's rude not to cater to the needs of your audience.
2. Help manage complexity. As technical personnel, one of our supposed strengths is that we're able to manage complexity. We can break apart complicated projects into simple, manageable pieces. So help do that right away. One mistake to avoid is to try to list off all the complexities of the project and then suggest you're the salvation - as if to say, "This could be a nightmare. Look at all the nightmarish aspects that could haunt our dreams and ruin our timelines! Look at all the unanswered questions! Good thing you have me around to save you. So be prepared to put up with me whether you like it or not." People don't respond positively to anxiety or resentment.
3. Act like a stakeholder. You might not have an equity interest in the company - but you do invest a good portion of your life by working for/with these people. In the end, along with compensation, you're also after satisfaction and a sense of accomplishment. What if you conveyed this attitude: "I think we'll all be very gratified once we meet this challenge together successfully." The opposite of the stakeholder is the incentivized subordinate who plays "hot potato" with projects. If you think you're getting too much dumped in your lap, learn to manage expectations, ask for the resources and help needed to succeed in a positive way. For more on this, see http://www.newfave.com/?p=37.
In short, the proposed scenario is a challenge for a techie to exercise soft skills and business acumen. You'll only get better with practice. So speak up in a way that is helpful, respectful and positive. If you're going to throw humor into the mix, watch the sarcasm. There's always truth in sarcasm.
Yours,
Bill
Bill Nicolich: www.SQLFave.com.
Daily tweet of what's new and interesting: AppendNow -
I believe the key thing here is to respond to VP with questions and not half-baked suggestions. The questions to the VP are a start to the problem-analysis process. Making suggestions from the hip, without knowing the details of the problem, are a sure way of having them rejected. It may show you are responsive, which is a good thing, but it also could show you as an impulsive reactionary which is not so good.
Ron K."Any fool can write code that a computer can understand. Good programmers write code that humans can understand." -- Martin Fowler
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One question: am I working for the VP or am I working for a manager under the VP? That makes a big difference.
I once worked for this company and I was not afraid to ask question or answer question when my VP asked for suggestion. However my manager was not too happy about my action. It was because the VP liked me because I was not afraid to ask and answer question but my manager hated me because he thought I was trying to get his job !!!!:( I did not intend to get any credit or anything but everyone could interpret differently.
Or I still think he has a big male ego and he could not stand a woman speaking up !!!!
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Bill,
I'm somewhat torn by your reply. On the one hand, I want to thank you for a thoughtful, detailed response which in many cases would be very wise. Each of us should 'bloom where we are planted', and that involves proactively meeting challenges.
On the other hand, we often have discussions on this forum about quality of life. I've been in organizations run like this VP runs his. The key phrase is usually something like "rise to the challenge" or "step up to the plate". In fact, a small group of upper managers make a decisions that they really haven't throught through very well or done the hard work of due-diligence for their shareholders. They often make a lot of money, or lose a lot of money. The way they make money is to surround themselves with people who "step up" and fill in the very large holes that they've left in their "business critical" decisions. This means people who will choose to get on a plane and fly to the new aquisition on short notice to do analysis or at least put in a lot of extra hours, choosing to miss their kid's ball game that week. If their sacrifice for "the team" results in a win, sometimes the VP will choose to credit them with a promotion or bonus. Not always. If the decision results in a loss, sometimes the hammer can fall hard on "the team". The VPs have a funny way of either suriving the hammer, or going elsewhere where they can follow the same practices. Win or lose, sometimes our kids notice that there seems to be a lot of things more important than their ball games.
The key in this article was the mention of a few minutes of silence following the news. The people in that room are afraid. They have not been coached to offer of suggestions even if they might sound silly. Maybe they shouldn't be? Maybe they should boldly offer up a suggestion? I hope that the organization will reward them in some way if they do.
Personally, my decision has been to avoid places that practice this style of leadership. I'm afraid my personal constitution if not up to "swimming with the sharks". I prefer an organization where managers take the time to mentor people and keep them informed of important decisions so that you're not forced to "shoot from the hip" at critical meetings that would not be emergencies if there was better planning on the part of upper management. The organizations that lead this way end up being much stronger and stable.
Of course, organizations run this way are not always as nimble and ready for special opportunaties, so I realise that this is my choice - I'm not being critical of those who choose to stay in the kind of organizations described by this article.
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“Politicians are like diapers. They both need changing regularly and for the same reason.” -
Bill Nicolich,
Wow! What a great write-up! Well said!
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I've been in the reverse position. And left the company before the transaction was complete. Why? Excatly as pointed out before, lack of communication from the people taking us over about their plans.
Worst thing that can happen in a takeover situation is to let rumors fly. I think most people would assume if they are not let in on what is going on (I was the only DBA at our location), that their position will no longer be needed after the sale is done.
The technical side should be nothing a good DBA could not handle, at least if they have any experience comming into a company with exisiting systems, at least my procedure would be the same as I do in any system I come into: Check the basics (backups, index and stat refreshes), then start to map out security holes (the big ones, such as users/application roles with SA access) and work my way down.
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This is SO EASY!!!! I can tell who has been in this meeting and who has not. Well, I have been there and here's the answer.
When the boss, any boss, drops this stinking pile in your lap the most important thing to do is congratulate the boss and his boss on acquiring another company.(This greases the skids for the boss.)
Then you ask a set of questions.
1) where is Humid Village?
2) depending upon the answer, who is paying for me going and staying there?
3) while I am gone, who will take of the work here?
By now the boss is doing exactly what a boss likes to do; make decisions that are obvious.
The final cut is to tell him/her/it this: "When I get to Humid village, I'll conduct an inventory of their database servers and their backups and generate a short report for you all to review when I return. Does that sound like a good plan to you, Mr./Mrs/Miss snodgrass?"
Once they say yes, you have them by the shorties. If they say no, you ask a few more questions that lead to 1 of 2 outcomes.
1) you will be doing exactly what I outlined above
2) you are not responsible for any of it.
Now you are in complete control. The boss has to spend money to accomplish this and the only thing you have to do is check out some servers and write a 1 or 2 page document telling them what you found.
Depending upon the discovery, you might have to hack-up some servers to make them PCI compliant and install an encryption tool but you are still in great shape.
I eat pressure for breakfast. This is just way too easy.
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The author's professionalism slips a bit when an incorrect word is used.
On the first exposure to something, your interest is "piqued" (not "peaked").
I suspect that spelling and grammar checkers are relied on too much and neither dictionary nor thesaurus (free at http://www.merriam-webster.com) are never consulted, as I've seen this same error in several other postings by people in technical fields this month. Like every other bit on the internet, the philosophy of "If it's online, it must be correct" isn't true.
John
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All good points stated. My only suggestion would be to have a chat with the sales staff of the local box store and to block all home improvement channels, if that is possible.
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thelabwiz (7/31/2008)
I suspect that spelling and grammar checkers are relied on too much and neither dictionary nor thesaurus (free at http://www.merriam-webster.com) are never consulted, as I've seen this same error in several other postings by people in technical fields this month. Like every other bit on the internet, the philosophy of "If it's online, it must be correct" isn't true.John
Really? Did you check your own grammar? You have a double-negative in your own post. The correct sentence structure would be "...neither dictionary nor thesaurus are EVER consulted..." Not 'never' consulted.
People in glass thesaurus's should not throw stone dictionaries...
(...or is that thesauri???)
There's no such thing as dumb questions, only poorly thought-out answers... -
Someguy (7/31/2008)
Tim OPry (7/31/2008)
Other than flogging the due-diligence team, what DID you end up doing?I think the hardest part of this is getting over all of the immediate thoughts like:
*******
OK. So the bean-counters sat down with some other bean-counters and decided that there were enough beans here to make some money.
To them, all of the staff there (and here for that matter) are "beans".
They don't really understand what's going on internally in the aquired company (or again, at their own company, but let's not get into that); things have been going wrong there for some time now.
The DBA is probably one of many people who saw the handwriting on the wall and jumped ship. The ones who are left are the less-valuable staff who didn't think they could find work elsewhere.
The vice-president has given you no warning whatsoever - a competent manager would have pulled key IT staff aside before the meeting and warned them rather than having them shoot from the hip at a big meeting. You're dealing with a total moron. Unfortunately, a powerful one...
********
Once you've flushed all of that from the queue of items to come out of your mouth, you ask for the chance to get in there and do some analysis. The people suggesting that the human element needs to be addressed definitely get my nod, although understand that you're dealing with upper-level managers who don't understand anything about that, so be careful.
I think you've nailed it. The only thing I would add would I would take some time to analyze what the audit evaluation criteria are and then see what could be implemented to address each objective/issue. In my experience auditors will give you a conditional pass at least when you have shown you are making efforts to address all the problems. There might be a re-audit in a few months, but a conditional pass buys you time to clean things up.
One side comment for the original editorial --
It is tempting to think that your attention might be aroused to a high point by “peaking” your curiosity; but in fact, “pique” is a French word meaning “prick,” in the sense of “stimulate.” The expression has nothing to do with “peek,” either. Therefore the expression is “my curiosity was piqued.”
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Thank you all for your input on this editorial, it has been a very enlightening and instructive dialog.
My initial thoughts related to the "speak up" part of the editorial. Adding our input or questions can fuel more ideas which ultimately lead to better ideas and solutions. Ultimately, any relative contribution can be beneficial—even if it isn't the "be-all, end-all solution"—because it may be the seed that inspired the final outcome.
Again, thanks to all of you for your contributions.
Norm Johnson
"Keep smiling ... it gives your face something happy to do
... and it makes people wonder what you're up to!"
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If you are hired to do a job, you should expect to do that job. When asked you give the best response you have. If questioned you respond respectfully with again the best response.
It is okay to caveat, If we have all the time in the world I would .... or Assuming that we can not get an extension on the audit due to the merger... Some of the time if you plant a seed you can get more time or resources to address the problem.
And for your own sake don't answer with a political answer. Give an action based response. I will or we will. Forget the "this is not reasonable" or "This is not fair" approach. Stand and deliver. This is why they pay us as much as they do, we stand in the hard spot doing the hard job for larger salaries.
So speak up, or cowboy up depending where you are from.:D
Miles...
Not all gray hairs are Dinosaurs!
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There's so much unanswered. My first question would be: are all of their databases on Microsoft SQL Server? If they're Oracle or Informix or whatever, then we're going to need to bring in outside help because I can't deal with those. I might be able to slog through if they're on Sybase or DB2.
Ignoring the people/culture aspect for the moment as it's been nicely addressed by previous posts, I would want to know the following, most of which would require a site visit:
What documentation do they have, when was it updated?
What version(s) of SQL Server are they running?
What are their server configurations: recovery model, audit level, etc?
Mainly OLTP, OLAP, or a mix?
What external tools touch the databases?
Are their databases canned or home-grown?
Vendor contacts for canned, check to see if they're running current versions.
What is their server operating systems?
Is their network a Windows network or something else?
Are they fully patched, both SQL Server and the server OS?
What is the hardware they're running on?
What is the audit that they're going to have done? (also previously addressed)
Are there any mission-critical Access databases, and are they subject to the audit?
Can I get specs on the audit so that I know the "pass" criteria?
Next, I want to know the status of the backups and DBCCs. When were the last restore tests. Do they have any problem logs. Once I know the data is securely backed up, then get into nitty-gritty: security model, database/table permissions, external data connections (DTS), external live connections (mainframe, mini, DTC), replication, clustering. What are their DR plans/capability. Do they have contact information for the previous DBA, it might be useful to contract with him as an information resource. Are there specific/strange security requirements. Physical security of their servers and backups. Power protection.
I definitely like the "take the IT staff out to dinner" to build some bridges and hopefully get some cooperation. I would also like to get a copy of the backups, "just in case". If the data is small enough, I'd also consider copying all of it onto an external drive and taking it back to my office so that I can study them more easily, I'd probably want to do full disk encryption on that drive since external drives are easily lost or stolen. A hundred databases is no indication of size, it could be 1 gig total, it could be 10 terabytes.
I think this would answer most of what I wanted to know to manage them, though I'm sure I've missed some points. But could you imagine building a list of what audits you want to conduct, only to find out on your arrival that it's two AS/400's running DB2? We can assume it's SQL Server, but I've got nine physical SQL Server boxes, one mainframe, an AS/400, a couple of *nix boxes, Oracle 7 & 9, NT 4, Win 2000 Server, 2003 Server. I'm not responsible for the non-SQL Server databases at this point, but at least I know they're there.
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[font="Arial"]Knowledge is of two kinds. We know a subject ourselves or we know where we can find information upon it. --Samuel Johnson[/font]
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