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Developing the leader within you. How do you adapt through a promotion? Seeing trends and not falling into the micromanagement trap.
Listen in on the interview I had with Mike Hayes of Changing Leaf on coaching promotion topics.
Mike is a passionate certified Coach, Teacher and Speaker with the John Maxwell Team and the President of Changing Leaf Inc. a leadership development company dedicated to developing better leaders. He is a co-author in volume two of the book “Dreaming BIG being BOLD-Inspiring stories from Trailblazers, Visionaries and Change Makers”.
Mike Hayes Changing Leaf Inc. www.changingleaf.ca
I had a great discussion with Mike about coaching newly promoted resources from first time managers to directors moving to a VP position. He also talks about some of his favorite authors on the topic.
Show Notes:
- Host: Ron Smith
- Guest Email: mike.hayes@changingleaf.ca
- We are a participant in the Amazon Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon and affiliated sites. Books mentioned during the interview:
- The Likeability Factor – Tim Sanders
- Love is the Killer App – Tim Sanders
- High Performance Habits – Brendon Burchard
- Multipliers – Liz Wiseman
- 5 Disfunctions of a Team – Patrick Lencioni
- The Advantage – Patrick Lencioni
- 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership – John Maxwell
- Dreaming BIG being BOLD-Inspiring stories from Trailblazers, Visionaries and Change Makers – Co-Author Mike Hayes (Contact Mike for your copy).
Audio Attribution:
- license
- title: JENNY’S THEME
- creator: Jason Shaw
- audio source
- changes were not made
- Music: www.hooksounds.com
Find Part 2 of this interview on the Ardent Development podcast.
Use the comment section below to comment on the interview.
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Ron is a Project Manager with Chalder Consulting Inc. www.chalder.ca
Linkedin: linkedin.com/in/rondsmith
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Transcription of Interview:
Ron: [00:00:02] Good morning Ron Smith here from Managing Projects and I have Mike Hayes from Changing Leaf from Moncton New Brunswick. He is a leadership coach and facilitator. He has been doing that since January of 2015. Welcome Mike.
Mike: [00:00:18] Hey thanks for having me Ron. Good to hear your voice.
Ron: [00:00:21] Good to hear your voice. I wonder if you just tell us a little bit about what Changing Leaf is.
Mike: [00:00:26] Yeah – excellence so Changing Leaf was birthed out of a transition that I experienced from my corporate career. Spent 20 years with a great organization in the courier transportation industry. That’s where I really developed a love of leadership development coaching and facilitating. So at 20 years of experience, I received that golden handshake. Thanks for your contributions. We are going to transition without you and I was faced with that decision to decide do I join another organization after 20 years or do I start my own thing. This pull towards entrepreneurship and getting my own organization was so strong that I could I couldn’t ignore it. So I opened up my business into 2015. Everything I did in my corporate career I’m now doing independently and working with multiple organizations in different industries from profit to nonprofit and anywhere where there’s a leader who says I need to get better, I want to get better, I want to grow and develop… those are the types of people that I’m working with today. I’m doing coaching with these leaders and helping develop their teams together as well to through leadership management develop workshops. I’m doing Keynote talks with organizations and I’m having an absolute blast. It’s been a great ride so far and I’m just helping make leaders better because when leaders get better everybody that interacts with that leader wins and their performance elevates as a result. So that’s what I’m up to.
Ron: [00:02:01] You can see it when the leaderships develop.
Mike: [00:02:03] You can see it. You can actually see great leadership you can see bad leadership as well too. We’ve all experienced a bad leader right.
Ron: [00:02:12] Unfortunately… That’s a mixture. We’re all human and we’re all going in all different stages. Some of these leaders – it is not a born skill. I’ve seen a lot transition to become real people leaders.
Mike: [00:02:28] Absolutely. You’re totally right when you said that people are not born with these skills. It’s something that they learn, something that that we can teach people. And what I’ve seen a lot of organizations do is that they they see these high performers that are individual contributors and they think oh you’re so great at what you do you’d make a great manager. So they trust them into a management role but they don’t give them any of the skills to build their capabilities and we see these people failing as a result. But when organizations invest in their people and if they give them the development that they need then we see them succeed and the team succeeds too.
Ron: [00:03:04] It’s the Peter Principle. My background is in IT and I see this with people growing up through the ranks. They are very technical… sometimes the technically smartest cats in the room. They love it. They can solve any technical problem at all. Then the company says there is no other place to put you once you get to this portion of your career. So let’s turn you into a manager. They will give you more authority in the company. And these are people that just love to code or dissect technical issues. But then it is a different skill set when you get into the soft skill side of the house in dealing with people because they’re really there to help other folks grow.
Mike: [00:03:45] Absolutely. And I think also to your point Ron there’s there’s also a letting go of the work that they love to do for so long and you don’t get to put them in a position where you’re actually no longer going to be the doer of that task. You’re going to develop to people now who are going to do that task. It’s a letting go of that work that you’ve loved to do for so long and letting someone else do it. And that’s a transition that that we have to prepare people for as they move from being the technician to the leader of the technicians.
Ron: [00:04:17] I can totally relate. So OK. Now you really peaked my interest. Here’s scenario. You get called into a local IT shop. You’ve got this wiz bang technical programmer guy who is a bit of a geek and everybody loves him because because been doing so well and getting the promotion. Now he is going to have a team of developers. What would you say to that guy to get him ready for this transition.
Mike: [00:04:49] One of the first things I would probably talk to him about a little bit is: how is he feeling about the transition he’s about to experience. What are some of the things that he’s excited about. What are some of the things that that he’s concerned about as well. Try to deal with the reality of what he’s seeing and feeling as he’s about to transition. Get get that on the plate and try to figure out if there’s a way that I can support him through that and I’m sure there would be. But also what I would really spend some time on is the art of delegation. How do you delegate work well so that people feel valued and supported and empowered versus the temptation that most of us would have in that situation to micromanage people. Because if I’ve been doing something for so long I’d probably become quite skilled at it. I may have actually written the process. I may be the one who actually came up with the best way of how to do this task. And so now I’m being asked to let that go and let someone else do that. That’s not an easy thing to do so I would really talk to that young whiz kid about how to delegate properly so that people feel valued and how to be OK with it not being done in the way that you’ve always done it. And if I could get him to just grasp that principle that would be a breakthrough. Because a lot of people have a hard time delegating when they’re in that position. They they see someone else doing the work that they’ve done for so long like you know what you’re not doing it the way I would do it. I’m just going to come and take that away from you again and I’ll deal with that and I’ll try to find something else for you to do. That doesn’t add value to people. People can’t grow under a micro-manager they can only grow under somebody who’s secure is the leader who can let the word go and let someone else do it with their own style and approach.
Ron: [00:06:34] Yes I would concur with that. Now you know what came to mind when you were saying that this whole law of multiplication. The time that you are doing that -it that’s all you are doing. There are maybe 20 people who need to corralling to work with those teams to make sure that everyone is efficient. So if this manager pulls himself down in to the weeds then that is accomplished. It is quite a transitional skill to pull yourself up so that you’re not in the weeds.
Mike: [00:07:08] I would actually call it increasing your capacity. If I’m the only one who knows how to do it right now then I have a limited amount of capacity to achieve results and to perform it to produce whatever it is I’m producing. But as soon as I actually build someone else’s capabilities to do that thing what I’ve done now is I’ve increased my capacity and I’ve increased my options as well too. So if I can actually get other people on my team to do that thing that only I’ve done and now all of a sudden more people are capable of producing the results for that particular piece of work we’re increasing our capacity to produce results. All of a sudden now we can scale the business to new levels because we have more people that are capable than ever before. So you know it’s about empowering people. That’s what it really is in the end some leaders who aren’t really secure think if I empower that person then I’m giving my power away. But the truth is is that if you empower somebody you don’t lose power yourself you just increase it. You have more power now when you empower someone else it increases the capacity to get get more more things done. Businesses are pressured to get more things done now right. So yeah it’s about increasing your capacity through empowering other people.
Ron: [00:08:24] Let’s say you are a director moving into a VP position. Is there a different mindset between the two transitions of someone who is basically a team member member of a small team as they are going to start managing more to someone who is a director moving to VP.
Mike: [00:08:44] Right I think the mindset does change when you go from one level to the next. And what I mean by that is I think the way that you see things is really different. I think when you are at the top of an organization you need to be seeing things before other people see things. So you need to be anticipating trends you need to be really connected into your industry and what’s happening as far as innovation is concerned. So if you want to be ahead of your competition you really have to know what’s what’s coming on the horizon. And not only having the knowledge of what’s coming as far as trends and anticipating customer demand but it’s also then envisioning your organization in that space. So you’ve got to envision What’s your organization going to look like a year from now two years from now three years from now. To have that type of long distance view then to to bring that into your organization with an inspiring message of what the future looks like and the believably that you’ve got the right people in the organization to achieve that. That vision is really important so as top leaders brings that message down within the organization to the various levels it’s got to be communicated with great clarity. It’s also going to be a message that inspires people to want to be part of it right. As the vision filters down to the front lines it’s really the front line people who really do the work to make that vision a reality. The clarity of the message and actually involving those people in the discussions about what they see as far as the future goes and how they believe that they need to change and adapt in order to deliver on that future vision is really important as well. Somebody that’s done a lot of work on this that I really like as far as an author is concerned is Patrick Lincioni. He talks about this in his books with the five dysfunctions of team and one of the books that he has called The Advantage. Patrick talks about this concept of who’s your number one team. And a lot of people if you ask them what your number one team if you hve a group of people that you are leading… they’ll say oh my number one team is the team that I lead. He challenges that thought. Patrick says your number one team needs to be the team that you’re a member of. So even though you lead a team of people, and they’re really important, what you need to prioritize is the team that you are a member of over the team that you lead. The reason he says that is because when there’s great cohesion in organizational health on the team that you’re a member of at an executive level everyone in the organization benefits from that cohesiveness that clarity that real team spirit when executives and leaders prioritize the team that they’re a member of. They can take that enthusiasm and bring it into the team that they that they lead. And it’s also a great opportunity for alignment as well to.
Ron: [00:11:42] I think of it somewhat as you are progressing up through an organization. Your view point is what you can control, some of the observations you are making in the seat that you are in. You might term that the primary view point. And as you climb the trees to some degree you can see out longer. And you are looking for strategy. You are learning how to manage up as well. What I’ve learned over the years is how much I appreciate as I became managers, how much I appreciate those team members that had helpful insights and said you know what, there is a real opportunity here and I think you need to pay attention to this.
Mike: [00:12:19] Yeah without question, I love what you said when you’re climbing the tree you can you can see like far off in the distance right and that’s necessary. But then when you come to executing the strategy like that the day to day work that needs to happen to get closer to that vision that’s when you really need to connect with the people who are doing the work because they have they have the experience they have the insight they have the knowledge as to whether we are on the right track. They can tell you like right away hey you know what… that idea that you had in the boardroom it sounded really great on paper, but here are some of the obstacles that you probably didn’t identify that are going to prevent us from doing it the way that you thought we could do it. If you take care of this this and this then we could do what you’re talking about but if you don’t deal with these things this is always going to be a problem and a barrier for us. Here’s a better way. And they can tell you and that’s the challenge of leadership as well too as you climb up to ensure that you remember where you came from. Where you came from is where the solutions reside. So you’ve got to connect back to that from time to time. Don’t do the work though. You’ve got to let people do the work. Just go back and have a conversation that’s that you want to get some understanding from right. That’s important too.
Ron: [00:13:34] Do you know this is a major theme going on now. A lot of the projects that I’ve been running lately, probably I would say for the last four or five years, in my industry, there has always been a change manager that has been put on these projects. It’s really quite telling that there is now a whole role inside of the projects that basically is of this mindset: there is about to be a change, someone has set a vision and all and what they are doing is measuring at different points along the way, is the company coming. So from every level from the CEO to the middle management to the worker bees… You see this Prosci or the Kotter models of that kind of thing. Let’s pole the company to determine who is aware of the vision, or who is desiring to follow it, using this ADKAR model. Who has the knowledge or support, who is a resister or are they supporting it. It is so interesting that you say when you start to lead you need to first of all understand where we should be going. But then ensure the company is following. So if they are saying here is a vision that we’ve set, and the company is not following there is an issue. You can tell by interviewing these different groups of people asking questions like are you aware of the project – no never heard of it – then they are not coming. Are you aware of why we would do this? No I don’t really get why you want to do this. Those people are not coming either. I’ve heard it said before that vision casting has to be so clear and said multiple times before people will believe it is truth.
Mike: [00:15:34] Absolutely and I think in the context of change it’s interesting you bring up change because change really is all about bringing something from the future into the present situation. That’s that’s really what it is. We’re not currently doing this now. We have a vision for how could be better. So we need to implement the change. And I think what happens in a lot of organizations concerning is the organization ready for change. Is that at a certain level. There’s these discussions that are happening about change in implementing change. They happen behind closed doors for about four or five months and everybody in that room has had a chance to go through the emotional roller coaster. Is this going to work, or is it not going to work. They get to a place where they’ve had the debate they had the discussions. Everybody’s now on board and everybody’s now excited about the change. And so they come out from those closed doors and they try to introduce this change to your organization and people are not excited about it. Initially people are not enthused about it. People are concerned.
Ron: [00:16:45] People didn’t go with you through the hills a valleys of the strategy.
Mike: [00:16:51] That’s right. And we forget we got that right so we get back in the board room. Why are people not excited about this change? People are resistant to change just like what they are hearing about it for the first time. And there’s a real temptation to try to push through that and try to sell people on the benefits of the change. But what we need to do is change leaders is just to slow down a little bit and talk to people to find out OK what are your concerns? How can I clarify this for you as to the reasons why we are going in this direction. And just really take the time to really be with people and find out what is going on in your world and how can I help you?
Ron: [00:17:32] Yeah absolutely. When you are looking for enlightenment or to hear of new trends in the industry where do you turn?
[00:17:42] Well one of the things that I make sure that I do every year is a couple of things. I go to a leadership development seminars and conferences. So one of them is a Leader Cast that usually happens in April or May every year and Global Leadership Summit happens in August. The reason I go to these leadership development conferences is because at those conferences are current thought leaders speakers and authors from multiple different industries. And that’s how I get exposure to who is writing about leadership and the topics that I care about. That’s how I get introduced to Patrick Lencioni and I actually get to meet him in person at one of the conferences that I went to.
Ron: [00:18:26] I’ve read some of his books and I like his writing.
Mike: [00:18:30] I like his writings too and I think what people are a lot of people appreciate about it is that his style is that they’re all written in Fables so there’s characters that are introduced they’re quick reads and at the end of the book there’s a you know 20 pages of theory but the rest of the book reads like a novel rightsize you’re reading it you’re thinking Oh I think I’ve worked with some of these people. Absolutely so. Anything on team work. Definitely – Patrick Lencioni for sure. A book that I’m reading right now on I guess you’d probably put it under the personal development category is High Performance Habits by Brendon Burchard. And what a great what a great read so far are just about really seeking clarity and understanding yourself as a person not necessarily a leader but as a as a person in life – what what kind of person do you want to be and who do you want to become. And he gives a nice roadmap for building your capabilities as a as an individual and also as a leader. You can’t help but get into that leadership space because ultimately what you’re talking about leadership first person you lead is yourself. You want to be at a level where you’re performing to your capabilities to your potential and you want to be a high performing person or a high profile leader. There are certain habits that are going to get you to that level. And nobody’s going to do it for you. You’ve got to do it. You’ve got to do it for yourself. So it’s really about upping your game to perform at peak levels not only for yourself and if you’re an individual contributor but if you’re a leader as well it’s more important I think as a leader to elevate your game so that you can be a model for that performance improvement for others to emulate. John Maxwell talks about this this book: 21 irrefutable laws of leadership and talks about the law of the lid. He says that your leadership ability is the lid that’s going to determine your effectiveness. So the other way to think about this Ron is if today you and I both decided for some reason or another that you know we were all done learning… we knew everything we need to know about everything and we’re not going to read another book we’re not going to watch another TED talk or go to another conference. We’re not going to learn anymore because our brains are full and we just want to be excused from that whole process of learning what we did. My brain is all I need to be excused right. Because if we made that decision which would be an absolutely stupid decision but if we did that what John says is that that’s the lid that you place upon your effectiveness as a leader. Out of 10 if 10 is the highest on what is the lowest I rated like about six today. What is the problem with that is that the people on our teams say they are either or they’re going to do one of two things. They are either going to look at us to go wow you’re not growing you’re not developing I don’t really want to be part of the of your world anymore because you’re at a 6 out I’m at like an 8. So I can’t learn anything more from you so I’m moving on. Or what ends up happening as well too is those eights looking to go well OK I guess that’s how we do things right here I’m going to lower myself to a five or a four and become smaller under your leadership. That’s the law of the lid. And leaders that are really effective that are continuously growing and developing and building their capabilities are always looking to raise the lid on their leadership because they know that if I’m raising my lid as a leader that other people are going to be raising their lid as well too because they want to lead like you. I want to grow and develop like you I see how you treat people. I see how you have visions about where we need to go I see how you inspire and motivate and see how you encourage, see how you navigate the lack of clarity for us and help us to go from here to there. That’s a leader who’s growing is always raising the lid. And that’s what we need more of.
Ron: [00:22:41] Did Tim Sanders also write the Likability Factor?
Mike: [00:22:41] Yes he did.He also wrote “Love is a killer app”.
Ron: [00:22:51] On I’ve read both – you are taking me back! I’ve attended some of these sessions that you just mentioned a few minutes ago. For Leadercast, I’ve attended 5 years of that over 10 years. I have yet to be that the Global Leadership Summit but I’m going to have to put that on my schedule for this year. So my own observations though when from when I read this book the Likeability Factor, by Tim Sanders… the crux of it is: do I believe that people are looking for leaders… Do I think that they’re smart enough to run the company. So that’s kind of like this given. So if you’re in a leadership position do you need to have the skills to run a company and visionary and all that stuff. But then there’s this awkwardness that says “Do I like that person?”. And if the answer is No. I know the guy can run a company but I never invite to him for supper. Or I I don’t want him to really know who I am. I find myself not wanting to really follow where this guy is going. And I consider it almost a transaction of services now. That says I’m learning and employed in a company that is making use of my skills. So I’m going to see this out for a certain time. What I found in my own personal observation is when I can really connect with the leader of the company, somehow it changes. Something changes in me as I’m now desiring to work harder for that company for some reason I’m putting my shoulder into it more and I think that this is a courageous view that is held within companies. But I had a hard time articulating it until I read Tim’s book.
Mike: [00:24:48] Right and I think of I think of leaders that I’ve had in the past and those who I didn’t naturally connect with. I did what I needed to do to get the job done but I did give everything. You know what I mean? There were things that I held back. I held back some of maybe my best ideas in some situations. And they didn’t get all of me. I wasn’t really engaged and it’s it’s that’s just there’s something as simple as likability. Like Tim wrote about or do I really connect and resonate with this person and I think of other leaders that I’ve had. I would I would be on the battlefield with them because I know that they are right there with me. And I you know it’s it’s a totally different dynamic. Somebody else has written a lot about this. This is coming up for me now is Liz Wisemen her book Multipliers. You got to read this book is absolutely fantastic. She talks about the contrast between Multipliers and Deminishers. The full title of the book is how the great leaders make everyone smarter. OK. And multipliers are not only likable. They also that they build relationships with people and everything as well. They have like a hard edge to them where they have expectations that you’re going to perform or you’re going to deliver. So there’s that there’s a combination there and then diminishers: they just make everybody else smaller because they want to be the genius in their room. They want to be the one with the smartest ideas. They want to be the one who comes up with the final decisions.
Ron: [00:26:30] You know what would be really interesting stat is to look at if you had a multiplier running a company or a manager within a company what is your attrition rate? You get working with a deminisher and you can see the body language in the room, you wonder if they are going to start having health problems. You see how down the team is, and for so long, where nothing seems right.
Mike: [00:26:55] It really impacts the team dynamic as well to like he gets to a point where I think the team doesn’t feel like they can challenge the leader. They don’t feel they can disagree with the leader they can question their leader and when and when you’re in that sort of space it’s really tough to be creative and innovative and do your best work and the team stops having the crucial conversations that they need to have in order to have breakthroughs. And so the what the what the problem ends up being is that the diminished or you know we’ll have a meeting and asked like so would you guys have any thoughts or ideas or is there any problems that we need to talk about today. Everybody goes silent nobody wants to talk about it. And that diminished or thinks oh I’ve got a great team. We don’t we don’t have any concept at all. There’s are no issues. There’s all kinds of issues. But people don’t want to talk to you about them because they’re afraid of how you’re going to respond and react. You know like absence of conflict is not the sign of harmony on a team. If I have a leader that tells me that your team never fights. We get along all the time. I’m concerned about that situation because the mark of a great team is a team that can get together and have a good old fashioned debate around that issue and an idea they can question each other. And you know disagree with each other not to be difficult but to discover a best action that everybody can commit to or a best decision. That’s the mark of a great team.
Ron: [00:28:22] I love that. In the last project that I ran the team would make fun of me because I used to have this phrase I would say debate it with me. Let’s go through the pros and cons here. I want you to debate it with with me. But I love it! I think that is all ideas in! So when I do risk assessment on a project, I’ll intentionally not allow people to say anything in the room. So you get a bunch of people in the room. They are given sticky notes and they have 3 minutes. I’ll ask them to write down all the risks on the project now go! Well the reason that I don’t want anyone to say anything is because of the exact example that you just gave. No one feels safe to challenge the leader. So if the leader pipes up and says I know what the risks are. Here they are 1, 2, 3. We are done now right? Then if you’re shy or if you don’t want to challenge them then you’re not going to get that information. And so what I found is that the shy people that work on this project – they’re often the ones that are observing. They know that there’s this great big train heading at you but unless you are able to cultivate that environment of everyone can contribute, we are going to listen to you when you speak you are missing out on the great ideas.
Mike: Oh without question they’re missing out on information that could prevent a disaster. I love the train analogy that you that you brought up. And also what’s really great about what you suggested with the you know just in silence write down your thoughts and these sticky notes. Nobody else is influencing anybody else in the room.
Ron: Right.
Mike: In an open sort of discussion. And then there’s times to have the open discussion. But when you’re trying to get ideas that are not influenced by anybody else if you just throw a question out it’s so easy for other people to say yeah I feel the same way as Jane does or I feel the same way as Matt. And you don’t get any original ideas or any original push back you get group think. Your process is really great as far as getting those original thoughts out. And I love as well to both that “debate me” statement and I do that as well too when I’m facilitating I’m like OK challenge me like I just presented something to you is this is this a truth. Do you think you see this working do you disagree with that because if you disagree with that. Talk to me because that deepens my learning as well too right.
Ron: So alone but I would say this and I want to ask you a question where I have a great session today. Before we finish it up I want to ask you this question so I want to I want you to picture a scenario of this a little morbid on ya. I’m going to get a little morbid on you.
Mike: Oh ok. Yeah.
Ron: You’re on your deathbed. All right. Let’s take the scenario of your grandson comes in. Your grandson’s a 19 year old about to go into the world and is finished some schooling is transitioning into the work world. What are some of the things that you would want to make sure that you pass on to him.
Mike: Yeah. OK. Two two things. One thing I would encourage him to do is to always seek clarity as to who you are as a person to really understand yourself but never stop striving to envision a better version of yourself.
Ron: I love it.
Mike: I always always know where where are you right now and who are you. Who are you being today and who do you want to become and always be striving and have that hunger to learn and to grow and to develop because if I could instill that in him. Then he’s going to be useful for others in a long time because it really it’s for me, Ron, it’s about service to others right and I can only be of service to others if I’m growing. So I’d want to pass that on. The second thing and want to pass on to him is to get him to take the time to clarify his his personal values. Like what. What really ultimately matters to him and to really get clear definition around that. I know early in my career I went through the exercise of clarifying my values and it became a a system for making decisions and taking actions. If what I was about to step into didn’t align with my personal values that it was an easy decision to make. So it was such a great great way to clarify what really matters what’s important what your priorities are. Clarify your values and use those values to make decisions and take actions that are in alignment with who you are who you want to become.
Ron: Well I loved spending time with you today so thank you for… Thank you for spending some time with us and letting us know what’s going on with you. Before I move on, I forgot to mention you had a book that came up this year.
Mike: Actually I was invited to be part of a coauthoring project with 25 other authors. And the book is called Dreaming big. Being bold. Volume two Inspiring Stories for Trailblazers Visionaries and Change Makers. So quite an interesting journey to be an author now and to be able to say I’m a published author. It’s kind of a neat space to be in.
Ron: You tell me that you flew up to London to meet a bunch of the authors point by different authors. Is that right.
Mike: Yeah. We got together for an event to kick off the launch of the book and got to meet other other people. I’ve contributed stories and life lessons so it was a real great experience just to be in that space of people who have that creative mind set. Right. People who are just positive genuine great people to be around. And we talked about likeability today. These people are likeable people who you just wanted to be spending time with them. Some amazing stories of how they’ve overcome obstacles in their own life to get to where they are so really great great space to be in it and a great network of people to be connected to.
Ron: You know it’s great. It’s great.
Mike: When are you going to write your book Ron?
Ron: On managing projects. I’ve done my my very first e-book which I just published. And so you can find them on site. There’s there’s a link to it there in the top menu. That was a neat experience for me. And so really just getting started on the journey of authoring books and that kind of thing what a great way to get your thoughts down on paper and to try and help somebody out. With that particular book it’s around estimating of I.T. projects and I was with a company about 10 years ago. They spent a really focused effort around wire estimates so variable. And we should study that – was the leadership you and so we did. We developed a systematic approach to estimating it really made us think differently about estimates. And so I enjoyed that process so much in fact I was part of the process to help study it for our company and then to help train people on using this estimation process. I got asked to speak at a developer conference called Maritime Devcon and I spoke to the audience about some of these lessons learned from estimating and the mindset that you need to get into. The main takeaway for me. I personally feel that at least in a projectized type environment your estimates are probably going to define the culture more than most of your other tasks that you’re going to do on a daily basis. So this is what I mean by that. So you go into any I.T. shop. The Developers and say we’re overworked. We don’t have enough time to do your work. Management keeps harping on us because we ran a project and we didn’t get it done on time and they had so much allocation we went over. It all stems back to did have a thoughtful view on your estimation? So the scenario I go through in my book is the scenario of a manager comes in and says “can you build a screen for me”? The developer says shores in the day – seems pretty easy. I can build a screen. What I do in my my ebook is I give you these checklist of things to say you should ask your manager to be more specific. So is it going to be hung off another application that’s already working? Do you want this to also work in the DR environment once it goes live? Are you asking me to test the screen or be part of some of the testing of it? Are the requirements already written for the screen? Can I see the requirements or do you want me to sit you know requirements manage gathering meeting? What happens is you do a quick estimate and then you find yourself you attended four meetings about it but you haven’t done the work the next day and told you really what they want and then you’ve already gone through the estimates. This was such a pattern in some of these IT companies that I was with that that it is helpful to have these types of conversations with your managers. Your manager will look at you and say why don’t you just tell me what the estimate is. I just asked you for a screen. You can go through this checklist with them and say if I understood where you wanted it to run how thorough is it. Do you want me to write the all the install documents then it really helps to shape the conversation you can evolve your company so easily and it’s not rocket science. It’s just slow them down long enough to say what are you asking for. So anyway that’s the whole ebook thing was really neat. It’s not a great time going it.
Mike: Awesome. Well this is great Ron.
Ron: Well thanks so much Mike.