Direct Your Career - The Professional Guide to a Better Career

What is a BA, and why do I need them?

January 8, 2012

Recently, a colleague asked me a question. He asked “What is a BA, and why do we need so many? What do they do?” I am always surprised that people ask me questions like that. Then, I stop being intellectually arrogant, and realize I just know “stuff” and just answered him. A BA is short for Business Analyst. A BA wears many hats in an organization. If they are correctly used, they can be the most important part of a well run IT organization. Let me give you a brief history of the BA. Rock on dude! I started in IT back in the 80′s. AC/DC, Anthrax, Black Sabbath, Alice Cooper, Deep Purple, Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, and KISS were the bands of the day. Big hair and make-up on guys was ok, and politically we were moving from Jimmy Carter and onto Ronald Reagan. In the early days of IT, we programmers did it all. We were even more interesting than the Dos XX guy. Once a user requested a project, the programmer would meet with them, gather the business requirements, turn them into technical requirements, create a project plan of sorts, and then start programming. We ran

Persistence – Don’t leave before the miracle happens

January 7, 2012

I learned the hard way that the primary key to success is not talent. It isn’t brains, looks, or education. It isn’t any of the things that you are taught growing up. No, the key to success at any level is persistence. To succeed, one needs to continually strive to get what they want. And when I say continually strive, I don’t mean work harder, etc., I mean picking yourself up when knocked down and continuing the fight until you get what it is you want and to expect and learn from your failures. Some people call it suit up and show up. When I was a freshman in high school in 1776, I played soccer on the school’s soccer team. I didn’t go out for soccer because of some deep love of the game. No, as an American I played soccer because I knew it would force me to get into excellent physical condition for my first sport love, basketball. Even then I understood my own shortcomings and knew that if I didn’t have someone or something driving me to workout, I would not have been in good enough shape for basketball. Before each practice, our soccer coach made

Can you judge a book by it’s cover?

January 6, 2012

I’m sure you have heard that you should never judge a book by it’s cover. That phrase means that what a person looks like does not necessarily reflect on the inner person. Is that always true? 20/20 Vision Humans are primarily visual beings. We judge most everything initially on what we see. The sense we rely on most is vision. We don’t smell people to identify each other as animals such as dogs do. We don’t spray our territories to keep intruders away like lions do. We don’t listen for clicks and whistles to identify friends and family much like the earth’s largest mammals the whales do. No, we primarily use our sense of sight to get our first impressions. Well, if sight is so important to us, wouldn’t it be fair to say that what you see does often reflect the inner person because the person knows what image they are trying to present to you, right? Self Proclaimed Worlds Hottest Sports Reporter? For evidence I present Mexican sports reporter Ines Sainz. Miss Sainz recently tweeted that she had been treated inappropriately at the NY football Jets training camp. She was unhappy that some of the players made some

What do you know about your employees?

January 5, 2012

Charley Charley, a new retiree-greeter at Wal-Mart, just couldn’t seem to get to work on time. Every day he was 5, 10, 15 minutes late. But he was a good worker, really tidy, clean-shaven, sharp minded and a real credit to the company; obviously demonstrating their “Older Person Friendly” policies. One day the boss called him into the office for a talk. “Charley, I have to tell you, I like your work ethic, you do a bang up job. But, being late so often is quite bothersome.” “I know boss, and I am working on it.” ”Well good, you are a team player. That’s what I like to hear. It’s odd though your coming in late. I know you’re retired from the Armed Forces. So, what did they say if you came in late back then?” ‘‘They said, ‘Good morning, Admiral, can I get you coffee, sir?”’ What do you know about your employees? Some of them have skills and talents that are far beyond what you see of them day in and day out. The Problem Several years ago, I had an opening for a computer programmer. One of the computer operators approached me with an

Super Bob and the Peter Principle

January 4, 2012

Are you a good manager? I have been studying and observing business and business people for more than two decades. During that time, I have seen more than my fair share of personalities that find themselves managing people. Some are perfectly suited to leading people, creating a business strategy, and artfully executing that strategy. Others are miserable in their positions. They complain privately about their disdain for managing people and conflict, and have no idea how to create a strategy, and find themselves reacting to every brush fire. They drive their teams, colleagues, and their own boss batty. I think there are many reason for this, and I have come up with four personality types of leadership that I think demonstrate why some succeed and some fail. The first personality is the winner, the next two are neutral and pass as managers, but the fourth is a disaster. Before explaining that, I want to first to discuss something called the Peter Principle. The Peter Principle The Peter Principle is a book written by Dr. Laurence J. Peter and Raymond Hill that theorizes that every employee will eventually rise to their own level of incompetence. The point is that any human being,

Chain of Command

January 3, 2012

I spent four years in the United States Navy. I learned a great many useful life lessons during that time, but the most significant lesson I learned was to respect the chain of command. In a military context, the chain of command is the line of authority and responsibility along which orders are passed within a military unit and between different units. Orders are transmitted down the chain of command, from a higher-ranked soldier, such as a commissioned officer, to lower-ranked personnel who either execute the order personally or transmit it down the chain as appropriate, until it is received by those expected to execute it. In general, military personnel give orders only to those directly below them in the chain of command and receive orders only from those directly above them. Thank you sir, may I have another? The concept of chain of command also implies that higher rank alone does not entitle a higher-ranking service member to give commands to anyone of lower rank. For example, an officer of unit “A” does not directly command lower-ranking members of unit “B”, and is generally expected to approach an officer of unit “B” if he requires action by members of

Never, ever surprise your boss

January 2, 2012

I hate surprises from my staff. You can surprise me on my birthday or at Christmas, but I never want any surprises when it comes to business. One important concept of management that is never taught, and rarely discussed is how badly managers hate surprises. Surprises can come in many forms. A project may be late, an important sale doesn’t materialize, or the budget gets blown. Whatever it is, we hate them. Now, that is not to say we hate bad news in general. We may not like it, but if you give management enough time to react, then we can manage the bad news. It is a simple concept, but many people are simply not taught it, and therefore don’t teach it to their staff. Let’s say that you are an important member of a team of programmers all working on a major system. The rest of the team is very dependent upon your contribution to be completely successful. You are toiling away in private, but for some reason you just keep slipping farther and farther behind. You begin to realize you are going to be a week late, but choose not to share that information with your supervisor

Career advisors (aka In-flight Consultants)

January 1, 2012

I have had far too much experience in my career with people who believe everything that they see and hear is fact, before actually doing any research to find out the truth. I have had bosses, co-workers, subordinates, and friends who will declare something as fact when the facts are actually in opposition to their point. I will give some examples of someone’s perception being their reality. Some years ago there was a new fad in toys called pogs. It was a game where you would try to flip disk shaped pieces of plastic into a cup. Our CEO at the time came back to the office and said he had a conversation with a 16 year old kid on a flight who told him that pogs were the next big thing. A 16 year old kid? Our CEO then ordered the toy buyer to go out and corner the market on pogs. He directed him to buy millions of dollars of the stupid little game. The buyer argued that we should test the product before buying that many, but the CEO over-ruled him and forced him to move ahead. Well, I’m sure by now you have guessed the end

Humor in the workplace – just be careful

December 31, 2011

I have often said that there are humor transmitters, and humor receivers. Some people are just funny naturally and transmit their humor effortlessly. They seem to know their audience, the boundries of appropriate humor, and have a natural comedic timing. They say the right thing, at just the right time. We love them. Then there are those that choose to never tell a joke, but are perfectly suited to laugh at the humor being transmitted. I call them the humor receivers. They laugh just as effortlessly at the joke as the humor transmitter is able to tell the joke, and are of equal partnership in this delicate ballet of office comedy. Without them, there would be no point in being funny, as there would be no one left to laugh. ********************************************************************************* For free stuff, go to http://directyourcareer.com/blog/free-career-ebooks-and-resume-templates ********************************************************************************* The third person in this odd, albeit classic ritual, is the trasmitter wannabe. He has none of the qualities of the humor transmitter, but tries time and time again to tell jokes, make pithy remarks, or deliver witty one liners that do everything from fall flat to create that moment we all lovingly refer to as “awkward”. They use foul language at the wrong time. They tell blue jokes in mixed company. They try to “one

I am sooooo busy!

December 30, 2011

“I am sooooo busy! I can’t stand it. I can’t get anything done.” Have you ever said that? I have. Many times in my career I have allowed other people’s deadlines or their lack of planning to affect me. There used to be this little saying some years ago called the 5 P’s. The 5 P’s said “Piss Poor Planning on your Part, does not constitute an emergency on my Part.” We are usually our worst enemies when it comes to productivity and time. We rarely honestly tell the boss how long something will actually take. When they say “I need it today.” We say ok, so they assume that because we didn’t counter that we can’t do it by then. And because you felt that you were not empowered to counter, you felt as if you had to comply with his order. And then what happens? You stress out, try to work faster, make mistakes, and drop it off just as the boss is leaving. Ugh!!! You don’t have to live that way. You have eight hours each day to work. You cannot mathematically fit 10 hours into 8. If you do work ten hours a day, but everyone

There is no “they” in your career

December 29, 2011

Like so many people, in my early years I often blamed a great many things in my career on the invisible “they“. As in “they don’t care about us” or “they just don’t understand”. It was the same thing so many people say that are not in control of their jobs or their lives. Then, one day, a great boss said to me “Mike, quit saying they. There is no they. There is only you.” It caught me by surprise, but a second I realized it was some of the best advice I ever got. I have had many conversations with people over the years that talk about “they”. The fact of the matter is that whatever your rank, there is no they. You can take control of any situation and demonstrate leadership once you accept the fact that you are they, especially if you are in management, then, in fact, YOU are THEY. Do the right thing Whenever you are faced with making a decision, make it. If you do the next right thing, whatever that happens to be, you are most assuredly not going to get into trouble. There is an old management saying that goes “I

Are you ready for your Interview!?!

December 28, 2011

So, you've spent hours and hours searching job boards for openings. You contacted all of your friends, joined social sites like LinkedIn, and expanded your network. You've read my book "The Professional Guide to Creating a Killer Resume" and tweaked your resume to the point that you are really happy with it. And you've sent it out more than a dozen times. All that hard has work paid off and you've finally received a call back. They want you to come in for an interview. Yikes! Are you ready?

The Devil You Know

December 27, 2011

As many of you know, I feel that most people in management have no right to be there. People are drawn into management for a number of reasons – everything from a desire to have more power to just wanting an office. But sometimes, even under the worst conditions, the boss you have, as bad as he is, may just be be better than the one that comes next. The Boss from Hell? Many years ago, I worked for a horrible boss. I have written about him here many times. He smelled, was profane, was marginally competent, and was just a really bad guy. The management team would do almost everything it could to marginalize his negative impact by planning our staff meetings with him ahead time. We would coach each other about what not to talk about so as to prevent an accidental blood bath. One day one of my colleagues started railing about what a bad boss he was. He really hated him. He kept saying “when will someone take action and get rid of him?” He was really angry and just wanted justice. I smiled and said “Larry, Dave is the devil we know. He is a

Balance in all things

December 26, 2011

Like so many people, I have often found myself struggling to maintain a certain balance in my life. What I mean by balance, is that I allow myself to focus too much on one thing, spending time and energy on that thing to the detriment of the other important things in my life. I believe life has four parts that must be kept in a harmonic balance. The are: 1) Your health 2) Love 3) Spiritual fitness 4) Your career The first of those things is my health. When I eat properly, sleep enough, exercise and not indulge in things that hurt my health, I allow my mind and body to be prepared for the other parts of my life. I also know that when I don’t sleep enough, eat junk food and not exercise, I feel like a slug. I have less energy, am moodier, and generally just don’t perform well. Click here to Subscribe to Direct your career! by Email The second part of my life that requires balance is my family, or loved ones. I know that if you are not spending the right amount of time with the people who are important to you, be they

Career and Management