Building Successful Careers

We either leisurely or are forced to make decisions or choices each day. Each decision or choice points to a different path, defines our future and influences people around us, subtlety or profoundly. Using programming language, life presents us with sets after sets of “if else" statements. We could very well come from the same place in our lives (i.e. classmates from the same school). Each outcome of the “if else” sets us apart. Over a long period of time , we become vastly different people. Therefore, some of us become restless when it is time to make decisions, others are afraid of the consequences of their choices. Recently, I had an enlightening conversation with Dan Pritchett, EBay Fellow and CTO of Rearden Commerce. He was the first person ever who clearly separated decisions and choices for me. He said, “Choices are made based on pure facts, based on adequate supportive information; it is a purely analytical result. Decisions are made based on partial facts, partia...

Many people would say I am a process junky because of my extensive experience at IBM DB2, and many years of practicing sophisticated software development processes to build large scale mission critical enterprise software. The perception from people who don’t know me well is their perfect reality. Indeed, Elizabeth is a process junky on paper from afar. People who know me well see a different Elizabeth, who has a passion for innovation. Research, innovation and creativity inspire me, and fuel me through many “boring” days and activities. Without innovation, one would never paint the most moving scenes and objects; one could never build killer apps. Without innovation, the iPhone would never reach our palms. Well, can we build an iPhone without any process? Despite the many birth defects the iPhone IV born with, it went through very strict processes to achieve such consistency, friendly user interface and it is a piece of art. When I go to an empty parking lot, I can zigzag whateve...

The first time I really heard the word of the “Collaboration” was in 1998 when I still worked at IBM. One of the Sr. VPs spoke to us about the difference between the 20th and 21st centuries. He referred to the 20th century as the century of super heroes, who either destroyed or saved the world, companies and communities. Due to the vast amount of information and accelerated rate of information addition and exchanging, it would be impossible for one person to digest the vast amount of information and provide penetrating messages beyond the noise of the ever growing information universe. Then the 21st century became the century of team collaboration, that groups of super heroes would work together, utilize their expertise and strength, process information that they could best understand, providing their expert strategy and methodology, flawlessly execute the team’s plan and reach the ultimate goal. Since then, collaboration became popular as well as frequently abused, and it is risi...

My friend lost his job recently and has been actively interviewing for a new one. Last month he came out of an interview, calling his best friends, telling us how excited he was. He felt challenged by the hiring manager, by his energy, vision and ambitions. We all hoped he would get his dream job. But he didn’t. One of the stakeholders did not approve hiring him. We felt very sorry for him. He went to another interview a few days ago, another good opportunity; we were all excited for him and kept our fingers crossed. He called me after his interview; his voice was low, filled with sadness. He said he felt he would be “managed not challenged” by the hiring manager during the interview. How sad! being managed and not challenged! A creative mind that is challenged generates excellent ideas. A great leader sets the bar high, exudes high energy and challenges and inspires his employees. A good manager could use a matter of fact attitude, gather all facts about all the candidates, compare...

"If you are not part of the solution, you are part of the problem." Jerks hardly bring any solution but problems and complains one after another. If you run into notorious jerks in your life, both personal and professional, you are not alone. Dealing with jerks needs maturity and stronger mental strength. Practicing the following tips is helpful: 1) Never lower yourself to the jerk’s level. Try to elevate the conversation to your level, be professional, productive and solution driven. 2) Hear their complaints and acknowledge that you heard them. 3) Ask them for the solution (what needs to be done logically, not emotionally) and go over the consequences of their proposed solution or let them know you are going to evaluate their solution if you are not ready to go over their solutions. 4) Stop the conversation if the jerk starts to bring you down to his/her level. 5) Remind the jerk that you both are on the same team, you are not fighting a battle with him and you are here t...

My mentor Harry, Former Chairman of the Board, once called me in his office, " Elizabeth, do you like ballet?" "Of course, I love ballet!" " How about hockey games?" " I only watched a few times, but they seem quite exciting." " Running business is like directing a ballet. You have planned the story line, plot and actions. You direct the show day in and day out, always making it perfect so everything seems smooth and effortless. As the director of the show, you give directions to your dancers. More importantly you provide the stage for them to perform, mentoring and coaching them to their highest potential. This is the highest level of leadership. Hockey games are surely exciting. You chase after the puck. The puck is flying everywhere. The team is reacting as quickly as possible with many random actions… that is a game, not a business. If you want to build a profitable business, you have to plan, direct, coach and mentor your people. Develo...

I have been asked many times about competing with others. New graduates have asked me how to compete with experienced professionals; experienced professionals have asked how to compete with offshore cheap resources. These questions came from fear of the unknown. My answer has been, “Don't compete with others, compete with yourself." I believe that every individual is a star, made of strengths and weaknesses. If you try to compete with thousands of people equipped with thousands of different strengths, you put yourself into a meaningless panic mode, chasing someone else's tail every second. If a company is chasing every competitor, it puts itself in the same situation and loses its direction. You can only have one brand effectively. Let's fly to 1000 feet and take a five-year look forward at yourself and your competitors. Identify your strengths and weaknesses. Pick one or two areas where you would like to improve. Then compete whole-heartedly in these limited areas. Wi...

Many managers are not comfortable asking the team to perform basic job duties. We have to remind everyone that we are paid to do our jobs. Managers are paid to manage the workload and set reasonable assignments for team members. Team members are paid to accomplish these tasks. If your team members are not self-starters, it may be necessary to point out what is required of them.

Brushing your teeth in two seconds is quite efficient but not effective.

No one is born with directions. Most leaders usually develop the vision in business, technology, team and organization. Leaders mostly likely are surrounded by an intelligent team, which provides data, opinions and options. What separated the leader from the regular team member is the unique ability to simply the situation, take the risk, identify the direction, validate and recalibrate the direction with his team along the way toward the target.

A blender has sharp blades, always moves very fast. It spins and forces everything around it into a high speed circular movement; it breaks everything into finite pieces. An engine moves one direction, drives everyone on board to that direction. The question is, are you a blender or an engine to your organization? Are you a sharp leader who drives everyone around you crazy, chops up their ideas and sense of direction? Or are you the engine, who drives your team in one direction and helps them to reach their goals?

Don't just command your people, develop them. Don’t just manage your people, mentor them.

We all see the catastrophic economical meltdown and expect a long winter ahead of us. Many people lost their jobs and many lost hope in rapid career growth in the near future. What should we do? Companies are looking for a winning strategy to survive in this roller coaster business environment. They are revising their business plans and redefining processes. This same strategy applies to all working professionals who run their careers as a business. They should re-evaluate and re-plan their careers, redefine current daily tasks to be more competitive and gain the ability to win when the market turns around. What we do today defines what we become tomorrow. Transformation starts today and carries through each day whenever you decide to do things differently and more strategically. Let's first understand who we are today. Log your activities for a whole week and classify your activities into the following categories: Short term 1) Daily operational short term tasks 2) Temporary assig...

1) Do you prepare your questions and suggestions according to the agenda? Yes: 2, No: 0 2) Do you insert your agenda into official meeting agenda? Yes: 1, No: 0 3) Do you talk to host and make sure your items will be discussed during the meeting? Yes: 1, No: 0 4) Do you talk to other stakeholders before the meeting and get their buy-in on your issues? Yes: 1, No: 0 5) Do you ask questions, re-phrase others and summarize during the meeting? Yes: 1, No: 0 If you score 4, you are effective

1) Do you publish your meeting agenda 2+ days before the meeting? No: -1, Yes: 1 2) Do you talk to key stakeholders before the meeting to cover key issues?No: -1, Yes: 1 3) Do you constantly get surprises from the meeting outcome?No: 0, Yes: 1 4) Do you engage each participant during the meeting?No: 0, Yes: 1 5) Do you setup video or telephone conferencing for remote participants?No: 0, Yes: 1 6) Do you engage remote participants by asking for their opinions?No: 0, Yes: 1 7) Do you make long discussions or less important issues offline topics?No: 0, Yes: 1 8) Do you make action items with deadlines and be sure someone agrees to "own" the issue during the meeting? No: -1, Yes: 2 09) Do you send participants the meeting minutes with clear action items within 24 hours? No: -1, Yes: 2 If you score If you score 6-9, you are ok host If you score > 9, you are effective

The question from one of our readers, was asked at a real interview for the first line manager job: You are a manager and there are a few engineers in your group. They are all smart and competitive engineers. One day one engineer comes to you and says he has been working in this area for a long time and he wants to transfer to a different group and try something different. What does it mean? How do you respond? Suppose that the engineer finally left and went to another group. Sooner or later another engineer comes to the manager again and wants to leaves for similar reasons. What should you do? Elizabeth: As the manager of the group, you should always understand your employee's 1, 2, and 5 year goals. Assign them tasks accordingly. If you have a very competitive group, you should ask them to spend 5% -10% of their time investigating new technologies, cross training each other, trying to initiate new projects for the group, and pushing them to re-invent themselves to keep up wit...