Hello and welcome to this week's Practical IT Manager Tips Newsletter

This week's article
Happy Holidays from MDE - Find some time to reflect

Can you believe another year has already passed? While we wind down for the holidays, it's a time when most of us find time to spend with family and relax a bit. After all, we have earned it after putting in such a hard effort throughout the year.

This time of year is also a great time to reflect. Read the article below to gain insight on areas that are important to reflect upon regarding your management responsibility and career.

MDE NEWS

Happy Holidays from MDE and Mike Sisco

As we enter the Christmas and end of year holiday season, we want to wish all our readers a great holiday this year and tell you how much we appreciate all the positive feedback you send us about the newsletter, our books, and training programs.

2004 has been an exceptional year in which we have made major strides in preparing the company to reach many more IT managers in 2005 in our efforts of providing practical insight and tools to help IT managers of the world achieve more success.

Many new products and services are about to be announced beginning the first week of January 2005. If you have liked what you have seen so far, hold onto your hats because we have considerable more to do and you will begin seeing the results of our hard work soon.

We hope you enjoy the holidays and that you close out the year on a positive note.

From our family, we wish you a Merry Christmas or the appropriate holiday for your family and a great New Year.

MDE to offer IT Management Professional (ITMP) Certification in 2005
Participants of the next IT Manager Institute will take a 5-part exam at the conclusion of the class and when passed they will receive MDE's IT Management Professional (ITMP) Certification. There are only two prerequisites:
    1.  Attend the IT Manager Institute
    2.  Pass the 5-part certification exam

Attending the Institute signifies a real commitment. It also ensures every ITMP recipient has a solid IT management foundation base of knowledge and the tools to manage technology resources effectively. Passing the exam validates an understanding of the material provided in the Institute.

Every program has to have a beginning. In a few years there will be thousands of managers around the world with an IT Manager Professional certification from MDE.

The IT Manager Institute will be expanded to reach more IT managers in 2005. There will be multiple ways to attend our Institute in order to gain your ITMP certification as we expand the availability and access to give everyone the opportunity of participating in the program.

The ITMP certification program is the next step in achieving our mission of, "providing practical insight and tools to help IT managers of the world achieve more success".

Special offer
20% discount through the end of December

It's the Christmas season and we are discounting everything on our web sites by 20% through the end of the year, but only for our newsletter subscribers. That's right, here are some examples:

-  Buy a single $29.95 ebook for only  $23.96.

-  Buy the $279.00 IT Manager Development Series for $223.20.

-  Buy my entire library, the $399.00 "combo" package for $319.20.   -- BEST BUY --
   I'll even kick in IT Management Models with this one.

-  Register for the January IT Manager Institute for only $2,396.00.

Great bargains through the end of the year on anything from these web sites:
     www.mde.net/cio
     www.mde.net/institute
     www.mde.net/models

To receive your 20% discount, key in the Discount code "newsletter" when ordering. The discount will be applied automatically.

Find some time to reflect

It was the charismatic Walter Hagen, one of the all time great golfers of the 1920's and 1930's who coined the phrase that says, "You've got to stop and smell the roses along the way."

He was "spot on" as they say in Australia.

It has been part of my ritual to spend time "reflecting" about things at the end of the year for more than 30 years now (virtually my entire career). If you have read all my past newsletter articles, you already know that I spend time at the end of every year to develop a set of New Year Resolutions. Not only that but I file them away so I can go back to see what was accomplished.

Success is benefited by positive feedback and reinforcement. It is important to take a retrospective look at what has been accomplished from time to time. Let me explain. In our role as IT managers, we have complex and difficult challenges. Our management responsibility is as difficult as any management role in our company. There are many reasons for this.

First, technology people are more difficult to manage because they are smart and need challenge.

Secondly, technology changes so fast that we are constantly implementing change. Change is difficult for many and every time you change something you introduce an element of uncertainty. In other words, things can break and they do break on occasion.

Third, our clients (external clients and users) have a greater need for new technology and when they don't get it they will try to do things on their own. We all know what challenge this creates.

Review your accomplishments
We are so busy working on new projects, addressing the latest challenge, or reacting to a new issue that we often forget to "stop and smell the roses". This is dangerous in that if we continue to simply "run the treadmill", we can lose sight of the positive things that are happening, , , and even in the toughest circumstances there are many good things happening around you.

Let's analyze this a bit. Who is going to tell people about the good things your IT organization accomplishes? The answer is simple; if you don't, then probably no one will. And you know what, it is very important for everyone to hear about the good things going on in IT. Your people need to know, clients and users need to hear it, and above all senior management needs to have insight into the positive work and accomplishments you are achieving.

I'm not suggesting you do this for your own personal benefit although ultimately it will definitely benefit you. I'm suggesting you tell people about the IT Department's past year accomplishments for other people's benefit. If you don't tell them it's easy for them to perceive that very little is happening. Do you know why? Because we tend to focus on the problem that is confronting us today and what needs to be done; we rarely spend retrospective time thinking about all the things that are getting done.

Stop and reflect on many aspects of your life. It helps to take a status check every now and then and the end of the year is a perfect time to do so. Here are a few thoughts from my list:

    -  List the accomplishments made in your IT Organization for the past 12 months
    -  List accomplishments you have seen in each of your employees
    -  Review your 2004 objectives and determine how well you did against this objectives list
    -  Review general issues such as client service, responsiveness, quality, etc. and define any progress you have made
    -  Review your personal accomplishments. Are you getting the things done that are important to you to advance career?

When I council people about career, one of the things I always ask them is, What do you want to be when you grow up?". Another way to put this is that, "When your career is over, what do you want people to say about you?". I'm 55 years old and I still ask myself, "What do I want to be when I grow up and how do I want to be remembered?".

I reflect on this question and others every year about this time. I'm convinced that the reason I have a company and do what I do today is a reflection of much of this introspective analysis. Just as water seeks its own level, our likes and dislikes tend to drive us toward work that we like doing.

Life is too short to be caught in a miserable job situation. I've had a couple of these so I know what it's like when you are in a bad situation. Guess what; I didn't stay very long in those situations or I had a hand in changing them. We all have a lot more choice about our job and career than we might want to believe. At the end of the day, we have choices we can make and being able to take an objective look at situations (to reflect on our successes, failures, likes and dislikes) empowers us to do what's right for ourselves and our families.

When you list your team's accomplishments, I suspect you will be quite surprised. It is often amazing as to how much was accomplished versus what we perceive when we start listing the items like I mentioned above. Well, if it amazes you then think about how little others outside the IT Organization think is getting done. Remember, it's very easy to get caught up into "today's problems" and to forget all the good things that have happened and are happening.

Don't let that happen to you. Take thirty minutes and list out the accomplishments. Be objective, be specific, and don't just put something to make your team look good. You won't need to. Review the list a couple of times, go through the months of the year, walk through each department you support, and think about individual employees. Your list will get longer with every review.

When you have a list, organize it by some type of category and share the information. Write a report to senior management, present it in a management meeting, discuss it in staff meetings, etc. This message is a strong and powerful motivator for your staff, especially if you attach their name to specific accomplishments. It also can help create positive advocacy within your company for what your people are getting done.

Don't quantify your accomplishments and communicate them, and you allow your team and staff to be unappreciated. That's a BIG PROBLEM if you allow this to happen. You owe it to your staff and clients to let them know what's getting done. Even include failures; no one is perfect and the fact that you acknowledge and are learning from mistakes is also a powerful message for everyone.

You will find your employees will respond positively to this effort and work harder to do more. Everyone likes to be on a winning team; it's up to you as the manager to help people realize the wins and successes that are being achieved. It's easy to forget these and dwell on the problems. Don't let it happen to you.

Best of success and a great holiday. I hope you have had a successful year and that 2005 will be your best year ever.

Mike Sisco

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Best of success.

Mike Sisco
MDE Enterprises
3300 Stillcorn Ridge Road
Columbia, TN 38401
mike@mde.net
931-490-6932
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