Category Archives: Better Business Bureau

I get asked sometimes about résumés, and last year I helped some of the interns with theirs. I think it’s usually good to look at what experts say, but in the area of résumés, I listen to my gut. My gut tells me the following:

1. One page. That’s it. It can be two columns, but just one page.
2. Use appropriate colors and fonts and typography. This isn’t 1975 and we’re not limited by the IBM Selectric typewriter.
3. Make it interesting. It shouldn’t be strange, but there’s no need for it to be boring.
4. For heaven’s sake, no typos or misspellings! Have multiple friends and family members read it.
5. It’s important for you to convey what you’ve done, but it’s just as important to convey who you are. You have a good story to tell about your life; make sure it comes across.

This is purportedly Marissa Mayer’s résumé. She was until recently the CEO at Yahoo! and before that was an executive at Google. Her résumé tells the story of someone who is confident, knows who she is, and is likable. This isn’t a bad one to emulate! I think I like hers better than my own so maybe I’ll make some changes. Which brings me to the last point: Don’t wait until your résumé is needed to update it. Working on your résumé is a little like writing in a journal in that it’s a way to check-in with yourself. If you don’t document your life, who will?

I finally saw “Iron Man 3” this past weekend and enjoyed it thoroughly. This might be expected given that I’m a bit of a comic book junkie but, in addition, parts of the movie were filmed where I’ve worked for the past 22 years, SAS in Cary, NC.

In the building that served as the home for the fictitious Stark Industries works a real-life industry leader, maybe not a super hero but still a hero of sorts to the more than thirteen thousand employees who work for SAS.

I will admit that I’ve put off writing about Jim Goodnight for some time, because some might question the authenticity of a laudatory post about the President and CEO of the company providing my paycheck. (Note that these opinions are completely my own and not those of SAS.)  Still, if you’re looking for examples of leadership, the kind of spirit that embodies the American dream, it would be difficult to discount the actions that Dr. Goodnight has taken over the course of the past 37 years in building SAS into the world’s largest privately-held software company.

I cite the following:

The time he started a business — Dr. Goodnight could have had a comfortable life as a professor but realized that he had something special in the form of the statistical procedures he had developed for his research. When SAS Institute Inc. was formed, the notion of making it big in software was not common.

The time he re-engineered his bread-and-butter product — Dr. Goodnight saw the potential of the C programming language in making it possible for SAS software to run on all popular programming platforms. He changed the development language for SAS from PL/I to C in what became a hugely important technical move.

The time he decided not to go public — When the rest of the computer industry was cashing out by going public, Dr. Goodnight ultimately decided to keep SAS private. This has given him the freedom to run the company in the way he thinks best, rather than doing what short-sighted stockholders might want.

The time he started a school — Dr. Goodnight and his wife Anne found that the kind of school they wanted was lacking in the community where they lived, so they funded the building of Cary Academy, a private school near the SAS campus which hires talented teachers willing to use appropriate technology to carry out its demanding curriculum.

The time he refused layoffs — In the recession that began in 2008, many companies laid-off workers to avoid losses. Dr. Goodnight went to his employees and simply asked that they watch their spending. Through careful expenditures, the company managed to keep its 13,000 employees with no layoffs and another profitable year in the books.

There are many more examples of Jim Goodnight’s leadership I could cite. If it seems an indulgence to write complimentary things about one’s employer, then I hope you’ll grant me such every 22 years. To ignore these lessons would be to miss an opportunity to learn.

As a former track and field athlete and coach, my favorite events were the sprint relays. It’s no accident that the 4×400 relay usually ends the meet. It underscores the idea that, despite many individual heroics, this is still fundamentally a team sport.

I think we can use a relay to visualize how a team works best:

1. Each of us has a role and whether we’re the strongest or the weakest, we all need to be at our best to produce the results we want.
2. Practice and teamwork are required for the handoff of the baton. It’s not enough to do our part alone; we need to give to the other in a way that sets him or her up for success.
3. If there’s a misstep, it doesn’t really matter *who* messed up in the final analysis. (You won’t find out who dropped the baton in the scorer’s sheet, you’ll just see a “DQ” listed.) Instead, we need to analyze *why* it happened and address it.
4. Watch the team when the final leg is being run. It’s about this individual effort, sure, but it’s also the culmination of hours of work. A track meet usually starts with field events when few are watching. But those points count just as much at the end. There’s a lesson that we need to do our best even when the spotlight isn’t shining.

As an elementary school student in the late 1960s, when I would lie on my back in the grass and daydream, I’m quite sure I never once imagined a future profession in which I would work with information technologies like Apache, Tomcat, MySQL, IIS, SharePoint and other staples that have enabled me to put bread of the table.  What I did picture was something resembling the television show “Mission: Impossible”, which was a favorite of mine at that time.  I loved the emsemble that included Mr. Phelps, the manager of sorts, Barney, the electronics and mechanical genius, Rollin, a magician, make-up artist, and master of disguise, Cinnamon, the smart blonde with acting skills, and Willy, the muscle man.  (Okay, I’ll confess that I wanted to be Willy the most.)

So, while I couldn’t imagine what I’d end up doing, I did very much want to be part of a team in which individual strenghs were recognized and used for the greater cause.  And this is still an ideal.  But is it a valid ideal?  What does research show with respect to the make-up of a strong team?   I wondered about these things and did a little research on the subject.  And what does the research say?

• Team size — Generally, teams of 10 or fewer tend to function with less conflict, stronger communication, and more cohesion.
• Demographics —  This is an area of much research, but the two most likely conclusions are that diversity and years of experience are helpful in making a team function at a high level.
• Personality — People often use the Big Five personality traits (openness,conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism) to describe individuals.  In general, high levels of the openness leads to good communication, agreeableness makes for team cohesion, conscientiousness increases overall performance, extraversion increases team viability and performance, and neuroticism, if at a high level, can cause team instability.
• Climate — This means how well individuals on the team regard the organization or team itself.  In other words, are they happy with the context in which the team operates.  Not surprisingly, those who think they are in the know but powerless to implement their ideas do not perform as well as those who have a high regard for their organization.

These are just a few ways that team composition has been studied to see what works and and what doesn’t. (Please note:  For each of these areas, I’ve tried to link to a representative study or summary.  There are additional studies to support each generalization. Much work has been done!)

I have been on teams where I felt like part of a well-functioning group that could rise to any challenge.  I’ve also been on teams where each meeting or interaction was painful to endure.  Some of the differentiators from my personal experience include:

• How the team was initiated.  So many times, getting off on the right foot makes a huge difference.  If what is communicated in the beginning is, “Well, we’ve been thrown together to do this task that no one else wants to do.”, that sets the tone for the rest of the work.
• The quality of the team leader.  This is obvious, but the leader really does determine much.  It is unfortunate if the team doesn’t believe in its leader; all other good intentions may be lost in disrespect for him or her.
• The bureaucratic overhead.  Teams function best when someone with a gift for details is attending to them.  I like to think of  how a good host will lay out things at a dinner party so conversation and interactions are facilitated transparently, and the guests never think about the logistics.  In the same way, it’s good for someone to stay on top of what might anachronistically be called “the paperwork”, sparing the team of tedium that might get in the way.
• Cohesion leading to teamwork.  Ultimately, teamwork can overcome deficiencies of all kinds.  When faced with more work than can be done, when you’re out of ideas, when you make a big mistake, it’s the closeness of the team that will keep you together.  As Vince Lombardi said about his teams which won the first two Super Bowls, “Teamwork is what the Green Bay Packers were all about. They didn’t do it for individual glory. They did it because they loved one another.”

I have sometimes found myself shaking my head when I hear about couples who didn’t discuss basic matters such as family size, religion, expectations surrounding work, and so on before getting married.  I recently listened to an interview with Dr. J. Richard Hackman, professor of psychology at Harvard, and this same phenomenon came to mind about how such often happens in a business setting.

Hackman mentioned what he considers one of the most important factors in teams that function at a high level.  In his opinion, it is very important for the team leader to be “up-front, going in, as to norms of conduct.”  This communication concerns expectations about what goes and what doesn’t go with respect to the group members as individuals or as functioning team members.   There needs to be clarity about how team members use each other’s expertise, and how the group will work together.    This was based on a study of 120 teams that were considered senior teams from around the world.

At first I was a bit surprised that this research ranked this as such an important factor.  After reflection, however, I did understand that this is key.  Why is this sometimes neglected?   Why do managers sometimes fail to provide direction on simple behavior between and amongst team members?  I think it’s because it feels a little too personal, maybe a little too touchy-feely.  It might be uncomfortable for some to make explicit that which they consider personal (even when it’s not really a personal topic).  Some may believe “I’m dealing with professionals and they will conduct themselves professionally, doing what is in the best interests of the company.”

If this research is to be believed,  we may need to rethink the assumption that all will be well without making these things to be explicit.   Some managers may think to themselves, “I’ll deal with a problem if it arises.”  By the time it arises, however, the team may have already begun to fracture. In fact, team members will appreciate, I believe, being given instructions about how they will all work together.   I’ve heard many colleagues express sadness over the inability of all to work closely together on projects.

I think it is a great idea for a leader to say, “Here is what I expect from you, and here is what you can expect from me.”  Do you expect your team members to help each other with time-sensitive problems?   Do you want them to specialize or to cross-train?  Do you want folks to show up to meetings having prepared in a certain way?  When is the best time for them to approach you and in what way?  All of this can be communicated with humor and good cheer, in the interest of working well together.   This doesn’t have to have the ominous feel of a parent contemplating a birds and bees talk.  Have fun with it!

In the workplace, we have the opportunity to increase our effectiveness and harmony by talking about expectations.  This is one easy way to eliminate misunderstandings and potential ill-feelings.

(By the way, Dr. Hackman’s Team Diagnostic Survey looks to be an interesting instrument for measuring a team’s ability to work well together.)