Communication - Key To Your Success!

I’m a big B-52s fan. Lately I’ve been thinking about communication and thought about lines from one of their songs:

The B-52s: Communicate (Lyrics)

Boy you better communicate

Before it's too late

You better start talking

You better talk

Let loose

Before it causes problems

I look back at the days where I was pounding out code on a daily basis to where I sit today, leading a very talented team of architects, tech leads, development engineers, quality assurance analysts, test automation engineers and certification experts. Along the way, I’ve seen all kinds of challenges.

Here’s a good one from my early days …

I had recently taken a role within the company that I was working for to manage the technology within a specific department, this included not only overseeing the custom code used to manage the operations of the department, but also included purchasing millions of dollars of hardware on an annual basis to handle the growth of the department. Today, everyone takes conference calling for granted, but back then, this was relatively new technology and the company I worked for was providing teleconferencing capabilities for governmental agencies and many large corporations. I was buying conferencing bridges as fast as I could and continuing to customize our conference reservation and management systems. It actually was a pretty fun gig.

So about a year into the job, I get a new boss – a VP that flew into town every couple of weeks. The company I worked for felt that every 6-12 months they needed to shuffle the VPs around to give them exposure across different operational areas within the organization. I had already gone thru 2 different bosses at this point, so getting a 3rd one really didn’t faze me. Up until he arrived.

He walked into my office and said the following: ‘I don’t know what it is you do, I don’t want to know. If you need something, tell me who I need to talk to and what I need to say.’ With that, he walked out of my office back to his office, walked into his office and closed the door. I didn’t see him for the rest of the week and then he flew out of town, not to be seen for another couple of weeks.

Yikes! For about 7 months, I worked for someone that I rarely saw and with whom I rarely ever had a conversation. When he did fly in, he walked thru to his office and closed the door behind him. I was spending money that wasn’t budgeted, but he never even questioned me – granted, we were growing way faster than projected and even with the money I was spending, we were still way ahead on revenue. Still, you would have thought at some point, someone, especially my boss would have questioned the money that was being spent. Conference bridges weren’t cheap and the money needed to be spent to keep up with the call volume growth, but not a single question.

I left that job for a couple of reasons – first, he eventually came to me and told me that he wanted to move me out to the East Coast. I had no warning of this conversation. He just dropped it on me and expected me to jump thru hoops to make it happen. Uhm, no. He had never spent any time with me to understand what my goals where, what was happening in my personal life and where I wanted to go and what I wanted to do. He had never taken time to talk with me about what his goals were for me, where he saw me going and how I fit into the overall picture of where he was headed, what the team was headed and the expectations of the company. Second, I had already been looking at joining up with a couple of friends to begin our own consulting firm. My old boss and his boss. Well, the way he approached me on the move, sealed the deal. Within a month, I was gone and the 3 of us began building a successful consulting firm.

I don’t know if the cards would have been played differently if he had spent more time with me during those 7 months. If I had gotten to know him better and he had sold me on his vision, the overall company vision, I might have reacted differently and ended up out on the East Coast. Hindsight being 20/20, I’m ultimately glad that I stayed in Iowa. I often wonder how many other people this guy lost because he didn’t know how to build relationships and connect with the people who worked for him. I have also never been able to figure out how he managed to become a VP.

Our willingness and ability to communicate can solve the challenges we face on a daily basis. I’m constantly telling people, get out of your chair, go find the person you need and have a discussion. Don’t wait! If they’re not in the same building, ping them via our IM tool or video conference them in for a conversation. Take 15 minutes today, will save us hours/days/weeks down the road vs letting something get thru and then having to back up and do a total redesign.

If you'd like more information on my background: LinkedIn Profile