Practicing What We Preach …

This week, I got a small dose of humble pie from our CIO.  I was in his office discussing the difficult time that one of my teams was having filling a key position.  Finding someone is critical to the success of this team and it has been difficult finding candidates that would be able to come in, hit the ground running and make a difference.  We have key criteria for this position, and I’m not willing to budge – this is one of those times where I don’t have the luxury of training someone, I need someone with a specific skillset and experience.

Before everyone goes all crazy on me for speaking out both sides of my mouth, I normally utilize a very aggressive internship program to fill open positions within my team.  It is rare that I hire experienced candidates.  When I do, I am very specific about what I am looking for and I stick to my guns.  I won’t hire someone just for the convenience of filling the role, I will wait until I find a candidate who fits the needs that I have and that be a net positive for the team.  I’ve bent in the past when I felt I just needed to get a body in the door, and it’s a painful experience.

So, then, let’s get back to the story.  I’m sitting in-front of my boss – our CIO – explaining what steps I’ve taken and where we are at in the process.  He’s letting me vent and as we get close to wrapping up this part of the discussion he asks a simple question, ‘Have you considered hiring someone remote?’

Whack – right to the center of the forehead!  Ok, so you need to understand for the last several years, I’ve been the most vocal proponent inside the organization to allow our team members to work remotely.  We have successfully introduced it into my teams and this has slowly crept into a couple of other areas of the company.  This has been allowed in a very limited fashion, but has proved to be successful enough that a key member of our team moved to another state and organizationally, nobody questioned his ability to continue working for us when he asked if he could do so prior to moving.

Additionally, via an acquisition several years back, one of my teams is split geographically with the manager located at our main facility with half of his team and the other half all working in disparate locations across the southern US.

So there I am the biggest proponent of getting people to work remotely sitting there in front of my boss looking like a fool! Organizationally, we are ready to expand this program.  In fact our COO has recently spoken about the need to show flexibility in where our teams are located.

What could I say, but, ‘You’re right! I guess it’s time for me to step up to the plate and take the next step and push this program forward!’

As leaders within an organization, we have to remember the things that we are fighting for and when given the chance, we need to implement those changes into the organization.  Our bosses expect it of us and we expect it of the people that report up through us – we need to remember, the same rules apply to us.

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