BusinessForward

By Candice Liozu, BusinessForward Client Executive

It’s fair to say that every role within an IT organization including the CIO, experiences a tremendous amount of pressure to get things done. With an endless list of demands, the sheer volume of work facing the team is overwhelming. As their leader, you feel it too. But it doesn’t have to be this way. If you take the time to step back, take a breath and put some processes into place, your team can avoid living in crisis mode.

Having worked under highly pressured conditions for over a decade, I would say that the energy-level of the leader sets the tone. I have seen the unfortunate ripple effect of stress emanating from the top down, draining employees across the organization. When energy is low, service suffers. This is especially true in a support environment such as a Service Desk or Level 2-3 Support. Who wouldn’t be exhausted from relentless complaint calls?  Further, if long hours are the norm, keeping your team and your customers happy is simply not sustainable.

Unfortunately, the “outside world” (insert customer) doesn’t necessarily view things that way. They want what they want when they want it. Customers wonder what it is you are working on that is preventing them from receiving the appropriate level of service. Remember, they feel they need you to keep their own heads above water. When response time is too long, or technology misunderstood, I’ve often heard some version of “IT doesn’t care.”

I would offer that this is not a right or wrong situation. As a matter of fact, the particulars of an IT organization’s workflow may seem fine internally, but because there is a misperception about the role IT plays for customers, frustrations run high on both sides. Managing how people view the organization is an important part of a leader’s mission.

Make sure your customers know what it is your team does for them-don’t assume they understand the volume of your responsibilities. We are living in a world of perception.

From an employee’s standpoint, perception matters. It matters a lot. Perception is a very close relative to recognition. When your team is working under a lot of pressure and giving it their all, they want to be recognized for effort and dedication. Recognizing the dedication of an IT team seems simple, but it can go a long way to circumvent misperception of poor service. Lauding the accomplishments of individual contributors in front of the rest of the business not only makes the team member feel valued, but will generate a little positive PR for your organization. Good news is contagious.

So how else can we make sure that people are motivated, their spirits are uplifted and they keep engaged? Try building these three pillars of support into your management style:

1. Structure

• Provide clear and documented processes for your team and customers.
• Measure performance through the use of technology that enables communication of value to the business.
• Establish a clear point of contact internally and for customers when there is a problem.

2. Understanding:

• Have a realistic understanding of what your team can handle from a workload perspective.
• Proactively provide the right resources. Reacting to a crisis situation with an overwhelmed team member can sometimes be too late.
• Gather the appropriate data to justify more resources when needed so that your business case to management is an easy win.

3. Fun:

• Infuse the “fun factor.” As Benjamin Zander, author of The Art of Possibility states in one of his talks, “don’t take yourself so seriously!” This brings perspective to the work.
• Don’t make any problem a “life or death” situation. As a leader, make sure you trust your team enough to know that they will do whatever it takes to solve a situation. Once trust is established, don’t hesitate to inject some fun in their lives. Bring smiles to their faces with things as simple as cracking a joke!
• Stop by their desk and LISTEN to them, even for a couple minutes. Show them that you genuinely care and they will want to return the favor tenfold.

While these tips may seem intuitive, it’s surprising how often they aren’t applied in IT leadership. It goes back to that level of pressure and the notion that there just isn’t time to regroup. This is where leaders need to understand that they are not alone. There are plenty of resources out there to help manage an IT environment without having to sacrifice anybody’s health and sanity, including yours.

Look into Service Management frameworks such as ITIL (Information Technology Infrastructure Library.) They will help you put in place the right structure with the right tools and the right metrics to allow you to focus on what essentially matters most – your team members’ happiness. Sometimes a third party voice is needed when you truly get overwhelmed.

At the end of the day, keeping the IT organization focused and energized is critical to the overall health of the business. But most importantly, it will boost the personal and professional health of you and your team.

Candice Liozu has more than 17 years of international business experience. A multi-lingual Client Executive, she helps BusinessForward customers by viewing their challenges through a lens of empathy and a profound understanding of the importance of human nature in shaping organizational success.