One time, I called on to have a talk with my sister over dinner after she announced her plan to resign from work. With only a few short months of leading a medical team that provide annual physicals to our clients, she’s ready to pack up and leave. The reason: she was frustrated and disappointed from her team members’ incapability to follow her exact instructions thus, according to her, they keep making too many mistakes in the process. Because of this, she felt things were out of control which explains her frustrations and helplessness towards work. Things weren’t going well as she wants and expects it to be and she want out. I continued to listen as she pours out all her negative emotions toward her team that went to almost an hour until she finally asked for my advice.

My sister, and like many more others, has a different view and understanding of leadership. Clearly for them, leadership is telling people to follow a set of procedures and expects them to follow to the letter. Just like what Henry Ford once complained: “Why do I always get the entire person when I only need is a pair of hands”.

Having lead an IT and medical technology department for more that six years combined, I have learned through experience how to nurture work teams and recognize signs that makes them tick. Overall, for my part, leadersip is letting go than controlling. Identifying strengths and liberating creativity than imposing restrictive rules. It all starts with enablement.

Enabling teams is the very first step in bringing out creativity and achieve maximum performance among team members. The following are some useful tips I have learned along the way while leading people in my workplace.

1. Recognize Individual Strengths

Everyone one is unique and are very capable in their own respects. It is counter productive to assign an indivudual on tasks that are not naturally his/her strengths. This can be done by observing closely how individual members work on their regular tasks and if they are passionate and able to do things well in short time – a skill. Start observing things like: how they organize their desks during and after work, the way they talk, the way they write, personal grooming, performance of work duties and etc. These provide small but important clues on how members work naturally and what sort of tasks to assign to them.

2. Failure Is An Option

I remembered a phrase from a well renowned director, James Cameron, while giving a talk at one of the TED conferences. In contrast to popular wisdom particularly in the field of business and sports, he said “Failure must be an option. Fear isn’t”. Human as we all are, we all make mistakes – period. As leaders, one must have high tolerances for mistakes for it is through them that we discover and learn from.

3. Nurture Independence

The time when I spearheaded an IT team for about six years, my ideas (I thought) were the best ideas until we huddled together for a brainstorming session. I was surprised what my team came up with with a bright idea with very minimum project detail. Work independence means providing them the freehand to think creatively based on their personal strengths. Only one must do, as a leader, is to give and clarify work objectives. Objectives, in this case, must not be too specific as this restricts creative thinking and innovation. Objectives must be very clear and general.

4. Provide necessary tooling

This is the very basic need for every worker in a workplace – tooling. This may be in the form of office supplies, books, softwares, computers or other equipments. In my IT team, I do provide only books and fast intrnet connection and I leave the rest for them to think. One good example in my experience was to look for a solution to integrate communication services in our office.We have emails, chats, document management, and calendar from different providers and ofcourse, with different user logins. Such setup was too much to manage as an administrator. If we were a big company, I can easily opt to buy an expensive software of the rack to finally solve this problem – but money was scarce. With time, patience and an internet connection, I was able to scour for the best solution for a very small fraction of a price.

It must always be remembered that tooling is used to build something economically and much faster. However, simple tools can also be made to make other more complex tools. One of those simple tools, yet the most important one, is the worker’s mind.

5. Promote Creativity

A leader’s idea is not always the best idea. This is most often times difficult for many leaders to accept. Many leaders are trapped in the thought of them having only the best ideas to contribute thus lending a hand to team inefficiency – unknowingly. Each member has different personal experiences and diffrent set of expertise based from learned experiences. Each one has unique potential that when pulled together can always create maximum results.

Google is one of the many companies I admire that promotes and welcomes new ideas. Their 20 Percent Factor is one novel way of promoting and supporting ideas from employees. In fact, many of their popular services came from their 20 Percent program. No wonder they always come up with better ideas all the time.

6. Strip out rules that hamper creative processes

An oil painter depends largely on his physical capacity and emotions. These are the only set of parameters that he recognize and limits his ability to paint another Mona Lisa. As with any other creative process it must not be defined by strict rules or policies that are common among manfacturing industries. Many companies believe that implementing the same manufacturing stanards like: Six Sigma and ISO will produce the same maximum results. Humans are not like robots that can be restricted in too much bureaucracies and expect significant results. Humans achieve milestone results when allowed to think beyond boundaries of rules, beliefs or any standards.

7. Create a happy environment

Happy employees achieves better outcomes. Any enoromous task, no matter how difficult it can get, becomes easy and light to take on to a happy employee. I experience this first hand in my IT team even when faced with a seemingly impossible task. I noticed also that they are also the most productive employees yet with the most challenging jobs.

1.   Be contented with what you have

Content makes poor men rich; discontent makes rich men poor. –Benjamin Franklin

We live in the age where wanting something is the basic ground work of every successful economy. Our generation is centered on acquiring possessions and gaining power or recognition, thinking all these are important to a more prosperous life. To many, having one car or one watch isn’t enough and so they continue to work more to acquire more. “Keeping up with the Jones’” or just wanting to look good triggers a chain of actions that slowly build up pressure and the first that usually gets affected is your time. This is followed by the pressure to sustain one’s image and a host of other emotional wants that can spiral to an endless loop of must-haves.

An old but handy timepiece adds no value to ones being other than it in can make you look good – for a little while or until someone comes up with a better looking watch than yours. If we learn to look the other way and appreciate the simplest things that life has provided us, we immediately put ourselves on path out of the ‘rat race’ and moving independently forward to a life where we are truly in control.

2.   Connect With Others

The universal brotherhood of man is our most precious possession –Mark Twain

Humans need another human and apart from it, we are like weeds plucked out from a fertile soil and left to wither. A community group must be spiritually nurturing and supporting. It values our diversity and weaknesses while it takes on it’s strength from its common belief systems. We find comfort by the numbers. We find our courage from the support of others and find wisdom from the experiences other community members make. It is like a strand of fiber, when pulled, it easily breaks but when bundled close and tight , it becomes almost unbreakable.

We can only be as strong or as weak as all the members in our chosen community pulled together.

3.   Spend more time with family

The family is the country of the heart –Giuseppe Mazini

As they always say in church and in many books that, “the best things in life are truly free”. The problem is, we refuse to believe or simply do not believe as our little minds are molded by commercialism that “there is no such thing as free lunch”. The biggest treasures that we have are those people that are waiting for us back home who, just wanting to see and share their time with us.

I realized, despite my very busy schedule, that the more time I spent with my wife and kids, I tend to be less worrisome, calm and I smile or laugh more often. Thinking more about them gives me a special purpose and fulfillment in life which is just about everything I need to be happy.

4.   Serving Others

I don’t know what your destiny will be, but one thing I do know: the only ones among you who will be really happy are those who have sought and found how to serve. -Albert Schweitzer

Being a Christian obliges me to return all the blessing I receive to others in need. Every chance I get, I share anything that comes abundant to me and give it to anyone who have less. This act always gives me a natural ‘high’ that is beyond anything that I’ve felt in the past. This feeling of helping and serving others relieve me from physical tension brought about by problems at work, a sense of genuine purpose and an enlightened spirit.

To be completely scientific about it, an independent research also indicate that any form of help such as: tithing, volunteer work, donations etc prove beneficial to human bodily functions which significantly help reduce emotional pressures and eventually increases life expectancy.

5.   Exercise Regularly & Eat Healthy and Less Foods

As with any well oiled machine, our bodies need regular tune-up much like that of a car. Things like: changing the oil regularly, replacing the spark plugs, the air filter and etc. Our bodies need proper nutrition to keep its bodily functions working properly. It needs regular exercise to condition our muscles to move and burn away excess calories and prevent storing additional body fats.

Our mental and emotional condition is also affected by the food and exercise it gets. The chemistry derived from different variety of food sources influences our moods which in turn influence the decisions and choices we make every day. Basically, we if we feel good about ourselves from inside-out, our emotions stay uplifted and give a general feeling of happiness.

Often I have asked myself before why people leave their work for another and how we (as a company) can help curb this exodus without unnecessarily giving pay increases right away.

While some people I asked about the reason for leaving their old jobs says it’s their low salaries many, I believe, would have rather stayed longer if only the following will be provided for them even without salary increase.

1. Additional healthcare coverage.

Though they already have their existing medicare plan, it still is insufficient and would require members to contribute a certain percentage of the total healthcare cost. Getting an add-on healthcare plan to supplement medicare provides flexibility and convenience to your employees. Providing healthcare plans shows that the company is serious about the health and well-being of their employees and their respective families as well. Many will cling-on to a company because of excellent healthcare plans.

2. Establish a compelling reason for them to stay longer.

Good employees always looks to staying to a company until they retire. One of the many things they always consider aside from healthcare privileges are: nature of business, longevity of business, its profitability and of course their boss’ character. As an employer, one must give a very compelling reason for them to stay and really stick with it. This could be job security or other employee benefits. This must be clearly conveyed early and the company must not lose focus on achieving this for their employees.

3. Allocate enough ‘leg room’ for fun at work.

Many companies disregard this single yet most important aspect in work – fun. For many, employees must always focus and be serious at work to achieve its productivity goals. While it might be true to manufacturing companies, it is quite the opposite to the service and technology industry where I work. In my experience, providing ‘leg room’ for fun even promotes creativity and increased employee camaraderie. Don’t be afraid to experiment and find your niche that works.

4. Give milestone perks.

Everyone wants to be recognized by the efforts and hard work they put in to their company. It is just but appropriate to give small rewards of their efforts as one form of recognition. They may not necessarily be in cash but in forms that the employee will appreciate. This may be movie tickets or a good book to name a few. This way, they will surely feel important and that they will strive to their best and stay loyal whenever possible.

5. Provide a Savings and Loan Program.

There will surely be times where your employees need to borrow some money from the company for emergency or other immediate purposes. Protect those employees from loan sharks and provide a program where they can benefit in the long run. It is particularly helpful if a company can setup or guide the employee to enroll in a cooperative or any other form of savings and loan program. This will help employees to save and earn at the same time while at work within the company.

6. Create outdoor activities for employees (and their families).

Fun should not only involve employees but all their family members as well. Provide fellowship activities among family members within the company like an outing at the park, a children’s day, a family city tour and other things that everyone can get involved. This provide a very good avenue for closer camaraderie among employees and their family members.

7. Be a good leader to your employees.

Of course what a good working environment does not only involve a comfortable work place or having wonderful co-employees but also having a leader that knows how to tap the potentials of his employees and leading them to success. There are lots of qualities what a good leader should be but in my opinion, I will just include what I feel are the most important ones: 1) cool tempered, 2)understanding 3) and a model.

This is the text of the Commencement address by Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple Computer and of Pixar Animation Studios, delivered on June 12, 2005.

I am honored to be with you today at your commencement from one of the finest universities in the world. I never graduated from college. Truth be told, this is the closest I’ve ever gotten to a college graduation. Today I want to tell you three stories from my life. That’s it. No big deal. Just three stories.

The first story is about connecting the dots.

I dropped out of Reed College after the first 6 months, but then stayed around as a drop-in for another 18 months or so before I really quit. So why did I drop out?

It started before I was born. My biological mother was a young, unwed college graduate student, and she decided to put me up for adoption. She felt very strongly that I should be adopted by college graduates, so everything was all set for me to be adopted at birth by a lawyer and his wife. Except that when I popped out they decided at the last minute that they really wanted a girl. So my parents, who were on a waiting list, got a call in the middle of the night asking: “We have an unexpected baby boy; do you want him?” They said: “Of course.” My biological mother later found out that my mother had never graduated from college and that my father had never graduated from high school. She refused to sign the final adoption papers. She only relented a few months later when my parents promised that I would someday go to college.

And 17 years later I did go to college. But I naively chose a college that was almost as expensive as Stanford, and all of my working-class parents’ savings were being spent on my college tuition. After six months, I couldn’t see the value in it. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life and no idea how college was going to help me figure it out. And here I was spending all of the money my parents had saved their entire life. So I decided to drop out and trust that it would all work out OK. It was pretty scary at the time, but looking back it was one of the best decisions I ever made. The minute I dropped out I could stop taking the required classes that didn’t interest me, and begin dropping in on the ones that looked interesting.

It wasn’t all romantic. I didn’t have a dorm room, so I slept on the floor in friends’ rooms, I returned coke bottles for the 5¢ deposits to buy food with, and I would walk the 7 miles across town every Sunday night to get one good meal a week at the Hare Krishna temple. I loved it. And much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later on. Let me give you one example:

Reed College at that time offered perhaps the best calligraphy instruction in the country. Throughout the campus every poster, every label on every drawer, was beautifully hand calligraphed. Because I had dropped out and didn’t have to take the normal classes, I decided to take a calligraphy class to learn how to do this. I learned about serif and san serif typefaces, about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations, about what makes great typography great. It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can’t capture, and I found it fascinating.

None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life. But ten years later, when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me. And we designed it all into the Mac. It was the first computer with beautiful typography. If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts. And since Windows just copied the Mac, its likely that no personal computer would have them. If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on this calligraphy class, and personal computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do. Of course it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college. But it was very, very clear looking backwards ten years later.

Again, you can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.

My second story is about love and loss.

I was lucky — I found what I loved to do early in life. Woz and I started Apple in my parents garage when I was 20. We worked hard, and in 10 years Apple had grown from just the two of us in a garage into a $2 billion company with over 4000 employees. We had just released our finest creation — the Macintosh — a year earlier, and I had just turned 30. And then I got fired. How can you get fired from a company you started? Well, as Apple grew we hired someone who I thought was very talented to run the company with me, and for the first year or so things went well. But then our visions of the future began to diverge and eventually we had a falling out. When we did, our Board of Directors sided with him. So at 30 I was out. And very publicly out. What had been the focus of my entire adult life was gone, and it was devastating.

I really didn’t know what to do for a few months. I felt that I had let the previous generation of entrepreneurs down – that I had dropped the baton as it was being passed to me. I met with David Packard and Bob Noyce and tried to apologize for screwing up so badly. I was a very public failure, and I even thought about running away from the valley. But something slowly began to dawn on me — I still loved what I did. The turn of events at Apple had not changed that one bit. I had been rejected, but I was still in love. And so I decided to start over.

I didn’t see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.

During the next five years, I started a company named NeXT, another company named Pixar, and fell in love with an amazing woman who would become my wife. Pixar went on to create the worlds first computer animated feature film, Toy Story, and is now the most successful animation studio in the world. In a remarkable turn of events, Apple bought NeXT, I returned to Apple, and the technology we developed at NeXT is at the heart of Apple’s current renaissance. And Laurene and I have a wonderful family together.

I’m pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn’t been fired from Apple. It  was awful tasting medicine, but I guess the patient needed it. Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don’t lose faith. I’m convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You’ve got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don’t settle.

My third story is about death.

When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: “If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you’ll most certainly be right.” It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: “If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?” And whenever the answer has been “No” for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.

Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure – these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.

About a year ago I was diagnosed with cancer. I had a scan at 7:30 in the morning, and it clearly showed a tumor on my pancreas. I didn’t even know what a pancreas was. The doctors told me this was almost certainly a type of cancer that is incurable, and that I should expect to live no longer than three to six months. My doctor advised me to go home and get my affairs in order, which is doctor’s code for prepare to die. It means to try to tell your kids everything you thought you’d have the next 10 years to tell them in just a few months. It means to make sure everything is buttoned up so that it will be as easy as possible for your family. It means to say your goodbyes.

I lived with that diagnosis all day. Later that evening I had a biopsy, where they stuck an endoscope down my throat, through my stomach and into my intestines, put a needle into my pancreas and got a few cells from the tumor. I was sedated, but my wife, who was there, told me that when they viewed the cells under a microscope the doctors started crying because it turned out to be a very rare form of pancreatic cancer that is curable with surgery. I had the surgery and I’m fine now.

This was the closest I’ve been to facing death, and I hope its the closest I get for a few more decades. Having lived through it, I can now say this to you with a bit more certainty than when death was a useful but purely intellectual concept:

No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don’t want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life’s change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.

Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.

When I was young, there was an amazing publication called The Whole Earth Catalog, which was one of the bibles of my generation. It was created by a fellow named Stewart Brand not far from here in Menlo Park, and he brought it to life with his poetic touch. This was in the late 1960′s, before personal computers and desktop publishing, so it was all made with typewriters, scissors, and polaroid cameras. It was sort of like Google in paperback form, 35 years before Google came along: it was idealistic, and overflowing with neat tools and great notions.

Stewart and his team put out several issues of The Whole Earth Catalog, and then when it had run its course, they put out a final issue. It was the mid-1970s, and I was your age. On the back cover of their final issue was a photograph of an early morning country road, the kind you might find yourself hitchhiking on if you were so adventurous. Beneath it were the words: “Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.” It was their farewell message as they signed off. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish. And I have always wished that for myself. And now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you.

Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.

Thank you all very much.

Having served the company for four years now, I had the chance to work with a colleague who has become an epitome of failed leadership. This experience has taught me a valuable lesson on what not to be when I take a shot as the ‘main’ man – the CEO. This colleague has been like my shadow and knew him like the creases on the palm of my hand. I guess success has got in to him that much, and has become what he abhors the most – an elusive and misguided dictator.

I have outlined the qualities of this chronically doomed leader so it will be my heuristics on what leaders ought not to be.

Leaders ought not to be:

• a ‘flip-flopper’. This is a quality of a person who cannot seem to make up his own mind much less, stick to the company’s objectives. He seems to go in endless circles and people are tired on following his path. I don’t know if he can see clearly that his men are very much frustrated on keeping up with standards, policies, and objectives of the company when he himself does not even recognize its value and keeps on bypassing them. For him there is only one and only one rule – his rule of thumb.

• self-centered and arrogant. He seems to enjoy a lot sitting on his laurels and continually strokes his ego by saying that the company and its people will be nowhere without him. While it may be true somewhat, but its just a small fraction of the effort. It’s the people who support at the ‘back door’ that made the four corners of the business stable – not by an arrogant salesman with a tricky sales pitch up his sleeve.

• an all talk, but walking the talk. This guys talks a lot, and I really mean a lot! This self-righteous individual preaches like the Pope, and poaches like pimp at sunset. He always makes it clear and very adamant with all executives like me not to ‘screw’ around with any employees and yet he was the first to break the rule. Talk about true leadership.

• a coward. False leaders come in different forms and sizes. Many come in shining armors with the fiercest look and the sharpest swords. But when  the charging comes to confront the enemy he will sit at the back and let others cover for his sorry ass. At peacetime, his inspiring words are the only voice you’ll here, but dead silent and non-existent on war time – probably hiding in the bunker you say?

• disrespectful. An arrogant man never learns to respect others, even of the same cloth. This is very evident on many of our corporate meetings when he tramples on the decisions of the CEO and discredits his capability as a leader in front of his subjects! Who now is more apathetic ?

• false sense of direction. His true ‘north’ is different from what is commonly accepted and wants everybody to follow his broken compass. I remember quite vividly saying that his ‘barometer’ for identifying  if the company is doing fine is if his one of his long time employee isn’t making complains. If SHE complains, then that means there is deep trouble. This is like believing to a superstition – unbelievable!

• emotionally unstable. A mark of a true leader never gets ‘budged’ by emotions when making decisions. Leaders decides very objectively and squarely even at the highest tides of emotional situations. Yes, many and costly mistakes are made because of emotional instability.

This ominous character is what brought him down in the beginning and the same shall be his fate on the very last if he continually disregard the signs.

As for me, I have had it up to here – my brow line, and don’t know how long I can take this. Honestly, I don’t share his vision anymore because it’s clouded. I don’t share his vision because it’s misguided. I don’t share his vision because it’s self-centered. What is keeping me afloat all these years is the people at stake. Much will be lost if I jump ship. I say, to whom I serve is not the driver that stirs the wheel, but the man who paves the road.

1. Hire the best people.

Any CIO or manager will definitely look good if he’s surrounded with the best people for the job. People that simply gets the job done. If you think you have these types on your team, then you could probably say you’re half-way to be a successful manager/CIO.

2. Proper Delegation

Delegation is the act of empowering someone to act on your behalf. An all too common pitfall among new managers is over delegation of tasks. Some others tend to micromanage and finds comfort in handling most of the tasks instead of delegating. Either way, too much or the lack of it can render a manager inefficient in the work place.

3. Balance Technology Feature with Business Value

It’s always nice to have the latest and greatest hardware or software to play with but does the cost really justify such purchase? A CIO or CTO must think more like a businessman and determine if such purchase will translate to a better service without sacrificing the cost of providing service to consumers.

4. Metrics, metrics, metrics

Performance of any entity, big or small, cannot be determined without any form of measure. It is similar to driving a car without any gauges like speedometer or worse – a gas gauge. Without it, there is no real proof of knowing if a department’s objective has been achieved and at what cost? Applicable metrics for an IT department may include: help desk metrics and change management metrics to name a few.

5. Outsource

Our world is fast becoming smaller each passing year while the internet pipeline is getting bigger. Because of this and some other factors that play, many of the in-house tasks can be outsourced to third-party service providers that can better do the job and at a very reasonable cost. Companies nowadays should start refocusing itself on its core business and outsource other tasks that aren’t. An example of these tasks may be: network management, emails, programming, and system administration.

The way I see things in the next five to eight years, IT department will be non-existent and everything will be outsourced.

6. Learn to communicate well

No one leader has been successful without being able to learn to communicate well – period. If one aims to be a good leader, learn to communicate well be it spoken or in writing. There is no exception to this rule.

7. Reposition IT as a business entity not a cost center

IT has always been the cost center with its expensive equipments and highly paid employees. Companies can start tapping the potentials of its IT department by repositioning it as an income generating department.

There are many ways to identify where a company can make money from their IT infrastructure and their talent pool. The best way to start is identify an inventory of its available resources and its strengths.

8. Effective networking

The only sure fire way to learn and be recognized is through networking. Start by joining civic or social groups and be active with it. Consider also attending symposiums, IT expos and seminars to gain good exposure on making new friends and opportunities.

9. Adopt best practices

The fastest way to IT success is to learn from other companies’ best practices. The best starting point is to adopt an ITSM initiative (IT Service Management) or IT Governance.

10. Put on a healthy dose of paranoia

Never be satisfied or be comfortable with how your most trusted staff manage their assigned tasks. Always check what they do and ow they do thinks, this way nothing is left to chance.

No IT manager is spared from facing the harsh realities of immediate IT employee resignations, me included. Overtime, I have learned to identify those potential soon to be ‘immediate resignees’ that will be leaving my team and how I prepare myself before it happens.

1. Consistently reports late for work.

This is the first early sign of lost interest towards work. Employees tends to find it ever more difficult to wake-up early in the morning as their usual interest wanes each passing day.

2. Not meeting project deadlines.

Work tasks slowly and consistently piles up. Not hitting the required turnaround time for task or project deadlines.

3. Leaves work earlier than usual

An unmotivated worker despises to do extended work and therefore leaves earlier than what he usually does. Of course, this alone cannot be used as an for loss interest since reasons for leaving early from work is diverse and may vary from one employee to another.

4. Lost interest and enthusiasm

The employee seem become serious at work and become less and less creative.

5. Receiving more external calls than usual

The likelihood of this employee looking for another work is high and inevitable. There will be times when he suddenly receives more calls on his cellphones and keeps on excusing himself to answer them frantically. Yes, these are calls made from HRs of companies the employee is applying a job for. This is a sure fire indicator that he’s bidding farewell very soon.

6. Slowly distancing from colleagues

They don’t see themselves staying longer and, as much as possible they don’t want to nurture anymore attachment because it will make it even harder for them to separate from your company. A good example maybe, if an employee usually joins the team for lunch, you will slowly notice that he ain’t joining them anymore and gives varied excuses why he can’t.

7. Not making any more long term commitments

It’s difficult to make this guy to say yes on some long term commitments. Like assigned projects or tasks that may take longer than his planned exit. This can easily be spotted during team huddles and strategic planning.

8. Seldom laughs at the boss’ jokes

I have the habit of cracking jokes even at the most unlikely hour. I do this to break the seriousness and liven up the work environment. Even if my jokes were somewhat corny and at times, downright offensive, they never fail to laugh at them. If you see one of your guys not laughing at your jokes anymore – definitely he’s a big candidate.

9. Personal belongings are slowly removed from the employee’s desk or locker.

IT guys love to bring toys and some very unusuak stuffs. They fill in their work desks with things like: Rubik’s cubes, actions figures, plastic toys, and technical books. When you see them slowly dwindling in number, they will surely be out in 2 to 3 days.

10. Not attending company engagements

Who would miss out a company-sponsored Christmas party or worse, a summer beach party?! If you had one under your department, surely there must be very very good reason for this or it may simple mean good-bye.

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My Advice:

If your were able catch this guy early on before he completes everything in the list above, find time to seriously talk to him and understand what needs to be done to save his job. Always remember that nobody wins when you lose your best guy, so give your best shot to spark his interest ones again.

Hiring the right IT worker is one of the most critical job an IT manager faces on a regular basis. In most cases, we look into the candidate’s skill sets first to see if it fits our requirements, followed by work experience and lastly, the character or attitude. When I started out as a new IT manager, I obviously wanted to hire the best people so, I dug deep and looked very closely into their skills and work experience. The more skillful and experienced a candidate become, the more likely he gets hired. Attitude is often times overlooked.

This method of qualifying a candidate has been a wide practice among many companies (mine included) over a long period and noticeably, it coincided with my also long unsuccessful stint of selecting a potential candidate. After several years of interviewing a vast mix of candidates and hiring experience, I finally came up with a conclusion that there are only two types of candidates: 1) Candidates that have skills and 2) Candidates that have the right attitude.

Candidates that have skills – These come in moderate abundance and competition is very rigid. They are usually the more confident types and more expensive ones as well. They are very employable and understandably so, you would most likely hire them on your team. We tend think that these are the people that can get the job done every time .

Candidates that have attitude – These come very few and often times overlooked by many employers. These candidates have somewhat ‘weak’ skills but have the right attitude towards work. They are dedicated, humble, excited and very willing to learn new things.

As a CTO, I have always hired countless candidates with high skills and experience so I can comfortably fall back to my usual task and let the new guy handle the job. Despite the high pay and benefits, I always end up losing them due to varied attitude problems. Luckily for me, I had the opportunity to experiment on hiring the second type of candidate – the ones with attitude.

The second type of candidate takes me out of my comfort zone to train and nurture . They are always willing to accept new challenges and finds fun in solving them. Learning is their way of life and are always excited to learn new things. This type of individual struck me at first for I haven’t had that type of staff before – very enthusiastic, personable and certainly dedicated. This candidate will surely go along way.

In conclusion, skills are short-term and can easily fade in time. No one gets remembered for long on skills alone but attitude does. Skill is something that can be trained, learned and developed. Attitude isn’t. Attitude on the other hand is molded by an individual’s social experiences and outlook. Attitude has more value that a ton of gold. So when hiring a new set of people, dare to look and hire the second candidate. You will be surely amazed at what he can do for you can for your company.

I found a very interesting article posted by ABC News about Google’s 20 Percent Factor (Read Story) and how corporate America is changing its views on productivity. The 20 percent factor basically allows Googlers (Google employees) to spend their one day per week to do anything they want to do. They can work on their little ‘pet’ projects on the side either as a team or individually.

The objective of this process is to extract the creative juices of their bright and young engineers to come up with new ideas that may become a mainstream project of their company. True enough, several of these ’20 percent projects’ were now part of their company’s revenue earning services.

My 20 Percent Version

This has inspired me to somewhat replicate this practice and achieve the same objective.I called it as ‘Saturday Projects’. Upon announcing this nifty idea from Google, I immediately saw the eyes of my team lit up like light bulbs and were itching to get started. Yes, just like the original idea, they can do any projects they want on Saturdays. There we some basic rules and guidelines that I set just to make sure they are not breaking any company policies yet still, this is something they can truly call their own time.

Last Saturday, my two best programmers were working on their little projects and were happily conversing each other on ideas. Saturday is a no-pressure work day for us and I don’t intend to make it one. As a leader of my own technology group, I have to be patient and creative to bring out the best from my team. This practice is one of the many implementations.

Since this is still an experiment, I will keep a notebook and share my best practices of my company’s 20 percent factor. What’s your 20 percent factor?

I must admit that I am not spared from losing precious and productive IT staff within my department. The reasons are very diverse and almost endless and I’d say I’ve heard almost every excuse anyone can imagine. I for one had made the same excuses during my early years as professional programmer and I know keeping me from leaving will take more than just a raise.

With more IT businesses opening up very year, the competition for IT talents gets even more rigid. With promises of better pays, more bonuses, and travel incentives; what other creative ways to keep them from leaving you for another company? You’d be surprised that many of the answers listed below require more common sense than creativity.

I have made a short list of advice that I think will work for your business:

1. Be clear with your department’s objectives.

This is the most important and often overlooked practice. We tend to immediately train the new staff on processes and policies and not making clear to him immediately the IT department’s goals and objectives. Why is this important you say? Your department’s objectives give the new staff an idea on how he should be working in unison with other colleagues in meeting its objectives. This also portrays an image that the department has a clear understanding of what it wants to do and ways to achieve them. If the staff you’re hiring is in it for the long run and yet you’re not being clear on your objectives, I bet he’ll be hitting the street looking for a new job in no time.

2. Stick with the job description.

Another turn-off to many IT staff is their being too ‘spread-out’ on a lot of tasks that aren’t in their job description. Like having the programmer fix someone else’s computer or make your daily morning coffee. It takes away the professionalism in their jobs if you keep on doing this on a regular basis. If it ain’t in their JDs better hire someone who can or, you can do it yourself.

3. Have fun.

Your IT staffs are and will always be eternal geeks! Having fun is their only avenue to creative thinking – especially when they are under pressure on meeting deadlines. This also promotes healthy camaraderie among colleagues. Yes, you can be a mortician and still have fun!

4. Nurture creativity and uniqueness

Every individual is unique and everyone has its own way of solving problems. Your department should be promoting creative thinking and trusting them to deliver their jobs well. IT staff always loves new challenges and solving them. Allocate a few hours a week for open-for-all ‘brainstorming’ sessions; introduce an idea and you will see light bulbs flash in an instant. If you do this, you will be surprised on what they could think and come up next. It may be the next killer app!

5. Give ‘milestone’ incentives.

This can be a motivating factor especially for programmers developing on projects that would run for more than 6 months. It can be very boring when they just continue on working on huge projects until they finish it. It’s just like being in a long drive without taking a stop. Incentives may be in the form of cash, movie tickets, pizza break or whatever small ways your IT team really digs.

6. Provide new learning opportunities.

Another very important and certainly not to be ignored is your IT staff’s opportunity for learning new things. This can get them really excited and can’t wait ‘till they get their hands dirty on new stuffs. This may be in the form of trainings, seminars or conferences that they can use within your company.

7. Ample supply of tooling resources.

What spurs creativity is always the limitation of resources but limiting too much can always means disaster. It’s always smart to invest on basic development tools that they would use regularly such as: Diagramming tools, DB Administration Tools ( if your staff is a database administrator) or a handy IDE for your programmers. I think this is the area where IT department should never scrimp on.

8. Be kind.

Yes, and that means treat them as your equals and not just someone who works from paycheck to paycheck. Let’s face it, you need them as much as they need you and your success depends entirely on how you handle your people first before they can handle your customers genuinely. I have had the experience at shouting at my staff once or twice but it didn’t result to anything productive. They always ended up resigning or just merely disappearing.

I have learned this hard way and since then, I changed my tactics on managing people. Here are some things that you should never do: 1) humiliate your employees in front of others 2) shout at them 3) be respectful at all times and 4) keep your cool.

9. Put bonds.

As a last guarantee so your employees wouldn’t just leave you outright is to put a bond on them. A bond is an investment you made for training and grooming them to be a productive IT staff. Make them sign a contract stating clearly that there is always cost involved in having them and that whenever they decide to resign within a minimum period say 1 year, they will be liable to pay back all the investments you made for that person. If the new hire refuses to sign on the contract, this simple means that he doesn’t plan stay long and would save you all the trouble for looking a new replacement.