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“I’m Not Technical”

“I’m Not Technical”

I’ve worked with many men over the years who didn’t have a degree in computer science. Not one of them ever thought they weren’t technical nor did they think they needed to prove themselves.

Unlike the men I’ve known without computer science degrees, “I’m not technical” is something I heard from several women I interviewed who had over 15 years in tech. They not only ended up managing technical teams, they contributed technically too.

One woman, Mary, has over 30 years in tech. She’s worked at large corporations and startups in Silicon Valley. She shared a story of working at a publishing startup in the early 90’s.

“I understood the market we were working with and also I could work with the engineers.” She realized that the team accepted her. “The team really appreciated what I brought to the table.” That’s when Mary stopped thinking she wasn’t technical.

Mary worked her way up to director level in software engineering. She loves mentoring people and has invested time in mentoring programs for women. When asked why women aren’t entering tech, Mary answered “Because of the war stories.” This is why we need to talk about the good experiences!

Another observation made by Mary is that women need to apply for positions even if they don’t have 100% of the skills described. “If a woman reads a job description and she sees 50% of the things she hasn’t done then she’ll say no, I’m not qualified. If a man looks at the same job description, he’ll see 50% things he has done and say he’s qualified.”

Lisa is another woman that tells me she isn’t technical. She started in tech at a small company. The company was a loan servicing company that did a high volume of foreclosures. The company invested in a new IBM Displaywriter, an early word processing system, for document processing. “[They] sent me to IBM for training. IBM showed me how to use it but not how to apply it to our specific needs.” The Displaywriter was a significant investment so Lisa worked at figuring out how to configure the program to meet her company’s needs. “I set up an ordered structure for adding data to a record, I didn’t even know to think about it as a database back then, based on how the data would be used on the forms.”

While this might not seem like a big deal today, it was back then. “Our IBM account manager came around to see how I was doing and he was blown away by what I built, so some other folks from IBM came out for a demo. Then they invited me back to IBM one day to interview me about the process I used to come up with the solution. I never read the case study they wrote but they kept checking in on me for the first year to see if I’d invented anything else.”

Some of the rewards in working in tech for Lisa are “ “building a strong team.” And she gained a lot of technical skills. She also liked the “creative problem solving.”

Lisa went on to become a vice-president in operations. She would recommend a career in tech to young women if that’s where their interest lie.

Even though these women started out their careers thinking they weren’t technical, both of these women are respected for their technical know-how and by their peers and teams. Just like the men, they earned their place at the table.

Why Do Women Stay in Tech?

Why Do Women Stay in Tech?

“Tech is changing the world. It’s nice to be at the core of that [new technology]. Not watching it, making it happen.”

This quote is from one woman of over ten that I interviewed about their careers in tech. There has been much press about sexual harassment at tech companies. I wondered, “If this is always happening, why does any woman stay in tech?”

I interviewed women that have been in the field more than 5 years, 10, 15, even 30 years. I asked them about the challenges but also why they stay in the field. What are the rewards?

The women I talked with are managers, CEO’s, and individual contributors. The common theme among them is they are really good at what they do. Not that all of them realized that until we talked about their careers. After one interview, one woman said, “Wow, I didn’t realize just how much I’ve accomplished.”

In the coming weeks, I will write about these women, their challenges and the rewards of a career in tech.

Note: I will not use names of the women or company names (in certain cases) to protect their privacy. I will create pseudonyms for the women’s names.

Company Values: Actions Speak Louder Than Words

Company Values: Actions Speak Louder Than Words

If you’ve ever worked at a small startup or have been part of a management team, you’ve probably worked on defining the company values and goals. Many employees are often cynical about the company values. They think it’s a futile exercise because it often seems that once the values are identified and listed on a company webpage, they are promptly forgotten.

Some values frequently selected include:

  • Integrity
  • Respect
  • Diversity

These are all good words. But how are those words implemented in the organization? Or are there implicit values that are actually implemented?

For example, many companies say they value diversity and integrity. However, actions always speak louder than words. If diversity is valued but the management team is composed entirely of white males, that makes me go “hmmmm.” Do they really value diversity? Or, say the company gets called out for not treating employees fairly. Is integrity really a value?

Why do disconnects occur between the values written down and the values demonstrated by the leaders and employees in a company? It’s simple: it’s the leadership team. The leaders allow certain behaviors to exist and flourish in an organization even if these behaviors directly contradict the stated values.

Employees take cues from the leadership team. If at an all-hands meeting, a leader jokes about “bro” culture, she or he is sending a signal that the “bro” culture is ok. Sure, it’s a joke. But why make such a joke? If a leader only considers hiring white males, how much does that leader value diversity? The managers in the company will take notice and follow that lead.

At one company for which I worked, one of my employees was having issues with someone in another group. The person’s behavior toward my employee was threatening. When I went to my peer to discuss the situation with him, he brushed off my concern by saying that was just the way this person was. Regardless, the behavior was inappropriate. I asked my employee to keep a record of what this person said to him. He did.

I took this evidence to our Human Resources department and they followed up on it. Found out this inappropriate behavior was happening with other employees as well and that it had been going on for awhile. People were afraid of the guy and avoided him. Hostile working environment anyone? The person was fired.

The reason this had gone on as long as it had was because the leader of the organization, by ignoring the inappropriate behavior, was supporting it. It didn’t matter one of the company values was respect. He was encouraging disrespectful behavior. His reasons for not addressing the issues were: “That’s just the way he is” and “but he’s a valuable member of the team.” These are never justifications for not reprimanding or even firing someone for inappropriate behavior.

Defining values for a company or organization is important. But what’s even more important is having the leaders of a company understand they are the ones defining values every day through their words and actions. Living the values is more important than just listing the values on a company webpage.

Staff Meetings

Staff Meetings

There is nothing more frustrating than going to a weekly staff meeting that is content free. Or worse, ends up as a weekly status meeting. Please! If it is a project status meeting, call it that. If it is a staff meeting, please, please, please, make it about something other than project status updates.

Maybe for some managers, staff meetings are equivalent to project status meetings. It’s their chance to get an update on the current project. So call it that and come up with an agenda so everyone comes prepared with the information you want.

For me, a staff meeting is more than project updates. It’s my opportunity to review what’s going on in other areas of the company, get updates from HR, talk about upcoming events such as conferences, meetups, or company parties. And if I don’t have enough content for a weekly staff meeting, I don’t have one. I don’t have a meeting just to have a meeting.

Create an agenda for your staff meetings and make them productive. Be clear about what you want the people in the meeting to contribute. And when you don’t have agenda items, give yourself permission to just cancel the meeting. It shows you are respectful of your staff’s time and that you aren’t meeting just to meet.

Here’s a sample staff meeting agenda that I have used:

  1. Update from HR on Hiring
  2. Passdown (from what I have learned from my manager)
  3. Guest speaker on xyz topic
  4. Roundtable: what each person would like the rest of the team to know about his/her team. Limit to 3 minutes or less per person. Focus on interesting tidbits/problems/successes rather then status updates. For example, if I am managing the user experience team and they are working on a new style guide, I would share: The user experience team completed the color selection for icons used in all apps. If people are interested, I can set up a meeting to go over this in more detail.
What Gets You Out of Bed in The Morning?

What Gets You Out of Bed in The Morning?

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I’m motivated to do a good job when I have the freedom to manage my team without interference from my manager. Why? Because I enjoy taking on new challenges and like to create clear goals for my teams and for myself. When these needs are met, I enjoy my work. I’m motivated to succeed.

But what motivates me doesn’t necessarily motivate the people that work for me. One of my jobs as a manager is to understand what motivates each of them. I think motivated employees produce better quality work and are more dedicated to the success of the company. If I am successful in motivating them and they are happier in their jobs as a result, that’s a win-win for both of us. So how do I discover what motivates them?

First, I give them a list of job factors and ask them to list their top six in priority order and bring it to our next one-on-one meeting. My list of job factors is at the end of this post– check it out before you continue reading.

One of the things you may notice is that the list doesn’t ask if they love their jobs. Instead, I’m trying to get to what they need out of their job and out of their career. What’s important to them? I do this because I can’t assume that I know what is important to them. Everyone has different needs in their life. I might think I know, but I’ve found I’m usually wrong. I remember meeting with one of my direct reports. I was convinced that she wanted a promotion and that was what was motivating her. After she handed me her prioritized list of job factors, I realized I couldn’t have been further from the mark. She wanted public recognition when she did something outstanding. She was also interested in a promotion but that was further down the road for her.

When they bring in the prioritized list, it enables a discussion around what they want from the job and what motivates them. If they are looking for the next rung on the ladder, a promotion, then I look for opportunities to let them stretch and operate at that level. If they are more interested in benefits, I make sure that they are satisfied with the benefits. If they aren’t, I take it to HR. Sometimes it can’t be resolved to the satisfaction of the employee but at least they know I recognized the importance to them and I took action to attempt to correct it for them. If they leave because of it, I understand.

A question I usually ask new employees is, “What makes you want to get out of bed in the morning? What makes you think: I can’t wait to do this!” I get very different responses. Can’t say that any two are alike. Here are some responses:

  • “I like being challenged. I like taking on new projects.”
  • “Money.”
  • “I want to do my job well, and I’m looking forward to retiring in a few years.”
  • “I need good healthcare benefits.”
  • “Stock options. I hope we IPO!”
  • “Having a manager that allows me to work independently but still is there when I need her.”
  • “Having a manager that I can talk to when I need/want.”
  • “I’d like to continue making progress in my career. I want to be promoted to the next level.”

I reassure people there is no “right” answer to this question but I can tell when they are editing their responses. They think they need to tell me what they think I want to hear. Things like “I love this job so much and I can’t wait to get into work in the morning!” I’d really like it if everyone felt that way but realistically, I know not everyone loves their job or loves what they are doing. If someone gives me this type of reply, I usually chuckle and say something like, “Well, for me, I really need a manager that doesn’t micro manage. I hate being micro managed! What makes you feel valued at work?” (So what do you do when they edit their response? How do you get more out of them? Chuckle and ask again?)

When I ask them this question, I find the conversation goes in interesting directions. For example, in talking with one employee, he listed benefits as the top priority for him and then achievement and success. He explained that his child had health issues and it is important to him to have good health benefits. And having clear goals and measures of success helped him to focus himself most effectively while at work. It helped him to balance work with the home stresses. I doubt that I would have had this conversation if I hadn’t started it with the Top 6 Job Factors list.

Feel free to use my list or to make one of your own. Then schedule a meeting with your employee because its time to find out what motivates them!

Directions: Mark the top 6 job factors listed below that are most motivating to you. Most motivating can be defined as the job factors that, if present in your job, would make you excited about getting up to come to work in the morning.
Job Factors Check Top 6
Benefits – medical benefits, 401k, vacation, etc (does not refer to compensation)
Career Development – having opportunities and strategies for upward promotion, lateral career moves, and/or significant added responsibilities & authority
Achievement & Success – being coached toward “winning,” feeling motivated to succeed, having less job stress due to clear goals
Base Compensation – base salary only; does not include commissions, bonuses, stock options, etc.
Corporate Culture – the values and mission of the organization have personal meaning to you and you feel part of the team (does not define work processes or procedures)
Policy & Administration – rules and procedures that define how you have to get things done, i.e., Finance and HR policies (does not refer to work processes)
Job Fit – having work that you can do with confidence and enthusiasm – your skills and interests match the job tasks
Job Security – a job that is relatively secure (does not mean “a job for life” with the company)
Professional Growth – getting continuous training and development as well as learning on the job via new assignments and feedback
Recognition & Rewards – feeling appreciated and recognized for your work
Support – feeling in on things, supported by peers and management in both work and personal issues
Work Conditions – the physical work environment: too hot or cold, old or new, cramped or open
Commute – short vs long, public transportation available, company transportation available
Something else not specified above? Please add.