Peer to Peer Magazine

17 WWW.ILTANET.ORG BEST PRACTICES Three Pillars of Success — Pillar One: The Right People These four essential aributes are not equal. A greater amount of emphasis should be placed on aptitude and aitude when selecting members for your team. This assertion strikes some IT managers as heresy, but that is precisely why so many technology organizations struggle with their personnel choices. Those who hire based primarily on experience do so at their peril. Why? Consider our hypothetical employee candidate, Andy. Andy has over nine years of experience with Microso Office and Microso Exchange; because those skills and experience were sought, he was offered the position. But Andy's aptitude is limited. He struggles to adapt to new operating systems and hardware, and his Microso- specific technology confidence alienated colleagues at his previous employer. But, in terms of the skills sought for the position, Andy knows his stuff. In retrospect, competing candidate Brenda would have been a beer fit in the context of our four aributes. She has less than one year of experience with MS Office but demonstrates a broad understanding of other applications, works with multiple operating systems and writes code. Brenda also exhibits a can-do aitude with an eagerness to learn new technologies. Though her skills and experience are limited compared to the position description, she possesses important advantages. Skills and experience can be more easily coached, trained and obtained if someone has the right aptitude and aitude. Another pitfall that comes with placing undue emphasis on skills and experience is an IT team that is less ambitious and dynamic because their skills are aligned with a depreciating technology. Over time, the technology vendor comes to have a greater influence in which products' features and benefits are considered indispensable because the employees have skills and experience centered on that technology. This has the potential to create an echo chamber as employees lobby to preserve the status quo. When hiring for aptitude and aitude, you will find the acquisition of skills and experience occurs more naturally. Brenda likely would be more flexible with the introduction of new technology and could more easily undertake the transition to a competing enterprise soware package. Remember, we define skills as context-specific knowledge gained and applied not just to technology but also to people and processes. Selecting personnel based on good aitudes has another advantage. Most IT managers consider only the mindset relative to coworkers; they neglect aitude relative to processes and technology. Returning to our amusement park analogy, personnel with good aitudes are more likely to suggest new safeguards for the roller coaster riders or improved maintenance of the cars. They perceive themselves as part of the operation, not merely as employees with a set of skills or experiences. A good aitude fosters not only teamwork but also novel ways of addressing internal customers' needs and the policies or processes to ensure their success. People Create a Safe Ride If people are not your greatest asset, they should be. Personnel decisions made across all three pillars –– people, processes and technology –– will help ensure your organization's IT success. The roller coaster will always have its ups and downs, but the right people will help ensure a safe and enjoyable ride. P2P FRANK ZILLER Frank Ziller, Chief Information Officer for Intelliteach, has more than 20 years of technology leadership experience leading global IT organizations in both the business services and financial services industries. Prior to joining Intelliteach, Frank worked with Ricoh Americas Corporation and Elavon, a US Bank subsidiary. Contact him at fziller@intelliteach.com. A greater amount of emphasis should be placed on aptitude and attitude when selecting members for your team.

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