Tag: career2

Most people in management seem to believe that culture matters in a company. I know some don’t, and I’ve worked for a few of those people, whichi s never an enjoyable experience. As the world seems to change to more and more knowledge work for people in technology, it seems that businesses are starting to realize that the way their employees feel about the company can have a direct impact on the company’s bottom line.

There’s an article about culture and motivation in the Harvard Business Review that I think does a good job of looking at how well people perform when they have various motivations. The authors talk about the six reasons why people work, each of which can drive motivation in a different way. Some are positive motivators, some are negative, and it’s good to be aware of the differences.

This ties into culture in that the way your organization is built. The culture that pervades the company can really determine how employees are motivated. More negative motivators result in less performance, especially creative performance, from employees.

I don’t think that building a great team and getting the most from people is necessarily this simple. Different people respond differently to a culture, and the same person might even respond differently at different times in their employment. However I do think that you can look to adjust the way you fit each employee in, with the work you assign, the support you give, and the demands that you make on them.

The mark of a good manager is that they find ways to treat each employee differently, in a way that suits them best, while maintaining a core set of values and rules for the entire organization.

Steve Jones

The Voice of the DBA Podcast

Listen to the MP3 Audio ( 2.0MB) podcast or subscribe to the feed at iTunes and LibSyn. 

I’ve been fascinated by Moneyball and the efforts made in sports to assemble good teams using data more than opinions. I used to think about baseball more, but lately I’ve been intrigued by American football. There are challenges in assembling a team, with the constraints of a limited budget, existing contracts that cannot be changed, and the fact that one player isn’t a replacement for another, even when they have similar skill sets.

That got me thinking that we could do this with our development teams. Certainly the skills that each of posses might be closer to one another than athletes, but that doesn’t change the need to have a variety of skills on a project. We need someone that writes great T-SQL, someone that can manage front end code, someone that can build and provision environments, someone to help test.

I know that many of you can do all these things, but do you want to? Maybe more important, is it a good use of your skills as a developer to manage restores or schedule index maintenance? Those are tasks that might provide a welcome break, but they aren’t necessarily the tasks that I want you to be responsible for or even spend time performing.

There is also the very, very high likelihood that the people hired in your environment have different levels of skills. In a group of T-SQL developers, or SSIS package builders, or any other group that each of you can learn from the others. And you should learn from others, since it’s entirely likely that some of you will leave, and others will need to handle the load left behind. After all, the next person hired is as likely to be the weakest team member as the strongest.

Steve Jones

The Voice of the DBA Podcast

Listen to the MP3 Audio ( 2.0MB) podcast or subscribe to the feed at iTunes and LibSyn.

Your resume of CV is often the first glance that a hiring manager gets about your career. Even if you’ve been recommended by a friend or current employee, often a manager requires some summary of who you as a few paragraphs on a screen that they can study.

I have my own advice, but this post from a manager at StackOverflow covers quite a few of the same things I recommend. I certainly agree with the first section, writing for humans. Over and over again I hear from people that make hiring decisions that they spend 30-60 seconds on a resume to get an impression.

One minute. You should set a timer for one minute and let someone read your resume. Then take it away and ask the person for their impressions of what you know. In fact, maybe that’s a great icebreaker at a user group meeting or SQL Saturday. Find someone that hires others, or is an experienced person in your industry, and ask them to do just that.

We learn a lot from experimenting and seeing what works well and what doesn’t. Many of us solve problems in code and realize later that we could rewrite things more efficiently. Why not do that with our resumes? We certainly can control how we present ourselves, be interesting, and more importantly, don’t waste the reader’s time.

You get one minute, or less, to make a good impression, so spend some time crafting your resume. Control your brand and ensure that you let people know who you are. Do your best to communicate the skills you have, the things you do well, and the ways in which you are a good employee. Most of us will change jobs at some point, so why not be prepared to present yourself in the best possible way you can by working on your resume now.

Steve Jones

The Voice of the DBA Podcast

Listen to the MP3 Audio (2.4MB) podcast or subscribe to the feed at iTunes and LibSyn.