Collaboration

Today’s Tuesday Reading is an essay by Theresa Bamrick, CIO at the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory operated by Stanford University. Her essay first appeared as a leaders program reflection last fall. [Theresa may be reached at <tbamrick@slac.stanford.edu>.] 
 

… a technique that allows people to iterate on ideas without using harsh or judgmental language. While used typically in teams and on the ideas of others, plussing works equally well on one’s own ideas - when one’s self critic can be particularly vocal.

    …  What is it?
    …  Why is it important?
    …  How do I develop it?

Today, most organizations, including a university’s IT organization, structure their work through a set of teams. Other examples include professional sports teams with their structure, their practice day-after-day of plays they may execute in the game, and a surgical team that performs the same procedure, for example, hip replacement, under tightly controlled conditions, perhaps multiple times, day after day.
 

. . .  Ask for it!

On any given day we will each need help from others in one or more of our life-circles – our work, our families, our church, and our social and community activities, etc.  And, we also will have opportunities to extend our help to others.  So, why then, do we have such a hard time asking for what we need and helping when and where we can?
 

… my team is a safe place for interpersonal risk taking

Early this decade Google was focused on building the perfect team.  Even earlier, the company had endeavored to capture large quantities of data about employees and how they worked.  They knew, for example, how frequently particular people ate together (more productive people had larger networks of dining partners) and were able to identify key traits shared by the very best managers (good communication and avoidance of micromanaging). 
 

… Hunting, Fishing, Trawling

Every organization has hidden leaders.  They’re everywhere.  They consistently step up to deal with client problems, with intractable issues, with extra effort to meet an unusual request from a key client, etc.  We often don’t think of such individuals as leaders, after all they don’t have a positional title that would signify that they are a leader.  However, they are key to the success of the organization.

Sue Workman, Vice President of University Technology, at Case Western Reserve University, keynote video at the 2017 MOR Leaders Conference. 

Anne Margulies, Vice President and University CIO, at Harvard University, keynote video at the 2017 MOR Leaders Conference. 

Mark Askren, Vice President for IT and CIO, at the University of Nebraska, keynote video at the 2017 MOR Leaders Conference.