Tag: stress management

Dell (well Silverlake) Buys EMC

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For the second time in my career, the company I work for is in the process of being acquired.  It’s never a good feeling to wake up and see the news that you have to go figure out a new PowerPoint template or get new business cards (or worse, maybe not).  It brings a ton of uncertainty, questions, fear, panic, angst, and anything else that comes with your professional life being a little less certain than it was the day before.  Once the initial shock passes we have a choice on how we want to move forward.  We can work through the uncertainty, striving for answers.  We can live with the uncertainty and focus on the work.  And finally, we can settle on doom and gloom and be depressed.  Assuming that wallowing in self pity isn’t a long term strategy, we’ll put the doom and gloom option to the side and consider the other two.

The first company I worked for that was acquired was Genzyme Corporation.  It was, at the time of acquisition, something like the 5th largest biopharmaceutical company in the world.  At that time, it was believed that Sanofi Aventis was buying Genzyme’s R&D pipeline.  It was a way of cementing their future as their profitable drugs faced generic competition.  More information / commentary on the acquisition can be found in this article.  When the acquisition was announced, Genzyme was already in the midst of trying to save money / cut operating expense.  Within IT, where I resided, outsourcing was being considered.  Outsourcing is never an easy conversation because it affects people’s lives in a very direct way.  Being acquired on top of that only added to my discomfort because my own employment future was seemingly vague.  My approach at the time, for better or for worse, was to advocate strongly for my team.  I strongly criticized the outsourcing effort because I didn’t believe the financial picture being pitched.  This led to a lot of sleepless nights and frustration.  I was trying to control a situation that I could not control.  This lack of control over my team’s future and my own affected my quite deeply and eventually led to my departure for EMC.

Upon reflection, I have realized that while my angst over outsourcing was a concern, my own future also weighed heavily on me.  My future with Sanofi was likely secure.  I was a well performing employee and I likely could have found a good home within such a large company.  From an objective perspective, I should have felt confident.  Instead, what I attempted to do was to formulate a clear picture of the future.  This was an impossible task because no one knew what the combined companies would look like.  Striving for answers wasn’t the right place to put my energy and only led to frustration.  Sure, a certain amount of inquiry is fine, but as answers can’t truly be known, there’s a certain amount of insanity to it.

Fast forward a few years and Dell has just come to terms to acquire EMC.  Everyone is curious as to what will happen but no one can know for certain.  I’ve spent a fair amount of time wandering around the web, reading commentary, discovering what a tracking stock is, watching interviews, and absorbing information as best as I can.  I’ve read what competitors have said (IBM, HP, and PureStorage) and, predictably, they are opportunistic.  I don’t think I know much more about the acquisition after all that than I did when it was first announced.  For myself, I believe the best approach is to focus on the job at hand.  That may seem naive or overly simplistic or like sticking my head in the sand but it resonates for me.  To strive for answers that I won’t be able to find will only end in frustration.  And, to be clear, no one knows yet what the combined company will look like.  The answer to that question is a ways off from being written.  There’s a certain amount of relief in relinquishing any attempt to control a situation one cannot hope to command.  The alternative did not work for me in my last go around so I’m going to try a different tact this time.

Many folks might find this to be naive and given the uptick in recruiting calls, the outside world seems to be betting on EMC employees fleeing the company.  I’m sure many will and it is a sensible course of action – solidify your future rather than waiting for the EMC/Dell deal to work itself out.  For me, however, as unknown as things may seem, there is a plan.  For a dozen banks / investors to make billions of dollars worth of a bet, there has to be a lot of analysis done on the success of the combined entity.  People don’t invest that amount thinking they’ll lose money.  Combine that with a confidence in my own skills / marketability, I’m going to wait and see where the chips fall.  Change usually provides opportunity for those that embrace it.

One man’s opinion for sure, ymmv.

When People Leave

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People can leave your teams for a variety of reasons.  It almost always has something to do with the manager – don’t take it personally.  People can leave voluntarily or involuntarily.  For the latter, as a manager you may or may not have a say in it.  I’ve experienced people leaving for all sorts of reasons: better pastures, performance issues, lay offs, and code of conduct violations.  None of them are easy and all take a toll on both the team and yourself personally.  I’d like to explore managing through these experiences.

I’d like to start with the deep impact and employee’s exodus can have on your team.  Rest assured, there will be an impact felt for quite some time.  I’ll approach situations by the questions I’ve gotten from the folks that remain.  Absorbing the work of a former colleague is daunting for a team and the, “How will we get this done?” questions will come up.  The simple fact is that all your work is still there but fewer people left to accomplish it.  As with any workload issue, I think the best approach here is prioritization.  Get all the work out on the table and put it in order of business importance.  Confirm with those above you that the stuff on the bottom of the list may lag.  Then report back to you team any agreement / leeway you were able to negotiate.  It is a sign to them that you will advocate on their behalf – and will normally be appreciated.  Back fill head count may or may not be an option and even if that does come, it takes time and prioritization of current work will need to occur.

The second question I always get is, “Why did so and so leave?” or in the case of lay offs, “Why was so and so chosen?”  In 100% of cases, I find it best to simply not comment.  No good can come of going into details.  It simply churns the rumor mill (which is likely already in full swing).  I usually respond with, “I’m not going to talk about that, I hope you understand.”  Most employees wont ask the question in the first place but some inevitably will.  Respect for the privacy of the individual that left is the best policy here.  In some cases, particularly with a poor performing employee, folks will know why someone left and may thank you for it.  A silver lining here is that remaining team members will see that you’re willing to take action.

The last question I normally get, in the case of lay offs is, “Are there more coming?”  This is the most difficult for me because as someone who manages mostly individual contributors, I don’t know.  Unless the company has publicly announced that there will be, you don’t know.  In the case where you do know through some other means, you’re likely not at liberty to say.  It is best to reassure your team and get the work done.  It is truly one of the hardest things to manage through.  While I know it is part of the job description for management in a large corporation, it is very difficult.

This leads me to the final topic I want to cover in this post – how this affects you as a manager.  For me, this depends on the reason for the employee departure.  If it was a good employee and voluntary, it is natural to ask, “What could I have done differently?”  Self reflection is good to a point but don’t harp on it.  Figure out if there was a situation you can learn from but move on.  You cant control the thoughts of another person, a huge offer they were given, or a family situation that forced a job change.  Try not to dwell on it.

In the case of managing someone out for performance or code of conduct issues, the aftermath cuts both ways.  Someone that consumed an inordinate amount of management time is now out of the team.  But at the same time, someone no longer has employment and their life has been impacted.  That can hit you emotionally, acknowledge that but, assuming you did your best to coach up and retain that person, rest easy.  They weren’t a fit for the role and in the long term, it will be better for both of you.

Layoffs are the final and most difficult case.  Many times, the person(s) leaving are good employees who are being let go for skill set or financial reasons.  Corporations are businesses and have to be run as such.  Let me say this – the situation is worst on the affected employee.  The affect on the manager are secondary in magnitude to this.  By focusing on the latter, I’m not diminishing the former.  For any manager with a soul, terminating someone is difficult.  It is especially difficult during layoffs because it isn’t an isolated occurrence.  The mood of everyone is generally down and managers are asked to fire people and then do their best to raise the morale of the remaining team.  In these situations I try to be transparent about how I’m feeling.  If asked, “How are you doing?” I usually respond, “Pretty crappy.”  Because I am.  It isn’t easy to go through.  In my opinion, putting on a happy face is disingenuous and folks will see right through it.  You’ll lose a degree of trust the team has in you.  Be honest and work through the emotion together with your team.  I think this is the best way to bring the team through.

Presenting at Varrow Madness – What’s vLab?

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This past week, I presented for the first time in a public forum.  It was a technical conference run by a large partner of EMC’s, Varrow.  Varrow is regional and based in the Carolinas and has a ton of talent and visibility within the industry.  I was honored to be asked but more than a little nervous.  For many of my peers, speaking to the general public is a well practiced and seasoned art.  For me, however, this was a first.  I spent a long time on the presentation and got help from a large number of folks (thank you all!)  I was confident in the material but was still nervous going into it.  There is something about speaking to total strangers that intimidates me.  I have spoken to all levels of internal audiences in large corporations – from executives on down.  But there is something “safe” about that.  You know your audience is pulling in the same direction, you’re employed by the same company.  External audiences are different.  There is an element of the unknown that is tough for me.  You don’t know what types of questions you’ll get or the level of detail that will be needed.  There’s no hint as to who will be attending or how engaged they’ll be.  All you know is that they picked your session to come to based on a 50 word abstract and now you can hopefully make it worth their while.

My presentation answered the question I get from acquaintances / family / friends – “What do you do at work?”  It aimed to cover not only what but more importantly “why” and “how”.  It is a topic I live every day and am excited about.  The deck was well received by the conference hosts and some folks internal to EMC who were familiar with vLab but not in our direct organization.  Bottom line – I should have been less nervous than I was.  I got into the room and it was blazing hot – so much so that we had to keep the doors open.  After that my USB slide advancer wouldn’t work well and kept disconnected.  When I was finally ready to go, I was off balance to say the least.  But then a funny thing happened.  The passion for what I do and preparation with the material took over.  It was odd and almost immediately I found myself mentally facepalming for worrying about it.  I cruised through the presentation and while the audience wasn’t overly engaged, I considered it a success.  I was between them and happy hour and the heat was really unbearable – I’m sure it wasn’t the material! 🙂  Long story short – this was good for me to do and stretched my comfort zone a bit.  I hope to do more of it.
vLab is a fantastic story to tell.  We have grown tremendously all while using modern and eloquent solutions to deliver business value.  It is something I get quite excited about because we are a functioning private cloud use case.  It is a great dialogue for EMC to have with customers but it is also personally fulfilling.  I have a great deal of pride in my team and the work they have done to help bring vLab to life.  I’ve included the slides I used below – if you have questions, please hit me up on twitter or in the comments below.  Happy to discuss!

Chris

Dealing With the Stress

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The seminal event of the year for my team is approaching and with it, the stress level of most is on the rise.  EMCWorld is a big deal for vLab.  It is our most public event and is, to steal from economic / political dialogue, too big to fail.  Every year we add capacity, functionality, and content specific for the show in support of EMC’s business.  The show basically consumes the first half of the year and places the proverbial “eye of Sauron” directly on vLab.  With all of this attention and publicity comes a lot of stress.  It has, at times, boiled over but for the most part the team does a good job holding it together and to date, each show has been considered a large success.  I want to use this post to comment on how managers can manage not only their own stress but also that of their teams.  Both are critical pieces and merit discussion.

There is a ton of information out there on stress management – a quick google will get you there.  Here are some of the general results:

http://www.helpguide.org/mental/stress_management_relief_coping.htm
http://www.webmd.com/balance/stress-management/stress-management-topic-overview
http://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-living/stress-management/basics/stress-basics/hlv-20049495

They all mention a variety of things: eat well, get sleep, learn relaxation techniques, learn your triggers.  All of this will make you more healthy and make things, in general, more enjoyable.  Work is listed as an obvious source of stress and is a trigger for many people.  As leaders, stress at work has an impact not only for ourselves and our own well-being but also on our teams.  Managing stress becomes a benefit for ourselves and for the quality of our leadership.

One observation I’ve made over time is that a leader’s personal stress is picked up on by a team.  A group will take on the tone and tenor of a leader and if that leader is noticeably stressed, the team will be as well.  Having a stressed team, while valuable at times (urgency is needed, even if it adds stress) can erode morale over time.  Managing one’s own stress is an obvious technique for helping with this.  If it doesn’t exist, stress won’t be apparent and hence won’t creep into your team.  Given the impossibility of eliminating stress, we are challenged to isolate that stress from our teams.  This can be done in a variety of ways but one of the most important is to watch tone when communicating with your team.  There are subtle ways that stress can creep in – your temper is shorter, your default urgency level rises, and you can become more demanding.  Many of us also tend toward more of a micro-management style as our own personal stress level increases.  None of these help your team – who in the end are the very folks who will deliver for you, reducing the pressures of the job.  It is important to keep that stress isolated from your team – or at least isolate the negative aspects.  This takes a lot of self awareness and practice – it’s not easy.  We must also give ourselves a break and recognize that stress is a natural reaction to tense situations and can’t be eliminated.  When recognized, I have found that taking the proverbial breath and re-engaging can be effective.  It is also worth reaching out to people if they have been directly affected.  Simply apologizing and explaining why something occurred can go a long way.

I chose the word “isolate” in the previous section for a very specific reason.  Isolate does not mean hide. Being transparent with my team about my stress factors is another means to combat them.  I like to let my team know when I’m stressed and more importantly, why I’m stressed.  This is not done with the full weight of the stress but as information.  Explaining why you’re pushing something or why a deliverable is suddenly very important leads to better understanding within your team.  And I’ve found that when people understand why they’re doing something, they tend to produce at a higher rate.  What we’re doing tends to be easier to do if we know why we’re doing it.  It’s the same reason I was always better at doing the dishes than I was at making my bed.  Doing the dishes lets me eat again, making my bed… not so much.  Discussing the stress also helps to lessen it simply by sharing it.  As a leader, it is not necessary to carry all of the weight for a team.  Hand the team a part of the boulder, don’t drop it on their head.

The last point I would like to touch on concerns stress within your team.  Just as there will be stress in your own life, as a leader, we must recognize that there will be stress within our teams.  We must learn to see it in individuals and respond to it effectively.  Ignoring it will only lead to burn out and responding to it incorrectly only exacerbates the issue.  Ongoing touch points and communication is a key factor in reducing stress.  Simply asking someone how they’re doing goes a long way.  Be sincere and listen to the answer.  You might get some praise or a complete vent.  You have to listen and respond – commit to help if asked.  Some people don’t like to share and that is fine as well.  I have a simple rule around this that I have implemented in many of the teams that I have managed.  I tell everyone, top to bottom, “If you need a break, call me, tell me, and take a day, no questions asked.”  There is nothing so important in our jobs that a day’s delay is worth more than the mental health of someone on your team.  If you want people to produce beyond the next task or deliverable, you have to see ahead.  Don’t focus on the fire that needs to be put out today, save the firefighter for the next ten.  It will go a long way and it is simple.  Give those that work for you the break you’d like once in a while.  We all look forward to the weekend for a reason.

– Chris