Management for Geeks – Secret Ingredients
In a previous Management for Geeks post, I talked about a hypothetical relationship with John. This discussion actually surfaced the fact that I have a problem getting things done. I tell myself that I must do things, I know that these things are good but all I do is have good excuses.
How many times have you heard or told yourself:
“I must try pair-programming”
”I need to write more unit tests”
”I have to get my team to be agile”
Secret Ingredients = Integrity
The Secret Ingredients to getting these done, to managing yourself and then others is: “Integrity”
I first heard about Personal 
Integrity on a Radio show. The broadcasters where trying to pull a practical joke on a US Navy Officer. The broadcaster pretended to be an angry father who called an officer and complained that the officer told his son, who went for an interview, that he was useless and wouldn’t find a job anywhere. But the joke didn’t work, the officer kept on saying: "I would never say something like that". It ended with the broadcaster saying: This guy has an amazing integrity, he didn’t let us budge him.
This is when I thought to myself, I would like to have that.
So what is Integrity?
Although there are a few definitions, I like completeness. When something has technical integrity, it is complete, all the pieces work and fit together well.
When talking about Integrity in people I tend to see it as the completeness of our words:
Saying –> Intending -> Doing |
We have 100% integrity when we say what we are going to do, we mean it and intend to do it and we actually do it.
This sounds simple but we tend to break our integrity all the time.
We can say something and not mean it. I used to say “I must stop smoking” but I never intended to do anything.
We might say something and intend to do it, but not do it.
e.g. I really want to stop smoking and I intend to do it, but just don’t do anything.
We can choose not say anything.
e.g. I won’t tell anyone that I want to stop smoking
Broken Integrity
Lets see where Johns integrity was broken. John said that we will meet on Wednesday at 10:00, but he never showed up.
So his integrity is broken, he didn’t do what he said that he would do.
He might have just said it without meaning it, if he knew that he had to go to the hospital the next day.
He might have said it and meant it, but didn’t do it because something really came up, but them he should have phoned and changed the date: "Sorry that I won’t make it at 10:00, is 12:00 a good time".
Changing your intentions and saying so, is a valid way to stay in integrity, as long as you intend to do it.
Imagine if John would have phoned to delay the meeting, I would have known ahead of time, I would not have to wait, I could do some work in the mean time, I could tell him when (and if) we could meet again.
Stop hearing excuses
The trick of staying in Integrity is to:
1. Say and commit to actions that are in your control
2. As soon as you realize that you cannot do the actions, if something out of your control happens – recommit – tell the other parties about the new intentions
When you are in integrity there are no excuses, either you kept up to your word, or you changed your word and kept up to your word. In any case if you are in integrity, you kept up to your word and don’t need excuses.
Once I started being in Integrity, my excuses suddenly evaporated. I found that I used to spend a lot of my time making up excuses instead of actually working.
I also found out that the more people that I say what I intend to do, the harder it is for me to break my integrity.
3. Committing to others is very powerful.
23 Comments to “Management for Geeks – Secret Ingredients”
Recent Posts
- Unacceptable: Unit testing will take 20 years to catch on
- The 4 reasons why we DIDN’T choose Oslo
- Typemock Academy Launch
- The First Rule to Software Craftsmanship
- Goal-driven Development
Categories
- .NET Tests
- Agile
- Code Integrity
- Community
- Debugging
- Fun
- Management for Geeks
- Marketing
- Product
- Release
- Reviews
- SharePoint
- TDD
- Time Management
- Uncategorized
- Unit Tests
Archives
- May 2010
- April 2010
- March 2010
- February 2010
- December 2009
- October 2009
- September 2009
- August 2009
- July 2009
- June 2009
- May 2009
- April 2009
- March 2009
- February 2009
- December 2008
- November 2008
- August 2008
- July 2008
- May 2008
- April 2008
- February 2008
- January 2008
- December 2007
- November 2007
- October 2007
- September 2007
- August 2007
- July 2007
- June 2007
- May 2007
- April 2007
- March 2007
- February 2007
- January 2007
- December 2006
- November 2006
- October 2006
- September 2006
[...] In order to always be in integrity we need check points. Here is how we do it in Typemock. It might remind many of you of Scrum, and I see Scrum as very close to integrity, but while Scrum focuses on product development, integrity management focuses on the people and empowering the team. [...]
[...] I have always been an autodidact. I did see people being coached, and it always interested me, but I never found anyone who I felt could coach me. With Moti, my current coacher, It works really well. Moti introduced me to living with personal integrity and that just made me discover a lot about myself. [...]
אלי שלום,
כייף לראות איך אתה מיישם את כלי האינטגרטי בעצמך ועם המנהלים והעובדים שלך. כבר אמרצי לך לא פעם. אתה מאומן מספר 1 שלי. אתה הופך לאט לאט לחיית אינטגרטי.וכאן הרשי לי להזהיר אותך ממצבים דומים שראיתי אצל חיות אחרות. ככל שאני מטפס בסולם האינגרטי שלי, כלומר עושה הפרדה מוחלטת ביו מה שתלוי בי למה שלא, ואז מצהיר מתכוון ועושה. כך תוצאותי יהיו טובות יותר, אך הסובלנות שלי להתנהגותם של אחרים עלולה להפגע.
Hi Moti,
Moti is my coach. Its great to see that you are reading my blog
Translation: Moti said that when you practice integrity and focus only on controllable tasks, you get better results. But you have to be careful, when you become better at this, you will lose your tolerance for other peoples behavior.
I think that this is true, I don’t really have tolerance for people who say that they will do things and just disappear, I will have to be really careful about recognizing and handling these situations.
This is a good topic for another post.
[...] I have talked a lot about integrity, this is our management style in Typemock and the way we bring ourselves to excellence. But your team members might not work with integrity, even if you have explained it to them, it still takes time to understand. [...]
[...] It is really hard to know when to terminate. But if we are Managing the Integrity of our employees, it becomes quite simple. If an employee doesn’t live up to his word, he can’t stay in our team. We are looking for excellence and to be excellent you must have integrity. Once an employee doesn’t intend to do what he says he will do, he must find another place to grow. [...]
Being an inspiring leader, with integrity, I think is part of what attract valuable employees.
Also it’s funny you mention integrity and the Navy story – some of the best US software developers I’ve ever met are ex-military and Integrity is one of the core values of the military ingrained in us from day one. Maybe some of the other core values are part of the make-up of a good employee/developer too: (Google LDRSHIP)
That is really interesting Brian, I never thought about it.
How does the military define integrity?
Is it the same as our definition?
I’d say it’s the same basically; do what you say, say what you mean, don’t go back on your word, don’t hide the truth even if it hurts someone else or yourself, own up to your mistakes, don’t sugar coat things, be a man, etc.
[...] It is called Integrity. It is easy to measure, it can, and should be measured every day, by creating controllable actions, it is easy to turn the Business goals into individual goals. [...]
Thanks Brian
[...] “I don’t understand, there is no difference, we do exactly the same things in Scrum and in Integrity. The Customer will know after the sprint what we managed to do.” [...]
[...] So how can you become responsible. Ask yourself, what can YOU do, and tell others what you indent to do. Live with integrity. The only way out of being a victim is by taking responsibility. [...]
As I read this, Integrity is not just something that you HAVE.
It is a place that you are IN.
John, you are probrably correct.
[...] Here is how it can work with integrity management: [...]
[...] I have been talking about integrity management, but the word integrity actually comes from the technical condition of being whole. That is why in star trak we hear that the Enterprise’s hull integrity is failing. The ship is not complete. When a car leaves the manufacturing company, it gets stamped 100% integrity, meaning that it is complete. [...]
[...] Now that the company is in integrity it is easier to fail fast and to fix our broken processes. As Johanna Rothman says Graceful Degradation is Not What We Want; Quick Failure is Better [...]
[...] I would have a manager of growth instead of a manager of fear. This manager should understand that we have to face our fears to grow, we have to leave our comfort zone. The manager of growth has a simple job description: Help management and other leave there comfort zone, using integrity to focus on controllable actions (and not on goals). [...]
[...] But the developer was frustrated, and kept on complaining – complaining is really bad, its an energy killer, completely opposite to our Integrity management and our Agile/Lean company culture. [...]
“But you have to be careful, when you become better at this, you will lose your tolerance for other peoples behavior.
I think that this is true, I don’t really have tolerance for people who say that they will do things and just disappear, I will have to be really careful about recognizing and handling these situations.
This is a good topic for another post.”
I’m reading this because I’m dealing with a key employee who has very low integrity, as you use the word. And you’re saying terminate them. That has real business costs.
Where do you draw the line?
I am quiet strict about this. If the whole group has integrity and that employee is the bad apple and doesn’t deliver. The cost of not terminating that employee is greater, both for the employee who must be frustrated about not living up to his word and to you and the business that can’t get things done.
[...] Integrity You must know by now that I am an integrity freak [...]