IPMA Home | IPMA News IPMA News : April 2005 Edited By Christy Ridout and Shelagh Taylor

Leadership: An Invitation to Introspection

--By Diane Vasarkovy, Wolf Consulting

Leadership is about you, the leader, never about those you lead. The late Randy Revell said that "leadership is an emotional, not an intellectual craft". That means that you must understand yourself, and what drives you, in order to build integrity and create a work atmosphere that fosters openness and truth.

People who work for you, like children, will do as you do, not as you say. It's very basic. They watch and learn from the behavior you model, whether or not you are conscious of what talk you are walking.

Most people prefer to be trustworthy, open, honest, and accountable. But it can be risky if they don't feel they are in an environment where it's safe to be that way. Sincerity cannot be faked, and yet there are leaders who operate under the blithe misperception that their own view of reality is true, despite evidence to the contrary. They fail to see that the people they lead are onto them.

Maybe you've taken lots of leadership courses and worked extensively to hone your personal leadership ‘style', but if you aren't being true to your own emotions and inner drivers it screams out to your subordinates in subtle ways that they can't even articulate. It shows up in their behavior as they attempt to figure you out and understand the unwritten rules by which you lead.

Forget leadership styles. They are really code for emotional styles. Emotions are really where your character comes from. Consider this model where -> means "leads to":

Emotions -> thoughts -> words -> actions -> habits -> character -> destiny!

People can smell out character. It can't be faked. It takes courage to act from your true character. People admire that and want to emulate you because most people aspire to be good and do good work. They respond positively when they see it around them. Truth, sincerity and accountability play a major role in fostering a healthy organizational culture. To understand how emotionally mature you are in your leadership style; try these few questions on for size.

1. Do you feel differently about yourself in your personal versus business life? Why wouldn't you be true to your true self regardless of the setting? Contrasts in these views are an invitation to introspection.
2. How about hot buttons? Do certain people seem to be able to push these? What is common about those people and those buttons? Do you hold them accountable for pushing them, rather than hold yourself accountable for reacting to the push? Hot buttons are an invitation to introspection.
3. Do you walk your talk? Have you asked people if you do? Do you catch yourself saying things you don't really believe deep down inside of yourself? If you can't be true to yourself, you can't be truly accountable for your own experience of life. Incongruity between your actions and your personal truths is an invitation to introspection.
4. Have you ever blamed those you lead for the poor quality of any given results they produce? How did you feel about that? When you can catch yourself in blaming mode, that is an invitation to introspection.

And yes, introspection is how you get to understand yourself, which you must do before you can understand how your words and actions affect those you lead. So start in the mirror!

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Value in Innovation Drives ITSD @ESD

--by Thomas Bynum, Bob Miller, and Don Albright, Employment Security Department

At ESD we try to squeeze out every last penny of IT investment value.  To us that means that we have two keys in everything we build – get Infrastructure that you can take to the bank and search hard for Reusables.

Is the mainframe dead?  No.  Not by a long shot.  It is important Infrastructure.  Although in some circles, it is chic or trendy to think it's dead, we see value from it.  What we've modeled is a view of applications that allows us to use both the strengths of our existing investments while capitalizing on the major league values of newer now maturing technologies like web, imaging, data warehousing, and CTI (Computer-Telephony Integration).  

In the applications arena we look at the very basic model below to initially explain our blending of the mainframe with the newer technologies:

The mainframe used to do all these functions for some of our older applications.  What we considered it does well is Process and Storage.  We have spent between ten and twenty years perfecting the logic / process and the storage for our Unemployment Insurance benefits and tax applications.  The data layouts haven't changed much.  A few new rows/elements occur from time to time.  Not very often do we see a new column/entity crop up.  The validations and calculations get altered by the legislature, but they are usually done in a backdrop that we can analyze and table drive. 

Where technology innovation has excited us is in the Input and Output arenas.  The web is great for getting our information in from our customers.  And so are IVR's (Interactive Voice Response telecommunications systems).  With Unemployment Insurance, you can now file your "Initial Claim" via the web, and your "Continued Claim" via an IVR.  In 2000 we didn't have these applications up.  Now 33% of initial claims come via the web vs. gobbling up TeleCenter Intake Agent time.  And the vast majority of continued claims are called in via IVR, especially on Sunday night before a job seeker starts their week of seeking reemployment.

Are mainframes it for us?  No, we also have a server farm of over 400 Windows, UNIX, and Linux servers.  Many of these servers only have one application on them because of the past limitations of the Windows environment.  We are currently exploring methods to consolidate many of these servers.  There are several choices on the market of how to deploy virtual machine software for servers.  The key is to isolate and protect each operating environment, and the applications and data that are running in it.  

Reducing the quantity of servers will help us limit the upgrades to other resources like power, air conditioning, and floor space.  Expanding floor space, power, and air conditioning is far more expensive in the long run than replacing servers.   The business case on focusing on computer consolidation is very sound and it makes a lot of sense from a support model as well.

In our TeleCenters we have embraced IVR and CTI to service more claimants and provide a better customer experience.  We have all had the experience of being asked several times for our account numbers when calling our financial call centers.  At ESD we ask for the claimants Social Security number once and then through CTI technology we display it on the agent screen.  The agent never has to ask for the Social Security number again.  This speeds up the transaction as well as eliminates mild irritation of our customers. 

If you want to seek employment online we have the GO2WorkSource application, which is currently undergoing a refresh to .NET coupled with adding much desired functionality.  We like .NET and J2EE because their very basis is a principle of re-use.  That automatically means putting innovation on top of innovation, and not spending valuable investment dollars on building chunks of code all over again.

We have extended that philosophy to our soon-to-be-up web portal inside the agency.  Re-use.  The applications that run our agency (vs. serve our public) are serviced by a group we call AS-IS, or Administrative Services – Information Systems.  That's what had been going on in Administrative Services systems for a long time.  The AS-IS story.  Basically limping by, with little or no attention.  Seemed that everything that needed attention cost a lot of money if we had to start with the traditional custom build approach.  Now we look for existing software and we have a strong portal presence we can easily build on to deliver service.  We're able to redefine the "Services" that our Administrative Services Division does for the rest of the Agency and, with their help (partially because they see the power of the web and because the new Division head sees the ROI), seek out code objects that are inexpensive but effective.  We recently found a freeware web-based survey engine that serves our purposes quite well and will be in place soon.  We have started work on a series of lite e-commerce web pages that will allow the internal ordering to be moved away from the cumbersome paper processes we are burdened with.   All these pages are based on robust freeware – based on our portal / content management software – which is itself robust freeware used by many organizations around the world.

As for output, or reporting, or decision support, we have built a data warehouse.  In 2000 we didn't have one.  Now we have 300+ power users around the state getting information and building reports instead of seeking priorities in IT to get their reports built by a technician.  We are nearing a valuable milestone as well.  Our data warehouse is an enterprise data warehouse.  We are close to having the basic data there from all our heavy transaction systems.  It has taken 160 tables of information across almost a dozen major subject areas to do that, but the base for more advanced reporting is coming into view (just in time for GMAP?).  Coupling that with a fully populated online data dictionary that the tough manager of our data warehousing group insists on from his developers makes this an object of great investment value for the agency.

What about the future?  What's our next investment?  Between now and August we have a number of key projects that put both Infrastructure and "Applications Infrastructure" in place.  Not only do they deliver service, but we consider them key building blocks.  An initial development project has 1000+ details to worry about.  Once you get it up, further investments only have to worry about 10 – 100 details.  Maybe not totally true, but worth thinking about to focus our attention on key building blocks.

We do a lot with telecommunications.  Our TeleCenters have 400-500 people in them, depending on the seasonality and anticipated call volumes.  We are currently solidifying our IVR and CTI infrastructure while delivering additional services.  One key new item for us is to take advantage of current IVR functionality while also getting positioned to ride the wave of upcoming telecommunications improvements that are going to soon be affordable.  We are changing what we ask of callers.  We currently only ask for 4 items while we prepare a caller to speak to an Intake Agent.  That doesn't do as much as we can do for the callers.  We are going to increase to close to 35 facts.  All quick questions.  No alphas.  Just numerics and yes/no questions.  Before we place the call in front of the Intake Agent, we are going to bounce the details against our databases, so by the time that the Intake Agent takes the call the agent will know quite a bit about the caller and be in a position to more quickly give quality service.  For the future we are considering voice recognition so we can do even more for the callers, and maybe on a 24 x 7 window instead of a 5 x 11 window that we now offer service with.

We're also getting ready to harness our imaging engine for the good of the claimant.  A claim goes to "adjudication" if it has enough complexity to not be able to be judged available for benefits on the merits of the information that is originally taken.  That means we need to research information from the ex-employer(s) and the claimant.  Forms.  Potentially lots of forms.  Coming in to the 150 adjudicators we have in three separate sites across the state.  We're going to put in an imaging / workflow solution that allows us to automatically route the incoming forms to an available adjudicator.  Whereever they are physically.  This functionality will be riding on the back of the already existing imaging engine at the agency.  Innovation on top of innovation – valuable investment for the agency.

Is all this pinching of pennies worth it?  Every penny we can give back to the business side of ESD goes into the administration of finding people work and keeping food on the table and gas in the tank while they look for work.  Good enough for us!

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News from the Past

5 Years Ago -- April 2000 IPMA Newsletter

10 Years Ago -- April 1995 IPMA Newsletter

15 Years Ago -- April 1990 IPMA Newsletter (not available at this time)

20 Years Ago -- April 1985 Association of Data Processing Managers Newsletter  (not available at this time)

25 Years Ago -- April 1980 Association of Data Processing Managers Newsletter

30 Years Ago -- April 1975 Association of Data Processing Managers Newsletter  (not available at this time)

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Summary of March 10, 2005 IPMA Board Meeting

Members Present: Jim Albert, Mary Ellen Bradley, Phil Grigg, Sheryl Hall, Dennis Laine, Andy Marcelia, Christy Ridout, Darrel Riffe, and Shelagh Taylor. Phil Coates, CFO and Jim Andersen, the Forum Events Manager were also present.

Andy Marcelia, IPMA Vice-chair, opened the March 2005 meeting of the IPMA Board of Directors at 7:35 a.m.

Secretary/Treasurer: The minutes from the February 2005 meeting were approved. The Board approved the February 2005 financial status and activities reports.

COMMITTEE REPORTS:

Forum: Jim Andersen presented the Forum 2005 status report.

1. Keynote Speakers: New DIS Director Gary Robinson has agreed to be the first day keynote speaker. The second day speaker will be Peter Penfield, from Cisco's Internet Business Solutions Group.
2. Corporate Sponsors: Commitments have been made by 23 of 26 returning sponsors. Thirteen have paid their sponsorship fee.
3. Vendors: Commitments have been made for 31 of 47 booths, which is slightly ahead of past year's at the end of February. Ten vendors have paid their fees. GA will be purchasing a half priced booth. One booth has been set aside for an Espresso stand and free booths have been requested by .Net, PMI, OMUG and the IPMA.
4. Forum Planning Committee: The Forum Planning Committee has completed the proposed speaker schedule. The board reviewed the agenda.
5. Forum flyer: A Forum flyer is nearly complete. The wait for session and keynote descriptions are causing its development of the flyer to run a little late.
6. Executive Lunch, May 17: Rob McKenna, the state's Attorney General, has agreed to be the event speaker. The IPMA web site has been updated to include a pointer to his bio.
7. Corporate Sponsor Agreement: The board reviewed a draft of the proposed agreement. It was decided that the document should be presented at the New Corporate Sponsor Appreciation meeting to be held in July.
8. Vendor Contracts: Work is continuing on a draft of the participation agreement for Forum Vendors.
9. Corporate Sponsor Donations: The board decided that sponsors will not be asked for special donations to cover the cost of such things as attendance gifts. The cost of the attendance gift for this year's Forum will be covered entirely by the IPMA.
10. Optima LCD Projector: The LCD projector has been ordered and will be delivered at the Professional Development Seminar on March 23. Imagemaker AV will be at the seminar to show how to set up the LCD.

Communications: The schedule of board member article assignments for 2005 Newsletters was distributed by Shelagh Taylor.

The board was asked if the current policy of only accepting newsletter articles from Corporate Sponsors could be modified to allow articles from non-sponsors. It was agreed that Corporate Sponsors would be given priority but other articles could be accepted.

As part of the Communications Committee marketing of the Executive Luncheon in May, letters will be sent to about 50 agency CIO's, they will be encouraged to save the date and to invite a senior agency executive early.

Executive Seminar: Phil Grigg reported that they are awaiting the Skamania Lodge's financial proposal for the IPMA's reservations for 2006 and 2007.

Professional Development: Sheryl Hall presented the committee report.

The March 23 program, "Results Driven Process Improvement with Lean Six Sigma - Getting to the Real Cost of Complexity," is on schedule. To date 70 people have registered.

The April 12 program, "Security Roadmap - a Technical Roundtable," is on track. Originally scheduled for April 21, the date had to be changed to the 12th due to a conflict with the NW Security Conference schedule.

The June 28 program is currently under development.

The August 23 program, "Neal Whitten's No-Nonsense Advice for Successful Projects," is also underway.

• The contract is complete and will be mailed to Mr. Whitten this week.
• Attendees will be charged a $69 registration fee. DOP is charging $4 per registration run through their system.
• DOP has completed their piece of the announcement and it has been sent to Bob Monn.
• Bob Monn will be coordinating with DOP.
• There are two processes for registration for this event. State Government employees will register through DOP and all others will register through IPMA.

Dates for Professional Development programs have been reserved with Saint Martin's for 2006. The 50% deposit has been paid. Work is continuing with Saint Martin's to secure dates for the 2007 schedule.

Information Technology Leadership Development Program: Jim Albert reported that discussions are continuing with the University of Washington and South Puget Sound Community College. It is felt that either institution could do a good job on the IPMA program.

OTHER BUSINESS:

Marketing Plan: No progress was reported.

Annual Report: All committees reported that they had submitted their material to Thomas Bynum for final compilation of the 2004 report.

Budget: Phil Coates distributed a draft of the 2005 IPMA Budget. He noted that several things that were discussed at this board meeting will result in changes to the budget. Also, it is hoped that the Executive Seminar committee will get a long term reservations quote from the Skamania Lodge so that can be included in the budget. The final budget will be submitted to the board for approval at the April board meeting.

The meeting was adjourned at 8:35 a.m.

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