The Hat Rack

Like many, I enjoyed the dramatic look back to the 1960's, a time when cigarette smoking, drinking and sexism were the norm. Men dominated in the work force and for a woman, being pretty helped get you on the ladder. Some say times were simpler. Maybe.

One of the things I do like about the 1960's, or at least what I know about the era, is the issue of hats. A man wouldn't leave the house without his long-brim fedora. Don Draper would always wear his brown fedora with the black grosgrain ribbon low on his forehead, yet as he stepped into his office he would always doff his hat, careful to hang it up on the hat rack. Doffing one's hat was a required social norm, a sign that you were ready for business.

So what does this have to do with us and the modern workplace? The hats of yesteryear have been replaced, yet today's workers still manage to create physical obstructions, hiding behind the screens of their cell phones, laptops, iPads or other gadgets. These obstructions not only indicate a lack of readiness for business, but also spells out how we're separating our attention between the people in the room and the device in our hands. Somehow, it's become socially acceptable, yet every time I see a coworker playing around with their cell phone during a meeting, their lack of respect and attention drive me nuts. Add in the excuse of "taking notes", we let this behavior continue. 

Contrary to popular belief, numerous studies have shown that we are terrible at multitasking. Our brains can't absorb information when we aren't paying attention. Applied in meetings, our brief digital escapes take our focus away from the content of the meeting, having us rejoin after we may have missed something while we were mentally away. For fear of revealing that we were not paying attention, our participation drops, only to serve in making meetings less productive, less interesting and more boring. Conveniently, our devices safe us from this boredom and the cycle continues. 

Like an addict, the first step is to admit that we have a problem. We need to take steps to keep workers from bringing digital devices into the conference rooms. Back in the 1960's you'd hang your hat on the rack. Now, in 2014, leave your cell phone in your desk drawer. Surely there are specific exceptions, the mother with a sick kid at home or the husband who's wife is in the ninth month, but the only thing we really need in a meeting is paper and a pen. And while I don't support the idea of superfluous meetings, if a topic is important enough that it requires physical participation, let's ensure that we're there in both body and mind. It's time we gain control over our habits before we discover that they have control over us. 

A Proud Sister

I have always been the stereotypical older sister - more responsible, reliable, obedient. After the army, I got a degree and when I finished that, I found a good job. My younger brother has always been the extrovert, risk-taking revolutionary. He's been programming since he learned how to type and never took formal schooling as seriously as my mother would have liked him to. But, he's begun making a name for himself in the Israel hi-tech world and slowly racking up achievements many of us will never reach, and all of this in his early 20's.

I've always been pretty proud of him, his programming skills and his ability to fit in, learn and grow where ever he finds himself. He is highly successful at his work place, earning higher than most people his age and with his background. He maintains an interesting blog. He has time for personal projects such as WastedHumanity.com. I love the blurb he wrote about himself on WastedHumanity: 

Gilly was born over 600 years ago, but was so disappointed the internet wasn't invented yet, he decided to be unborn and come back when the world was ready for him. He's a true geek, secretly living a double life - by day he tries to make people laugh by building silly websites, by night - he doesn't.

His latest achievement is being invited to talk at Reversim Summit 2014 at Google's headquarters in Tel Aviv, Israel at the end of the month. He'll be talking about latency and client side performance on February 25th at 17:00 in the Hack Room. I am extremely proud of him and wish I could be there to hear him talk.

It Isn't About You

We've all heard that there is no I in team work and a bunch of other cliches and quotes along the same line. You can find the hidden "i" in team or the one in "win" and twist and turn things around to your heart's content, but adage that together everyone achieves more really does hold water.

I cannot stress the importance of team work. I don't code. I can pseudo code enough to get my point across, but I don't have the know-how to write actual, functional code. I could learn, but I doubt I'd be half as talented as my team's amazing development leader. In her sleep she could probably write better code than I ever could! Nor do I have the patience and thoroughness of our amazing QA team. They comb through our software finding glitches that have probably been over seen hundreds if not thousands of times, but never acknowledged or brought up by any of our clients.

Everyone wants recognition. We see it as early as during infancy - crying for recognition of needs. As we grow, so does the desire for recognition. It isn't just about getting praise for a job well done - it's about being acknowledged.

Shift the focus from yourself to the team.

In order to have people want to follow your lead, understand why they are part of the team, what they contribute and what they want to get out of it all. Find out what value each team member is looking for - be it financial, profession or intrinsic. Find ways to incorporate their own goals into the teamwork. Assign the developer who is always looking to get ahead with a task in the new technology that needs to be explored. The next time you send an email, think about additional value that can be added - information sharing, recognition, coaching. Open up the potential for deeper engagement and better alignment with the team member's own missions to reach higher performance. 

The Job Fair and My Own Resume

I am a Product Manager at a company called Toluna, where I am extremely lucky to love my job and the people I work with. So, it was a privilege and a joy for me to be asked to represent the company at a job fair at my Alma mater, the Technion (aka Israel Institute of Technology). We are currently looking for computer science students towards the end of their studies to join us as software engineers. Regardless, this didn't stop tens of industrial engineering and management students to stop by our booth and ask if we are look to hire managers. Aside from the fact that we aren't looking for any managers at the moment, these students are lacking actual industry and work experience. Politely, we turned them away, but that got me thinking about how one becomes a manager and back to my own humble beginnings and the very unconventional path that I took to become a product manager.

During my army days, I realized the beauty of databases and started reading Microsoft's study guides for the MCDBA (Microsoft Certified DataBase Administrator) exams. With my release, I was hired by an American company to work for them as a database administrator. Although I had a wonderful time working for the company, I really wanted to study medicine (pathology, to be exact) and left the company when the following school year started and I was admitted into the Technion. I was somewhere in my third year of studies when I decided to close my degree as a Biology Engineer and go back to work with computers in the "real world".
The year was 2009 and the bubble had burst and even computer science majors were having a hard time looking for a job. Oracle 9i, which I had previously been adept at, was passe - knowledge of Oracle 11i was the new minimum. Several places refused to hire me because I didn't have a degree in computer science, despite my background. I decided to take a step back and find a job as a QA engineer, with the determination to work my way back up the ladder, from within.
A few job interviews later, I was starting to get very frustrated as I was constantly being turned down. Another one of these was at Varonis, although Yoav, the QA manager, was kind enough to tell me it was because he felt I was overqualified for the job. He asked me if I was open to other positions and when I told him yes, he asked me to meet with Ophir, the Product Manager. Ophir and I discussed computers, my student work as a tech writer and translator, the different stages of the product life cycle, etc. At the end of our conversation, he offered me a job. Strings attached. I'd be on a three month trial period and I'd be making a pittance of a salary, especially for hi-tech. But, I would be working as his junior Product Manager, learning directly from him and grooming me for.

I jumped at the opportunity and ended up spending almost three years at Varonis. It was a wonderful experience and I learned so much from Ophir and the rest of the people at the company. Since then, I've spent a year at start up which flopped. A year ago I've started working at Toluna and have been immensely happy hear, ever since. But, like the title of this blog hints at, management isn't something that's just bestowed upon people. A degree in management doesn't make one a good manager (I know, I've had my share of managers!). Management is something that must be earned through hard work, leadership skills and the right combinations of skills and abilities. I don't know where 168 upcoming Technion grads are going to find a job as a manager, but I do hope to share with them, as well as with others who read this, lessons I've learned, in hopes of helping others grow in their management skills.