Thinking Cautiously about Risk Appetite

How does the current trend for Caution in Risk Management affect business potential?

Because well-considered risk taking is critical to business growth and success, not just for individual companies but also to enable or entitle the expansion of a properly functioning economy.

Food for Thought

Business-to-business lending and borrowing always involves a high degree of risk. Therefore, curtailing that appetite for risk can directly hobble entrepreneurship, deprive deserving businesses of capital, and reinforce deflation.

Take a Positive Stance

Moreover, for any business, the assessment of risk should not dwell on the potentially damaging prospects but also on the opportunities; potential rewards and gains. If you take an overly cautious stance this is more difficult to do or can create a restrictive position.

Although the need for risk taking is recognised by both businesspeople and economists, a lot of this is based on theoretical lip service and rhetoric, rather than real positive and optimistic determinations and outlooks.

Complexity

The complexity of risks in the global economy severely tests many companies, both in their judgment about how much risk to take and in their controls for tracking and managing it. What doesn’t help the situation in any way are sponsors and senior management teams who are not comfortable or practiced at discussing risk in the context of strategic decision making or in articulating those expectations to the organisation.

Positive Solution
To overcome the problem of over cautious risk taking, sponsors, senior managers and companies needs a fresh, more rigorous definition of the appropriate level of risk the organisation can accept or endure. The organisation needs to stress its structure, confirm its strengths and articulate its risk appetite.

Set the Appetite

In addition to asking how much risk to avoid and how much to accept, we need to prepare for the possible downside. Leaders should be setting a better example, by defining how much risk they want and establishing how much capital they are willing to stake against it.

Result Focus

Clearly this is only part of the algorithm, because the result of all this effort is to achieve as much potential and capital gain. The whole organisation should be involved and open to this discussion on risk appetite.

Trading on the edge

Traders and deal makers are at the sharp end of it. They, of all people need to fully understand the risk appetite of the company and the part that their individual deals might have in the corporate-wide performance, because they are the ones that have to implement it effectively.

Unshackle and empower your people, by giving them a clear framework, an appetite for risk and a plan for success.

Internal Audit - CCM and Risk Management

Internal auditors are familiar with walking those fine lines, but championing a "Continuous Controls Monitoring" (CCM) program requires an extra fine sense of balance.

Designing effective controls, especially those aimed at preventing incompetence and financial fraud, is typically defined as an activity performed by company management or business units and, under internal auditing standards, internal audit departments must be seen to be independent from management.

Clearly, that doesn't mean internal auditors don't have a role to play in Continuous Controls Monitoring (CCM). Auditors may not be able to help management design effective cost controls or tell them whether a particular control is the right one to have, but they can help in monitoring the situation.

Auditors are not 'troubleshooters' or management consultants, but they are very capable of testing your controls and processes and providing you with the results. In addition to these results, the auditor should provide some searching questions, which can be fed back into and addressed, in the next management meeting. This is an important feedback loop for management, which should not be under estimated.

The need for strong internal controls is heightened in public and financial companies, because of the Sarbanes-Oxley, Basel II requirements, etc . and external auditors have an equally heightened role to play in testing the soundness of these controls.

In these cases, the management are obliged to design controls to fulfill a regulatory obligation and win accreditation or regulatory approval, verifying the effectiveness of these controls. This verifying audit is required to be carried out by its external auditors, but this will only happen after due diligence and much work has been carried out internally, by the organisation's own audit team.

In reality, internal audit departments, conduct their audits to prevent or to root out fraud and error in high-risk transactional areas. Technology is a powerful double-edged tool, that can be used both for and against an organisation. So, it is vital that internal audit teams maintain tight control of that the tool so that the parameters of the tests don't get changed without their knowledge.

Setting Deadlines = Completing Tasks

How often have you found yourself sitting late at the office, answering e-mails whilst on the phone, or setting up a second meeting to discuss everything that didn’t get decided in the first? More than once, I guess!

Managers have too many tasks to complete. All of them competing urgently for their close attention, and switching between them or worrying about one while working on another can often lead to inefficiencies and mistakes.

At the risk of stating the obvious, completing one task makes it easier to focus on the next one, but it would appear that most managers only enjoy this advantage if they complete the first task on a tight deadline. Hmm!

US studies that required people to simultaneously, complete a word puzzle and appraise a candidate’s resume, whilst giving different individual participants different deadlines, produced very strange results.

In the first instance, they found that finishing a task did not necessarily cause people to disengage from the initial job and move on to the next one. Instead, when people had no time pressure or constraints, they tended to have more “attention residue,” meaning that thoughts about how they performed on the first task affected their performance on the second.

In the second instance, when people were given a deadline in which to finish a job and did so, meeting the deadline, it gave them more confidence and a better sense of closure. They were also better able to disengage from the first task and shift their attention to the next.

Conclusion
Task-by-task performance improves when employees can quickly and clearly stop thinking about the last task they performed. Adding constraints and time pressures to task completion greatly helps people in shifting their attention and focus. Moving them on constructively and effectively.

It Takes the 'Right Stuff' to be a Good Leader. Do you have it?

You see here the Fantasy character Buzz Lightyear, recently returned from a tour of duty in the ISS. Carried there and back by one of the NASA astronauts, in the Shuttle Discovery. Science Fiction Fantasy meets Science Reality. The one a parody of the other.

We all know that there are many paths to follow that lead from Fantasy to Reality. The story of science fiction evolving into science fact can only happen when dedicated visionaries lead the way.

What do we look for in our leaders and how often do we find the 'right stuff'.

In depth knowledge, self confident and self-awareness has always been necessary to build good leaders but it was never enough. You also had to have the 'right stuff'. You need the ability and character to inspire, support and motivate before you can ultimately lead.

It may not be fashionable and it may not be 'the new, new thing' but the adage that the Leadership Model follows a hierarchy similar to that of Maslow's hierarchy of needs, is still relevant and very pertinent today.

Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs starts at the lowest level, with meeting basic neeeds before moving on to addressing issues with Safety and Security. Once that has been achieved, you can take into consideration the higher goal of finding and sharing Love, Affection and the sense of Belonging. The next step is to achieve Status and Esteem before finally climbing up to and sitting on the top of the world, brim full of Self Awareness, sometimes known as Actualisation.

Organisations still need Self-Aware leaders but there are no shortcuts. We need leaders who are able to progress through all the stages and completely fulfill the lower level needs. It's not acceptable to be a self confessed leader if you do not fully understand and accept the 3 dimensional nature of leadership and the voyage to the top that took you there.

Let's look back at the precipitous journey you are on or possibly, you have already completed.

1) Basic Wants/ Physiological Needs
At the base root of all organisation some core wants have to be addressed. They include the tools needed to survive and thrive. This is the core technical skills, in the leadership model. Clearly, if you want to be a Finance Manager, you need to know how to perform accounting tasks and understand the associated practices. Many skills are needed to sel but the main one will be the ability to be erudite.

All one needs to demonstrate, to future employers is that you have the core skills to do the job. Most leaders get promoted to successive levels of leadership through technical mastery but by being technically competent alone does not give them the skills or ability to be exceptional and charismatic leaders.

2) Safety & Security
Leaders need to provide their organisational units with structure and a competent framework to operate in. They need to develop the hierarchy, roles and responsibilities and, most importantly they need to provide the organisational employees with the criteria and opportunity to be successful.

To clamber up to the second level of leadership, a good leader must provide his team with the precise operational model that will make them not only feel secure but also instil a philosophy of positive attitude and how to approach success.

Poor leaders rely heavily on their ego to direct them. They believe that they can be the all powerful king in the midst of disarray and chaos. They think they are controlling and directing the masses but in reality they are burning valuable resources, whilst lurching from crisis to crisis.

A good leader creates the framework where every employee not only feels secure operating in and focusing on his job but also has a repeatable chance of being creative and successful. They have the chance to stretch themselves and not fear the consequences of loss or failure because their leader is there to guide and support them, throughout. They do their job well and the organisation benefits.

3) Love, Affection and Belonging
This builds on from the creation of a safe and secure environment and leads us into the need and ability to foster cohesive teamwork. The basic requirements here is that the leader needs to ensure that his team players are working well together but he also has to ensure that his team plays well within the whole organisation and can work well with 'others'.

You are not provided with the chance to model a team from a single piece of clay. you have to build this team from the wide assortment of characters and personalities that this world provides. Even after the skilled HR department has carefully filtered,selected and processed the candidates.

You have a team of disparate (or desperate) people from different backgrounds, brought together for a common purpose and it is your challenge to make them interact in a positive, productive and interactive way by building good, strong relationships.

Poor or weak leadership can easily create divisions, within and without your locality. It is so easy to create a self-protective silo mentality that spends too much energy and time defending itself from outside 'influences' and gets caught up in 'power' struggles. What you don't want is to be a stressed out head of a dysfunctional family unit that is feuding with it's neighbours. You need to actively create a common sense of purpose that transcends boundaries and divisions.

4) Esteem
As we mature in our organisational interactions with others, professional respect and appropriate response, may be all that really matters. For a leader to be considered a good leader, this respect has to be born of an independent outlook and a strong vision. Discard fear and intrepidation, actively and sincerely appreciate what every person is bringing to the table.

A good leader will not give respect lightly. You will need to prove your worth through your commitment and your actions. Talk alone does not do it. A good leader looks at the role you play in the organisation and will treat you with the respect the role commands, unless or until, you prove unworthy of it.

5) Self-Awareness
Do you consider yourself to be a 'good well balanced, human being'. Self Awareness is 'presence', 'authority', 'charisma', 'qudos', etc. The ability a leader possess, by the sheer power of his positive presence. One in which he is able to hold a clear vision, taking a higher road that puts the interests of his organisation to the fore.

The self-aware leader never takes credit for the actions of their team, there is no 'gray area of interpretation' on morals or ethics. A self-aware leader is in the spotlight 24x7, laid bare before the organisation, always on call for their people.

A good leader is inspiring and consistent in their judgement. They are fair, balanced and trustworthy. People are driven and motivated by a good leader. They respect them but are not diminished or intimidated by them.

If you know a good organisations that is looking for good leaders. Tell them to clearly and honestly, examine their true requirements and goals. The 3 dimensional levels of needs that they want to meet and satisfy.

Remember that truly successful organisations must be led by thoroughly 'good human beings', people of good character. These are the only people who will lead us from deception and fantasy into the harsh reality of the future, and they will deal with it appropriately, when we get there.

Managing an Aging Workforce: How to Fight the Risks

The workforce is aging fast, and stakeholders — companies, governments, and others — have a narrow window of time to adapt.

So says the World Economic Forum, which Wednesday issued an 80-page report outlining strategic options to address how stakeholders can strengthen financial sustainability, quality of retirement, and health-care provisioning in a rapidly aging world.

The report emphasizes that companies and governments must work cooperatively for meaningful action to occur — a dubious scenario in today's light, with the two sides rarely in agreement on how health care and retirement should be paid for. For CFOs, however, the concern is whether retirement and health-care funding should be a priority right now.

After all, despite a tone of urgency in the report, it discusses demographic changes in terms of decades, not years. For example, it includes a chart showing that the percentage of gross domestic product devoted to retirement and health care will grow from 7% to 13% — between 2000 and 2050.

Indeed, even John Betts — a partner at consulting firm Mercer, a WEF member that helped create the document — concedes to CFO.com that any corporate actions to address the aging workforce won't necessarily bear fruit for some time. "There is an issue about hard-nosed CFOs saying, 'How's it going to affect my profits next year?'" he says. "Probably the answer at the moment is that, well, it won't."

That's the kind of attitude that must undergo a fundamental shift, the report argues — and not only because of the specter of runaway costs. Just as important, the WEF says, is an opportunity to counter the dour fact that many people will have to work later into life as retirement grows less financially attainable. The challenge will be to turn that reality into something very positive for the bottom line. "There is potential to create a 'new age of age,' in which growing old is no longer synonymous with declining health, [but rather] experience is valued as much as youth, the 'silver economy' is vibrant, and the 'wellderly' are active and valued in society."

That's an ambitious goal. But the report, which was two years in the making, has plenty of suggestions for how stakeholder can help facilitate the paradigm shift.

Be Well
Employers, for example, should put less focus on approaching health care tactically with programs that address health issues as they arise, and begin thinking strategically by promoting healthy behaviors. For example, they should provide practical incentives for employees to engage in physical activity, subsidize healthy eating options in workplace dining facilities and vending machines, and ensure that working practices and environments are conducive to long-term health.

Many employers, of course, have taken steps in those directions, although the report clearly implies that more should be done.

In any case, employers want to know what kind of return such investments will produce. In a Web conference yesterday, Mercer partner Christine Owen claimed that on average, wellness initiatives will produce an eventual return of at least three or four to one; that is, $3 to $4 worth of increased productivity and reduced health-care costs for each dollar spent. The return is even greater in emerging countries, where less-cynical employees with limited access to health care may be more willing to participate in wellness programs, she added.

Owen did not detail how that calculation was made. But she painted a grim picture of a future in which the health issues applicable to an older workforce have been dealt with inadequately. "Failure to address this issue sooner rather than later may mean that the gap [between health-care needs and provisions] becomes just too big to bridge," she said. "That could have as big an impact on the economy as the current economic crisis — and I can predict for certain that it will last a good deal longer."

Employers also can improve health care by supporting pay-for-performance programs for health-care providers and building quality measurement into health-plan contracts. They could even investigate the feasibility of extending coverage to include offshore providers, taking into account the risks of legal liability and employee attitudes, the WEF report says.

Into the Sunset
Companies also should step up their efforts on financial education and retirement-planning advice for workers, the report says. They should provide more and better education programs, targeted communications that take into account an individual employee's level of financial literacy, and access to cost-effective planning advice by selecting advisers or subsidizing the cost.

But while it's easy to understand how changing health-care behaviors could hit the bottom line, it's less clear how improved retirement planning would affect corporate performance. Traditionally a good pension plan was a key recruiting tool, but that purpose "is less compelling now than it was," says Betts.

That's because as the number of defined-benefit plans shrinks and existing ones increasingly become unavailable to new employees, younger workers' expectations have changed, he notes. They're more likely to be satisfied with a defined-contribution plan in which the employer merely matches some portion of their own contributions. That makes using pension plans to recruit new talent more difficult.

But Betts predicts that a new trend, in which a few countries have mandated minimum levels of employer retirement provisions, will spread. "Our feeling is that with the aging trend, you're going to see governments moving more into that mode," he says.

That should provide companies with a new incentive to make sure their investments in retirement programs are not wasted. "Calculations show that the outcome of a pension to an employee compared to the money put in can vary by a factor of at least two, depending on how it's been managed," says Betts. "Companies won't want to be hit with the issue of people saying, 'You gave me this pension and now I can't afford to retire.'"

To that end, companies should introduce automatic enrollment programs with higher default contribution rates and automatic increases with age, the WEF report says. It also suggests that companies provide more information to employees nearing retirement on reverse mortgages, which allow them to draw down the equity in their home without selling the real estate.

The report also offers ideas for how pension sponsors can improve their plans' performance. These include introducing target-date funds and appointing professional trustees to plan boards. And they should encourage fiduciaries to investigate the longevity-hedging products currently available for employer-sponsored plans, and facilitate the purchase of annuities by retiring employees.

Building Co-operation between Staff and Management

Do you want more cooperation from your staff or from your manager? Of course you do! Well, rewarding the helpful, positive behaviour is always more effective than punishing the negative actions of perceived 'wrongdoers'.

The results from a new experiment in one of my favourite topics, Game theory . The latest experiment helps to confirm or re-affirm our views on this.

The experiment is based on a public goods game. Players choose whether or not to contribute money to a common pot. The pot is multiplied and redistributed equally, regardless of who contributes and who doesn't.

When people play a pure version of the game, the temptation to freewheel or reap the rewards without contributing anything, often leads to rapidly disintegrating cooperation. It sets up a tit-for-tat response.

Previous research found that cooperation is promoted by allowing players to punish slackers and freeloaders: cooperative players would pay a small cost that enables them to inflict a loss on the offender. This approach was more effective than providing a reward, in short term relations i.e. in games where players switch partners every round.

More carrot, less stick
David Rand and his colleagues at Harvard University modified the public goods game to better reflect, what they describe as, a more natural scenario: people play with the same group for many rounds, establishing longer term relationships and their own reputations within the group.

Players could choose to reward or punish others, at a small cost to themselves. Rand found that rewarding or punishing were equally likely to lead to a more cooperative response and therefore, higher earnings for all, but when players had the option to either punish or reward, but chose to reward, they received even higher absolute payoffs. "It becomes in one's self-interest to help, assist and support the group," says Rand.

It's a symbiotic behaviour that Rand explains as 'you scratch the group's back and It'll scratch yours'," he says.

Money for nothing
Sam Bowles at the Santa Fe Institute, New Mexico, cautions that Rand's game does not accurately reflect real economies. He points out, for example, that under Rand's rules the rewarder pays $4 and the rewardee "magically" receives $12. He calls this an unnatural scenario. "If you take away the free lunch, it doesn't work," says Bowles.

Disproportionate rewards often occur when we spend time, effort and money assisting people around us: helping a friend to move furniture, for instance, or recommending a colleague for promotion.

Actions like these may have a smaller cost to us than the benefit they provide others. These sorts of productive interactions and positive co-operative behaviours, are fundimental building blocks of our society and should not be disregarded, dismissed or underestimated.

Where's the Benefit?
Co-operative behaviours do not always have an immediate or quantifiable payback, normally but they do form part of a 'chain' of co-operative behaviours that begins when 2 people first meet.

Generally speaking, on first meeting, 2 people can either;

• a) form a mutual allegiance or friendship and therefore commit to support each other when and if they can. A sense of altruism is visible from the beginning, on both sides.


• b) a mutually supportive relationship does not form or is only sustainable for a very short period, before a 'conflict of interests' occurs and the 'partnership' is quickly dissolved.


• c) a dominant agressive role is taken up by one and the other is expected to take up a submissive, passive role. (This is often mistakenly called 'strong leadership')

Only the first option offers a 'balanced' and mutually agreeable co-operative relationship, which we would all recognise as friendship or collaboration. Either way, this option is the most stable, and the one most likely to provide the most benefit to the greatest number of people. It provides a platform of trust and co-operation that can be expanded and built upon.

Next Steps are yours
Make your choice or take your pick and start to build a better more co-operative relationship with your staff and with your manager. Let them know you want to do this and you are open to it. Show them how it can be done but most important of all, tell them how they can share in the benefits that will come from it.

Adaptive Change Management - Part 2 The Science

The Science of Change, is a completely different entity. It provides the structure to support change management activities.

It helps bring order to the often complex process of managing the human elements of a project by defining the tasks, roles, milestones and timelines required to achieve project objectives.

Without Science, our insights into human motivation remain only insights without the corresponding actions needed to create desired behavioural change.

The Science of Change is more than a well-designed deliverable. It is the process that can translate the language of human behaviour into the language of project management. You will understand how necessary this is because it helps Project managers better understand the relationship between technical activities and the actions required to achieve the behavioural change required.

The elements that need to be applied include:

• Project Management 101 - Although the change team can create a high-level plan upfront, they also need to expand the detail once the project has started. They also need to fully link their activities with those of other work streams. This will build their credibility and they are more likely to be seen as collaborative, and avoid the change team being seen as separate from the project, the PMO and technical teams.
• Follow the Leader - The change team need to identify one clear leader, and avoid operating in a loose formation. Busy project managers, who are focused on driving to timelines and budgets, will better understand the chain of command and will easily direct the communications and accountability, in that direction. Increasing the visibility of the change leader improves the perception of accountability and establishes a clear point of communication, which project leaders need and demand.
• Boundaries - Once you have established clear divisions and boundaries capture them in a detailed project plan. That way the team will better understand what skills and capability is needed to complete the work. This strengthens the quality focus and the targetted results because team members are assigned work consistent with their skills.
• Define Tasks - Provide a clear project structure with well defined tasks and task responsibilities. This will help everyone focus on their specific objectives and prevent the change team holding a crisis meeting every day, to address the latest hot issue of the day.
• Proven Tools - Use the well trodden path and well proven tools, wherever possible and include them in the detailed project plan. It introduces more constants and helps the team see where they can bring consistency into the use of tools. This also brings with it an improvement in the quality of reports, assessments, and templates that work stream leaders use. It is teh responsibility of the change team to make project teams aware of the existance of such tools and that they are used appropriately.
• Regular Team Meetings - The Science of Change will also help manage the regular team meetings effectively and make them more focused and directed. The change team needs to create a more consistent meeting schedule and again make sure the appropriate structure is adhered to.

When the 'Art of change' is applied without the 'Science of Change', the change team will be visibly less successful and less able to help the project resources adapt to the new organisational realities.

When you apply the surgical tools of the Science, the PMO team will not only understand the actions required for intervention, but also the deliverables and accountability to help them generate better results.

Integration is essential.
The 'Science' needs the 'Art' because the 'Art' identifies any underlying issues and the drivers of behavioural change. It identifies pathways and conduits for adaptive solutions to flow through and this is required to overcome any and all project challenges.

Likewise, the 'Art' needs the 'Science' because the 'Science' converts the 'Art’s information and ideas into an understanable and realisable structured action with clearly defined outcomes.

The 'Art' identifies what needs to happen and the 'Science' makes it happen. By recognising and understanding the existance and the connections between the two, change leaders will be far better able to bring about the adaptive capability, required to manage change, more effectively.

Adaptive Change Management - Part 1 The Art

Talk to any project manager and they will underscore the importance of change management support from their colleagues in HR.

Also, most PMs believe that, even when solid capability is brought to the table, they still struggle to include change methodology into initiatives, let alone leverage its value for improved project success.

The difficulty of incorporating change management lies less in the construct of the particular change methodology, and more in the challenge of integrating the rational structure of project management with the irrational and unpredictable process of managing human behavioural change.

Successful change managers have learned that they must enhance the adaptive capability of their project teams by applying both the Art and Science of Change, to create more project successes.

The change 'team' must lay down the strong foundation early in the project;

• assign resources,
• identify their methodology,
• conduct stakeholder readiness and awareness assessments,
• establish a high-level project plan
• Create a project 'theme', develop key messages,
• conduct numerous and varied 'communication' and 'awareness' presentations
• Establish an executive sponsor council and a customer board, keeping the business case uppermost in your head and on the agenda
• Create consensus about the solution with senior executives and HR leaders worldwide.

Closely review and audit progress every 6 weeks and recognise that corrective actions are likely every three months after the project starts. Look for the wobbly wheels before they fall off.

There will be disagreements within the work streams between company and vendor resources. HR leaders and senior executives will suddenly baulk at proposed changes to processes, especially if it concerns performance management and reporting formats.

The change team will find itself marginalised and on the edge of the project. The project managers will be increasingly elusive and evasive, missing or re-scheduling change update meetings.

No matter how well structured, conceived and planned, once a project begins there will be obstacles and challenges that require 'change'; redesigning the plan or creating work-around solutions to help meet broader project objectives.

Some problems are technical problems that can be solved by applying expertise. Others, require solutions that are more adaptive and focused on navigating human emotions and behaviour.

Most problems are a combination of both and require adaptive capability that allows change leaders to navigate the ambiguity and create flexible solutions to keep initiatives on track.

The change team can struggle in the first phase of the project if they place too much emphasis on the Art of Change — assessing, interpreting and understanding the emotional and behavioural factors that influence people during the course of an initiative.

This will be made more difficult. if they remain removed from what's really happening and continue to articulate the project vision and key objectives.

They need to listen actively, ask tough questions, and create good, honest communications that helps to clarify and define the real problem. They also need to be concerned about maintaining and building good relationships which will help work stream and project leaders stay 'collaborative' over the long haul.

Examining the Art of Change will produce valuable information that will help projects adapt and evolve, successfully. Any behavioural obstacles identified can be difficult for highly structured and logical project managers and technical resources to understand and address. That's why you may need assistance with this.

The flow of information can seem to work against the flow of the project process; the deadlines and budgets established for the initiative. There is a big risk that the Project managers will be left puzzled and wondering how to create actions that fit within the structure of the overall project plan, and as a result, they will see the change team as an obstacle and reject their meaningful 'collaboration.'

Effective ITIL project leadership: Plan-Do-Check-Act

Effective ITIL project leadership: Plan-Do-Check-Act

The first step in the Plan-Do-Check-Act process is to have an executive address ITIL stakeholders at all project kick-off meetings.

This falls under the "Plan" and "Do" activities and also shows the team that the ITIL program has leadership support.

If a CIO or senior executive doesn't attend the kick-off meeting, project support is questioned and that immediately weakens the team and the leader's ability to direct the program.

Following the kick-off meeting, leaders execute the "Do" portion of the cycle by simply following the same process as the rest of their team.

When you talk about "Plan-Do-Check-Act" in ITIL, the "Do" really means that leaders must set the example and establish a culture where the senior executives follow the process like any other employee.

One CIO I have worked with took this a step further and communicated to the entire company how he followed the process. He did this after receiving an irate call from a senior executive who claimed the service desk was not giving him the priority he deserved.

After sharing the process and his own service desk requests with the executive, the CIO pinned the list on every local notice board and in the service desk operations room to give the technicians a tool for response when they were getting pressure to increase the priority of certain tickets.

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Tedious Presentations: Try Buzzword Bingoconcentrating on

Do tedious presentations filled with cascading synergistic jargon make your brain hurt?

In previous years some humourous wags would have resorted to handing out corporate buzzword bingo cards to liven up the presentations or to alleviate the tedium, brought on by the men in suits.

Trouble is, they took hours to make up and you had to be somewhat premeditated about it, but thanks to the marvels of IT and the internet, we can once more be amusing and spontaneous!

If you go to www.robietherobot.com/buzzword.htm and you will be rewarded with a fresh card each time you visit. As an example, row in front of me now reads "enable, Geo-social, demographics, customer-facing, best practices", which sounds perfect for your next presentation.

Print off as many bingo slips as you need, hand them to like minded colleagues enduring the meeting with you, and be sure to advise them to try to avoid shouting "Bingo!" too loudly when the presenter has completed a row or a column of jargon.

Failure to exercise such self-restraint could result in a dynamic downsizing denouement - known in American English as a pink slip, and to Brits as a P45.

In that unhappy event, though, the ex-colleagues could always check www.robietherobot.com/jobtitle.htm for innovative income-stream identifiers: it has just suggested to us that we might seek work as a "Graphic Filtering Guru" or a "Dot-Com Evolution Administrator".

Psycho Managers: The Crimes of Bad Managers are often Buried

Like many employees, I had a boss who could be a lovely person but had terrible mood swings. She had no idea how to talk nicely to people and was not well liked. She was the wrong choice to manage people and couldn't manage a multi-skilled team to save her life.

One minute she was clearly working hard at being the kind, supportive maternal figure who wouldn't hesitate to pick up the lunch bill or to dole out helpful career advice. The next, she had flipped and became the tight-assed, briefcase-swinging monstorous Psycho killer of film legends.

Immature managers
Typically, when things are not going their way, they will cease to communicate; throw a tantrum; yelling, screaming and then even hiding from the situation.

Being unhappy with your work is one thing and this may incur direct but constructive criticism. All this is to be expected, but to express disgust at a document's content by ripping each page out of the binder and throwing them at the owner, one at a time, and at the same time throwing abuse and insults around like confetti. Well, that's simply childish and immature.

Faulty Hierarchy
Unfortunately, promotion does come too often to people who have a history of terrorising their subordinates. Revealing that the hierarchical selection criteria is flawed and is self-replicating.

It's no secret that many managers land their jobs without having the correct skills or receiving an ounce of leadership training. Their only visible talent being that they 'really' want a bigger office, job title and paycheck. Leaving the acquisition of professional management skills to fate, blind chance or learning how to lead 'on the fly'.

Cardinal Jekyll and Hyde
To be cursed with a boss who could go from "greatest gal /guy to hang out with for drinks" to an hysterical raving lunatic in mere half seconds, is very dusturbing.

Anyone that can carry around 2 separate personalities inside them and can appear to be a friendly person in the morning and a ranting monster in the afternoon, is without doubt, unfit for leadership and is clealry overwhelmed by the pressure of it.

Managing a manic manager
If resigning or getting an internal transfer isn't a viable option, especially in today's employment environment, you have to find and manage your boss's trigger points. If they tend to implode after 3 p.m., seek them out early in the day and check their blood sugar levels.

If they're a holy terror after departmental review meetings with their own manager, stay far, far away but try to find the root cause of the problem, between manager et manager.

If your boss hates long e-mails, and we all do, spread the word to keep the correspondence snappy and to the point.

Tantrums
If you still find yourself the target of an unexpected and undeserved tirade of abuse, don't fight against the storm. Wait patiently until it subsides and is shown to be ineffective. Speak quietly if shouted at and stay calm. Give your boss the opportunity to vent their steam. Don't fight noise with noise or a tantrum with a tantrum.

Micro-management
Micromanagers are rarely the perfectionists they claim to be. They are normally just control freaks, who cannot delegate effectively. They claim that they do not trust others but they are really very aware of their own shortcomings and insecurity. Especially, about how their own results and performance will be perceived upstairs.

Make progress lists and status checklists for them, documenting the tasks and projects you are doing, their status and their completion. Then sit your boss down and show them the last four assignments that you did that they were happy with.

Clarify, Clarify, Clarify
Tell them directly that they're interferring with the steady efficient flow of your work, tasks and company business. Tell them bluntly that you could work more efficiently if they backed off and loosened up the reigns, refraining from asking for excessive copies and repeated rounds of revisions.

Multiple revisions normally come about because your boss has not thought their requirements through, thoroughly enough. So lots of clarification should be demanded at the earliest stage to prevent circular re-iterations at the later stages. You can do this yourself or you can prompt project team members to do so, for their own peace of mind.

You cannot be subtle with a micro-manager. You have to be direct and clear. Hit them over the head with it. If you use standard business terms and phrasing, there is less risk of offending.

Competence
To deal with an obviously incompetent boss, you have to become a role model for them and show them what the correct behaviour is. Try not to look surprised and dumb-founded, when they say something stupid.

There is an old adage that states 'If your boss enjoys success, then you will too'. It is always better to work for a stable, well respected and efficient boss, even if it is you who has made them that way. The ability to control works in both directions. If you are aware of your boss's mistakes, then you are the best person to take the initiative to change this.

Ancient history yields modern management lessons

Ancient history yields modern management lessons - ABC News

Looking to iconic figures of history for guidance on how to take charge of today's corporations remains fertile ground for publishers of books on management and leadership.

The new book "Power Ambition Glory: The Stunning Parallels between Great Leaders of the Ancient...
The new book "Power Ambition Glory: The Stunning Parallels between Great Leaders of the Ancient World and Today . . . and the Lessons You Can Learn" by Forbes CEO Steve Forbes and classics professor John Prevas richly details the successes and failures of six leaders from the classical period.
(amazon.com)A recent search of Amazon.com reveals thousands of books with "leadership lessons" in the title.

Management writers have found useful lessons in the lives of such luminaries as Abraham Lincoln, Thomas Jefferson, George Patton, Martin Luther King, Mahatma Gandhi. The roster is endless.

Now comes an addition to the genre, Power, Ambition, Glory: The Stunning Parallels between Great Leaders of the Ancient World and Today ... and the Lessons You Can Learn.

The book reflects a fusion of expertise of the two authors: classics professor John Prevas brings a knowledge of antiquity. Steve Forbes, the chairman, CEO and editor in chief of Forbes, brings a knowledge of management garnered from years in the executive suite.


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Do Not Neglect Your Workforce: Your Future Depends on it

IT executives are constantly challenged to retain skilled IT employees and attract new talent whilst, keeping the budget square and the cost of labour in line with recession-related staff cuts.

In the midst of all this brinkmanship, juggling and balancing, they have to remember that neglecting the IT workforce will definitely damage the long term prospects of the company and themselves.

Do not cut your staff out of your IT budget:
It is clear that the majority of organisations do not plan to add staff in the coming months. Nearly two-thirds of those asked say that IT hiring has been put on hold until the 1st Quarter 2010, and the rest said they expect to increase head count modestly, in the same timeframe and only to replace shrinkage.

The problem is that despite the need to contain costs, the greatest priority in IT departments is the need to maintain and update skills, whilst at the same time adding enough staff to help support their companies' business. This is clearly more important in times of rapid growth and expansion but needs to be taken into account.

The Biggest Piece
Consider that the HR budget is the largest part of the IT budget, one of the primary challenges for executives and HR leaders, will be finding ways to better control those labour costs while engaging and retaining the workforce, effectively.

Morale
In addition, the current trend to restrict and reduce compensation and potential benefits coupled with additional workload will continue to stress and de-moralise the current IT workforce at many companies, and IT leaders need to be aware of retaining their key talent to ensure a potential for recovery from the current recession.

It will take time for the economy to stabalise and re-establish a new normal, the impact of this recession will continue to affect the organisation's bottom line, as well as on the overall job market. This will tempt companies to consider making further cuts in workforce-related spending.

Key Skills

Additional cuts, despite the budgetary need, could be false economy or at worst, a very big mistake. Certain IT skills remain in demand despite numerous IT professionals looking for work during the downturn. Key skills areas such as Oracle, SAP (All Flavours but particularly HR), Java EE, Microsoft .Net, SOA, Java and PeopleSoft (SAP-HR) continue to be sought after.

IT managers find it difficult to fill positions for enterprise architect, database administrator, project managers, ERP programmer/analysts, Internet/Web architects and Web application programmer positions. The issue isn't about the number of candidates available for hire, but rather their quality and skill profiles.It is ironic, because these are the very skills needed to implement the efficiency driven ERP system suites that are being put forward as essential to transform organisations in a crisis.

Dilemma
Here is the dilemma for IT executives. First you need to invest in powerful ERP Systems to transform, and re-shape an inefficient organisation but you don't have the skills on board to manage it, you do not have the skills to maintain it and your budget is so restricted that it does not allow for a quantum leap in demand for re-training. Even if you did re-train everyone, once they were trained they would be snapped up by other organisations!

IT Consultants
The good news is that the ERP System are being introduced and implemented by willing outsourced IT Consultancy group allied to the company, which is great in the beginning but unless your people can quickly gain the knowledge and skills required to manage the systems, then the consultants will be with you for a very long time ,at a huge cost to the organisation.

You have to ask yourself, "Where are the savings and benefits now?" and "What's my position and prospects for the future in all this?" Discuss!

The Changing Role of HR now and in the Future

Human Resource functions and responsibilities are changing and intensifying at a faster pace and to a greater degree than many other areas of the corporate organisation.

Once relegated to the back office and concerned mainly or exclusively with transactional processes and functions, HR organisations are taking a greater role in strategic business activities.

Efficiency remains the foundation of HR. More transactions must be completed at a lower cost, while processes are becoming increasingly complex to manage.

A typical 10,000 employee company handles more than a million employee related transactions annually, each of which costs in the region of 50 Euros.

The top 10 recruiters in Europ report that they are placing 35k to 95k employees annually. Managing the recruitment pipeline, the selection process, and the induction process is a complicated endeavour.

At the same time, however, leading HR organisations are looking far beyond the execution of HR transactions, to a more value-added and strategic focus.

These organisations are aligning human resources and workforce planning functions with the overall business strategy, to help increase profit margins and support long term goals.

The study analyses several dimensions; staffing, cost, organisational model, IT deployment, and best practice adoption. The following key conclusions demonstrate how companies are meeting today's human capital challenges;

1) As a first step, HR managers strive to optimise the efficiency of transactional processes by standardising, automating and integrating business processes, based on Best Practice process and technology models.

2) Optimising transactional processes frees up resources that allow HR organisations to invest in more strategic functions that facilitate business growth and increase employee productivity.

3) Centralising and consolidating HR operations in a shared services environment helps increase the effectiveness and efficiency of the HR processes.

4) Outsourcing, while used frequently for transactional processes, does not always drive top performance, either in cost or service quality. Organisations need to carefully evaluate the value, performance and cost benefit trade off in outsourced versus in-house service delivery.

5) Information Technology continues to provide the basic foundation for efficiency and acts as the key driver for efficectiveness and future innovation.

Leading organisations recognise that IT supports the development of many best practices and they continue to invest in IT to integrate systems, data and processes across the enterprise.

Briefly, the study finds that the best human capital management organisations are constantly re-assessing their processes, to strike the correct balance in the drive to optimise efficiency, cost and service delivery in a continually changing global environment.

Top performers in this area balance the traditional demands that drive company profits and growth and help prepare for future innovations.

Gauge your future prospects by the singing in the lifeboats

"Experience is what you get when you don't get what you want."

Whether you are a believer in inspirational quotes or not, you have to admit that they do have their moments. So, from the one provided we can gather that 'Experience' is a bit of a consolation prize.

If you have reached a cynical stage in your career then you should visit Despair.com and view the Demotivator's Calendar. A refreshingly silly five-minutes of your life you won't get back.

For the more serious minded classical students amongst you, here is a quote from the 18th-century French philosopher, wit and raconteur, Voltaire; "Life may be a shipwreck, but we must not forget to sing heartily in the lifeboats." Now does that not crystallise what life is like in this current recession, with just a hint of optimism and stoicism. Very French!

From previous blogs, you will know that I am in favour of establishing strong leadership skills in these troubled times by developing the potential and talent already visible in the new executives. Perhaps a hint of that same lifeboat spirit would help strengthen the resolve of our future leaders and younger executives.

There are difficult questions to be asked. Are you using your current business challenges as a learning experience? Are you addressing the difficult decisions leaders must make to adjust to this dynamic ever-changing environment?

It is so easy to let the development and management of talented performers sink to the bottom of the priority list, especially for many companies today. Remember, the next generation of leaders is developing around you, whether you want them to or not and whether your helping them or not. The risk is that those who "self-select" into leadership roles aren't necessarily qualified enough to succeed in their aims, certainly not without strong guidance and/or appropriate mentoring.

This crippled economy, wrecked on the reef of bad management and greed, is giving the emerging IT leaders of tomorrow some unprecedented opportunities to stand out and step forward. In turn, we must remember it is our role to keep the chorus going in the lifeboats, loud and strong.

The leadersof tomorrow should be true captains of industry, able to plot a safe course for tomorrow's adventure and navigate the dangerous shallows of short term gains and diminishing returns.

Risk Management; A mind set

To those who have not yet discovered it, security and risk management is a mind-set. When you go into a shop or restaurant, you may automatically check out the security and note where the exits are. If so, you will also check as to how secure the financial transactions are. How does the waitress handle the credit cards? How far the credit card machine is to staff and other customers. You will have noted the location of the security cameras, the lack of a security station or the location and the number of bouncers.

As a security and risk specialist, you will always be thinking about and assessing the security scenarios but not to exploit or take advantage of it but to be aware. You cannot switch it off, its the way you are. It is the same for members of the emergency services, never really off duty.

Security Compliance

If you have to consider a risk management approach to security compliance, as part of your many regulatory obligations, the best way to approach compliance is through risk. It is ineffective to focus on the bare minimum, just ensuring you are simply compliant. Threats and vulnerabilities are forever mutating, growing and changing. The bare minimum is not enough. This is the first principle of IT security and of risk-based IT management.

When looking at new applications, components, systems or architectures, check out the risks to your business and the risk to your core information. Those are the important things to note. You are concerned if it meets a line item associated with HIPAA and SOX.

Pattern recognition

The 'always on' risk management mind-set is always looking for patterns, checking out ways of doing rather than items on a regulatory checklist. You will look closely for items that pose a threat to your core assets, those that you are responsible for and have dedicated your reputation to protecting.

When somebody comes to you with a potential security problem, even if you know nothing about the particular system or application, you can assess it by the application of the risk framework and therefore formulate a validate set of pertinent and probing questions.

Secure games

Most security and risk managers live and breathe in a security mind-set, whether they are hardcore techies or recruits from the business side. The methodology they follow day by day at work is the methodology they live by, outside of work. Even at conferences, when they unwind afterwards with a soft drink, they invariably play a Where’s Waldo? version of security gaffes, competing to see who can spot the most security lapses. It can appear very weird and a little black, if you are outside the circle.

Nailed by the business

The mind-set can have its limitations and can be self-perpetuating. There is an old adage that says 'If you are a hammer, the whole world looks like a nail.' Indeed, when taken by surprise, the average security and risk manager is typically out manouvered by something that happens on the business side.

Good grief! Have they learned nothing? You can’t believe that the business would make such a decision. Just because you have a structured, risk averse and secure mind-set, you forget that 'normal' people don’t always think that way.

Damage control

What happens next is up to you. If the security has been jeopordised or the risks are too high then it is your task to get it back into line and put the geni back in the bottle. The fact is clear, you are dealing with consequences. The business has taken a chosen path and you have to control the damage, mitigate against it or make it right. After all, isn't that your job as security and risk 'support' person? In reality, you are seen by the business (suits) as being in the same category as the IT help desk and that is all you are.

Although it is accepted that the security and risk manager serves and protects the
organisation and its profits, until it can be unequivacally determined how you can directly make money and grow the profits for the organisation, you will always be considered as merely a supporting act. So, let's make up and get on with it! The show must go on!

Doing Less With Less leads to less

Where do you stand in today's market? and who's standing there with you?

Now that your company has fashionably reduced its staffing levels and you have survived the axe, are you being asked to do more with less, in the wake of these layoffs?

Yes you say, but are you actually doing more? I'm sorry but the real answer is; probably not. According to a US survey conducted in December by Leadership IQ.

When the US research and training firm polled 4,172 workers at 318 companies that had recently laid off employees, 74% of the people who responded said their own productivity has declined. Other findings:

• 87% of surviving workers said they are less likely to recommend their organisations as good places to work. (Quelle surpris! This is a sign of a badly handled layoff)
  
• 64% of surviving workers said the productivity of their colleagues has also declined. (The bad layoff was indicative of poor management motivational skills in the company)
  
• 81% of surviving workers said the quality of service that customers receive has declined. (This should have alarm bells ringing! This way, monsters lie!)7
• 77% of surviving workers said they see more errors and mistakes being made. (Realistically, they may be looking closer, with a more critical and negative attitude or have access to more info through expanded roles)
• 61% of surviving workers said they believe their companies' future prospects are worse.
  

This summary is probably correct, if their customers are sensing negative vibes and are experiencing reduced service, in today's buyer's market. Staff and management should be made aware that they have a vital role to play in convincing customers that there is value to be had by maintaining their loyalty.

Loyal customers and repeat business should be cherished, protected and sustained through innovation and strong management.

If the company has implemented reduced staffing levels without refreshing the management team, its motivation and its attitudes, then the only changes they will need to manage are the shrinkages of its customer base, the obsolescense of its products and services, with the subsequent failure of the whole lame duck enterprise.

Do not mistake Movement for Action

Building Staff loyalty

You are a manager, therefore you depend on your staff to do their work well. Their success is critically linked to your own success. Team loyalty is not a 'given'. You have to earn and develop loyalty among your staff. If you can build up a bank of “good will capital“, you can then exchange it at a later date, e.g. when those impossible deadlines loom and you have to ask for more flexibility and extra effort.

Here are a few pointers to help you build that loyalty.

1: Be initially neutral regarding concerns about a subordinate

Don’t throw an employee under the bus when someone outside the department complains to you. Do not be judgemental. Do not start by agreeing with that person, before you find out all the facts. Similarly, don’t assume the person is totally wrong, rebuking him or her, and blindly defending your employee. Listen to their concerns, thank the person for alerting you, and say you will check with the subordinate in question. Go and check as promised and provide feedback. In this way, you get both sides of the story

2: Aim for collaboration

The more you can develop a collaborative relationship with your staff, the better the relationship will be. You and your staff do depend on each other, so try to impress that point on them. Remind them that each of you can (and should) help the other to be successful. Remember the saying “One hand washes the other.”

3: Listen to staff concerns

Your staff will have concerns about working conditions, working hours, deadlines, and other matters. You may not be able to resolve them all. However, listen to what they are telling you, because if you don’t, you will lower morale. If there’s little chance that you can resolve the concern, let them know immediately so that they have a proper expectation. Similarly, if you do succeed in resolving a concern, let them know about it. They may not thank you verbally, but chances are they still will appreciate you for what you did.

When listening to your staff, do not interrupting them to explain or defend a position. Let them finish. Similarly, try to remain even-tempered and think before you speak. Your attitude sets the tone for the whole department. Remember the old saying: “A fool shows his annoyance at once, but a prudent person overlooks an insult.”

4: Be committed to staff development

Your employees needs training to maintain their skills. That training includes hard skills, such as programming and network design. It also includes soft skills, such as how to deliver effective presentations and how to communicate effectively. In fact, those soft skills often are more important than hard skills in determining career success. Make sure your staff receives such training and when they’re participating in a training session, respect that time. Don’t call and pull them out of class “just for a second,” because they never will return. You will have reduced the ffectiveness of the training and wasted time and money.

5: Fulfill commitments

If you make commitments to your staff, keep them. Otherwise, you lose credibility and will face lowered morale. When you keep your commitments to your staff, it increases the chances that they will reciprocate and keep their commitments to you regarding work delivery.

6: Exhort, don’t belittle

You always want your staff to do more, produce more, finish the project earlier — and for less cost. So there’s often a gap between where they are now and where you’d like them to be. It’s better, generally, to exhort them to reach that point. If you criticize them because they’re not where you want right now, you may create resentment. Of course, there might be one person who does get motivated by being belittled, someone who says, “I’ll show that X$X# manager” and goes on to perform exceptionally well. The percentages are against you, however, because many others will simply “turn off.” It’s far better to say, “Here’s where I’d like us to be, and I know you can do it” rather than, “How come you’re not there right now, you slacker?”

7: When singling out staff in public, do so positively

I’m not saying that you always should praise people publicly. Some people become embarrassed or self-conscious when they’re the subject of public attention. But I am saying that if you do choose to single someone out in public, do so in a positive, rather than a negative way. The latter will embarrass everyone involved.

When you issue public praise, be brief and specific. Talk about what the person did and why it helped the department, organization, or company. Finally, thank the person. Ironically, the less you smile when praising, the more sincere it sounds. (Of course, you should be sincere to begin with, and you should smile just a little bit.)

8: When giving correction, do so privately

Conversely, if someone messes up, talk to them about it in confidence, behind closed doors. When doing so, focus on the issue, not the person. Try to avoid words like “you” and “yours.” Instead of, “Your program caused the system to crash,” consider, “Program xyz [which your subordinate developed and supposedly tested] caused the system to crash.” Focus on the actions that caused the problem and help the subordinate learn from the situation so that the same issue doesn’t occur again.

9: Serve as a buffer for your staff

Unfortunately, you may run into upper-level managers who insist on micromanaging. They will visit your staff and issue directives that might clash with yours. As a result, your employees will find themselves in an awkward situation, unsure of how to react. When that happens, you must step in and make clear to upper management that the chain of command works in both directions. You wouldn’t want your staff going around you to complain to your bosses. Neither, therefore, should the opposite occur.

Yes, stepping up could be hazardous to your career, so be diplomatic and tactful when you talk to your bosses. Focus on the benefits to them on observing the chain of command, rather than criticizing them for disregarding it. After you’ve had the talk, make sure your staff knows about it. Even though the grapevine probably will have alerted people, it’s still good to remind your staff that you have their back.

10: Don’t micromanage

Just as your bosses shouldn’t be micromanaging, neither should you. If you’ve staffed your team with competent people (and if you’re a first-line technical manager, you have strong technical leads), you should be confident that they know what they’re doing. You don’t have time to do the job of each member of your team anyway.

At the same time, be alert to clues that you might have to step in. Are others talking to you about a co-worker’s performance? Are you getting evasive or unclear answers in meetings or conversations? Do you have an uncomfortable gut feeling about a project? In those cases, you might have to take a more active interest in your subordinates’ work. However, pick your battles carefully.

Both sides of the coin

It’s common to talk about the importance of being a good subordinate. But it’s equally important to be a good boss. If you follow these tips, you can build a loyal following, which only can help you in your own career.

Downsizing Checklist

The Layoff Checklist

Staff movement and layoffs are a fact of life, whether you are in a large or a small organization. The downsizing process is never simple and often unpleasant, especially if it is badly planned, managed and implemented. Your local HR department will have the most relevant experience and knowledge on how to do this, in the most professional and humane manner. The short checklist provided here is more concerned about the methodology rather than the reasons behind it. The checklist covers the main topics that every manager should know and understand prior to terminating one or more employee(s).

The CHECKLIST

□ If its possible, communicate with and prepare your staff for the possibility of layoffs in advance. No termination should come as a complete surprise to an employee under any circumstances. They need time to consider or imagine the possibility.

□ Put your rationale in writing as well as explaining your decisions to upper management if necessary. Puting it in writing provides clarity and negates ambiguity and doubt.

□ On a practical level, establish a detailed plan for handling the workload after the layoffs have occurred, given that there will often be a period of low morale and disruptions.

□ Make a list of key files any employee may have, and arrange for their transfer.

□ HR are your touchstone, so check with them often. There will be defined procedures to follow; get the paperwork right, collect keys and badges, etc. HR people can give you helpful advice on dealing with the more emotional aspects of a layoff, and often provide supportive techniques for delivering the bad news and dealing with the reaction..

□ Keep everything on a safe legal footing. There may be specific things that you must, or must not, say. It is a time when you can easily leave yourself and the company open to litigation.

□ Put in place IT & Security policies to cancel access privileges immediately (within a few seconds) after terminating anyone. Angry or disgruntled ex-employees can and will, do significant damage to your systems the moment they return to their desks. Do not underestimate the impact of this. There are many documented cases of this happening.

□ Establish, in advance with all parties concerned, what will happen before, during and after the termination interview, e.g. who will escort employees back to their work space, how long the laid-off employees will have to gather personal belongings and who will collect keys and badges, etc. Normally security will play a role here. They are less 'involved' with the staff than the management and can be very professional and objective.

□ Managing the guilt and emotional reactions of the “survivors” as early as possible, is essential. Arrange to meet with them to communicate what has happened and why. Then explain the new work plans, address their fears and answer their questions, no matter how difficult

□ Do not forget your own feelings and emotions in all this and seek some good advice from your HR department. They will be best placed to tell you how to deal with what is happening. You are also one of the 'survivors' and you will be expected to do more with less, once the downsizing operation is complete.

Reduced Security

An urgent demand for talent in several areas is eclipsing broad, knee-jerk reactions to greatly reduce budgets and cut staffing levels, projects and fixed asset purchases, without thinking carefully about the consequences and future requirements.

Undeniably employers made mistakes in past downturns, huge miscalculations founded in the white hot heat of cost-cutting that wounded them badly later on. It limited their ability to respond quickly and when the smoke cleared and the rebuilding started, they were left floundering.

It just shows how little IT management has learned since last time. Managers have not learned the lesson that it's not just about cutting spending, it's about managing the risks and being smart within their spending limitations. Know your boundaries and work within them.

One of the worst instancies if this in the IT security field. Current economic conditions are having a negative impact on the majority of security budgets. Many companies have initiated a hiring freeze or staff reduction exercise, necessary measures due to the financial crisis.

Security-decision makers in over 100 companies have been asked about their spending plans for the coming year and to gauge the impact current economic conditions are having on budgets. Of 159 respondents, 64 percent indicted that the economy was having a negative impact on security spending. Another 19 percent said the economy currently had no impact. Just 6 percent said the crisis was having a positive impact on their organization's security budget.

Security budgets will decrease for 35 percent of respondents and remain the same for 42 percent. Just 23 percent thought spending would increase in the coming year. Those numbers are a switch from last year, when more companies expected to increase security spending. In 2008, 38 percent of companies planned to increase their security budget and just 24 percent expected to see a decrease in spending.

One firm is actually in the minority and plans to spend more on security in the coming 12 months. "We are increasing from previous years. I would have to say the increase is around regulatory issues as well as general responsible security program expansion."

Security spending is often driven by compliance and policy decisions. This falls in line with what other companies also said, with a majority indicating that policy and compliance are the main justifications for security spending.

Security decision-makers were asked if they planned to increase or decrease spending in the following areas: Business Continuity/disaster recovery, data loss prevention, identity management, compliance and regulations, outsourced security systems, physical security, policy and risk management, and staff.

In all but one category, more than half of respondents expected spending to remain at similar levels.

However, when it comes to spending on staff, 41 percent expect to see a decrease in spending. Close to 60 percent have either implemented, or plan to implement, a hiring freeze.

Additionally, 35 percent of companies asked, indicated they have had to go beyond a hiring freeze and have actually reduced security staff, or plan to reduce headcount in the next 6 months. It will be interesting how this affects security in the coming months and whether we will see more outsourcing of protective measures. A dangerous path to walk and one that can only increase the threat to organisations.

Let's hope we soon see an end to these 'interesting times'