I’ve coached hundreds of individuals in customer support and in blended sales-service environments, and, as a coach, I’ve experienced success and failure. Invariably, when coaching is successful, it’s because of a human or emotional connection to the team member and the team member’s emotional...
Date Published - Last Updated February 25, 2016
For UBM Tech, HDI’s parent company and a global live media and B2B communications, marketing services, and data provider, innovation is one of the four underlying corporate values leading the company down the path to be the best—and biggest—event business in the world. UBM Tech’s David Michael...
Date Published - Last Updated February 25, 2016
Contractors can provide value in projects—by adding a skill not present on the team, by providing basic labor for less-valuable tasks, or by “backfilling” the desktop support team’s day-to-day tasks to free team members up for project work—but they aren’t suitable for all projects.
Date Published - Last Updated February 25, 2016
In one way or another, all organizations teach. Businesses train new employees on their cultures, technologies, and processes. In IT, training often accompanies a large roll out or new initiative. In fact, many IT departments have a training department or make explicit assignments to teams to...
Date Published - Last Updated February 25, 2016
Tough breaks happen. Bones break, hearts break. Referees make bad calls. Networks go down, stress goes up, less-capable colleagues get the promotion. We may be plagued by problems, but focusing on the unfairness of life induces self-doubt, rationalization, and mediocrity—and despair. We must get...
Date Published - Last Updated February 26, 2016
Without clear objectives, metrics are just a pile of numbers. The good is when we beat our targets, the bad is when we fail to hit those targets, and the ugly is when we fail to set challenging objectives. Remember, like baseball, the only thing that really matters in the end is whether or not...
Date Published - Last Updated February 25, 2016
If you’ve been a support center manager for more than ten minutes, you’ve probably been faced with the question, “How is your team doing?” Because of the role they play, support organizations are often large and/or highly visible. As a result, senior IT leadership wants to understand the return...
Date Published - Last Updated February 25, 2016
Offshoring—moving jobs to other countries—is a topic that elicits strong reactions from people. Management is frequently in favor of it, for a variety of reasons; workers, on the other hand, can feel threatened, fearing that their jobs are in danger. There are political, economic, and ethical...
Date Published - Last Updated February 25, 2016
If you agree with ITIL, successful service management is the result of “an appropriate mix of people, process, and information technology.” While ITIL is touted as a systematic approach that treats all three components equally, in practice it often focuses more heavily on the process side....
Date Published - Last Updated April 19, 2019
Do you feel you reward and/or recognize your team frequently enough? Do you feel you are rewarded and recognized enough? For most people, there’s a big disconnect. So what can we do to reestablish the disconnection?
Date Published - Last Updated February 25, 2016