Live it - Lead IT

Greetings to all the successful people out there in the world and especially in Europe. Today I would like to share a thought on where IT departments should stand in the system of organizations.My first position was as a consultant and then six months later I took over the lead of the IT department. That was the time when the computerization of the business really started. This was the big point when each of these people who sit in the offices could really make productive, use of computers. Now it is 2019 and when I deal with companies, I very rarely get positive feedback about their IT people. The majority of employees believe that their internal IT department is not good.This affects me personally as I was an IT manager and team leader. And I know why! Whenever people need their IT department, they always complain that they’re so busy. Others are busy too! So IT is usually slow performing or delivering stuff that others don’t understand. If you are becoming upset then good!  If not, then maybe this is not the right podcast for you. Give it a try and stick with it.  What I see today is that IT departments, have completely separated away from what they call “the business,” or the operative units of the company. I believe this delayed 15 or 20 years of development, and I also believe that this is the way to hell, meaning outsourcing. 

“IT departments have separated away from the business."

When we take the army as an example, you cannot say that the logistics unit is the only part of the army. I will share a very good story with you. I had an interview in my German podcast, and someone made this statement: “No innovation, this is not IT. Marketing does the innovation.” Only increasing the network from speed one to speed two is not innovation!Nobody can survive without IT! Even a blacksmith who makes horseshoes will not be found if they are not online. Every company needs a solid foundation, which is IT based. Each IT department is, if not the heart of each company, then at least the spine and the brain of the company. The purpose is to understand the business, to understand business processes, to deliver a platform which the company can rely on and grow from. 

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For instance, see that GDPR is a positive, not a negative. GDPR was the biggest present for smart IT companies in the last 10 years. It was an opportunity to open all the boxes in various departments: understand them, analyse them, document them and become brain and spine of your company. Use these opportunities to allow the company to thrive in the future and to optimize and to get better in the future. 

“Every company needs a solid foundation which is IT-based.”

What is stopping you from becoming the innovative engine of your company?It’s in your hands! 

“The IT department is, if not the heart,

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"Perfection can never be achieved"

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Mauris consequat nibh ipsum, vel tempor arcu maximus in. Pellentesque ante sem, eleifend vel volutpat eu, bibendum vel est. Cras placerat rhoncus viverra. Vivamus tempor, massa eu suscipit egestas, risus urna porta lorem, sed dapibus tortor nulla vel arcu. Ut in porta ipsum. Etiam commodo, leo quis rutrum tempus, justo ligula tristique tortor, quis fermentum lacus mauris eu tortor. Nulla mi diam, maximus eu pharetra sit amet, facilisis ut augue. Praesent ornare nisi justo, nec auctor nunc aliquam id. Sed eleifend dignissim ex eu scelerisque. Pellentesque habitant morbi tristique senectus et netus et malesuada fames ac turpis egestas. Donec sed viverra magna. Etiam dictum eleifend tempor. Sed iaculis mauris quis mi fermentum feugiat. Phasellus sollicitudin ipsum ac erat dictum ornare. Ut porta dui a magna molestie, sagittis pulvinar ante bibendum.Sed vel ex neque. Suspendisse placerat dignissim rutrum. Pellentesque ante turpis, dapibus in libero nec, semper imperdiet orci. Etiam lobortis tempor nisl, ut blandit nisl placerat vitae. Duis finibus molestie velit quis gravida. Nunc venenatis, ligula id suscipit sagittis, metus ipsum dignissim lacus, nec iaculis risus dui vitae enim. Morbi id neque dolor. Pellentesque id quam imperdiet, suscipit nulla eleifend, pharetra tellus. Fusce vehicula dui vel ultrices pellentesque. Vestibulum ultrices urna et risus laoreet viverra.In fringilla lobortis arcu, luctus faucibus augue convallis vitae. Fusce dapibus nisl ac tortor egestas, vitae commodo turpis rhoncus. Ut tempor enim et blandit aliquet. Vivamus sed tellus lectus. Nunc nec feugiat tortor. Suspendisse ultricies metus id augue condimentum ullamcorper. Donec gravida aliquet ipsum, sed sollicitudin est gravida et. Nunc molestie enim at pellentesque facilisis.

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Leaders and Managers are the highest paid people in the organization.

Are you the best version of yourself? There were times in the career where I think I would have said yes. After university, I spent 20 years working in the IT-Industries in leadership positions. The last position was as the Head of Global IT Infrastructure. I would say no, I’m not the best version of myself. If we say you’re the best version of yourself, it’s almost something close to perfection. I think if you ask someone that question and they say yes, then they have no clue. Around 2010 I made medieval leather shoes by hand. I was never satisfied with any of my results! Perfection is never to be achieved, because when you are doing when you’re optimizing, you always see the next step. I think this is eternal, this will not stop!

"Perfection is never to be achieved, because when you are doing when you’re optimizing, you always see the next step."

So am I the best person? The answer is no. For our listeners: this is a podcast for leaders and for people who want to be leaders. As I have a strong IT-background, we do tend to focus on that field many times. And I have an agenda with my fellow colleagues who are Heads of IT. We will come to this in the next few episodes. As managers, we are in a tricky position. We are the highest paid persons in the organization; but we’re the least trained people in the organization! Not many people understand that leadership is an art, maybe like shoemaking.  You can optimize it, you can train for it, and you can learn it. Many people associate a leadership role with their ego. If you do not know that this is an art, you cannot improve because you have no clue what this is.

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"Leaders are the highest paid persons in the organization; but they are the least trained people in the organization!"

So one goal of this podcast is to create the understanding in the brain of the audience that when you’re a leader, the journey has just begun! The message is that leadership is an art. You can improve It’s almost like a perishable skill. This podcast aims to improve your life and your job.

"The idiots change the world!"

We are recording this episode in 2019. And I hope you hear this in 2029. The world is moving faster, I believe, than it ever has before. So, my message is that we are on a journey. Who decides what is the best version? You! Have a dream. The idiots change the world! So let’s go for it. Let’s become better. Let’s leave average where it is. Let’s become awesome on every level!

Stay in lead!OLAF KAPINSKI 🙂

In this episode of Live it, Lead IT! I am going to be talking you through the Disney Strategy, a straightforward, effective tool based on three distinct stages to help you realise your dreams.The Dream PhaseDo you want an average life, or do you want to live your dream life? While it takes courage to reach for the stars, as soon as you start imagining what your ideal life looks like, you can work toward its’ realisation. To achieve that life, you have to start with visualisation – you cannot realise what you can’t imagine.So how do you go about dreaming up an image of your ideal life? My best advice to you is to head out into nature, void of any gadgets or other distractions, and let your imagination run wild. Often, when thinking about life goals, people often believe that they are undeserving, or that their desires are unrealistic. Put all of these concerns to one side and imagine what you would love to be doing for the next five or ten years. Try to avoid overcompensation – where you only picture having those things that you don’t have now – say time to spend on a beach in an exotic location – ask yourself if it will really fulfil all your desires.Once you have a clear picture in your head, create a vision board. Preferably using a large sheet of paper, collate images, whether you print them off the internet or cut them out of magazines, to create a visual representation of your dream. Keep it somewhere visible you can see it often.The Realisation PhaseNow that you have created a clear image of your dream life, you will need to start planning how to get from where you are, to where you want to be. Treat this as a project plan and break down the steps you need to take you to realise your ideal life into smaller chunks. Don’t overcomplicate it and be sure to write it down.The Consequences StageThe third and final part of the strategy is to consider the consequences of realising your dream. You will need to ask yourself several questions to assess what the outcomes are of you living your ideal life. These include, ‘What will I have when I live my dream life’, these will include all the positives of you achieving your dream, which might include recognition in your industry or a larger wage; ‘What will I no longer when I live that dream life’, which might include for example a boss that you need to answer to on the positive side; and ‘What might I miss when I achieve my dream life’, which for example might include less time with friends or loved ones. This latter question asks us to focus on the positive things we have in our current life.Final thoughtsThe beauty of the Disney strategy is the simplicity of the three phases. Be sure to spend most of your time focusing on the dream phase and try to expand your horizons as much as possible to ensure you are not limiting your ability to dream. Try reading books, studying others, or other tactics to explore new options. Dedicate a quarter of your time to the realisation phase as this is where you will see how you can move closer to your dream. Finally, spend the rest of your time on the consequences, as the final stage. Use the Disney Strategy to take a massive step in your life in the right direction, and, if you can please share the results with me.Happy dreaming till next time.Yours,Olaf Kapinski

This episode is all about how to get promoted – the Holy Grail of how to get promoted if you like. I will share with you in this show a list of effective strategies to help you climb the career ladder within your organisation. These tactics will be most relevant for mid-sized companies of around 100 people, but the core ideas will be of interest to even those within smaller organisations.

I will also be focusing on internal promotion in this show. Of course, getting promoted externally is usually the faster path, but this is based on selling yourself during the application process while getting promoted internally is based on being known for the best qualities within your team.

How to get promoted – Part 1

To get promoted in an organisation you need to have a certain degree of opportunism. The most important thing to understanding how to get promoted is to know your reason why. It’s about having a key driver – whatever that may be.

So tell me what you want?

Promotions all start with an individual decision. It may sound a bit odd, but unless you decide that you want to be promoted, it won’t happen. Setting an objective for example as becoming Team Lead in a year is a decision you need to take. If you cannot decide you will not have what it takes. Successful people make decisions. If you want to be promoted, you need to share this information with your boss. A decision, of course, is only a decision if there are consequences. So what do you do, what action do you take, if you are not promoted? You’ll need to think about this before and be prepared to act.

The decision makers

The second thing – you will not be promoted because you think you’re good. No body cares if you think you are good – your manager’s opinion of you is what is important within your organisation. They need to see that you can already fulfil the requirements of the job in the next senior role above yours to consider a promotion.

But what if after proving yourself, you company doesn’t want to promote you? If the organisation is running well and everything is working and you ask for a promotion, the pressure to reshuffle the team might discourage senior management from giving them out. In many cases however promotions are not only decided by direct line managers, but other units such as HR for example. So how do you get around this? The first question to ask is who promotes you? Yes your boss will have a strong influence in this process but for the most part in bigger companies others are involved in that decision making process. Make sure you engage with all the people who are responsible for your promotion, as well as in the development process in order to identify any gaps in your skill. When the next opportunity comes up, you will be more likely to be considered as among the best person for the job. So make sure you know in detail the organisational structure and who to approach – both formally and informally – to make sure you’re on that radar. Your direct boss is not the be all and end all in your promotion.

It is also key to understand what your company is looking for in those roles more senior to you. What do they want to see in a prospect to hire them for that role? If project management is a key skill for example in a leadership role in your organisation, it is something you will need to prove yourself in. Or maybe it’s budget management skills that your senior management is looking for. Do your homework, so you understand their expectations. Understand what the requirements are and show them you are capable.

For more insider tips listen on to the episode to ensure that promotion for your future!

Yours,

Olaf Kapinski

 

 

 

 

Most people will tell you that success makes people happy. In this episode, I will be turning this idea around on its head. Ultimately it’s not the success that makes you happy, but happiness that breeds success. Read on and tune in to find out more in this edition of Live It, Lead IT!

Happiness breeds success

Successful people are usually those who can focus on their task at hand. What that essentially means is that they are not full of anxiety or fear. Rather they are happy, and happiness breeds success. In my mind, the common denominator of those people who are happy is that they can achieve their own goals. Of course, if you have no goals, you cannot be successful.

What is happiness?

Happiness in this context doesn’t necessarily mean that you have to be successful in your company. There are many people out there who work an average job merely to pay the bills. They have a neutral feeling regarding their jobs and this is not their be all and end all. They have families, houses, they travel during their holidays and generall,y they have good experiences. When you ask them, they will tell you they have a good life. It is not necessary for success to be found in an organisation.

The importance of goals

The issue for most people and why they lack happiness is that they don’t have their goals at the forefront of their conscious mind. When you talk to people who are happy, you get a sense of their objectives very quickly. When you talk to people who are unhappy it can take a long time to get to their goals – because they haven’t thought about it. Life is not about finding yourself; it’s about creating yourself. If you have goals you know what why you are here on this planet. With your goals clearly in mind, it becomes much easier to move in the right direction, toward achieving them. For those people, they can see success day by day. Sometimes it might be a smaller success, sometimes a larger one. Either way, if you know why you are you here, you can tick boxes day by day. People with goals are generally happier.

In the organisational context

If you are working in an organisation, the same philosophy applies. If you are an achiever, you will have trained your brain from an early age to work on projects and see them through to the end. You will have conditioned your mind. People who are permanently successful are permanently happy because they achieve things. With such a mindset you will have developed your confidence. And in doing so, you will have fostered a happy state of mind. Happiness in such an organisational setting is key because when you’re happy, you are also calm. This is the kind of attitude you need on a workspace with others. With a calm state of mind, you are much more likely to be able to avoid anger and stress, restraining yourself from negative interactions with your colleagues. Combined with the attitude of achieving, you are on your way to success. People will be much more likely to want to be around you, and with the proof that you can provide value to your organisations in completing projects successfully, you’re much more likely to be promoted.

So success doesn’t make you happy. Happiness breeds success. Be an achiever and be happy!

 

Yours,

Olaf Kapinski  

Unlike the scenario 40 or 50 years ago, companies loyalty to their employees’ and vendors’ has all but declined, as cost efficiency is driving organisations to continually outsource whatever they can to make them smarter and more effective. But where is the employee in all of this? Today’s corporate working environment means that it is paramount more than ever before to develop yourself leadership skills and ensure your continuing competitiveness in the market.

Bye-bye loyalty

Back in the day, loyalty was a key value in the relationships that companies once held. It was the norm back then for a person to join a company as soon as they became of working age, only to stay with the same organisation until retirement. Today we are facing a very different environment. Loyalty has all but shrunk as organisations have developed a big-picture view of how they operate, driving them to outsource more and more tasks to other vendors as they seek to streamline their businesses. IT and Marketing are the prime example of this trend, as companies seek cheaper running costs.

For larger manufacturing businesses, back a few decades ago the decision-making they were taking was centred around best to organise their factories – today that conversation has changed to where in the world shall I run my factory, as overseas options become more attractive for their low labour costs. Whole industries have increasingly scaled back their business divisions, relying on outsourced specialists to deliver their final product to the end-user. The automotive industry is a prime example of this, with almost all parts of a car produced by other manufacturers, elsewhere in the world, to be finally assembled and branded by the likes of a company such as Porsche. Increasingly as more and more companies provide specialised services, whole industries are scaling back entire teams, as company CEO’s drive efficiency as their primary aim.

Smaller businesses too are looking at how they can optimise their own resources, relying on the support of their business networks. If an entrepreneur is successful, then they have a team of people helping them.

So, what now?

So where does all this leave you? Well, the first is that as jobs are increasingly at risk, you need to be more competitive. The second is that to become more competitive, you need to become a leader.

So what is a leader?

To recap on the definition of a leader:

Employees’ do the work.

Managers work the work.

Leaders work the organization.

What’s in a leader?

Being a leader is synonymous with being a visionary. An individual who creatively disrupts entire industries. Elon Musk is a prime example of this with his electric car brand Tesla.

A leader seeks opportunities, changes, and loves disruption – making sure their company stays on its toes and creates more value today than yesterday. In turn, you need to be on your toes, because you too can be outsourced all too easily.

So what does a good leader do that sets him apart? How do you differentiate management from leadership? Listen on for this edition of Live It, Lead IT! to hone your leadership skills are leave your mark where it counts.

 

Yours,

Olaf Kapinski

Fredmund Malik, the Grandfather of leadership once said that only those who take decisions are leaders. In this week’s episode of Live It, Lead IT! I will be talking about what a decision is. Though it may come as a surprise to most, answering ‘Yes’, at least in the workplace is not a decision. Want to learn more… read on!

Decisions make leaders

Decision-making is a big topic and more often than not within organizations, the issue most people face, and employees suffer from, is that they are not being made. As per Fredmund Maliks’ insight on decision-making, being a leader is not about how many people you lead, but whether you are making reasonable decisions for your organization. Some cynics say good companies survive despite their leaders and indeed many companies unfortunately operate this way.

Many leaders within an organization have no issue when it comes to making decisions outside of the workplace, say when it comes to family life. They deal with a big wish list from their family, from renovations to new bikes, make a list and prioritise following a conversation with the family, and create some kind of structure in order to make the necessary decisions. They follow a sequence.

Those very same people when they find themselves back in their company, in those decision-making meetings, sadly don’t follow the same logic. For example, if their attending a project board meeting where the IT team is asked to support on a new project, those supposed decision-makers agree despite being busy. Their responses are always ‘yes’, ‘yes’ and ‘yes’, despite a work overload that will prevent them from delivering what they have promised. Saying yes to everything that comes along is simply not decision-making. So in that case, what is a decision?

What’s in a decision?

It might come as a surprise for me to tell you that ‘no’ is a decision.

If someone comes to you and asks you for something and the only option you have is to say ‘yes’, you are not a decision maker. To make decisions one must understand what is at stake, what the alternatives are, and what the consequences might be. Alternatives always exist. Successful decisions start with no – we are not doing that. If you are a company and you’re internal IT provider delivers something – a product or service to customers, your organization is likely maxed out. If a new task crops up, or a new customer wants something delivered by next Monday, and approval of that has consequences for another projects, you need to discuss it. Simply saying yes is not a decision.

Don’t say no!

My recommendation is don’t say no. But rather something along the lines of “I understand your project makes sense, I completely agree to it. Sadly however my resources have been given away to X,Y and Z, Since project Z is your own, if you can reduce its priority I can allocate those resources to your new project. OR, I connect you with the people on projects X and Y and you can discuss the resources with them.” This is what works.

Mr. Warren Buffet says the difference between successful people and very successful people is that very successful people say no to nearly everything. For more on this insight in order to become a better leader, listen on to the podcast, and then practice saying ‘no’ more often.

 

Yours,

Olaf Kapinski

 

 

 

What do you need to consider as an entrepreneur when setting up your own business? In this edition of Live It, Lead It! I will be talking about the essentials to think about when providing a product or service, along with which market to have your eye on to generate the leads you need to be successful!

Cost, lead time and quality. These are the three dimensions every company and entrepreneur that produces things for other people must consider when looking to improve a product or service. Ultimately you can never reduce all three elements, but you can usually reduce one or two. In this podcast, I’ll be discussing the three filters to ask yourself when looking at how to go about making your product or service better.

No.1 Eliminate it.

The first question you need to ask yourself is how you can streamline the work that goes on behind delivering your goods to your customers. Eliminating unnecessary processes behind your products without reducing quality is key. For example, maybe one of your products contains a function which is no longer utilised by your customers. Or perhaps you can improve the materials used in their production.

No. 2 Automate It.

Automation today is also a viable option for improving production processes, particularly as robots become cheaper and cheaper. 

No. 3. Delegate.

This is particularly key if you are an entrepreneur or are looking to become one.  Outsourcing should be considered, particularly if you can find cheaper labour costs abroad. Not only can it reduce your spend but it can also reduce complexity. Big companies that offer specialised products or services can usually provide them for cheaper. Or consider opening a service centre. However, labour costs will eventually go up, and other destinations can become cheaper. The key is to always have your eye on the ball – because sooner or later the work will move elsewhere.

The markets.

If you’re living in the EU, then it’s a great chance to take advantage of travelling within the Union which can be a fulfilling experience to learn and grow, as opposed to staying in your country of residence waiting for work to come to you. Living somewhere other than your home country is always good for your CV. Be sure to learn the language and familiarize yourself with the culture.

However, if that’s not an option consider how to pull work to you. This is the essence of what it means to be an entrepreneur. To stand yourself apart you need to decide on who is your perfect customer and what keeps them awake at night. What problem do they have that needs to be solved and how can you help them?

If you are working in a market other than your country of residence however then there are some critical points to consider. If you don’t speak the language of your customers, then you’ll need to learn the language. Understanding cultural difference is likewise essential. Take for example the Chinese that tried to sell automobiles in the German market. They completely ignored everything that Germans look for when they buy a car, and they got thrown out of the market. You will be much more successful when you speak the language of your customers and understand the social differences between you and them. Everything from what they wear to what interests them is key. Get closer to the society that you think will be your market. Understand your customer and reduce the effort required among your customers to trust you. Make it easy for them to understand the products and services you have. We are in the best time of mankind ever. Go and take advantage!

Yours,

Olaf Kapinski

Todays episode is part of the Kontist – Blogparade. I will be addressing the question of whether the future of work is being self-employed. Or not.

With more and more jobs being automated in today’s day and age, there is no doubt that the world of work is changing, but what can we expect?

I discuss this question in the german Podcast LEBEN-FÜHREN, as well. check it out!

Recent trends

For 60 – 70 years or so now there has been a trend to shift work to those countries in which labour costs are cheaper. In Germany, this has been going on for just as long. Take the automobile industry for example, where welding jobs are long defunct, and manufacturing has been outsourced to namely the countries of Asia. The same can be said in IT where CPUs, for example, are no longer specialized, but standardized. Increasingly we will see manual work cease altogether.

Automation is similarly reducing the number of jobs out there. First, the internet saw customers increasingly do the work of employees. Take for instance bookstores. Once upon a time you would enter, have a chat with a sales staff to find your book and then pay out the checkout. Nowadays people go to Amazon. Or take self-check-out tills as another example. People now scan and pay for their items themselves instead of using a cashier. This is the direction work is heading– more will be optimised and rationalised as a greater number of standard jobs become obsolete.

Growing opportunities

I believe this gives tonnes of opportunities for the rest of the world. With labour moving to where it is cheapest, it will mean that these countries become wealthier. In the end, that means they become better customers. So as labour moves around the globe, what does that mean for business? Going after these opportunities in other parts of the word is of course challenging. Working in a new business environment means understanding local regulations, the legal and the tax system, not to mention the language. Of course, there are cultural differences too which I will address later in another episode! Countries that are smart enough to establish agencies for businesses wanting to enter a new market would be best positioned to attract investment to their countries.

for whom?

But what’s the likelihood of people taking advantage of these opportunities? Is being self-employed the future of work? The truth of the matter is that being self-employed is hard work. Most people don’t want the hassle. Full-time jobs pay the rent and put food on the table – they provide security. Being self-employed on the other hand is riskier.

Nonetheless, I believe more people in the future will create their own businesses. I think mankind has never lived in a world with so many opportunities for one person. The globe became a village. More and more people will, in turn, build very cool businesses. My hypothesis is that more and more people will reduce the amount of time they work in a fixed contract with a company, and participate increasingly in the opportunities available.

To find out more about the future of work listen on to this edition of Live It, Lead IT!

 

Yours,

Olaf Kapinski