She called me Friday about a project she’s working on, which involves gathering video footage from EMC employees about their experiences and what working at EMC means to them.  I had seen her announcement of the project and hadn’t responded … I am not usually one to leap in front of a camera.  But when she called and specifically asked me to come, I found I had trouble saying no.  It’s one thing to not volunteer, but when someone suggests something to you, it’s time to take a second look.  So I agreed to come, and spent some time over the weekend gathering my thoughts.  What does working at EMC mean to me?  How is that different now than it was in 2000?  I ended up with too many thoughts, and spent a good chunk of time narrowing things down, preparing a mental bullet list of what I wanted to mention.

And then I sat in front of the camera (after shaking Polly’s hand in our first face-to-face meeting), and she asked a simple question designed to get me relaxed and talking.  “Tell me a little about yourself.”

Myself?  No fair, this was supposed to be about EMC!  I had no idea what to say about myself.  I began babbling about my career, how I got to EMC, and who-knows-what else.  And it went in weird directions from there.  Entire subjects I wanted to bring up got left out, and I found myself weaving a strange conversational path across topics I hadn’t intended to cover.  But it was good, it was conversational, and it ended well.  I got my message (such as it is) across, I think.

And as I left and walked down the hill to my building, I couldn’t help but think about that opening question.  It seems such an obvious conversation-starter, but how many of us could answer it in a nice concise way?

Tell me a little about yourself….

This post is from: Dave Talks Shop

Tell me a little about yourself

What I wanted to do was take a look at GlassDoor and the state of EMC’s corporate picture as painted by GlassDoor’s users, now that the site has been up for a week.

As of the writing of this blog entry, EMC has 40 reviews and 59 salaries (people are more willing to talk money than culture, I guess) posted. The first thing I notice is that it’s impossible to sort the reviews by anything. If I want just the positive or negative reviews, I can’t. I can’t mark a review as helpful (or unhelpful) ala Amazon, either. No way to just get the cream of the crop as far as reviews go.

Right away, this makes the site very frustrating to navigate. I’m glad this is just a beta test, because at this point it’s a pretty but nonfunctional interface. Imagine how this system scales to 500 reviews or more? Wow.

Let’s say I’m curious about EMC’s reputation as regards diversity (going back to Polly’s piece). I can’t search for the word, but since I’m dedicated to getting you the results you want I searched through all 40 reviews. The words “diverse” or “diversity” are mentioned in 4 reviews (on multiple pages since you can’t “view all” or export the full list). Twice it’s a positive, twice a negative. Hard to say what that means.

Any common themes?

• Corporate bureaucracy seems to be mentioned a lot. I have trouble imagining a big company without that, but it is a concern I share.
• Work/Life balance comes up a bit — and I’m happy to say that I know EMC is making strides here, but I understand the frustration.
• Highly skilled people will get ahead (well, I hope so).
• Everybody loves our internal training (me too!).
• People like working for a winner.
• People at non-Hopkinton sites feel left out sometimes (I imagine).

But the real story, as far as I can tell, is more like the diversity point above. The common thread is the differences. Do all these people really work for the same company?

One scathing review talks about how great the money is but how awful your life will become. Another talks about how good the work is but how we aren’t very competitive in compensation. We either have a “very fair” vacation policy or an antiquated awful one. We either value people who work remotely or hate them. We either have tons of churn in management or things are too stagnant (side story: In past 7 years, I’ve had 7 different managers just because of things changing around me, not because of my own movement. In same 7 years, an old-coworker has had just one). We either give you all the right equipment or are stingy with it. Everyone has an office (where do you work!?) versus hating living in a cubicle culture. Either it’s easy to move into management or managers are all people with 20+ years experience. We’re either a cut-throat sweatshop or a low-stress environment.

Etc….

So let’s just get this out of the way. We are a big company, with lots of different cultures, and lots of different managers. Some of them are probably bad. Some of them are probably awesome. I think there’s more good than bad here, and our annual satisfaction survey results seem to say the same thing. You know what else? I have never met a manager who didn’t want to improve their own little corner of the company. Then again, I’ve never worked in sales, marketing, finance, and who knows where else. Maybe things are really awful in some places. I hope we can fix it if it is.

Some of the information, I wish I could get more details on. An intern reports that if you aren’t a shiny happy person you might not fit in. I’m trying to think of how many shiny happy EMC people I’ve met (outside of, say, VPs of Employment Brand and Strategy Engagement, no offense ). Intern, meet Storage Anarchist. That should set you up for a while.

My favorite nugget of info? One employee said that the place was so sterile it felt like a dentist’s office at times. Welcome to Corporate America. I feel your pain.

This post is from: Dave Talks Shop

Through the looking glass (door)

Our successes in the workplace depend a great deal on those around us. Every day, our co-workers make decisions which impact us. And when that person does something that makes our lives easier, what should we do? We all learned this as kids. We say Thank You.

I know we’re all busy. But make time to say it. Not just “thanks” shouted over the cube wall (though that’s a good start) but something more involved. Tell them why it helped you, tell them what exactly you’re thanking them for. Let them know you understand the effort it took them. Do it in person, or via email, but take the time to do it. It’s not going to cost you that much, and if you need to have reasons to do it, here are some gains you’ll realize:

• They know they were helpful (maybe they weren’t sure) and are now more likely to be so again, for you and for others
• They know you are grateful, and will likely help you in the future
• They feel good about what they’ve done, about themselves, and about you
• They get a feeling for how it feels to be thanked, and may thank others in the future

The last point is the selfless one, the one with organization-transforming power. By putting that “Thank You” out there, you lead by example, regardless of your authority in the group. Your simple message has the potential to improve everyone’s work experience, not just yours. And if it doesn’t take off, the worst that happens is that people think you’re a kind individual. And that can’t be too bad, can it?

Once you’ve gotten into the habit of saying Thank You, once in a while it’s good to let someone else know besides the person you’re thanking. It makes sense, in cases that stand out, to send a copy of your thank-you to the person’s manager. If you’re their manager, copying your own manager is a good substitute.

Why?

• The person you are thanking knows how important their action was to you
• That person’s manager has extra information to help with managing that person’s performance
• You’ve bypassed the entire official recognition system and yet given someone recognition
• You’ve shown humility and honesty, showing you aren’t trying to take credit for someone else’s work
• You’ve earned some credibility with that manager. If you ever need to provide more critical feedback about someone to that manager, they know you are not just complaining

The message must be genuine, though. If it’s just a gesture, if it’s a calculated measure to appear humble, to appear grateful, to curry favor … people will see through you. And if there’s anything worse than seeming ungrateful, it’s seeming artificial. Like my mother used to tell me, I don’t just want you to say it, I want you to mean it.

When you say (and mean!) Thank You, in private or in public, you are investing into your relationships and helping lead organizational change. It’s a powerful tool, and we all have free access to it.

This post is from: Dave Talks Shop

Saying Thank You

The fact is, wrestling knew its product wasn’t good enough to survive any level of openness.

That’s changed now. There came a point where information just flowed too freely, and stubbornly holding onto traditional kayfabe in the modern era made them look silly (you may argue that wrestling looks silly anyway, and you won’t find an argument here). So the industry had to change their product and their social norms, to make it so even with all its fans knowing the events were scripted and predetermined that they still enjoyed watching it, still followed it, still “believed” it on some level.

It’s obviously working. The product is selling well, surviving controversy and somehow staying relevant even while everyone knows the events are scripted.

Would your product survive? If your product managers, developers, testers, and support personnel all blogged openly about the product’s development, engaged with customers in two-way dialog about the features they wanted, talked candidly about the product’s strengths and limitations, and basically didn’t rely on smoke and mirrors and NDAs, would it still compete in your market?

Is your product good enough that “breaking kayfabe” would be a positive market differentiator?

If it isn’t, maybe it’s time to rethink something about your product.

If it is, why haven’t you done it yet?

(The truth is, I bet some product teams would panic at that level of openness between their engineering and field support organizations, never mind the customers.)

This post is from: Dave Talks Shop

Is it time to break kayfabe?

The hero of the movie, played by Christian Slater, has trouble talking to people face-to-face but uses pirate radio broadcasts to reach out to his classmates. Like a much darker Ferris Bueller, he’s loved by everyone, but nobody knows who he is.

I imagine the movie would have a tougher time being understood by today’s teenagers.

A world where the media is locked down by regulation, where the only way to get your voice out uncensored is by literally breaking the law and risking everything, it’s probably a bit alien to today’s youth. But my generation connected with this movie and the feeling of empowerment Hard Harry’s crass rebellion represented. You have a voice and can and should use it, it told us.

When EMC started up an internal social media site, I immediately thought of this movie, of Christian Slater’s chain-smoking voice talking about the power of truth as a virus. I’m not saying EMC was this broken place and I was looking at this as a way to fix it — let’s not be so dramatic. But I did think about the power of tens of thousands of people who suddenly could say whatever they wanted, and know that it potentially would be read by everyone else at the company. Something doesn’t make sense? Sick of some corporate rule that is holding your team back? Feeling blocked by your current management? Suddenly you have all this power.

But unlike the illicit broadcasts from Pump Up the Volume, all this is invited and supported by the corporation. They’ve given a microphone to every employee and said, “go ahead, say something, say anything!” They can’t shut down the radio station now — we’re all far too used to being able to broadcast our voice. There’d be blood in the streets!

I’m sure it scares a few people who wear suits to work. I think it’s pretty cool that we’re “on the air” regardless.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to cue up some Leonard Cohen. This is Dave, reminding you to eat your cereal with a fork and do your coding in the dark.

This post is from: Dave Talks Shop

Talk Hard

Last year, there was very little turnout for the “advanced” handson for StorageScope.  So this year, it was only offered once, and only 25 laptops were provided.  I decided to drop in on the session (being run by my manager Seth Silverman and my peer Anu Shivnath) to see how it went, and was greeted with chaos.  At least three times as many people arrived as were planned for, and more were lining up hoping to get in.  The room was packed beyond capacity and we had to turn people away.  Seth, however, offered everyone who was turned away a second runthrough in 75-90 minutes.

We pushed through the session (which I was very impressed with) and were wrapping up in 75 minutes as expected.  As people filtered out, a few filtered in — but only three people had returned for the promised second runthrough.

And they got it.

Three StorageScope customers had the undivided attention of 4 Control Center managers (QE and development), the director of our development organization, and an additional QE representative.  Six employees to three customers, for about an hour of intensive education and discussion.

We talk a lot inside the company about putting the customer first.  It’s not always easy in a development team to see how that happens.  But that, to me, defined EMC’s customer focus.  

I hope they enjoyed the session (and that they tell their friends ).

This post is from: Dave Talks Shop

EMC World Day Two

photo credit: .Page.

There are a few teams in my organization who are piloting new software development techniques, based around the ideas of Agile development and Scrum. Reviews seem to be universally high at the 10,000 foot level, but when you drill down a bit and talk to developers you sometimes run into frustration with adapting these techniques into existing culture. There are obviously growing pains, but people are interested, excited, and engaged.

Independently, some of these developers organized a weekly meeting to discuss an Agile development book, reading on their own time and meeting to discuss, probe, question, and comment in the context of their own experiences and EMC’s challenges in adapting these kinds of techniques going forward. It’s very much a “here’s what we’re doing, what are you doing?” type of meeting, a force multiplier for the experiences of each individual team.

I spoke with the organizer of the group, and he told me one of the challenges he’s facing is that people don’t think of that kind of activity as “real work.”

This is simultaneously mind-boggling and perfectly understandable, and sums up this transitional period of our culture perfectly. Many of these people’s managers have visibility into the “book club” effort. Some purchased books for interested team members, and even evangelized the idea to other groups. This isn’t some guerrilla skunkworks project. And yet there’s all this angst and insecurity about its priority as compared to real work.

This insecurity isn’t coming from management. These are individuals, worried that time invested into learning is less beneficial to the company than time spent in a debugger (or, perhaps, that it is perceived as such and that the perception can’t be changed).

Now, nobody might be telling them that today, but I bet they didn’t pick it up on their own. And now they have to unlearn that lesson, and learn new ones. It’s our job (everyone’s) to make sure it’s safe to learn that lesson, that it holds true and will continue to hold true.

We’ve got a bit of a ways to go on that, but I honestly feel like we’re moving in the right direction.

This post is from: Dave Talks Shop

The Inertial Dampeners of Cultural Change

I’ve always been a bit suspicious about corporate cheerleaders (this phrase brings up some interesting search results; I linked one of the safer ones here). It’s easy to be proud of where you work and excited about what you’re doing when new to the work force, but after a few years of watching the system in action it’s natural to be a bit jaded. I’ve always tried to avoid outright cynicism but I would be lying if I said I had never dipped into that realm. So when someone never stops talking about how excited they are to work at a certain company, I wonder who they are trying to convince.

So I was a bit surprised at myself when I told a friend in a recent email that I was excited to be working where I am.

In this case, it isn’t about a specific technology, or a set of tools, or even my co-workers. Instead, I’m excited because of what I’m seeing in the corporate culture.

Several years back, I returned from a JavaOne conference excited about advances in tech culture. I didn’t know it, but what I was excited about was the start of what people are now calling Web 2.0 (which deserves and will get its own blog post, trust me). I was aching for a way to find other people in the company who were excited about these ideas. I struggled for a while to make things happen, and ended up with some small gains in some small places, which left me both hopeful for the future but frustrated with my limited influence.

Others, fortunately, don’t give up as easily as I do. Chuck Hollis started writing about the results of all the people pushing in this direction in August of last year, but the cultural shift was slow and steady before that.

I was an early adopter of EMC’s internal social media platform. I found myself reconnecting with old colleagues, making new connections to people I’d never met, and watching (and participating) as new communities formed online. It’s not just tools, here; the culture is changing.

It’s not all beautiful; we have a lot of growing left to do. But we are growing, and I’m proud to be a part of it. That is why I say I’m excited to be working at EMC. And, in the end, that’s why I started this blog. There are exciting things happening, and I think there are compelling stories to be told. And to me, that’s what blogging ends up being about.

This post is from: Dave Talks Shop

No pom-pons here