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|In: Industry Commentary|Last Updated:

One of the odder habits of the native Minnesotan is becoming cold voluntarily. As evidence, I offer the St. Paul Winter Carnival.

Not wanting to deprive my children of a True Minnesota Experience, we trundled off to this remarkable event. The parking was free, but a mile away — this is a popular event! — so we trudged through the snow (against the wind and uphill, of course) and availed ourselves of the festivities: We admired snow sculpture (in warmer climes, you’d use sand, I imagine), traversed the “ice maze” (you haven’t lived until you’ve wandered through walls of ice blocks containing seaweed and an occasional dead perch), and most importantly, obtained mini-donuts, kettle corn and hot chocolate.

At the end, I asked the kids if they were cold. “It has to be absolute zero out there, Dad!” exclaimed Kimberly, the elder of the two. Never passing up an educational opportunity, I asked if she knew the temperature of absolute zero in Fahrenheit. “Sorry, I can’t convert from Celsius to Fahrenheit in my head.”

Okay, then what’s absolute zero in Celsius? “Stinkin’ cold!”

Kimberly isn’t the only one who appears to be unsure how to convert concepts to numbers. Following my article last year critiquing Gartner’s “The Cost of Migrating COBOL Developers to Java,” I received a polite note from one of the authors, J. Feiman, who, seeking to refine my understanding of his opinion, sent me another half-dozen Gartner reports on related topics as evidence of the completeness of their analysis.

I read every page, but found nothing to change my assessment. While Mr. Feiman assured me he’s in favor of retraining COBOL programmers, he provided nothing to refute any part of my critique, which pointed out that while every imaginable cost of retraining COBOL programmers had been quantified, of the cost of recruiting Java programmers only salary and benefits had been turned into numbers. Mr. Feiman didn’t respond to my invitation to call and discuss the matter. InfoWorld has made an open offer to print a Peer-to-Peer column, should Gartner choose to submit one; to date that offer is also still open but unaccepted.

In his final message Mr. Feiman expressed distress at my disinterest in his opinion. It’s a fine distinction — I’m more interested in what he’s published than what he thinks, because that’s what IS managers will use when making decisions.

Then there’s the letter I received from Vincent Maiello, Practice Manager for the Professional Services Division of Chubb Computer Services:

“Our experience has been more in line with your comments. Chubb Computer Services is a premier training and staffing organization and subsidiary of The Chubb Group of Insurance Companies. We have found that major organizations find re-skilling their employees to be more cost effective than hiring new employees, not only because of the cost of recruiting and ramp up time, but because of the (non-monetary) value of the employee’s knowledge.

This “human capital” approach has been very successful with some of our biggest clients. In fact, today we are running seven concurrent classes for one of the world’s largest life insurance companies re-skilling their mainframe folks to web developers. When we piloted the program earlier this year, the client’s response was great and the employee morale and retention has increased.”

Chubb Computer Services is in this business, so it may have an axe to grind. On the other hand, it’s also in the staffing business, so I imagine it wins either way.

(Caveat: I don’t have the ability to research and compare competing offerings vendors. That’s why I generally avoid any mention of products or services — doing so might appear to constitute endorsement. Mr. Maiello’s comments, based on first-hand experience, were sufficiently relevant to this discussion that I made an exception, although I have no idea whether Chubb’s re-skilling programs are better, worse, or equally effective than any others.)

If you’re thinking about re-skilling your COBOL workforce, here’s what you now know: Gartner thinks it’s a good idea, despite its analysis purporting to show that re-skilling is the more expensive choice. My unrefuted analysis of their analysis suggests their numbers aren’t worth the magnetic domains they’re stored in.

But that’s theory vs theory. The experience of a re-skilling practitioner — in this case demonstrating successful conversion of COBOL jockeys to OOP practitioners — outweighs any theoretical analysis.

Especially when it agrees with me.

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|In: Business Ethics|Last Updated:

Confrontation doesn’t come easily to most of us.

When making the transition from staff to management, learning how and when to confront others is one of the most important skills to master. Nowhere is it more important than when you take over an existing department. Why? Hold on a moment and we’ll get there.

You have three rules to follow when you take on management of an ongoing operation. Assuming your memory extends to last December, you’ll recall two previous columns on the subject. The first explained why taking over a desk o’ death is preferable to inheriting a well-run operation (success is easy in the former situation and impossible in the latter), and provided the first rule governing the situation: Keep your mouth shut while you size up the situation.

The second column described the rule that applies if you find yourself managing a group you’d previously treated as the competition. Some managers foster an us-versus-them mentality as a team-building technique. While this technique is easy and effective, it has two disadvantages. The first is bad aim: You’re supposed to be competing with other companies, not with other parts of your own company.

The other problem? Your new employees aren’t going to forget all those disparaging things you said about them. Now that you have to lead them, what do you do? My recommendation was to focus on the future. You can’t repair or explain away the past, so they already don’t like you. If they also decide you’re weak — and apologizing is too-easily interpreted as a sign of weakness — your ability to lead them is gone.

This week we cover the third and final rule for taking over a department: Deal with your rivals. That’s where adroit confrontation comes in.

Remember the listen-don’t-talk rule? One key datum you’re looking for is the name of your principle rival. Almost certainly, one of your new employees thinks he or she should be running the joint, and may have applied for the job. If your hiring manager didn’t give you this critical factoid, you’ll have to uncover it on your own. Once you do, it’s time for that confrontation.

Machiavelli would have told you to publicly hang this miscreant. Kill your most dangerous rival and other potential rivals will get the message. In a modern organization, you can’t hang inconvenient employees (you did know this, didn’t you?) so the Machiavellian thing to do is to fire them.

Machiavelli wasn’t wrong, at least not from the perspective of effective maintenance of power. Leaving a rival in place can be dangerous to your career. Since you’re operating in modern America, not Renaissance Florence, you have a more subtle approach you can try before you terminate or transfer: Co-option. As soon as you can, meet one-on-one. You have two goals: To establish that you’re the boss, and to determine your erstwhile rival’s future. It should go something like this:

“I understand you wanted this job. That puts us in an awkward situation. I have to be able to trust you, you have to accept my leadership, and these are both unnatural acts. If you do accept my leadership this situation can work well for both of us. If you can’t, we’re both going to be better off if you find something different to do.

“The only way for this to work is for you to be my most vocal supporter. If you can’t, I’ll take the necessary steps and I’ll take them quickly. I’d rather not have to do that, but I can’t lead this department with somebody like you undercutting me.

“If you can work with me under these circumstances, it can be to your benefit. I’m ambitious enough that in a couple of years I’ll be looking for my next promotion. If you’re as good as we both think you are, we can make sure you’re the lead candidate next time.

“If you don’t think you can work under my leadership, tell me. I won’t resent it, and I’ll help you find another position in the company.

“Think it over. Let’s meet again next week — I’d like your answer then.”

Sound harsh? Maybe. Personally, I think it’s more compassionate than leaving someone in a situation they’ll end up hating while putting yourself in harm’s way.

And if you’re wondering … yes, I learned this the hard way. Twice.

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