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|In: Leadership|Last Updated:

The Standish Group, noted for its “Chaos Study” of software project failure rates, lists ten factors that done right, drive project success and done wrong, create failure.

None of the ten is labeled “bad vendor,” yet that’s the most frequently cited cause of IT problems. IS Survivalist Andrew Bramlett recently suggested that I could make serious money by packaging this into a “Delivery Accountability Service.” IT Catalysts could charge $10,000 per substandard deliverable, $20,000 per absent deliverable, $100,000 per failed ERP implementation, and an even $1 million for a missed earnings estimate (actual involvement in a project is optional, and charged separately). When you think of the career alternatives this is dirt cheap.

I’ve been around vendor-associated successes, vendor-associated failures, and results called both by different participants. I’ve been there on both sides of the table, too. Here are a few tips I’ve gathered along the way:

  • Manage vendors the same way you lead employees. When it’s time to get the job done, it’s people who are doing the work. Praise in public, criticize in private. Be direct but not belligerent. Respect reporting relationships. For that matter, show respect, plain and simple. And understand that compensation is at best a minor motivator for consultants (as opposed to consulting companies) just as it is for employees. The sense of having accomplished something significant is far more important.
  • Don’t over-negotiate. Also, don’t under-negotiate. Starve your vendor and you’ll get the junk you’re paying for. Overfeed and you’ll get flabby results. There’s no formula you can use to arrive at the right price, either. That’s what experience and good judgment are for.
  • The relationship outlives the transaction. If you find yourself pulling out the contract every time you meet with the vendor’s account manager, something is seriously wrong with the relationship. If you go shopping every time you launch a new project, something is seriously wrong with the relationship, too. Create an atmosphere in which the account manager wins bigger by always doing what’s best for your company and the account manager will make sure you get enough value for your money.

Blaming a vendor is about as credible as blaming employees. In either case, you’re there to make sure your company has the right people in the right places, working on the right tasks in the right way.

That’s why they pay you the big bucks, isn’t it?

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|In: Career Management|Last Updated:

A recent column proposed that reverse age discrimination is as real as forward age discrimination, and that both are really mismatches between expectations and reality. In it I stated that gray hair and exposed scalp are de rigeur for strategic consulting.

Several readers interpreted this as gender bias, due to the paucity of follicularly challenged women. Actually, I was proposing that sex discrimination has the same roots: What’s usually called the “Old Boys’ Network” is really the “Old Bald Guys’ Network,” and women’s real problem is too much hair.

No, huh? Okay, chalk it up to hyperbole that backfired. But let’s talk about getting hired in the face of, for example, age discrimination.

Your first step: Ground your tactics in reality — not how things ought to be — and in your goals, not anyone else’s. Which means:

For you, human resources is a barrier, not an enabler. HR has only two concerns: compliance — keeping the company out of court — and workload reduction. So it enforces a fair process that mostly screens out applicants whenever an objectively defensible rationale presents itself. That’s HR’s goal. Yours is to get an interview. Bypass HR. Either through personal networking or cold calling, get directly to the hiring manager.

For most hiring managers, the entire process is a distraction. They just want an employee who will succeed at the job. Get face to face and be that person.

Worried about age discrimination? Don’t give cues about your age until you’re face to face. List only your last ten years of experience. Don’t put dates on your education. If you like, don’t apply for the job: Make it a sales call, presenting yourself as an independent consultant. Just get face-to-face.

Once you’re there, take some great advice I once received from Challenger, Grey and Christmas, the outplacement company: Recognize the difference between disqualifying questions and qualifying questions. “Are you willing to relocate?” is a disqualifier. The answer is always either “Yes” or “Under the right circumstances.” Don’t disqualify yourself, and save your thoughtful responses for the qualifying questions.

Here’s even better advice. Repeat this mantra: “I’m a professional. I have no problems. I cause no problems. I’ll solve your problems.”

That’s what the hiring manager wants. That’s what you need to be: A professional who has no problems, causes no problems, and solves the hiring manager’s problems.

That’s what you are, aren’t you? You’d better be, because if you aren’t, you have more to worry about than age discrimination.

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