The Critical Five People Practices of IT Leaders

The Critical Five

More than anything else, people want to feel needed and to have their work appreciated. Scholars such as Maslow, Alderfer, Wahba, Mitchell, Mellor and others have debated this subject extensively, so I won’t repeat those arguments here. Instead, I’ll focus on the techniques you can use to fulfill these needs. But, first, let’s identify the Critical Five practices that I’ve found to be so important.

The Critical Five are simple. Just give your people:

• 1.

  Interesting and challenging work

• 2.

  The freedom to do it their way

• 3.

  Things they can “own”

• 4.

  An environment in which they can excel

• 5.

  Recognition for their efforts and accomplishments

And watch them excel.

An Overall Approach

While I’ve found the Critical Five to be required in unleashing talent, I believe they must be surrounded by three other practices to maximize your success in building and developing a successful IT team. This overall approach is also simple:

• A.

  Hire good people

• B.

  Nurture and develop them

• C.

  Unleash their talent (The Critical Five)

• D.

  Take pride in their accomplishments

Now let’s explore this overall approach and the critical five practices in more detail.