There is nothing like tuning into a dark, sardonic drama about characters whose moral compasses does not point north after 48 hours of near constant rain. Having watched the Miami Heat reassert their dominance last night on the Spurs, I turned on the late showing of Mad Men to see how the episode might tie into this week’s business theme; promote within. Trying to make the connection is a stretch so suffice to say, deconstructing the episode won’t be done in the context of that larger theme. If you didn’t catch the episode however, you should. Spoiler alert… Sally discovers what we’ve known since season one about Don Draper and once again, we see real vulnerability in the strong veneer of Draper as he hurts the most innocent of all the women in his life.
Mad Men isn’t always over the top. Ted had an all too familiar discussion with his wife about work life balance and her perception that he preferred to spend his time working and was more excited about competing in the office with Don than family dinner. Pete Campbell continues his decline in the aftermath of his separation with Rudy and his diminishing client base. A lack of communication at SC&P also lead to unnecessary time and expense spent landing competing clients. Nobody is reading Ted’s too frequently written memos.
So regarding this week’s theme; promote from within. In my experience it is preferred to promote your own people into roles of greater responsibility and impact. The benefits are obvious. Your employees see that talent and hard work are rewarded and feel more buy-in to your mission. You are less likely to have turnover and have mitigated your risk of a bad hire because you already have experience working with these people. This does not guarantee however that success in a role translates into success in another, especially where the goal changes from individual performance to that of procuring performance from others. It is not always possible to promote from within, especially as businesses change and the people who got you where you are may not have the experience to get you where you need to be. Bringing in someone from the outside might be the only best option. As we have seen on Mad Men, the politics and chemistry of an organization can become toxic if roles are ambiguous and personalities don’t gel.
January 19, 2021
Software development is a team-based endeavor because of the complexity involved in launching a new system. Gone are the days when one developer can be point on the whole back-office software stack. It now takes multiple specialized roles to (appropriately) fulfill the software delivery lifecycle. A typical software project requires: Leadership Product management Project management […]
January 13, 2021
One definition of rot is the process of deterioration. Something that decays over time. By this standard – software rots like food in the Nebraska heat. It’s true. If your software isn’t regularly updated, it deteriorates and breaks down. Consider this – software is written to work at a moment in time…but time marches on. […]
January 4, 2021
OMAHA, NE, January 4, 2021 – In late 2020, Volano Solutions announced it has changed its name to Volano Software and launched a new website: www.volanosoftware.com. The name change was made to more accurately reflect what the company does, and the website was designed to be more informative and user-friendly to clients and prospective clients […]
June 2, 2020
According to LinkedIn technology (software) has a higher overall turnover rate than retail. With that, it isn’t a matter of if, but a matter of when. Volano has engineered a culture of “by developers, for developers” and this helps our retention. In fact, most of the folks that work at Volano have been here +5 […]
June 2, 2020
It is hard enough to build a successful business, and few want to invest time and resources into worrying about an Intellectual Property Assignment. But alas, you must do your homework. Fortunately, we make it easy for Volano customers. When asked – “Who owns the software and IP for my project?” – it is an […]
May 28, 2020
Many of us remember the grade school game Telephone. It was funny to see how a simple message would get garbled as it was passed along from person to person. But it’s not as funny when that message is a critical business requirement that will be turned into software that will power your business. Yet, […]