What happens if we don’t invest in developing our people…

CFO asks CEO: “What happens if we invest in developing our people and then they leave us?”

CEO: “What happens if we don’t, and they stay?”

The Lesson: Train people well enough so they won’t leave. Treat them well enough so they won’t want to leave.

Numerous LinkedIn Postings

We see this advice over and over. As leaders, are we walking the walk? Or just more of the same. I talk to colleagues and training is still a problem. Fear of making the investment and watching that investment walk out the door cited as the primary reason.

In today’s economy, junior people are far more skilled than 10 years ago. I see the resumes. We live in times where candidates are highly competitive, highly motivated, and have goals. Financial goals.

Leaders: You are either a part of the solution. Or part of the problem. Invest in your people. Technical and professional. Hard skills and soft. Teach people how to win. Otherwise, your people will move on. And waiting till your top talent leaves you… is on you.

C-Levels: Culture starts at the top. Invest in your leaders. Values and culture matter. Establishes tone. What is and is not acceptable. Mentor the gaps, but hold the line on the winning culture: That you built. Otherwise, your leaders will move on. Waiting till one of your top leaders leaves the organization is on you. Money doesn’t solve the aggravation or feelings of having no support.

Invest in your people. Constantly.

\\ JMM

NSX Is Not For Beginners…

“If I would have known how difficult it is to get NSX up and running, I never would have recommended this solution.”
– Sonny Mendoza, System Engineer – Architect, Lanvera

One of Lanvera’s major achievements in 2018 was crossing the finish line with the deployment of VXLAN and VMWare’s NSX.  Although, NSX was not simple to deploy, easy to troubleshoot, nor kind on your patience.

In fact, in 2018, I attended a Palo Alto event where I sat at a table and talked about NSX.  Others overheard and came to our table to talk about it.  One gentlemen claimed he was on his third attempt to deploy it.  Another said it broke several parts of the network and IT deemed it a risk.  The other said it’s deployed but not in production, fear of it breaking.

All of these concerns are not unfounded.  Here is a few of the take-aways we ran into that marred/aided our deployment.

5.  Hiring A Consultant Does Not Guarantee Success.  After the consultant left, our NSX solution was technically up, but moving VMs between datacenters didn’t work as expected.  Routing didn’t work as expected.  And many phone calls to VMWARE ensued to work on the small whoops that the consultant didn’t catch.  Consultants often expect their clients to know what to look for and with something like NSX, we didn’t know what we didn’t know.

4.  NSX Training Does Not Guarantee Success.  At the behest of our sales engineer, they highly suggested we attend VMWARE’s NSX training, which we spend credits on.  My team reported that the training was problematic, from lab’s crashing or freezing to unable to run the content.  Many phone calls to support dragged it out by weeks, if not a month or two.  After the technical leads were trained, they found the training really didn’t prepare them for the challenges of the deployment.  “Thank goodness we had the consultant”.

3.  Attending VMUG Did Not Guarantee Success.  Although, my team would say it helped.  In fact, Sonny took over a session at the DFW VMUG to talk through our NSX deployment with their subject matter experts.  Explaining our behavioral problems.  Lots of stumpers unsolved.  All that said, I am an advocate of VMUG.  I feel user groups are important to attend for these kinds of reasons.

2.  Reading VMWARE’s Books and White Papers on NSX Did Not Guarantee Success.  Forums and communities would highlight these reads, so we absorbed as much as we could.  However, the books contradicted what sales engineers and our consultants told us.  When we shared our sources for the matieral, “Well, that is technically true, but I don’t recommend it” is what we got back.  Conversations got really suspicious.  What is the agenda here?  Sell more VMWARE licensing or actually get NSX running in a workable state.

1.  Having a VMWARE Lab is the Biggest Recommendation We Can Make To Improve Success.  We didn’t have a lab, but the entire time either we made comments, consultants made comments, or people at VMUG made comments.  Testing these technologies in lab is far better than going straight to the production network.  VMUG is an excellent resource on lab licenses for the VMWARE IT pro.  Competency of the product is paramount, especially when encountering anomalous behaviors.

Resources

VMWARE’s User Group

NSX Communities

Beginner or Advance NSX Hands-On-Lab (HOL)

VMware product page, customer stories, and technical resources

VMware NSX YouTube Channel

\\ JMM

Technology solutions shouldn’t replace people management responsibility…

Let me give you an example:  In my healthcare days, hospital nurses often have downtime in the overnight shifts.  Nurses often loaded games and streamed videos on their workstation, which was against company policy.  When we approached hospital leaders, they asked for a technology solution:  Block the nurses from loading games and streaming videos.  I argued overnight managers should keep an eye on nurses and keep them busy.  Technology solutions shouldn’t replace people management responsibility.  In the end, technology solution won. And in the long run, this technology hurt that hospital’s culture and relationships with IT as an enabler.

Our SOP for these detection’s should be to report these incidents to their leader and HR.  Let people processes work and govern themselves.

Jonathan Merrill, 2018

Technology solutions shouldn’t replace people management responsibility, but it does. And often. And not much as changed in 10 years, other than information security awareness is now a mandatory thing. Which should have changed the conversation. But it hasn’t.

Culture will trump policy every time.

\\ JMM