"The greatness of a man is not in how much wealth he acquires, but in his integrity and his ability to affect those around him positively." - Bob Marley

As I near the end of my career, I’m thinking about what more I’d like to say in this series of essays. It has been very interesting giving myself the weekly task of finding something meaningful to say about my experiences working in IT, and in managing and leading teams of colleagues. Today, I’ve chosen to write a little bit about a variety of topics from what it is like to be in a position of authority, to making the hard decisions, building trust, and helping others to grow.

First, I want to thank everyone involved in some of the things I am most proud to have been part of during these years as I have pursued my career. All my colleagues at GESCO during those early years when it felt like there was no technical or business challenge we couldn’t meet together. The family of volunteers and staff at SHARE where I learned so much, and enjoyed the opportunity to work with the MVS Storage, Computer Measurement and Evaluation, and Windows Projects, and to help found the zNextGen community.

I seldom use the word “family” in the context of work. Again and again, I saw the people of SHARE treat one another with the care and compassion of family. I am especially grateful to have been part of a wonderful family of colleagues and friends on the SHARE Board of Directors. We nourished this special organization to keep SHARE one of the best places I’ve ever found to build networks, learn from others, and to play together when the work was done. Best of all was the joyful surprise of finding my best friend there, and seeing that friendship grow to include our spouses and families.

I appreciate the wonderful community at Fresno State where I have spent the greater part of my working life. We have been through some hard times that tested our courage, and together we have made so many improvements in the way technology serves our university. Through it all, I’m proud that service to our students has been at the center of all we do.  I’m proud to have represented our university as I joined colleagues throughout our region in the Collaborative Regional Initiative, and Regional Jobs Initiative that have helped revitalize the economy of our community. Together, we worked to help lay the foundation for the information technology hub, and other efforts that prepare our cities, and the Central Valley, to offer greater opportunities for the people here.

I’m grateful for the opportunity I had to volunteer beside my wonderful partner, Sue, as she coordinated the Yosemite Environmental Living Program to share the National Park idea with children, and as we’ve worked to support our local Special Olympics. I’m happy to have sung and played at benefits for good causes, for children, and for our elders in rest homes. Most of all, I am grateful for the special circle of loved ones with whom I share my closest relationships. To sing, laugh, talk, and share quiet times with these dear ones. To walk in the mountains, along the shore, and under the stars with them, and to carry them always with me in my heart, is the greatest gift of all.

In every case, the best experiences I have had with people have been built on a strong foundation of trust. When we share our thoughts and feelings honestly, disagree respectfully, give each other our best, and are open to having our minds changed by new information, trust grows. Even struggling together, or with each other, can build trust when we do this respectfully, and are truly committed to helping each other improve and grow. We can risk disappointing one another, then rededicate ourselves to doing what is right together, and learn that we are understanding, respectful, and even loving in our relationships. I am deeply grateful to have so many people in my life whom I can trust, and who have given me their trust.

I’ve been fortunate to be part of a highly diverse group of professionals. This experience has made it clear to me how much stronger we are when we join together with others who are different from ourselves. The wider range of perspectives and insights provided by a diverse community help us recognize opportunities, and challenges, and provide us a better opportunity to find effective solutions. The culture of our university embraces the diversity among our students, faculty and staff, and we continually challenge each other to improve our openness to the differences that make us stronger. I also want to thank my colleagues for their patience when I’ve needed time to improve my awareness and sensitivity. I can recall professional relationships that grew stronger as I remembered the wisdom of Abraham Lincoln when he said  “I do not like that man. I must get to know him better."

Some roles have been harder for me than others. I believe I have been an effective leader. Still, my preference is to be one member of a team working together, or to work alone. One of the great challenges of leadership, and management, has been holding and exerting authority. While it is clear to me that someone must do this, I’m also aware that there were times when others could have acted with authority just as well, or better, than I have. Over time, I’ve been asked to take on positions of greater authority and responsibility, and there were also times when I was clearly the leader the team needed. I have not shied away from using authority when I must, but I have found supporting team members as they propose good solutions, and then using my authority to advance the best of these, has often been the most effective and comfortable option.

At other times, I’ve had to use my authority to take the hard, and often unpopular, actions that are part of any manager’s work. I’ve had to discipline employees whose behavior didn’t meet our expectations or, rarely, approached the unethical or illegal. I’ve been the one to end things that lead to hardship or hard feelings. I’ve shut down operations that no longer met our needs,  eliminated positions, laid people off, and even worked with our HR professionals to terminate a few people for cause. I’m grateful that I’ve had even more opportunities to begin things, as we’ve offered new services, created new positions in the organization, and offered people opportunities for growth. I’m very glad that I’ve been able to help many of those I had to lay off find new jobs or careers.

The positions of greater authority I’ve been offered might even be described as having given me greater power. It may have seemed like that to others, but it never felt like this to me. I’ve never sought to have or wield power, and the greater responsibility I’ve felt for those I’ve lead, and served, has far outweighed any benefit that power might have offered me. So often, I’ve had the feeling that I am simply doing my best at each moment, and making it up as I go along. I wonder how common this feeling is for leaders?

Among the most satisfying work of all has been mentoring, coaching, and supporting others. This is the work that is most closely aligned with my strengths and identity. I’ve enjoyed the opportunities to provide formal and informal mentoring to help my protégées pursue their professional and personal growth. It is so satisfying to see them achieve their goals and increase their contributions to those around them. I’ve also been glad to do more active coaching to help people develop new skills and hone existing talents, and to provide training and professional development opportunities, developing managers, growing an organization from within, and being ready to offer support when colleagues want, or need, to move on to pursue their goals and dreams.

I find myself thinking about how I will feel about not being “important” in retirement. I put that word in quotes as I don’t really think of myself as important at work. Still, I am aware that people have their own images of me. Some treat me as important, think of me as kind or thoughtful, etc. I know that I am simply myself, with all the strengths and weaknesses that entails, and that my loved ones at home know me much better than anyone at work.

While I believe I matter to my loved ones in the more meaningful ways, I’m just as sure that they don’t see me as “important” in these more trivial ways that honor status or position. I wonder what it will feel like to be just Jim, the well known and loved husband, father, and friend without any of the imaginary importance that exists here. I’m guessing I will be perfectly happy with this as I’ve never really felt “important” at work, and it is the time with my loved ones that I treasure most.

© 2017 James Michael. The text of this work is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0

"Praise is well, compliment is well, but affection – that is the last and final and most precious reward that any man can win, whether by character or achievement." - from "Mark Twain's Essays, Letters, and Speeches"

Today, I am thinking about how very fortunate I have been to spend my working life with such wonderful people. With very few exceptions, my colleagues have been people of good character working hard together to advance the missions we have shared. I am so grateful for their collaboration, their graceful patience with me, and their affection. I will miss their daily company, the joy of working side by side with them, and the opportunities they have given me to be of use.

After my early experiences working washing windows, shining shoes, as a short-order cook, and busboy, I had the opportunity to work as a student assistant at UC Davis. I had a wonderful boss and some great colleagues. They taught me so much, and working at the Shields Library was a dream job for a guy like me who needed work to help pay for college and who loves books. This was also my first chance to work in IT as we installed their first computerized library management system. The people I worked with there were kind and generous, and it was wonderful to spend so much time in the stacks with all those books! I seriously considered a career change to spend my life working in libraries.

I didn’t take any computer science or MIS classes until after I graduated, as I had started out studying enology, and ended up with a B.S. in Psychology. I was making my living as a bank teller, and working nights as a janitor, when I saw a want ad for a computer operator job at our local county computer center. It was there, among a great group of welcoming people, who knew how to have lots of fun together, that I got the chance to learn more about programming, and to prepare myself for the rest of my career. This was also where I got my first chance to work with IBM mainframes, punch cards, magnetic tape, removable disk packs, and assembler language on an System/370 machine running OS/VS1.

Thanks to my experience at the county, I was able to get a job as an entry-level assembler programmer at a local service bureau serving the savings and loan industry across the US. This was one of the most exciting times in my career as this place had the energy of a startup, and my colleagues there were creating new ways to serve the industry. I’m sure I learned more about programming and technology in my eight and a half years there than at any other time in my career. My colleagues were creative and committed, and the company had a career track that would allow technical people to rise to a level equivalent to Assistant Vice President without management responsibilities.

This was where I first had the chance to work as a systems programmer, and where I found my first great mentor, Gary Sandwick. He taught me not just about technology, but about teamwork, problem solving, and what it means to take personal responsibility for the missions we share. He was my first great role model for how collaboration based on trust is the foundation for most of the best things we do together, and for how to recognize and appreciate people. More than thirty years later, I still find myself thinking about how Gary would handle a particular technical problem, or a situation where I'm trying to help people grow and work together.

He was also the person who introduced me to SHARE (www.share.org). I’ve often said that SHARE has been the best experience of my career, and I know this is true. Gary would come back from a SHARE meeting with all kinds of technical insights, and great stories, and I wanted to go! I’ll never forget him telling me about a talk in the early 80s where he first heard Sibo Friesenberg say "all processors wait at the same speed." It was thanks to him, that I got to go to my first SHARE meeting in 1986, and it was with his support that I began my career as a SHARE volunteer.

From my first day there in 1986, through over twenty years as an active volunteer with the SHARE MVS Storage, and Windows Projects, and on the SHARE Board of Directors, the people of SHARE constantly showed me the reality of their slogan, “SHARE. It’s not an acronym, it’s what we do.” I’ll enjoy the satisfaction of getting to be part of this great organization, and the pride I feel as I remember the work we did together there, as long as I live. It was at SHARE that I first took the lessons I had learned from Gary, and had the opportunity to apply them. Before I became a manager, worked with significant budgets, policies, and strategic planning, I learned about doing these things in my work at SHARE. I’m confident that I owe much of my success as a manager and leader to the experience I gained there.

Of all the gifts I received from my time at SHARE, the greatest are the friendships we formed. Across the country, and around the world, there are wonderful friends I first met there, and I am happy we’ve stayed in touch over the years. My wife and I found two of our dearest friends at SHARE, and we look forward to continuing our adventures, and these special friendships, as retirement gives us more options for spending time together.

For more than 70% of my career, I’ve had the privilege of working with the fine people at our university, and I’m so grateful to have been part of the work we’ve done together helping our students as they pursue their education. Of all the missions I’ve been part of, this is the most meaningful. I have such appreciation for the dedication of my colleagues as they work to support our students, faculty and staff, and to offer innovative IT services that improve teaching and learning.

Through almost 28 years, I’ve worked alongside these people who’ve met each day thinking how they can make a difference for our students. Again and again, I’ve watched them go out of their way to help students new to campus, or dealing with academic or personal problems. Year after year, we’ve watched the stress and anxiety associated with midterms, papers, and finals, and the relief, joy, and pride of commencement. I am proud of my colleagues, and proud to have been among them in sharing this work.

Soon, I will go home to spend more time with my loved ones, the dearest people in the world to me. I am very much looking forward to the opportunity to have more hours and days with these beloved family and friends. I will miss the daily contact with my dear colleagues, and I will make sure to come back to see them from time to time. Looking back over these past 40 years, it is the people who have made the greatest difference for me. The colleagues who made the work so meaningful and, most of all, my beloved wife, family, and friends who fill my life with joy.

© 2017 James Michael. The text of this work is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0

“Don't let your happiness depend on something you may lose.” - C. S. Lewis in “The Four Loves”

When I am retired, I know I will work on refining my ideas about love. I think often about this most important of my feelings, and I’ve been making notes for some years now that I hope I can turn into an essay, or series of essays, about love. I am also at a point in my life when I have been dealing with the inevitable loss that we all face as our parents and other older loved ones die. I have lived enough years to face the tragedy that comes with the death of friends and loved ones taken from us too soon. I have begun to face the loss of friends and loved ones of about my own age. For me this question of love and loss is central to the choices we face between despair and joy. Central to the process of seeking peace in our hearts and minds.

When I saw this quote from C.S. Lewis, I felt an immediate response. I knew that I both agreed and disagreed with this idea. I agree with the the obvious wisdom of not tying our happiness to impermanent things like material possessions, or fame. I disagree with the idea that we should not let our happiness depend on the loved ones we are bound to lose in life. I looked again, briefly, at Lewis’ wonderful book, “The Four Loves”, seeking the context in which he wrote these words.

Lewis is writing about Saint Augustine's desolation at the death of a friend, and disagrees with the saint’s conclusion that we must not love what we might lose. He writes compellingly against the idea that we should avoid this risk. Instead, he encourages us to accept the risk, vulnerability, and loss that come with loving. Only through being open and vulnerable to love are we able to realize our full humanity, and our most profound relationship with the divine; however we experience that aspect of reality.

I agree with this so completely. I choose to love as richly and fully as I am capable of loving, and to seek a greater closeness with my beloveds always. I find that this brings me ever greater opportunities for joy, intimacy, and love in my life. It brings me closer not only to my loved ones, but also to myself, and to my own sense of the divine. My wonder at the immensity of the night sky, of the delicate intricacy of the smallest flower, and of the inexpressible beauty in the eyes of my beloveds grows beyond measure when I open my heart fully to love.

I gratefully accept the risk and vulnerability of loving in this way. I accept that the more powerful the love, the more powerful the grief I will face. Some of this grieving will find me on my journey through life, as it has already, and some will be waiting for me at the end. I've talked with my family about this, and shared that at the end of my life I expect to face great loss. I will have survived people I love deeply, and I will be leaving behind people I love deeply. There is no escaping this and I accept that fact.

Part of choosing love is living with the grief of loss. The process of grieving is a journey that we each face alone, and still one in which we can be comforted and strengthened by the presence of our loved ones and community. While there are moments of profound loneliness in grieving, and there can be long stretches of sadness at our separation from our lost beloveds, we are also joined by the fact that all who love deeply will live through these times of grief. May we offer, and accept, the hand of friendship, the embrace of comfort, and the shared strength of love and understanding in our times of grieving.

The scale and scope of my loss will be in proportion to the scale and scope of my love, and so I hope the loss I face in my life will be immense. It will be worth facing this loss to feel that I have loved to the greatest of my ability, and have been loved by my beloveds. I believe our shared love will be enough to comfort me in my grief. I hope to be surrounded, and supported, by the love of those still with me in this life, and by the never-ending love of those that have gone on before me. I will seek peace in remembering that my grief is irrefutable evidence of our love.

If I do someday finish some writing to share my thoughts and feelings about love with the world, I know the process will take more time and care than these essays I’ve written over the past two years. To write about what is most important of all will be a wonderful challenge, and I don’t imagine anything I write will ever finally capture what is in my mind and heart. I have been careful not to re-read “The Four Loves”, Erich Fromm’s “The Art of Loving”, and other works that were important to me as a young man seeking to understand this most important of my emotions. I’ll enjoy reading them again once I’ve explored my own beliefs about love to see what new light they shed for me. I imagine they may inspire another round of editing! If I ever approach Lewis’ wonderful ability to convey great meaning in few words, I’ll be very glad.

My ultimate agreement with the idea that we should not let our happiness depend on something we may lose comes from my belief that the love we share is not something that we may lose. I have faith that love is something that goes on forever beyond the end of space and time, and not something we can lose even in death. That brings me great happiness, indeed, and is one of the firmest foundations of my peace of mind, and the peace in my heart.

© 2017 James Michael. The text of this work is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0

“Follow, poet, follow right
To the bottom of the night,
With your unconstraining voice
Still persuade us to rejoice.” - W.H. Auden from “In Memory of W.B. Yeats”As retirement comes closer each week, I find myself looking forward to the new adventure ahead, and thinking about some of the most important and meaningful things from my career in IT. Many of these are lessons I’ve learned that have helped me be a better colleague, leader, and man. I know that most will serve me every bit as well in the next chapter of my life.

I’ve learned from my loved ones, from friends and colleagues, from mentors and teachers. I’ve learned from people who have been part of my life, and from philosophers, sages, historical figures, and authors who died long before I was born. A lover of reading, I’ve learned from books. From history, biography, some of the greatest classics of literature, and from some great modern fiction.

Today, I find myself thinking about a wonderful lesson that combines learning from my friends and loved ones, and from a wonderful book. I am fortunate to have a dear friend who shares my love of reading. My book buddy and I share favorite books with each other and I enjoy our visits about what we’ve been reading. Among the wonderful authors she has introduced me to is Louise Penny, and it was in Penny’s book, “Bury Your Dead” that I first encountered her Chief Inspector Gamache’s four sentences that lead to wisdom. I had come to this book looking forward to the relaxing escape of a murder mystery. I found that escape, and also one of the most compassionate characters I’ve ever encountered in a mystery novel.

Through Inspector Gamache, Louise Penny passes on four sentences, that she tells us he received from his mentor, and shares with each of his protegees. They are the four sentences that lead to wisdom:

I’m sorry.

I was wrong.
I need help.
I don’t know.

When I met these four sentences in her book, they were like old friends I had know most of my life. I don’t pretend that these were new ideas to me. Still, Penny showed them to me in a new way by sharing them through the words, thoughts, and actions of a caring man who struggled with them even as I have. As Armand Gamache strove to find the truth in a way that would help him do the right thing, I felt reenergized in my own efforts to practice saying these simple words, and meaning them.

“I’m sorry”. Of the four sentences, I think this one is the easiest for me to say. I am an emotional man and this is the one sentence that expresses an emotion. I am far from perfect, as we all are, and I have many opportunities to apologize for my mistakes. To apologize for doing wrong despite my earnest efforts to do what is right. I offer a truly heartfelt apology. The hard work comes from the fact that being sincerely sorry is seldom, if ever, enough. It is a first step toward committing to changing the things about myself that lead me to take wrong action, or make a particular mistake.

I think each of these four sentences offers a similar challenge. Having made any of these statements, we are then called to take action. “I was wrong”, was harder work for me. I’ve learned to say this almost as often as I need to, and it has been a humbling experience. I’ve tried so hard to do what is right, that there have been times when admitting that I am wrong has been very difficult for me. I’m grateful that I’ve learned that with “I was wrong”, I can give myself permission to make adjustments, or begin again, in my quest to do what is right.

“I need help”, is the one of these that I’ve been working on with the least success for the longest time. When I was a young teenager, my dear older sister, Nancy, first encouraged me to ask for help more often. I was walking, or riding my bike, miles to visit a friend, and Nancy tried to help me understand that I could ask her for a ride. From this simple beginning, I have worked to ask for help when I need it, but it’s still common for me to prefer to do things myself instead of asking others for help. As you can imagine, this is one of the reasons that delegating work has been more challenging for me. I’m glad to say that I’ve made real progress in this area over the years. At the same time, I’m sure I’ll need to keep working on the wisdom I can gain by asking for help.

“I don’t know”, is one of the most freeing of these four sentences for me. I grew up being praised for my intelligence, and have often been the one in my family who others turn to for answers. I’ve even been kidded about being “the keeper of all useless bits of knowledge” by my kids. I do know many things, and I’m happy and proud to have enjoyed accumulating knowledge during my life. The great thing about “I don’t know”, is that it helps me identify areas where I can learn more. After all, learning about, and researching, new things is something I really enjoy! “I don’t know” also gives others the opportunity to share their knowledge, and this is a wonderful way to learn, and to build relationships.

I never know when I will encounter something that helps me grow. I’m glad I found this sentences that lead to wisdom in a wonderfully written murder mystery. Louise Penny says that these books are inspired by two lines from W.H. Auden’s elegy, “Herman Melville”.

“Goodness existed, that was the new knowledge

his terror had to blow itself quite out to let him see it.”

In the face of even the terrifying evil of murder, Armand Gamache can see the goodness that exists. No wonder I like this character! My belief in the fundamental goodness of people is one of the most important parts of my world view. By practicing his four sentences that lead to wisdom, I have been able to improve my own goodness, and my ability to see, and encourage, goodness in others. I’m grateful to Louise Penny for giving me a new way to look at these ideas, and for the enjoyment I’ve found in reading her books. I’m very grateful to my dear book buddy for introducing me to so many wonderful books! I know that reading will be a lovely part of my retirement.

© 2017 James Michael. The text of this work is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0