Helping to See the Big Picture
Jimmy Vo
March 2010
 |
Jimmy Vo |
For Jimmy Vo, manager of MITRE's Help Desk, which provides corporate computer and technology support, it's all about one thing: "What can we do to improve the human condition?"
Vo isn't being showy with this mantra; he's just seeing the big picture. "I make sure my team understands the ripple effect that their work has." Because Vo knows that if one of his team members doesn't do his job, then a MITRE employee can't do his job, which means a MITRE project lurches to a halt, which means a national need is not being met. "We do important work at the Help Desk. It's not just helping someone properly format a document. That document may go in front of Congress someday," he says.
Vo has a habit of taking the larger view of things. He may have acquired it, along with his first inclination towards a help desk career, in college. Following his instinct to help people, Vo originally intended to major in pre-med at the University of Virginia, but soon turned his studies toward technology, for which he found he had a passion and a talent.
He uncovered another talent too. "I was still interested in helping people, so I volunteered at a suicide-prevention hotline," he explains. "I learned how to listen, empathize, and communicate effectively."
Looking to take best advantage of his paired skills of technical prowess and people savvy, Vo joined MITRE in 2000 as a help desk contractor at our McLean, Va., office. His supervisors quickly recognized his rare combination of talent and temperament and began guiding him up the career ladder. "I give a lot of credit to my managers for providing me with the advice, guidance, and feedback I needed to become a better manager and leader," Vo says.
More Than a Stepping Stone
Now that Vo is the manager, he takes pains to follow the example of his mentors. "We provide team members with the proper guidance and avenues to build upon their career. We help them get the necessary certifications, provide them with training on different products and technology, and supply them with the tools they need to enhance their knowledge."
This may seem like a lot of effort to spend on a profession that has traditionally been seen as a stepping stone to other careers. But Vo has built a team from people with a passion for customer service who understand the vital importance of a responsive help desk to MITRE. "We have an average tenure of four years. We also have team members who have been here 10 years and more."
The Empathy in "Team"
Vo loves to talk about his team and about teamwork, as you might expect from someone who plays in two flag football leagues and a recreational basketball league. "Having a team mentality is critical to the success of a help desk. Each of us represents not only the Help Desk, but each service within the Center for Information and Technology [see "One of Computerworld's Best Places to Work" below]."
One of Computerworld's Best Places to Work
Jimmy Vo and his Help Desk team are the public face of MITRE's Center for Information and Technology (CI&T), which provides the company with its information tools, knowledge services, and communications. CI&T shares Vo's commitment to the spirit of support and collaboration. That may be one of the reasons Computerworld magazine has selected MITRE as one of its "100 Best Places to Work in IT" five years in a row.
Selection to the "Best Places" list is based on a comprehensive survey of each organization's benefits, diversity, career development, training, and retention, as well as feedback from employees. In 2009, MITRE ranked number 37 overall, number nine in the category for medium-size companies, and number three for training. |
|
| |
And the team Vo has built is ready to fix anything. "We have 18 frontline staff that handle all incoming contacts: phone, Web, email, voicemail, chat. If they can't resolve the issue, we have a second tier of support made up of senior technicians. And we have subject-matter experts for every software program that MITRE supports."
But subject-matter expertise is not the quality that Vo prizes most in his team members. "Technical knowledge is something I can teach to a new employee. But a customer-service mentality is hard to ingrain in people if they don't already have it inside themselves."
Vo believes effective help desk work boils down to empathy. "You must be able to put yourself in that other person's shoes. Sometimes there's not anything you can do for them except understanding what they're going through and letting them know that you're there with them."
Dual Impact
Vo frequently reminds his team of the larger view he always has his eyes on. "When you can see the big picture—how MITRE works to make our nation stronger—you can better focus on doing what we can to help each MITRE employee do his or her job."
Vo got his first glimpse of that big picture early in his career when he was the customer service representative for MITRE's Board of Trustees. "I would tell friends that I met with astronaut Sally Ride [a former MITRE trustee], and they would say, 'Wow! You get to work with the first woman in space!' But what most excited me about working with the board was learning in a global sense about the work that MITRE does for the country.
"I came to understand that the work we do at our Help Desk has an impact on MITRE and that the work MITRE does has an impact on the nation."
—by Christopher Lockheardt
Related Information
Articles and News
Technical Papers and Presentations
Websites
|
