Likewise, network managers must plan effectively. Once you've decided to replace your old e-mail system with newer technology, for example, considerable planning is required in order to make the migration minimally disruptive. You may need to market your decision internally, mobilize appropriate staff resources, develop a project budget and implement a pilot test plan. For senior managers, the challenges include not only planning the work necessary for projects in which they are directly involved, but also mentoring managers or project leaders who may have minimal planning experience.

Motivation Motivation is all about getting people to take action, preferably in pursuit of your strategies. While there are many techniques for motivating people, I have found that the key elements involve getting people to believe your strategy can work and then establishing an environment in which they have the resources necessary to succeed. In baseball, success is usually measured in hits, runs and wins--statistics that are easily ascertained. Getting players to believe in your strategy is much easier if you have a track record of success, but modeling appropriate actions can help. At the least, you need to be an effective communicator, getting the players to believe in their ability to succeed, even when a slump shakes their confidence. And sometimes you need to let them know, in no uncertain terms, that you are dissatisfied with their performance.

Motivating your technical staff is similar in many respects, though the measures of success and failure are usually somewhat more ambiguous. It all starts with establishing the strategy and then matching the appropriate people and responsibilities. Experienced managers understand that success has relatively little to do with being liked and much more to do with establishing some level of mutual respect. It's not about achieving absolute consensus, but more about reaching a critical level of support and communicating the reasons for your decisions to the dissenters. It's not about giving big raises, but more about providing recognition for diligent effort. And most of all, it's not about assigning blame and looking for scapegoats, but about holding people accountable and backing them when things don't work out as expected.

Execution Execution is when the bat hits the ball for a line-drive single or an opposition player is thrown out at home with a clean relay throw. To a spectator, these acts may seem simple, but players and coaches understand that preparation in practice (often painful in its repetition) is what allows it to look so easy. I like to tell players that mistakes are made in practice so they can be avoided during the game.

Execution in network management is also simple on its face but more difficult behind the scenes. A good manager makes the network as invisible as possible, an extension of the working environment. This transparency is accomplished through the selection of appropriate technology and sound implementation practices. Adequate attention must be paid to performance, scalability and reliability. The best analogy to get the point across is the U.S. public telephone system: Users don't really care how the dial tone gets to their phones, they just expect that every time they pick up the phone, it will be there.

Measurement Statistics never lie? Or is it, how to lie with statistics? In baseball, statistics, more than anything else, are the measure of success. Wins and losses, batting average, on-base percentage, earned-run average, hits per inning pitched--not only are there many statistical measures, but the precision with which variables can be measured is very high. While it is possible to find statistical measures that may mislead you about the performance of a player or a team, there are probably other measures of the same variable that can clear up the confusion. However, despite statistics' apparent precision, there is a contextual element that must be considered. A major-league player who hits .400 is a superstar whose picture is on the front page of every newspaper, but a Little Leaguer who hits .400 is only a little above average.

Network managers face a tougher measurement challenge. I recently had a conversation with a Unix systems programmer on my staff about our measurement and publication of server downtime statistics. We've compiled and published these statistics for several years in order to benchmark our success and emphasize to customers and staff that system availability is our highest priority. He objected to the fact that sometimes a server would be listed as up even though one or more important applications were either not available or not operating properly. Is that downtime? Looks pretty gray to me. I acknowledged his point, noting that we need to strive to do a better job of measuring end-to-end system availability, but that's no reason to abandon measurement of the variables that we do have the ability to measure.

There are many other lessons that managers can learn from successful coaches, but the ones presented here seem to me the most important ones. In the end, the manager will often need to settle for less than perfection, but the enthusiastic pursuit of a higher standard of excellence is a trait that will always help your team improve.

Dave Molta is director of network and system services at Syracuse University. He can be reached at dmolta@nwc.com.