Author: Chris

Career Planning – Own It!

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This is the first in a two part post on career planning. I want to explore this topic first from the perspective of owning your own career and then, as a manager, supporting the career planning of others. Career planning is not something that happens to you. It is something that you need to work at. You can’t sit idle and wait for opportunities to come to you. Your manager and others that can influence may notice your hard work and dedication but unless you tell them what you want to be doing and where you want to go, they will praise that success and assume you are content in your role. Promotions don’t come from tenure or because someone else took another role (at least not in a good organization), they come because a good performer asked, “What’s next?”   Interacting with your manager and expressing your goals is the single most important thing you can do with your career.

A disclaimer here for those of you that may be railing against the last sentence: I’ve worked exclusively in larger corporations and that is the perspective I write from.  I understand that in a smaller business or as a consultant, other things may trump. In larger business, maneuvering your way to the next level or onto a desirable project requires working within the management structure.

Expressing your goals to you manager is never an easy thing.  I believe it is best to be direct – even if this is not your normal communication style.  Being subtle about it won’t clearly convey what you desire and leaves room for misinterpretation.  And if there’s one thing you want to be clear about, it’s your career.  The first step is to understand what you want to be doing.  Is it the next level in your current role, a new project, a new team, or something else?  Having a good grasp on what you want is key to telling your manager about it.  Knowing where you want to be can quickly be followed by, “How do I get there?”  Mapping out your career with your manager is essentially those two questions – what? and how?  There may not always be the perfect opportunity so you need to be willing to take one step sideways in order to move forward later.  A new project might be possible if a promotion is not.

It is critical that, once you begin the conversation, it continues on a regular basis.  This doesn’t mean that every 1:1 needs to focus on it.  But it should be a topic of conversation at least once a month or so.  A good manager should give you feedback fairly often and a good contributor will ask for it.  Open ended questions (How am I doing?) are good but, the more specific, the better.  Talk to your boss after important meetings that both of you attend and ask how it went, what could have been better.  Learning what you do well is useful but learning from mistakes is better.  Correcting them is great and you should always mention a change in approach that yields a positive outcome.  It shows your manager that you recognize issues and are working to address them.

You have to be an active participant in your own career planning.  Sitting back and waiting for an annual review or other conversation doesn’t put you in control.  You have to take the reigns.  Good managers will guide you through, highlight their thoughts on your strengths and weaknesses, but you have to act.  As the title of the post says, “Own it!”

Presenting at Varrow Madness – What’s vLab?

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This past week, I presented for the first time in a public forum.  It was a technical conference run by a large partner of EMC’s, Varrow.  Varrow is regional and based in the Carolinas and has a ton of talent and visibility within the industry.  I was honored to be asked but more than a little nervous.  For many of my peers, speaking to the general public is a well practiced and seasoned art.  For me, however, this was a first.  I spent a long time on the presentation and got help from a large number of folks (thank you all!)  I was confident in the material but was still nervous going into it.  There is something about speaking to total strangers that intimidates me.  I have spoken to all levels of internal audiences in large corporations – from executives on down.  But there is something “safe” about that.  You know your audience is pulling in the same direction, you’re employed by the same company.  External audiences are different.  There is an element of the unknown that is tough for me.  You don’t know what types of questions you’ll get or the level of detail that will be needed.  There’s no hint as to who will be attending or how engaged they’ll be.  All you know is that they picked your session to come to based on a 50 word abstract and now you can hopefully make it worth their while.

My presentation answered the question I get from acquaintances / family / friends – “What do you do at work?”  It aimed to cover not only what but more importantly “why” and “how”.  It is a topic I live every day and am excited about.  The deck was well received by the conference hosts and some folks internal to EMC who were familiar with vLab but not in our direct organization.  Bottom line – I should have been less nervous than I was.  I got into the room and it was blazing hot – so much so that we had to keep the doors open.  After that my USB slide advancer wouldn’t work well and kept disconnected.  When I was finally ready to go, I was off balance to say the least.  But then a funny thing happened.  The passion for what I do and preparation with the material took over.  It was odd and almost immediately I found myself mentally facepalming for worrying about it.  I cruised through the presentation and while the audience wasn’t overly engaged, I considered it a success.  I was between them and happy hour and the heat was really unbearable – I’m sure it wasn’t the material! 🙂  Long story short – this was good for me to do and stretched my comfort zone a bit.  I hope to do more of it.
vLab is a fantastic story to tell.  We have grown tremendously all while using modern and eloquent solutions to deliver business value.  It is something I get quite excited about because we are a functioning private cloud use case.  It is a great dialogue for EMC to have with customers but it is also personally fulfilling.  I have a great deal of pride in my team and the work they have done to help bring vLab to life.  I’ve included the slides I used below – if you have questions, please hit me up on twitter or in the comments below.  Happy to discuss!

Chris

Even High Performers Stumble

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This post comes from a conversation I had with a reader regarding mistakes being made by good performers.  While there were jokes about some silly screw-ups, the valuable part of the discussion came in our responses to them.  People will make poor decisions and as managers, it is our job to respond in a way that corrects the behavior but also reinforces that the sky isn’t falling.  I’m not talking about transgressions that are so severe that they require HR but rather those that should serve as learning experiences.  As leaders we should focus more on the learning than the mistake – to often we vilify and then the opportunity for growth is mostly lost.

Anger or frustration are among the natural reactions when a normally high performer slips up.  We are most surprised when our expectations are not met.  And none of us likes the kind of surprise where you’re woken up at 3am because someone shot themselves in the proverbial foot.  For a below average or average performer, a high profile mistake can be anticipated – people make mistakes and sh*t happens.  While the same applies to high performers (they will make mistakes and sh*t happens), as leaders, we tend to turn a blind eye to this possibility.  It is natural to expect high performers to do well in everything – but that’s far from reasonable.  We must expect even our best team members to make mistakes once in a while.  The fact that we are likely to have given these folks the high visibility projects will amplify the mistake but shouldn’t make our response more harsh.  I support the notion that we should, in fact, do the opposite – our response should be softened.

The idea of softening response for high performers comes from an observation I have made – high performers are normally very hard on themselves.  No one can consistently derive their motivation from external sources.  The drive of a high performer comes from themselves and when s/he makes mistakes, they are normally internalized.  Any external source of criticism (say, from a manager) is simply piling on at that point.  When someone understands the mistake, that’s enough.  All the yelling in the world won’t make the mistake go away.  I also don’t like to dwell on issues over time.  “Water under the bridge” is a popular phrase for this.  I simply let it go unless it comes back again – consider the issue closed until a subsequent act opens it again.  So if I’m not overly critical and I don’t bring up the issue to reinforce the message, am I simply a softy and coddle my high performers?  Far from it.

Throughout my tenure in management, I have had high expectations for my team and no one feels that more than my outstanding performers.  I expect more and reward for it.  When mistakes are made, I choose to enforce the fact that it is over and done and nothing can change it.  I don’t add weight to what I believe high performers are already carrying.  Demonstrate to me that you comprehend the mistake and will learn from it and I’m done.  Deny or make excuses and we’ll have an issue but that normally doesn’t occur.  I find that focusing on what can be learned rather than the mistake itself is the important piece.  You can’t go back in time and undo a screw up, only respond to it.

One example, from rather early in my career, occurred with a production financial system.  There was a patch or some other system update underway and somehow rm / happened.  Operating system, gone.  The person at the keyboard was immediately dejected and pissed.  My first response was wtf but I kept this to myself.  My first words were simply, “OK, get your head in the game, I need you.”  My reasoning at the time was simple.  There was a lot of work to be done and I couldn’t do it without that person.  Communication up and out had to occur while the technical work of restoring from tape (remember DLTIIIs?) went on.  I needed focus and I needed the great performance I expected.  Don’t get me wrong, I felt like Bruce Willis in Pulp Fiction about his watch: “Bedside table, on the kangaroo!”  The key was acknowledging that and moving on mentally.  Getting from anger to fix-it mode as quickly as possible was key.  Granted this is only one type of mistake – one quickly diagnosed with an obvious remediation plan – but I believe the approach is a good one regardless of the situation.  Every second spent on anger is one that is taken from responding to the situation.

Dealing With the Stress

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The seminal event of the year for my team is approaching and with it, the stress level of most is on the rise.  EMCWorld is a big deal for vLab.  It is our most public event and is, to steal from economic / political dialogue, too big to fail.  Every year we add capacity, functionality, and content specific for the show in support of EMC’s business.  The show basically consumes the first half of the year and places the proverbial “eye of Sauron” directly on vLab.  With all of this attention and publicity comes a lot of stress.  It has, at times, boiled over but for the most part the team does a good job holding it together and to date, each show has been considered a large success.  I want to use this post to comment on how managers can manage not only their own stress but also that of their teams.  Both are critical pieces and merit discussion.

There is a ton of information out there on stress management – a quick google will get you there.  Here are some of the general results:

http://www.helpguide.org/mental/stress_management_relief_coping.htm
http://www.webmd.com/balance/stress-management/stress-management-topic-overview
http://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-living/stress-management/basics/stress-basics/hlv-20049495

They all mention a variety of things: eat well, get sleep, learn relaxation techniques, learn your triggers.  All of this will make you more healthy and make things, in general, more enjoyable.  Work is listed as an obvious source of stress and is a trigger for many people.  As leaders, stress at work has an impact not only for ourselves and our own well-being but also on our teams.  Managing stress becomes a benefit for ourselves and for the quality of our leadership.

One observation I’ve made over time is that a leader’s personal stress is picked up on by a team.  A group will take on the tone and tenor of a leader and if that leader is noticeably stressed, the team will be as well.  Having a stressed team, while valuable at times (urgency is needed, even if it adds stress) can erode morale over time.  Managing one’s own stress is an obvious technique for helping with this.  If it doesn’t exist, stress won’t be apparent and hence won’t creep into your team.  Given the impossibility of eliminating stress, we are challenged to isolate that stress from our teams.  This can be done in a variety of ways but one of the most important is to watch tone when communicating with your team.  There are subtle ways that stress can creep in – your temper is shorter, your default urgency level rises, and you can become more demanding.  Many of us also tend toward more of a micro-management style as our own personal stress level increases.  None of these help your team – who in the end are the very folks who will deliver for you, reducing the pressures of the job.  It is important to keep that stress isolated from your team – or at least isolate the negative aspects.  This takes a lot of self awareness and practice – it’s not easy.  We must also give ourselves a break and recognize that stress is a natural reaction to tense situations and can’t be eliminated.  When recognized, I have found that taking the proverbial breath and re-engaging can be effective.  It is also worth reaching out to people if they have been directly affected.  Simply apologizing and explaining why something occurred can go a long way.

I chose the word “isolate” in the previous section for a very specific reason.  Isolate does not mean hide. Being transparent with my team about my stress factors is another means to combat them.  I like to let my team know when I’m stressed and more importantly, why I’m stressed.  This is not done with the full weight of the stress but as information.  Explaining why you’re pushing something or why a deliverable is suddenly very important leads to better understanding within your team.  And I’ve found that when people understand why they’re doing something, they tend to produce at a higher rate.  What we’re doing tends to be easier to do if we know why we’re doing it.  It’s the same reason I was always better at doing the dishes than I was at making my bed.  Doing the dishes lets me eat again, making my bed… not so much.  Discussing the stress also helps to lessen it simply by sharing it.  As a leader, it is not necessary to carry all of the weight for a team.  Hand the team a part of the boulder, don’t drop it on their head.

The last point I would like to touch on concerns stress within your team.  Just as there will be stress in your own life, as a leader, we must recognize that there will be stress within our teams.  We must learn to see it in individuals and respond to it effectively.  Ignoring it will only lead to burn out and responding to it incorrectly only exacerbates the issue.  Ongoing touch points and communication is a key factor in reducing stress.  Simply asking someone how they’re doing goes a long way.  Be sincere and listen to the answer.  You might get some praise or a complete vent.  You have to listen and respond – commit to help if asked.  Some people don’t like to share and that is fine as well.  I have a simple rule around this that I have implemented in many of the teams that I have managed.  I tell everyone, top to bottom, “If you need a break, call me, tell me, and take a day, no questions asked.”  There is nothing so important in our jobs that a day’s delay is worth more than the mental health of someone on your team.  If you want people to produce beyond the next task or deliverable, you have to see ahead.  Don’t focus on the fire that needs to be put out today, save the firefighter for the next ten.  It will go a long way and it is simple.  Give those that work for you the break you’d like once in a while.  We all look forward to the weekend for a reason.

– Chris

To be or Not to be, A Manager

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There came a time for me, relatively early in my professional life, when I saw saw two distinct paths I could take with my career.  I could continue in the technical track and aspire to a consultant level role, demonstrating mastery in a particular technical arena.  Or I could pursue a role in management, leading teams and organizations and putting them in the best position to be successful.  I chose the latter based on a number of factors not the least of which was that reading manuals and configurations guides isn’t something that grabs me.  I believe that individual contributors that show leadership ability will (or at least should) eventually be faced with this choice.  Neither path is the de facto correct one – it is based on each individual’s situation and aspirations.  I’m going to address some of the forces at work in this decision, using my own situation as an example throughout.

Owning one’s career path is something every should feel empowered (and responsible) to do.  No one will advocate on your behalf if you don’t step up to the plate.  With this in mind, the choice between a technical role and a management role should be carefully considered.  Some will argue that there are positions that split the difference – often these are called “technical manager” or “working manager”.  While I don’t dismiss the idea out of hand, I do question its validity.  In small organizations, I can certainly see it.  Small team, not a ton of funding, small scope – plausible for someone to manage the team as well as participate in the day to day responsibilities of the group.  As you move into larger organizations, however, “working manager” sounds more like “We know we need a manager but we don’t have the headcount so can you do two jobs at once?”  I believe this is an awful place to put someone and while some may see it as a stepping stone, I fear that this type of role splits time such that to succeed in one set of responsibilities, one must give up on the other.  Or simply commit the necessary hours to be successful at both (bye bye work/life balance).  I’ve laid this out as black and white and I know gray exists.  I’m always wary of job descriptions of this kind.

Assuming you’re faced with a choice between a technical role or a managerial role, what factors should you consider in deciding which road to take?  The primary question here is always a simple one in my mind – “What do you enjoy doing?”  At it’s core, this should really be the driver for your career.  There are other factors that certainly come into play but if you’re not happy doing what you spend 40, 60, 80 hours a week doing, it weighs on you.  While this is certainly a subjective factor, I believe it should come first in the conversation and not lower down the list.  The decision between a technical role or managerial role becomes clarified when viewed in this light.  You’re in a technical field because you like technology – that is a given.  Do you like working directly on technology, developing solutions or do you prefer leadership and growing people?  Do you prefer working in Visio or working in PowerPoint?  These roles have fundamentally different sets of responsibilities which translates to a different “day in the life” and a good indication of which will make you more satisfied at work.  I don’t want to oversimplify this decision as it a difficult one but first and foremost ask yourself, “What is going to make me happy?”

In an ideal world, personal happiness would be the only driver and we wouldn’t have to consider anything else.  But this is reality and of course, there are other pressures.  The first factor that comes to many people’s mind is salary.  Generally speaking, the ceiling for a management track is higher in terms of salary but for lower level management, the scale is usually tipped toward the technologist side.  This changes as one rises up the management career path but generally, you don’t become a Director overnight.  In my own personal experience, becoming a manger didn’t accelerate my salary as quickly as I thought it would.  Of course I was completely ignorant of the facts at the time!  I was lucky in that I also knew what would satisfy me professionally so my personal happiness and financial goals aligned.  If financial pressure outweighs personal happiness and you are leaning toward pursuing the higher ceiling rather than your own fulfillment, I’d caution against chasing the paycheck.  In the end, I don’t think it outweighs going to work with a smile on your face coming home the same way.

Opportunity will also often play into this decision.  If you have been career planning with your manager and have indicated a desire to consider a management role, know that they do not come along often in organizations.  If an opportunity does arise, you need to make the decision one way or the other and know that you are probably making it for at least the medium term.  There is opportunity cost of another type as well.  I’ve often heard sentiment that, “They only knock on the door once, you’d better answer.”  That is unfortunately, for many environments, accurate.  If you are offered a role and turn it down, it likely won’t come around again for a while.  That said, if you have a good relationship with you boss, this isn’t insurmountable.  If a management role is what you want, but you have concerns with the role being offered or your preparedness, be open with you boss.  Look to understand the support you can expect.  Transparency is key in this discussion.  Don’t be overconfident only to flame out.  If you’re worried about losing you technical edge, discuss that too and ways in which you can maintain it.  Management roles provide a constantly changing set of issues and puzzles, akin to the changing technology landscape that technical individual contributors have to deal with.  The skill sets required to tackle each are certainly different but both are challenging.  If you decide to go after a management role, keep the dialogue open with your boss constantly.  That way, when an opportunity arises, you be able to assess it accurately and discuss your concerns openly.

The final factor in this decision doesn’t apply universally but I believe occurs frequently enough to discuss.  Many times, if an organization is inclined to promote from within, you may find yourself in the position of managing people who were once your peers.  While this can be a tough situation, I would not let it dissuade you from taking a role.  If people have issue with reporting to you because you once shared a metaphorical cube, that is their issue and not something your are responsible for.  Open communication is key but do not feel bad if someone doesn’t adjust well.

If your decision is still muddy, there are certainly roles that strike a balance between technology and management.  These roles have titles like technical program manager or team lead or technical lead.  They certainly vary by organization but in general these are roles with some good technical depth but that also layer in the leadership that many find appealing about management (and without the paperwork!)  These jobs are never all technical or all management so if you are unsure about where you career should take you, these are options to help you test the leadership waters without diving in.  They will all help to develop skills necessary in management without committing you to a pure management role.

I have great respect for both career paths I’ve discussed here and while my decision was fairly simple, I know that many struggle with it.  The pressures of personal happiness, finances, opportunity all play into this choice.  Nothing is wrong with either option – you have to pick the one that is right for you.

TED Talk on Leadership

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This video was left by a colleague (thanks Sudhir!) as a comment on my last post.  I love this line from it, “People don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it.”  A great talk by Simon Sinek on leaders that inspire – please take a look.

Continued proof that there are a lot smarter people than I discussing the topic of leadership.  Even so, I’ve still got lots to add to the conversation.

-Chris

Why Trust is Critical to Leadership

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In my opinion, there is nothing more important to the leadership of a team than the trust that develops between the team members and its leader.  This is true across many industries and careers so, in that sense, this post won’t be dedicated to pulling out the distinctions for technical teams.  I believe most of what I intend to discuss is almost universally applicable.  To begin the topic, I’d like to reference a historical text that has been used to provide guidance on leadership.  In The Prince, Machiavelli famously stated that, “It is far safer to be feared than loved if you cannot be both.”  I mention the quote not to debate the main points of the book (that has been done endlessly) but to outline some possible aims of leadership.  I hope you will indulge the comparison.  In the context of leading organizations, I would modify Machiavelli and state that it is better to be trusted than it is to be feared or loved.  Leading out of fear simply gains followers based on a threat.  Leading as someone who is loved is too personal for the business environment.  Managing as someone who is trusted to act fairly and to do the right thing is, I believe, critical to the success of leadership.

Perhaps the comparison to Machiavelli is unfair based on context but I would like to investigate the three leadership styles in play to illustrate my thesis (apologies to Niccolò).  The first style of leadership, one based on fear, is one that I have seen (although not too often) in technical teams.  Leaders of this type tend to introduce fires, what-ifs, and other situations to drive a sense of urgency on the team.  While this may be effective for a short period of time, over the long run, it exhausts a group.  One cannot be expected to jump from crisis to crisis continually without tiring.  Not everything is a P0 and when the team wises up to that fact, the leader has lost all sway.  A leader that continually cries wolf will end up with a slaughtered flock when an actual crisis crops up and no one picks up their cell phone.  While I use the metaphor, this is not contained merely to the operational realm.  Setting false deadlines on projects, introducing new must-have deliverables that are really nice-to-haves, and casually mentioning performance reviews are all examples of this style.  In the business world, this is certainly not outwardly aggressive (that would be an HR issue) but is instead passive, meant to instill uncertainty and in it’s most insidious form, fear of termination.  From my description, it’s obvious I don’t approve, but I know there may be some that say I’m not giving this style a fair shake – please feel free to comment!

If not leading out of fear, what about being loved?  I’m planning an entire post on personal relationships in the technology team space so I won’t dive into that here.  I’d like instead to contain the discussion to the idea of being liked by everyone on your team.  Early in my career, this was a priority, and if I’m being honest, still lingers to this day.  I’ve come to accept that there are those that simply won’t get along with you and that is OK.  Some leaders however, do not accept this limitation and strive to be well liked by everyone in their group.  While this is good from an influence perspective, I believe it is fraught with risk.  The biggest issue I have with this style is the inability to have difficult conversations.  People are, in general, conflict averse and having hard conversations around performance is not something many people do effectively.  Take a look at your last performance review and try to find a place where your manager decided to be overtly critical.  Find a place where needed improvement was mentioned without a softening compliment soon after.  It is hard to be critical of each other, especially when we want to be well liked.  As leaders, this is extremely difficult because while we should all strive to grow our teams through constructive feedback, a negative reaction to criticism is a real probability.  Those that desire to be loved shy away from that tense situation and in the end, let their teams down.  Some practical examples may be a failure to deal with an under-performing employee, promoting someone based on tenure, or bowing to a more aggressive team member.  All of these examples may be well-intentioned but do not serve the team in the end.  I suppose that I prefer this style to being feared but they both fall behind trust.

Leading through trust involves a lot of things but most key in my mind is transparency.  Honesty with your team is critical.  This means conveying information you’re at liberty to, being open about your expectations, providing timely feedback, admitting your own mistakes, and being open to feedback from your team.

As managers, we are privy to large amounts of information prior to our teams.  Some of this information can be shared and some cannot.  Knowing where that boundary lies is critical to developing trust with your team (and in some cases, keeping your job).  It is important that you share relevant information with your team as quickly as possible.  A well informed team will make good decisions without the need to consult you.  This is empowering and creates and environment of constant communication – something good for any organization.  From a practical perspective, I convey this information in 1:1s, at team meetings, project meetings, and where ever else seems appropriate.  I try to focus on getting the right information to the right people at the right time.  This can be hard to accomplish and problematic if you accidentally exclude someone but is something I work at constantly.  In technical fields, as in other occupations, information is key and holding back or delaying is detrimental to the team overall and can hurt relationships if people feel intentionally left out.  While this may seem obvious, I have had interaction with leaders who have intentionally held back information so as not to “muddy the waters” but ended up being counterproductive.

Communication of expectations is also important in establishing trust not only with your team but among team members.  One practical example of this concerns annual reviews.  Whether the giver or receiver, the worst possible outcome is to be completely misaligned when it comes to someone’s performance.  If, as a manager, your employee disagrees completely with what you have written in a review, you’ve failed.  Performance, and expectations around it, should be a constant dialogue with your team.  Whether it is around something as large as an annual assessment or as small as the next project task, it is critical to be clear on what needs to be done and when it needs to be done by.  Team members will return this transparency of expectations by making commitments and hitting them (something I’ve mentioned in a past post).  This results in a completely above-board and trusting work environment.  And no surprises when it comes to performance.

Feedback between a team and its leader is the final part of trust that I want to address.  It is important to provide feedback to your individual team members in a timely manner.  Positive or negative, waiting a week to mention something from the meeting you just held isn’t very useful.  Be up front if someone does something that doesn’t meet your expectations but let them know in private.  If someone does something great, let them know as well – and do it publicly if appropriate.  As leaders we must also be open to feedback from our teams.  Do not wait for people to speak up, search it out.  Just as important as hearing criticism is acting on it.  You need to let the team know that you’ve heard where they’d like you to improve and are taking steps to do so.  Admit your mistakes and report out on your progress in rectifying them.  Nothing is worse than getting up the courage to talk to your manager around something that is bothering you and being blown off.  Constructive criticism is a two way trust relationship.  The person raising the issue needs to trust the recipient to hear, respond to, and take steps to resolve problems (as opposed to flipping out and storming off).  Likewise, the recipient of criticism must trust that the source is not trying to be a jerk and has an honest concern.  I think a mark of high performing teams is when team members can challenge each other to be better in an open and honest manner and that this feedback is received in an open and healthy manner.  No better place for this behavior to start than with the manager.

-Chris

Balancing Work and Home

Chris3 Comments

This may seem like an odd topic for a leadership blog but I think encouraging work / life balance is an important (and very difficult) thing to do within technology teams.  High performing teams are typically made up of individuals who enjoy what they’re doing for work.  It would be odd to see a team that functioned well if some or all hated their jobs.  For people that enjoy their jobs, the lines between work time and leisure time can become blurred.  As technology is so rapidly changing, technologists may use their free time researching to stay current or working in their home lab.  It is difficult as a leader to, on the one hand, drive the team to meet deadlines while on the other, tell people it’s time for a break.  While certain past experiences (read, burn out) have forced me pay mind to this balance in my own life, I have found it difficult to force those on my teams to do the same.  I suppose vacations cannot be dictated but I believe there are other ways to push people away from work, if only for a short time.  As leaders, this skill is essential to protect the team against overwork, low morale, or even, in the extreme, outright mutiny (that never ends well for the captain).

I believe that technology fields off two unique challenges to the balance between work and home.  The first I’ve already alluded to – it changes so rapidly.  It is necessary to learn outside of normal working hours (as companies usually don’t allow enough time for training) because an outdated technologist is not going to be successful.  Those of us in technology also like to learn and understand the bleeding edge because it is new and exciting.  So while others may surf the latest entertainment blogs or sports sites, we figure out how to write that piece of code or find out if the bug we’ve run into is fixed in the next beta release.  I’m not saying this is true for everyone of us but I believe that, for technologists, a lot of our down time is closer to work than other fields.  This presents challenges for balancing work and home as the line between the two becomes foggy.

The other unique hurdle for technologists (at least those in any sort of operations role) is the idea of being on-call.  While most occupations have set hours with some expected overflow, I have slept next to my phone ever since I joined this profession.  It can ring at any time and it is expected that I answer it.  I’m not putting technology jobs above others, just saying that “carrying the pager” makes technologists different.  We are certainly well compensated as a result but this does however force the lines of work and home to become more vague.  Unless I’m on vacation, I don’t shut my phone off or leave it at home.  Maybe that’s just me and others are better but it makes me anxious to be without that little communication device.  And when I carry the phone, I tend to check and respond to email and thus my workday extends.  The benefits my company gets for shelling out for the device and monthly plan are enormous.

So with these things in mind, how do leaders prevent their team members from tipping the balance in their lives too far toward their job?  This is a huge issue in the US (where success is judged primarily by economic status) and is something I face on a daily basis.  There are a couple of methods I use – one direct and one more indirect – to combat this.

I’ll start with the more indirect of the two.  This idea is around managing expectations and while that may seem a little odd to connect to work / life balance, I promise I’ll get there.  I have a simple rule that I employ with my teams: make commitments and hit them.  If you are unable to meet the expectation on delivery, let me know as soon as possible.  This does a couple things for me.  It makes planning simpler as I generally know when to expect deliverables and if they slip, I know as soon as possible.  As a manager, it is important to deal with misses in a rational way.  Delays will happen, that is a fact.  When they do, reacting with anger or insane disappointment is out of line.  If you do, your team won’t trust you and will let you know of delays only as a last resort.  That only gives you less time to re-plan, reset expectations, and adds tension – not a positive outcome.  Your team must trust in your response and know that you are on their side.  It also helps to guide your team on setting expectations.  If you are forgiving without being a doormat, people will add less padding to their work estimates, ending up with more accuracy.  Reiterating the importance of making and meeting commitments along the way serves to solidify this.  All of this serves to make work more predictable and reduces the chaos of the multiple workstreams / projects / skunk works efforts that are common in a technical environment.  This helps work / life balance tremendously as it fundamentally changes the way the team works.  Rather than jumping from rushed deadline to rushed deadline, the team can plan and when a day to catch your breath is necessary, you can take it rather than having it domino a ton of efforts out of control.  The work itself “slows” and the team knows that their leader has their back and understands that sh*t happens.

The other part of this indirect method is to hone your skill at managing up.  Just as your team will set expectations with you, you must set expectations above.  As you develop trust with your team and get better and better work estimates and flow, your ability to be predictable to upper management will improve.  Ideally, this predictability brings trust and with it, some calm.  Unfortunately, that may not always be the case and many of us have dealt with management that never seems satisfied or appreciative.  In these cases, it is important to remember that, as leaders, we must act as buffers to our teams.  Be honest with them as to the pressure you’re facing and never toss them under the bus to your management.  It is our job as leaders to own that responsibility and manage expectations.  Doing so is critical for both the sanity of the team and your own well being.

The more direct method of dealing with work / life balance concerns being in good communication with your team.  It is important to know how the individuals on your team are doing, both within and outside of the workplace.  You don’t need to be friends with everyone (that’s a personal decision and a different post) but as leaders, it is important to know the pressures facing your team, no matter the source.  The ability to sense work overload or other sources of stress is a critical leadership skill.  In a perfect world work would be stress free and while it can be managed, work is never free of stress.  There are times when as leaders, we must react and do so in support of our team, potentially at a cost to a project.  In the long run, the team will appreciate it and the business will benefit through increased morale and work output.

A couple of examples to illustrate the point… you might have an employee who suddenly changes his or her performance.  Normally she is great and enthusiastic but lately has been quiet and might have missed some commitments.  Don’t delay addressing this as it may compound with time.  Faced with an under-performing employee, some managers will make the conversation simply about that and simply send the “pick it up” message.  That isn’t my approach.  If you have someone that is traditionally a good performer, the benefit of the doubt should be given 100% of the time.  I start these types of conversations with, “Are you OK?”  I mention that I’ve seen a change and want to know how she’s doing.  I do this because I truly care and also because I want to know what I can do to help.  Employees will share to varying degrees based on their personality and level of comfort with you.  Regardless of the degree of disclosure, it is important that your team knows that you care.  Just asking and sensing tone or if in person, body language, can give you insight.  Once you have it, it is important to act.  If you sense someone is over-stressed, pick a day, call her up and tell her to take the afternoon off.  If pressed, it is a reward for a job well done.  These small acts may have more of a positive effect then you know and only come at the cost of a few hours.

Another situation you might run into is an employee who comes to you with a personal concern.  It might be that a parent is ill or they have an auto repair that they need to get done but haven’t been able to find the time.  Given this type of situation, I immediately offer time away from work.  Family has been and always will be more important than the job and as a leader, it is important that you reinforce this to your team.  The belief that one might be viewed as under-performing if we need to ask for time only serves to compound personal stressers and can dissuade us from requesting it.  As a leader, offer it.  It takes a lot of pressure off folks if they know you’re supportive and won’t respond with, “That’s nice, now back to work.”  These situations won’t always be as obvious as I’ve presented here so it is important to build your skill in reading your team.  It takes time but putting the balance of work and home front of mind for yourself and your team will go a very long way.  It is critical to our development as leaders.

-Chris

The Importance of Listening to Your Team

Chris3 Comments

When folks read the title of my blog, I’m guessing the first thought that comes to mind is management.  A manager leads the team and the team members follow.  While that is certainly my current role, being a manager doesn’t qualify you as a leader, nor does it fully define what it means to lead.  Leadership can happen at all levels of an organization and in all functions.  This is especially true in technology where most teams are not staffed to their full compliment and individuals are often expected to operate with a fair degree of independence.  Leadership opportunities arise within projects, through subject matter expertise, and even through attitude and mindset.  Simple acts can make you a leader and it is in these moments that I see leadership.

I’d like to define leadership by describing some qualities that make a good leader.  These can be applied no matter your position, you just need to find the right opportunities.  I’ll also get into some examples of poor leadership techniques that we all can fall into.  Understanding and correcting improper tendencies as as important if not more so than demonstrating good qualities.  I’m going to describe what I feel makes a good leader in many different posts because I believe that each quality is nuanced enough to warrant a lengthy discussion.  I don’t think there’s any Top 10 list that applies universally so I’ll tackle them over time.

One quality that I feel is critical is the ability of a leader to listen to his or her team.  Leaders like to talk.  Generally speaking, those that gravitate to leadership roles are expressive and willing to share their thoughts and opinions with others.  While this is certainly a positive trait, good leaders also know when to keep silent.  The ability to listen and respond thoughtfully to your team is critical.  People want to be heard and respected.  If you are constantly talking through, over, or around people, you’re not leading, you’re babbling.  Opening your ears comes in handy in many situations.  Listening to a peer vent, discussing career aspirations with a report, or understanding the amount of risk in a project timeline as a team member are all examples.  Too much can be missed when your mouth is moving.

I struggled with this early in my career and still do today to a certain extent.  Too often I wanted to make sure that I was heard and didn’t take the time to truly hear others.  I had many a manager, project manager, or peer pull me aside and tell me that I was too brash or came on too strong.  Normally they respected my opinion but didn’t appreciate how I had conveyed it.  It took quite some time for the advice to sink in (and I’m no master of it now) but I’d like to think I have grown a little from that young man right out of college who knew everything about everything.

The practical applications of this trait are numerous but I’d like to focus on a few techniques that I have found effective.  As a manger, I schedule 1:1’s with nearly everyone in my organization that wants one (and even with some that I’m sure don’t).  The frequency isn’t too high but I treat it as the other person’s meeting.  It is his or her time on my calendar and I set that expectation right up front.  If I control the conversation, I believe I’ve failed.  I want to hear how that person is doing, how their work is going, how they’re enjoying it, what they want to be doing more of, what they can’t stand, and most importantly, what I can do to help.  I want to understand “the pulse” so to speak.  I’m very transparent about the process, telling the individual that this is their opportunity to tell me what’s going well and what isn’t.  Not everyone engages and that is fine – the fact that they have the opportunity is the point.  Too often, managers simply dictate because there is too much work and too little time to check in and see how the team is doing.  This can lead to low morale and in the worst case, attrition.  Too often in large corporations (which is the entirety of my professional experience), that fact that we work with human beings is lost amongst the huge machine that surrounds us.  While changing corporate culture is beyond my skills, I try to humanize my small space within it as much as possible.

Another technique I use is a round table at the end of every team meeting that I hold.  I leave time in the agenda for open items that anyone can raise.  It can be a question for someone else on the team, an accolade for a peer, a concern someone has, a question from an earlier portion of the meeting, anything at all really.  It is a time where each team member has the opportunity to take the floor and be heard.  Sometimes it causes the meeting to run over, other times there’s complete silence.  In the latter case, I will sometime ask someone who I know is comfortable with the spotlight if he or she has anything to bring up.  Be careful about who you do this with as folks with more reserved personalities can feel very put off by it.  This can get the discussion rolling but doesn’t always, and that’s OK.  The result doesn’t matter as much as the fact that the chance to speak is there and that I, as the leader, am stepping back and letting other dictate the conversation.

The first two approaches can be applied broadly across industries but the third I’d like to discuss is applicable directly to a technical environment.  As a manger, there is a tendency to move away from the day to day of your organization.  This is especially true the higher that you go in the food chain.  It is a fact of the managerial career path that you lose your technical depth.  It is a decision we all need to make in our careers.  In general, management (if they are focusing on managing) can’t stay up to date with all the newest technology that their team employs.  While this can be disappointing for some, I embrace it and am very transparent with my team that I rely on them for the technical knowledge.  I don’t have the answers and need them to lead me to the best technical decisions.  In this spirit, I periodically take the time to attend deep technical meetings (the ones the team has without stakeholders so they can actually be productive).  I use it as an opportunity to educate myself and to switch roles with my team members.  They become the leaders and I the follower (a certain Star Wars quote comes to mind here).  I ask questions, not to challenge the ideas being presented, but to truly understand the topic being discussed.  I take note of the participation of each team member and may follow up if I sense someone was drowned out by louder voices.  For me, this achieves two things.  I stay in touch with the technology to a depth that is required and I also get to hear the thoughts, ideas, and interactions of members on my team.  Some may argue the point over the technical knowledge required to be a good manager of a technical team (I’ve got a post about that in the hopper so I’m not going to dig into it here) but reading manuals and configuration guides is something I gave up long ago.  For my purposes, gaining technical information is secondary to listening to the team.

While I’ve described these practices in a managerial context, they can be applied generally.  I openly encourage my team members to hold 1:1s with each other, especially if they have frequent interaction.  If both parties go into that meeting wanting to hear the other, great communication and collaboration will happen.  Similarly, PMs, technical leads, or anyone facilitating a discussion can leave room for the table to be heard.  Take the time in the agenda to allow for it – don’t skimp.  And finally, anyone can take the opportunity to expand their knowledge in a new technical arena.  Ask to attend a technical discussion outside of your comfort zone.  Ask questions and learn from your peers.  This may not seem like leadership but letting someone know that you are interested in what he’s doing and want to better understand it is very powerful.  You will earn respect and trust – two things critical to being a good leader.

-Chris

Decision Making… Democracy Except When It Isn’t

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Decision making in any team can be difficult.  There are a number of factors that can make it more arduous.  The size of the team has a direct influence.  The more voices, the longer it takes for harmony to emerge.  Geography also affects the speed of decision making.  Teams that cannot be in the same room on a regular basis are naturally isolated and coming to agreement is a challenge.  Personalities also play into it.  Too many (or too few) strong voices can can extend the decision making process.  I’m certain there are others to be mentioned but I’ll leave it at that because I want to discuss how we, as technology leaders, can facilitate this process.  The outcome I strive for is the highest quality decision possible in the shortest amount of time.  There is a cost/benefit that we must calculate as we watch the dialogue progress.  Have we taken the time to hear all sides of the discussion?  Have we heard a couple of the sides over and over and over again?  A balance must be struck.  There’s no formula to follow here – it is a gut sense that is developed over time.

I firmly believe in decision making by consensus.  The best decisions come when the entire team is given the opportunity to speak up on the topic.  This may not always lead to the quickest decision but will be the best for the team.  Granted, certain decisions, such as tactical actions in the course of a major system outage, don’t lend themselves to this approach but on whole, I find it works.

Group consensus is valuable for a number of reasons.  It gives each team member the right and the opportunity to be heard.  It also gives each member the right and the opportunity to listen to the discussion.  This is very empowering to the individual.  Those that have an opinion, can share it and be heard in a safe space by their peers.  Those that don’t have an opinion have the opportunity to listen and form one or perhaps ask questions to better understand a certain perspective.  It is important that, as leaders, we moderate this discussion.  Two individuals simply arguing is not a team discussion and should be avoided and stopped when it occurs.  People are passionate about what they believe and that is a good thing.  A team of passionate people will do great things!  But passion gets the best of us all at times and when you sense that occurring within the team, diffuse it.  It isn’t productive when two people dominate the conversation – that isn’t consensus decision making.  This is especially true in the technology space where I’ve found a certain religious-like devotion to certain opinions.  (Just try to convince me that there’s a Microsoft product that I won’t immediately loathe!)  A good indicator that this is happening is when each opinion is defined by what is disliked about the other rather than stating the benefits of the position.  I tend to use questions to focus the dialogue.  Ask, “Why do you believe xyz can help us?” or “What’s the main drawback to your suggestion?”  When you force people to critique their own ideas, the tone of a conversation quickly changes.

In addition to our convictions, technologists also tend to be very detail oriented.  As leaders, we have to avoid the proverbial rat hole.  Technology focused teams will dive down into minutiae so quickly because those details are important.  A switch on a command line or a certain check box can make a huge difference.  The key is that these things aren’t normally important to a decision that rises to a team discussion.  That may occur on occasion but for the most part team discussions will be focused on higher level items.  When you sense a rat hole, don’t immediately react.  In many cases, cutting off an individual once will make him or her reticent to speak up so it must be done with care.  Let the discussion go a bit and sense the “pulse” of the conversation.  Are only a couple people talking?  Has someone that was vocal suddenly shut down?  Do you catch folks multitasking?  These can be signs of disinterest and it’s important to pull the conversation out of the weeds.  Do it gently… “I know there is value in the discussion but I’d like to refocus on xyz, are you cool with that, Chris?”  Make sure the team knows that you’ve heard the dialogue, value it, but need to move on.  I’ve found that people generally wont belabor a point if they know the group isn’t engaged and by asking to move on, you give people permission to enter into a new line of thinking (or return to the original purpose).

Another important technique to combat rat holing is to introduce strategic goals that may influence the discussion at hand.  I recently participated in a discussion around a certain technology where the team was divided into two camps.  There wasn’t anyone willing to budge and while I could have simply dictated, I generally don’t like to do that (more on that in a bit).  Instead I raised a strategic point around a direction the team had agreed on.  I asked the team to consider the question only in that strategic light and consensus was quickly reached.  The point here is that it may not have been the correct technical solution for the particular situation at hand but it was the right decision in the long run.  Technologists tend to focus on details and particulars.  Bringing the wider context into the discussion is important.

As I alluded to earlier, unilateral decision making is an anathema to me.  I do it only when absolutely necessary and generally because of time constraints – there simply isn’t enough time to gather the thoughts of my team.  I know I’m not the smartest guy in the room.  I don’t know all the details and won’t consider all perspectives on a given topic.  To proceed an simply tee off with bold direction setting seems arrogant to me.  Ask your team to help.  That’s what they’re there for.  That said, there are times when as leaders we must make a call.  When this is necessary, it is important to explain to your team how you arrived at the decision and why they were not involved.  No one should be above explaining their decisions to the team.

To make consensus decision making work, it is important that you stress a couple rules to the team around this process.  The discussions should be kept respectful at all times.  Just because you disagree with someone doesn’t mean you can belittle them.  This may seem like common sense but if you’re a third party in a heated conversation, pause to listen to the tone.  Are people debating ideas or being combative?  As I mentioned before, it’s important to end an unproductive conversation.  Finally, consensus is consensus and the team should agree to follow the direction decided.  Even if an individual disagreed with it, s/he should fall in line once the team agrees.  Continuing to raise the disagreement after the fact is counter-productive and can frustrate a team.  Reiterating these “rules” to your team on a frequent basis keeps them front of mind and the instances where people become overly passionate tend to decline.  Mutual respect and trust develops.  I respect that you will hear and honestly consider my opinion and you trust that I will hear any critique and honestly consider it.  That is a great place to be!

I believe that involving the team in decisions, large and small, is critical to a high performing team.  People who know they have a voice will participate in the process and feel empowered.  This is a great thing in my opinion.  You must learn to balance the time a discussion takes vs the quality of the decision reached.  Goldilocks applies here – aim for “just right”.  Experience is the best teacher.

-Chris