As a manager who has usually taken over teams that have been struggling in some way, there is something that I’ve consistently had to do: fix the hiring process. Hiring well is a huge lever for team transformation. Getting it right doesn’t just mean hiring good people (although that part is crucial), but doing so in a way that is time effective for you, your team, and the candidates.
For a small-scale hiring process, you can often take on the process yourself and spend some time fixing it. However, as a leader (especially a new one), you want to be careful of the optics, and creating a perception that you’re bringing in “your people” as replacements. It can help to bring the current team along and make them part of this from the beginning. For a scaled process, you’ll have no choice because you can’t do it alone, so it’s important to determine what your levers are—and how to use them effectively.
As many of us accept the new reality, hair increasingly wild, and perhaps having embraced a pandemic wardrobe (daytime pajamas are a legit work outfit now), there’s no return to the office in sight for those of us who can work remotely. It’s time to consider some of the ways in which our teams are not working as well as they could be – or did – and how to address them.
My work BFF Eli and I both work at fully distributed companies, she’s Head of Apps at Automattic and I am now an Engineering Director at DuckDuckGo. So, we got together to talk about 5 areas that can be challenging with remote work, and some action items that can help you improve them.
Recompile your Rituals
Every team has rituals, even if they aren’t documented. Standups, sprint planning, weekly meetings.
Eli’s team runs a two week release cycle and a lot of rituals are tied around it. For example, sprints are aligned to finish just before a code freeze. The work of an almost sixty people team is summarized each month in a recap post, with a mini retrospective for each team. Along that they share key numbers, like monthly usage, stickiness etc. Another important team ritual is a monthly “snaps” post, where everyone comments on at least one thing they are glad to have done, one thing someone inside the team did that they are thankful for, and one thing someone outside the team did that they appreciated.
Rituals create a sense of cadence, progress, and connection. Being reliable and consistent in your rituals can be very stabilizing for a team – especially when the world around them is chaos. When we consider the rituals on Eli’s team, they happen at different levels and frequencies, but also hit different aspects of a well functioning team. The release cycle rituals are about delivery, the monthly recap and summary is about strategy, and the snaps are about connection and appreciation in the teams.
Don’t let this move to remote turn your team rituals upside down; instead use this opportunity to improve what’s helpful, get rid of what isn’t adding value, and add what’s been missing.
Action items:
Consider how you mark launches or releases. Are you still celebrating?
In an office there are a lot of implicit expectations. Take for example standups, if your team used to do a daily standup at 10am, everyone was expected to be at the office at that time, even without no one actually saying so. As you move to async standups, by when are people required to do theirs? Is there a time they are expected to be online?
Meta: Make a list of your rituals and for each one:
Clearly articulate the purpose. What is the ritual meant to achieve?
Ask yourself and the team if that purpose is needed. If not, you’re done with that ritual (and there’s probably no need to continue once you are back in the office either).
Take the time to consider how best to fulfil the purpose of that ritual given your current constraints.
Once you’ve done the meta audit, it’s worth documenting it. It can be helpful to have a team handbook or operations manual, ideally one created collaboratively with the team. This should outline all the team rituals, their cadence, purpose, and a couple of good examples for each. Norms are much harder to transmit in a distributed context, so it’s all the more important to communicate them explicitly, and this can be really helpful with onboarding.
Rearchitect your Communication
In person cultures are often overly reliant on meetings to transmit information. In a remote context, however, written communication works better. Engineering directors in colocated companies spend most of their time in meetings; Eli and I spend a lot of our time reading. There are no status updates meetings, and given limited timezone overlaps everything that can be async is in text to make the most effective use of synchronous time together. You’ll be surprised how much written content is generated once you make the switch to default to written communication.
When we hold meetings we have to multiply the time spent on that meeting by the number of attendees and be conscious about whether that’s the best use of the team’s time. While in person meetings help with team bonding, that benefit is greatly reduced in a remote setting. In a distributed context, timezones can really force this issue, but it’s worth thinking about even when timezones are not a problem.
When thinking about written communication it’s important to remember that silence is not agreement. It’s much easier for people to skip commenting on something they disagree with than it is to stay silent in a meeting when they are explicitly asked for their opinion and commitment to the plan. Make sure you follow up with key people to hear their thoughts about what you’ve published, and also ask, when it makes sense, why they have not shared their opinions publicly in the first place.
As Eli moved into management, she started writing more and more, but as an ESL (english as a second language) person this has been particularly hard. One of the best examples was her first outreach email. She sent it to me, and I responded: “Eli, this is a commit message, not an email!” Of course, I also helped rewrite it, and we continue to give each other feedback on all our early drafts.
Skewing toward communicating in writing sets a standard for transparency—a lot more people can be expected to read a document than can usefully (or even possibly) attend a meeting. It also makes it much easier for people to refer back to decisions after the fact. When people’s schedules are unpredictable or when working over multiple timezones, it’s easier to carve out time to focus on reading than a set meeting time. The written form is also more persistent. This helps with onboarding, but also if someone is away for a longer period, especially if that is unexpected. Finally, it’s harder for people to focus on video, and there are more distractions. There’s no concept of a “no laptop” meeting when everyone is calling in from their computer.
Action items:
Make sure to set clear expectations around meetings: for which ones is the attendance mandatory, and which ones are optional? It’s more important than before to mark on the calendar if you are planning to attend a meeting or not, to avoid people trying to rope in missing attendees through messaging at the beginning of the meeting.
Have a clear agenda, filled out 24 hours in advance, with links to pre-reading materials. This will make the meeting shorter, and people can start discussing the topic at hand before Zoom fatigue settles in.
You and your team may not be used to communicating as much in writing. It takes practice and feedback to improve, and can be something you need to coach people on.
Ask someone to read your drafts before you share them, and offer that to other people.
Meta: Start by reviewing all your communication. Take a pass through your calendar, and look through and see meetings you’ve attended and also what documents you have created (or updated) over the course of the previous month. This is also a good time to rethink if everything that was a meeting should continue to be so.
With everything ask:
Can this be text based?
Can this be asynchronous?
Can this be public (and how public)?
Reset your expectations
In an office, everyone had their work space and working habits. Now, you have no idea what kind of environment people are in. The office was an even field: when everyone arrived, they had their desk, their computer, and at least eight hours during which it was a clear expectation that their top priority was work. Now at least a few people on your team are sharing their space with their family, their partners may need to take calls, and other family members might need attention. The lack of childcare can result in distractions and curtailed work hours. They may also not have a quiet or ergonomic space to work.
Even in our workplaces, both fully distributed companies from the start, we saw the impact that this is having on productivity and emotional well-being. People have struggled to adjust their schedule, we’ve had more people take mental health days, and take time off to support primary caregivers that became exhausted.
Some people have had six months – or more – of little to no human contact, which can have horrible effects on people’s mental health. It’s hard to know what you can expect from people and when you can expect it, and people may be struggling with what they can expect from themselves. As things evolve, it’s helpful to reset and start defining in the current situation, what people can commit to and how you will communicate that.
One of the biggest problems with remote work is how easy it is for people to disappear. Then, the team stops expecting anything from them, and it can be hard to re-integrate. Rebuilding your expectations and how they get communicated is key to building some healthy accountability amidst the chaos. One company has people mark their calendars red (away), orange (somewhat available but likely to be distracted) and green (focused work time). Others have adjusted their time off policy, which is particularly important for parents. Some people may start working at night, because that’s the only time they have enough quiet time in their house to stay focused. What will be the business impact, if any, of this switch? And that’s where some of the adjustments we talked about with respect to communication can be really important. Are other team members aware that they haven’t disappeared, but are just on a different schedule?
Action items:
In a distributed environment it is harder and slower to learn by example. It may be handy to come up with team member expectations outlining best behavior at a company level, but also at a team level.
Everyone’s schedules have been turned upside down, so be explicit about checking if people can keep up with their current responsibilities. While before, having a single person in a team in charge of one task was enough, this may not be the case right now. Use the opportunity to document single points of failures and have a backup plan.
Focused periods may be reduced; is there any way you can adjust the way your team works to our new environment? It may be worth adjusting your task granularity.
If you don’t know what’s going on with someone, you should ask them. This will help you give fairer and more timely feedback.
Meta:
Think about everyone on your team, how are they coping right now? Is there anyone you need to make a point to check in on?
Pay attention to the way people talk about each other, does it seem like there’s anyone the team is finding is harder to rely on now?
Rebuild your warnings
There are so many visual cues in person. You can see when someone is struggling and offer them help, notice that someone seems disengaged and make a point to really check in. In a remote context it’s easy to take “I’m fine” at face value and be surprised down the line. You need to figure out your early warning signs, and set up explicit mechanisms and expectations.
This goes both ways. People will also make assumptions about you – that you’re busy, that you’re more annoyed than you are. Be explicit — just saying that you have time for people won’t cut it. You have to show it, by scheduling and by checking in. If something gets escalated to you, be transparent about why that is and how you’re handling it.
Eli was once asked in an interview, if she could wave a magic wand, what’s one thing she would change at Automattic. Her answer was getting people to ask for help after spending one hour investigating a problem. This was probably the biggest surprise to her working remotely. People hesitate about interrupting somebody else when they can’t figure something out. They think you are too busy, dealing with more important things. They can’t really see you are on a coffee break, and as managers we often fail to mention, repeatedly, that it is a core part of our job to make sure that our people are unblocked.
For instance, asking for help is always a useful skill, in a remote context it’s crucial that someone asks, because if they need help but don’t say it, they may never get it. This means communicating that it’s expected to ask for help, encouraging people to offer help, and creating a supportive environment where people aren’t judged for needing help or asking questions. It’s so easy for quieter, or “glue” work to go unnoticed in any context, but particularly a remote one. Consider what you’re missing in this new context, and think about how you might address it. When something surprises you, ask yourself what you missed. Is there anything that could have caused you to notice sooner? This is also where team rituals, like the snaps post that Eli’s team does, can help surface the ways that people are helping each other.
Needing to “keep things on track” is where a lot of companies go wrong and try to increase control over their employees. The reality is, it shouldn’t matter to you how long people are online as long as they are getting what they need to do done, and are present with their team members. You should be able to evaluate people on what they produce, not how and when they do it. Is the work this person is doing contributing to your long term goals? Are they not only improving themselves, but improving the team they work with? While you would see them pairing at the office, they can now be spending a lot of time quietly mentoring a more junior member of the team, and you want to make sure that you know and recognize the impact of that work.
Action items:
Asking people how they feel in daily standups, even if it’s just an emoji answer, can be really revealing.
Restructure your 1:1s differently with some specific questions. In an office there were plenty of opportunities for people to share they were struggling, in a remote environment you have to create them. I like to make space at the start of every 1:1 for an emotional check in, and regularly text chat people throughout the week to ask how they are.
It’s also important to give credit. If you reached out to five people to reach a conclusion that you then published, give them credit! Otherwise it is easy for people to assume that you’ve done the work alone, and that they should be able to perform at the same level, too.
Be explicit about why you are getting involved, remember they can’t see your face! As a manager, if you are getting unusually involved in a project, when colocated it’s easier to discern why this is happening. In a distributed environment it might be less clear, as people can’t constantly see your face and read your emotions. Be explicit about your reasons: is the project something you are passionate about? Are you afraid balls will be dropped or are you having a hard time letting go? Or were mistakes already made and are you in damage control mode?
Meta:
Review your current set of projects – how are things going?
Make a list of things that are worrying you, and make space to work through the risks rationally and without interruption – maybe with a trusted person like a coach, or peer.
When something surprises you, make a note of it. Once you have a few examples, consider how they came about, and whether there were warning signs you missed or need to set up. Are there any trends?
Reconnect your team
How cohesive is your team? Likely some camaraderie is carrying over from the office, but how will you navigate change? What about the addition of new people or the inevitable reorg?
When Eli joined Automattic, it wasn’t after her first in person meetup that she truly felt part of the team. Also, as the team grew, even before COVID they couldn’t just have a meetup for every new person, so they had to come up with mechanisms to make them feel part of the team without that time together in person. Some of that has been remote pairing sessions, experimenting with different styles for townhalls: ask anyone anything, show and tell, guests from around the company.
Other examples of social connection things Automattic has rolled out are happy hour, launch parties (where people get on a Zoom together to watch a rocket launch), remote conference watching parties, exploding kittens app, video game parties, tod mess (kids Zoom with each other and play I spy with the help of their parents).
You will no longer have spontaneous social gatherings like lunch or happy hour, so you need to make sure to create instances where people get to know each other on a personal level. Effective teams really trust each other, but trust develops much faster when people get to share a physical space and chat about their lives and interests. Remote companies have relied on meetups to fill this gap but that’s off the table now too.
It’s also very easy to notice when someone is not engaged in a meeting when people are in the same room, or when there’s a thought in their mind that they are not sharing. Zoom meetings can be great for a lot of things, but this is not where they shine. Make sure to give everyone the opportunity to share their thoughts. Try to identify people that were not engaged during the meeting, and reach out afterwards for a debrief. One thing that I feel very strongly about, is that on a small call everyone needs to speak. It takes effort and intention to moderate calls in this way, but I’ve found it to be worthwhile.
Action items:
Have people schedule peer 1:1s, in particular new hires. This can be automated via a tool like Donut.
In the office, people would inevitably share on Fridays what their plans are for the weekend, and on Mondays they would talk about all the fun stuff they did. You can add an automated prompt on your team messaging channel to have people share some of the highlights of their weekend.
Have calls with only two rules: no talk of COVID, no talk of work.
Meta:
Talk to your team in 1:1s about building connections in a distributed way, is there anything that has been working for them personally, or that you’re not aware of?
On my team, we run “experiments”. Anyone can propose an idea, we discuss it and agree how to try it, then after some period of time either kill, adjust or keep it.
The new normal may still feel far from normal, but with some time, patience, and intention, work – at least – can get back to some semblance of that, even if we are still not physically together. We hope these ideas help, and encourage you to share the things that have helped you and your teams in the comments, or on Twitter.
Thanks to Eli for writing this with me, and Bas for editing.
I do get the concerns about the economy, social interaction, and creativity. But, I think we need to be realistic about the world as it is right now. Yes, there can be a great energy in person, but can we really expect that in a world where everyone is two metres apart, wearing a mask, and wondering what level of risk vector our coworkers are?
I think more relevant question than “how do we get back to the old normal” are:
How are we going to support parents in this time? Who even if they have been able to send their kids back to school, are still navigating life with a higher burden of childcare due to reduced schooling times / lack of after school activities / restrictions (e.g. mandated time off for any sign of being in less than perfect health).
How are we going to help people feel creative in a world that now seems set up to burn them out?
How are we going to build connection and trust in teams, particularly new teams?
How are we going to rethink our hiring process when onsite interviews are no longer an option? Do we need to?
How are we going to support a hybrid model? Where people who value the space of an office still have a place to go to, but not everyone is there, and not all the time.
How are we going to build a culture of effective feedback in an environment where many cues are missing?
How are we going to create productive conflict and tension in a more asynchronous, written form?
How are we going to manage that zoom calls are more draining than IRL?
It is truly a difficult and emotionally exhausting time to be a manager. Even those who are used to managing remotely are having to navigate the shifting expectations and chaos of disrupted lives and disrupted businesses.
Of course, some people deal with that level of disruption by trying to increase control. Surveillance software is becoming increasingly popular, and there are regularly suggestions like just having video on… all the time… as you work. The thought of this gives me nightmares. The amount of time I have spent staring into space while writing this article is bad enough; imagine if there were witnesses.
Instead of trying to reinvent management from first principles, we can turn to other areas with experience navigating distributed teams with individuals managing competing commitments. Open-source software communities—which also are remote communities connected by the internet—have long included the role of community managers. These are the people who tend to the health of the community, by maintaining communication, motivation, efficiency, and engagement. It’s a well-honed practice that remote managers can learn a lot from.
With a few other people, I run a Slack chat group for engineering managers. We’ve made some deliberate choices—for example, we don’t have a channel for #inclusion. Every so often this comes up, and we invoke our argument: Inclusion is central to good management, so all channels are inclusion channels.
We do, however, have a channel for #advice. This came out of trying to manage the way people are so ready to dispense advice in general, often lacking any context (which is why I personally try to avoid giving advice). We encourage people, in our code of conduct, to use the Gestalt principle (a way to communicate with people in a non-threatening way to support an environment where people can share and learn). But sometimes, people want advice. So we allow it.
“The best leaders master multiple leadership styles”, blithely comments some post on leadership. OK, including one written by me. But how? Many leaders are overly reliant on a style and this can hold them back. Generally leadership styles are a function of emotional intelligence, and working on emotional intelligence, such as working on becoming more coachable may help, but how to work on this aspect specifically?
That depends on the style you want to build out. In 2000, Daniel Goleman published research in the Harvard Business Review identifying six main styles of leadership, each originating from different aspects of emotional intelligence—Pacesetting, Authoritative, Affiliative, Coaching, Coercive and Democratic. Even though our expectations of the workplace and of our managers have changed in that time, these styles are still a useful place to start in considering what situations call for and the styles we tend to default to ourselves.
Pacesetting
Pacesetting leaders expect excellence and self-direction. A leader who sets high performance standards and exemplifies them himself has a very positive impact on employees who are self-motivated and highly competent. But other employees tend to feel overwhelmed by such a leader’s demands for excellence—and to resent his tendency to take over a situation.
When is it useful?
Pacesetting is for those times where there’s just a lot to be done. Maybe you’re digging out a backlog, or surviving an intense period. Direction should be very clear, with minimal need for collaboration or experimentation.
What do you need?
Stamina and focus. The pacesetting leader is rarely known for their work life balance. You need to be ruthless in saying no to the things that are not core to your effectiveness.
Situations to seek out?
Look for the numerically measurable problem, where everything is fixable by just Doing The Work. Just make sure it’s not indefinite, and that you have what you need to be successful.
Shift your mindset
High expectations of other people are key to the pacesetting leadership style, and what distinguishes the pacesetter from the general hard working leader. Most of the hardest working leaders know they cannot expect the same level of dedication from their teammates – their commitment and work ethic are often what has propelled them up the ladder. However to be a pacesetting leader, you need to demand excellence from your teammates, which means you need to have a clear idea of what excellence is, and be prepared to set expectations accordingly. Some people may match the style without you saying anything; others may have to be told.
I suspect one of the reasons why pacesetting has a negative affect on teams is that pacesetters over rely on working harder and miss the point where they need to work smarter instead. Make sure that you deploy this style when working harder will make the difference – and switch to another style when it won’t.
Authoritative
Authoritative leaders mobilize people towards a vision. An authoritative leader takes a “Come with me” approach: she states the overall goal but gives people the freedom to choose their own means of achieving it. This style works especially well when a business is adrift. It is less effective when the leader is working with a team of experts who are more experienced than he is.
When is it useful?
Authoritative is helpful when you have a new, or lost team, that needs a way forward.
What do you need?
Well-founded confidence in the domain and your own expertise, the ability to tell a compelling story about what the team is doing and why.
Situations to seek out?
Seek out a problem where you have a strong reputation and deep expertise. Potentially a slight adjustment or repeat of something you have done before. This might seem a little dull – who wants to do the same thing again? – but will allow you to be more definitive and work more quickly.
Shift your mindset
The differentiator of the authoritative leaders is confidence. They believe they know the way, and they will lay out the path to get there. To take on this style, you need to believe that you know how to address the situation. This doesn’t mean not listening to other people, but it does mean fitting that information into your model and pushing things forward. This style is best adopted when it comes based on a reputation earned elsewhere, ideally nearby, so you need to be able to take pride and believe in your past accomplishments, too.
Affiliative
Affiliative leaders create emotional bonds and harmony. The hallmark of the affiliative leader is a “People come first” attitude. This style is particularly useful for building team harmony or increasing morale. But its exclusive focus on praise can allow poor performance to go uncorrected. Also, affiliative leaders rarely offer advice, which often leaves employees in a quandary.
When is it useful?
This style is incredibly useful when healing a broken team, or bringing together a team exhausted (perhaps by the pacesetting style…).
What do you need?
Patience and empathy. You need to be willing to hear people out, give people space, and let some amount of chaos happen as the team evolves.
Situations to seek out?
Look for the team you believe in, that you can see has had a hard time as a result of outside forces. Maybe you take over from a bad leader, or at the end of a difficult time (e.g. a team that has been scaling).
Shift your mindset
Affiliative leaders believe that the responsibility for team health and culture lies with leadership. It means taking a deep and personal responsibility for the culture of the team, and working to create an environment where everyone can be successful. You will need to rank team goals after team health (and have the space to do so).
Coaching
Coaching leaders develop people for the future. This style focuses more on personal development than on immediate work-related tasks. It works well when employees are already aware of their weaknesses and want to improve, but not when they are resistant to changing their ways.
When is it useful?
This style is useful when there’s been a lack of personal development, for example people haven’t been getting feedback, or when stretch assignments come without support. It can unlock a huge amount of capacity in your team or organization.
What do you need?
Patience and optimism.
Situations to seek out?
Look for situations where people haven’t been set up to succeed, but who have done okay under the circumstances. For instance, people who were reporting to someone who didn’t make time for them. Pay attention to how coachable they are, and how they view team responsibilities.
Shift your mindset
Coaching leaders believe in each individual. Shifting to this style means shifting your mindset and evaluating each individual on the team not against your expectations, but against their best selves. Coaching leaders are a buffer who believe more in people who don’t believe in themselves; this creates a balance against those who tend to over-confidence (and failing upwards).
Coercive
Coercive leaders demand immediate compliance. This “Do what I say” approach can be very effective in a turnaround situation, a natural disaster, or when working with problem employees. But in most situations, coercive leadership inhibits the organization’s flexibility and dampens employees’ motivation.
When is it useful?
As much as we don’t like to admit it, at times, as leaders, our job is to tell people what to do. People who embrace this style do it too much, but we all need to be willing to use it at times.
What do you need?
Conviction.
Situations to seek out?
Moments where you know you are right and someone else is wrong, and it’s your job to tell them so.
Shift your mindset
Dig into that righteous anger and channel it, even if you don’t express it fully. Personally, I am never more icily British than when I am consumed with rage; the last time I deployed this style the conversation started, “A note on etiquette…”
Democratic
Democratic leaders build consensus through participation. This style’s impact on organizational climate is not as high as you might imagine. By giving workers a voice in decisions, democratic leaders build organizational flexibility and responsibility and help generate fresh ideas. But sometimes the price is endless meetings and confused employees who feel leaderless.
When is it useful?
There’s a reason why most new leaders start with around 90 days of listening; this style is incredibly useful for a new leader building credibility in a new organization, as it ensures that everyone feels heard and maximizes buy in. This style can be useful even when you are confident you have a good idea of what’s going on, as you can diffuse resentment by showing you are listening and making people feel heard.
What do you need?
Patience. The leeway to invest time up front in exchange for increased buy in later.
Situations to seek out?
Seek out situations where you know what you don’t know, and where building the knowledge to be effective is part of your remit so you’ll be given the time to do so.
Shift your mindset
The mindset of the democratic leader is we will make better decisions together. They would sooner have the “best” 100% result of the collective than the 80% the individual might create alone. They are willing to prioritize that buy in, consistently, even when there are pressures that might make a more expedient solution more appealing.
Where to Begin?
It helps to start with the end in mind. The goal is some level of comfort with all of these styles, even if you tend to use some of them very sparingly.
The easiest way may be to build around, starting with what you’re comfortable with. If you default to affiliative (as many new managers do), start adding the democratic style and making sure that decisions are made. Work on getting better at coaching people. These three styles are incredibly compatible with each other, and mastering them alone will take you a long way. Eventually, though, you will need to branch out.
If you need to make a more extreme change, either because you are reaching the limits of your effectiveness or in response to feedback, it may be harder.
If you fall on the “softer” side – affiliative, democratic, coaching – seek out or embrace a situation where combining the authoritative and pacesetting styles is warranted. It should be relatively timeboxed, so know that once you’re out the other side your other leadership strengths will allow you to deepen and continue your impact. Make sure that you have (well-founded) confidence, and the support you need to be effective, like a coach and supportive friends to get real with, because you’ll need to continually project that confidence to the team, even if you don’t always feel it yourself.
If you fall on the “harder” side – coercive, pacesetting – try embracing the democratic or coaching styles more actively (they are less emotional than the affiliative style). Find some people whose potential you believe in and work on developing them, seek out situations where you have influence rather than authority and lean into it, for example working across the org. You’ll have to take a deep breath and accept that progress won’t happen on the timeframe you think it should, but then… did it ever, anyway?
A lot of things in management become clearer when you realize it’s much easier to measure a team’s progress than its state.
A team produces 30 units of “x” in a week. Is this good? Well, we could start by asking what the value of each unit is, or by looking at the contributions of each individual on the team…
Or, we could look at how many units are being produced over time, and whether delivery is getting more (or less) predictable. This will tell us more about the trajectory the group is on. Is the team gelling, working together better, delivering more? Or are members of the team struggling, maybe with a lack of clarity about their mandate, or because they are onboarding new people without the right process in place to support that?
There’s a concept of “self-managing teams,” which I prefer to reframe as “self-improving teams.” Self-improving teams have feedback loops that make getting better over time a team effort; they respond well to failure and learn as much from it as possible, they use estimation as a way to better surface the known—and unknown—unknowns. They invest in collaboration that levels up individuals and the collective.
The question that might emerge from this is, well, if your team does all this on its own, what is the role of the manager? Doesn’t it render you redundant?
I know some managers say “don’t bring me problems, bring me solutions,” but personally I don’t subscribe to it.
I love when people complain to me. Of course, complaining is a national past time for the British, and we don’t just limit ourselves to complaining about the weather, or the poor availability of good tea when traveling. Brexit has provided some strong fodder for complaining (where do we begin?) but really your average British can complain about anything.
But, here’s why complaining is so useful to me as a manager.
Leadership roles evolve, especially through periods of transition. As a leader, I have found my own role changing as challenges on the team change—around every four months I realize everything is fundamentally different, and the way I need to spend my time changes, too.
Recently the number of my direct reports more than doubled, and I added two different roles reporting to me. This was a very obvious instance of change, and I opened up a discussion on our team blog about what that meant. I confessed to certain things I had noticed about myself when I felt overwhelmed, and asked them four questions:
– What do you see as the most important thing(s) I do (generally)? – What are the most impactful things I do for you specifically? – What is one thing you think I should stop doing? – What is the biggest area of your work where you want/need me to support you?
But even when it’s not as obvious, your job as a manager can still evolve. Maybe you used to have mostly new managers reporting to you, and now they’ve found their feet, meaning you can be less involved and spend your time on something else instead. Maybe your team had some kind of pressing problem—a big project with a looming deadline or bad releases that needed to be fixed—but now it’s on track, so what do you focus on next?
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