How to kill a techie in tmlide
In IT, line managers and team leaders are traditionally recruited from the best engineers. Their job is now completely different: to manage people and interact with other teams and organizations. The initial message, “I know better how it is necessary,” often leads to the combination of two extremes in one leader at the same time: lack of delegation and total control. Both that, and another does not leave at all neither time, nor forces on management. Alexander Trofimov from Kaspersky Lab will tell you about how to cope with all this and what other obstacles the new head can meet on the basis of his own experience and hand-made cones.
The publication is based on the decoding of the report of Alexander Trofimov from HighLoad ++ 2017
About speaker
Alexander Trofimov
Head of Department at Kaspersky Lab. In the "other", engineering life was a system administrator, security consultant, technical support officer, Microsoft MVP, and a speaker at technical conferences.
')
Now, besides leadership, she is interested in the topics of self-development, personal productivity and management.
I have been working at Kaspersky Lab for ten years, I have been in charge of units for six years, and slowly I begin to understand what kind of pains there are in our lives.
I used to be a good engineer, was a Microsoft MVP for 7 years, but then everything changed. How has it changed? I'll tell you about it now.
You may not be able to directly take advantage of my experience, but, nevertheless, the patterns that I will talk about are quite general, I see them among my colleagues and subordinates. And I recommend at least try to apply what I tell you - it will be useful and at least show that it is possible to fight this scourge.
So we became leaders. What has changed?
The picture, I think, is clear to everyone. Completely vulgar character. "We are responsible for those who have tamed."
The most important thing that happened: you no longer directly responsible for the system - you became responsible for the people. These people are absolutely not you, they somehow do something there. In its own way. Not the way you like, not the way you want. And you are responsible for all this mess. For people, for systems. These are not empty words, you have not only got some weekly reports, the ability to punish or award a bonus, salary, but other great things.
I was once at a training, and there I really came, as they say, insight. I was stunned by this responsibility.
You have pencils and pens, you have a notebook, and if you want, you can try training now with me. The essence is as follows. Today I will portray your leader. I get a task - a certain picture. Well, let's say we are a design agency. I tell in simple terms what we need to do with you, and you try to do it.
If you want to practice, take a clean sheet and pen. Now we will draw. I will say what it is, and you will sketch. Quickly, quickly, because the deadline is already, as usual, yesterday. Once again: we draw quickly, simply. No need for perfection. So let's go.
We draw two vertical intersecting ovals, moreover, so that in the middle they have nothing.
Draw as you understand, as understood.
In each oval we put a thick point, such a big black circle. We hold a semicircle above them. From each of the ovals from above we draw an arc to the side. Place 3 triangles above each arc. And now, from the bottom edge of our semicircle, which we drew, on each side we draw a small arc, but convex inside the entire pattern. From both edges of this arc we draw more down the arc so that they intersect at the bottom.
Here, you smile, but you need to draw something - otherwise there will be no prize.
Those places where they intersect, we connect in a semicircle, which is convex downward, and below this semicircle we make two groups of three small interlocking ovals.
I saw the original picture, so it is difficult for me to spoil it badly. According to my own description, I drew this:
We will consider this an ideal, because this is what the manager drew. Who got better? Please show me. Wow, you're better than me, better than a manager. I'll photograph it later. Fine. We needed to draw this:
Funny, huh? We at this training was also funny. True. And it was a cool training. The coach was no worse, and, most likely, better than me, but then he asked us a question. That is, not to us, but to this wonderful manager: “Guys, did your team work well? Did you team work well? After all, there are options - here are cobras, there I don't know, something very beautiful. Attention, the second question: will we give you a bonus? ” Opinions are divided. In this part of the hall, I see, apparently, after all, an engineer, and there I see the Chief Executive Officer. In the interim, there is an unhappy manager who doesn't really know, because he sees his team, which really worked well. He understands that it is he is a handle, that is, I am a handle, sorry, guys, except for one person who painted an owl better than me, but I won’t give you a bonus. And this feeling of responsibility should actually pass, you should understand that, like in that old joke: your workplace is your mouth, you shut your mouth, the workplace was removed. And if you use this place incorrectly, then your people and your company suffer.
Actually, all this is good, but what else has changed?
Changed the amount of information. So I personally love Guiness beer, or imagine something else - now it is fashionable to craft. And it's very good when you have a personal personal tap and a mug. Here is your mail. I do not know how many letters the engineer receives? Five, twenty a day? Well, another fifteen hundred from robots - but this is all uninteresting. As a result, five to twenty letters a day. Occasionally he will be called for some meeting. And everything's good. There is one personal tap from which information is poured; there is his head, that is, a mug into which he pours. He becomes a leader. Beer becomes much, much more.
It's good. It's great. But there is a problem - these tapas are not closed, but the circle is still one. Over time, it becomes a little more - stretched. Nevertheless, she is still the same, and the tapas are already 9-10-15 - as lucky as anyone. Some are lucky, and they have three or four tapas - but this is still very much, it is very difficult to digest it yourself, but at first it is necessary. And this, in principle, is possible, but there are ambushes on the way.
Today I will talk only about two of them. Why about them? In fact, simply because for me it was a pain, I got into it in full measure, and I created two of these ambushes through and through. And today I will tell you how.
Ambush number one: "I know the way!". Who do we have in the industry, at least in the companies I have watched, appointed as managers? Usually the best engineers. And what is good for an engineer? He is good at engineering work - he knows best how to do it. But all these knuckles are actually worse than this engineer, they know how to do it, they mow more, work more slowly, for a long time to explain to them, in the end. And it turns out a wonderful picture: “Vasya, you are your hand, let me bring you some coffee, and I’ll do it quickly for you right now.” And, in principle, if the team is not very big, it works for a while. We turn into such octopus spruts, we do everything for our entire team, for all eight or five people.
Some manage to try to do it for 12 people. And it seems that all is well, but in fact this is not the way.
I saw an engineer who became such a manager. Wonderful guy, well, let it be, say, Poluekt Poluektovich. Good, cheerful, the soul of any company, completely open, great engineer. He came to lead one of our divisions and really began to do everything for them. There were more than 10 people, he really managed to do everything for them - he was on duty, monitored, repaired, set up something. He did everything except managerial work. The result is natural - the reputation of his group is below the baseboard, his personal reputation is also shaken.
The end of the story in this case is good - he found the strength in himself, returned to the engineers (it is possible with us, it is not punishable here) and now works, happy, one of the best and most talented engineers of the third line of our system administrators. He probably gets a salary more than what he received when he was a manager (by the way, we also have such a thing), and happy. And I am happy that he is in our team and does not take more leadership, because he has enriched his experience, he is an excellent engineer who understands the problems of business, but at the same time he does what he likes.
What to do? Here I am forced to retreat a little from my canons, because I tried to paint terracotta warriors, and I got a crowd of militant Gopnik -
Therefore, the picture will be stock, so this:
I was immediately given a big team, there were eight people in it. Eight people are not 100 taxi drivers, they are really hard to manage, they are high-level engineers who know a lot and know how. At that time, in terms of knowledge, I covered, in principle, 90% of their field, but I simply could not work for them. Yes, I had other shoals and problems, but, nevertheless, I did not try to work for them. And it was happiness. And what about those who are not so lucky as me?
Now there will be an extremely pixelated video, I hope that after all with a voice, but, if anything, there is a linux. Let's take a look at it for 40 seconds ( playback will start from the right part ):
This video gives a very simple recipe - just don’t do it, stop doing it if someone does it. Does anyone even try to do work for their subordinates? Yes, we are many ... Stop it! Stop doing it. You do someone else's work, you rob the Indians from Bangladesh.
How to do it? I understand that there is a problem - we do not trust these people, because they have not yet earned our trust, we worked with them as engineers, we saw how they worked, and here we are managers.
Option number 1, for example - do everything for them with their hands.
For example, I know which line needs to be corrected in the config. I say: “Vasya open the config, no, not with Notepad, please open it with Visual Studio, because it is xml'ny. Vasya, no, not this config. Here, thank you, well done. Correct the line. Not this line. Not this constant. Not 30, but 25 "...
Total two bonuses. First, he will gradually learn. Secondly, you will make sure over time that it does not handle or handle within acceptable limits, and stop controlling it so tightly. But to stop this behavior is absolutely necessary. Where you can’t teach a person to do his job, and you can do yours, something is wrong and something needs to be fixed. I do not say the magic words “dismissal”, “deprivation of a premium” or something else, but there is a problem that needs to be fixed. It must be found.
Well, the last option - to bring the number of its units to 15 people. Then you will have no option but to leave them alone. Well, or quit.
Then a natural question arises: what are we doing now as managers, since we have ceased to edit configs, write code, and I don’t know what else we are doing as engineers?
Well, sometimes we ship servers - it also happens, and we have to make sure that people get an owl. At least this. Ideally, better.
This is our main job, which is why we should not be distracted by going down and working for people. You have a lot of them, let them work, let them breathe out.
Ambush number 2 is the absolute ring, I call it that.
We got the power. For some, it is formal - this is the head of a group or department. For some, it is semi-formal - it is often said that a team leader is a person who leads people, but at the same time cannot manage them. It doesn't matter, we have the power. They gave it to us, it is confirmed by our authority (as former technicians), it is confirmed by our management, which came and said: “So, Fedya now leads you, Fedya gives you tasks, Fedya assesses you”. And the temptation to use this power is great, because we can really control within these eight working hours a lot of what our people do.
In fact, this may even be good, because when you just became a leader (again, we are only good techies, we are not good leaders yet, we don’t know what the whole group is, what obligations it has, patterns work, to us from the standpoint of an ordinary engineer, this is not visible), we loop back all the information, we begin to analyze it.
I will tell the story of my personal almost fakap. It really happened to me. Why I say that this is all personal experience. I will not cry, do not expect.
I became a team leader about six years ago. The first thing I did, as I just said, was to get all the information flows to myself, everything, not a single meeting without me, not a single meeting about a new project, even in writing, without me, all the correspondence of my people at work passed through me. I repeat - this is probably normal. I saw other engineers who did the same when they became managers. It helped me. After a while I entered the whole system, I understood what was going on, I began to understand.
What have I done yet? I started with all my people - by that time there were already 10 people - 10 people started giving out tasks for the day. To everyone: “Petya, you have five tasks for today — such and such, such and such.” I evaluated them according to the laboriousness with them, everything was fine, they managed, with difficulty, but managed to do it. I worked 12 hours a day. I came home at ten in the evening, we met with a colleague in Skype For Business (then it was Lync): “Hello, Vanya, hello, Sasha” ... And we started to recruit these ten people with these tasks. That is, we are wool all backlog, watched that more priority. The last thing I did - I made a tough visit from 10:00 to 6:30.
This is my personal, let's say, birth injury. I hope that none of you have it, but, nevertheless, I did it. I, unfortunately, had certain prerequisites for this. I'll tell you - it works. The performance of the guys, the group as a whole, grew by 30-40 percent. I measured it, I am the manager, I measure everything.
But there were problems. The people began to be a little dissatisfied with life, I was already preparing to lynch. Worse, the people began to think quietly, but wouldn't they leave? And we, by the way, generally few people quit - this is so, a moment of advertising.
In the end, I had to do something about it, because there was a real danger that the team would simply fall apart - people were tired, they were frustrated, they could not explore something new, because they were busy with my tasks for the day, they came by 10:00 and left at 18:30.
What to do? From what I have said, it is obvious that control should be removed.
We take control. And here, I believe that any normal person should immediately have a question - here we are, let's say, allow them to come when they want, they will not come at all. Or they will come so disjointedly that they will not communicate with each other, there will be no transmission of information within the unit. Or they will come so sooner or later that other people who need them will not be able to find them. And for all this I just get on the head. Letting them choose their tasks - they will not work then at all. It's true? Or, as an option, they will choose the simplest - something that could not be done. And anyway, I'll get it on the head. In general, it turns out this picture.
Who does not have any such doubts about their people, raise your hand. One, two ... Guys, I envy you. I envy you because I was not so mature.
All this has only the last part in your life: if your guys are nosyachat, you will get off your head. This is right, this is good, it should be so, but even this is not really interesting. A little later I will tell you how I came to the conclusion that I nevertheless decided to remove it all, but the main thing is that the control needs to be removed.
How much to shoot it is also an interesting question. Just to say: “Guys, do what you want” - it will not work either. Some kind of control is necessary and, what is most funny, everyone needs their own control. I will not delve into this jungle, because we can talk about this separately for several more hours or days. There is, for example, the theory of situational leadership of Paul Hersey and Ken Blanchard - if someone has not heard, google. If there is such a problem, read the interesting thing, and it seems to work. For me, at least, for sure.
How did I venture to let go of control? Well, I had a few activities, as I said. I started to understand little by little that because I looped the entire flow of information about what was happening, I learned how to live and process it with this flow of information, because I no longer had 5-12 letters a day, and 300 letters a day, and somehow I live normally with it.
Secondly, I passed the so-called 360 review. This is a tool that everyone hated. Who knows what it is? Almost everyone knows. Who hates? - this is the next question. Why? The answers are: “everything is wrong”, “it is very difficult to shake off information from everyone”, but this is still such a procedural question ... And why, by the way, is it difficult? No one wants to speak badly, no one wants to tell the truth, everyone will be following in the opposite direction.
There is an opinion that it is better to collect feedback in person, but these are two non-mutually exclusive tools. Live feedback is required. But some people just have a hard time doing it, because, again, guys, we are better than introverts. Best engineers who? Introverts. Go chat? I sat for ten years at the console. What did you tell me to do? Chat? With the director? A, hello, director, goodbye, director. All right, absolutely perfect, but just not always possible.
And once again - this tool is often used incorrectly.It is used to evaluate a person, to raise or lower his salary, to dismiss / punish / encourage. This tool is not for this. This is an employee development tool. The first time I was offered it by our HR's. I passed it and suddenly realized what it was. The second time I ordered it myself. I did not order it anymore, because the situation had changed a little, but if I again have many subordinates, I will order it again, because it is a tool that, if applied correctly and correctly explained to everyone, what it is as a feedback tool, which tells you what is your reputation among your subordinates, colleagues and the manager.
By the way, with the leader - yes, there anonymity works in general in full growth, I agree, but here there are no problems. For some reason, some managers are easier to put a tick in the test and write something there than to tell you in person. At 360 I received a completely constructive response from my manager, but sometimes it’s almost impossible to get a feedback from him live. Now it's better, but still bad.
And this tool showed that I am the last reptile. Just like that.At least among many of my counterparties in life there was an opinion that this is so. Actually, no, I'm a good guy - you see everything. But the reputation was so. She was not catastrophic, she was somewhere two or three in some places. This is bad, but not horror-horror. And it revealed to me that the guys do not treat me very well.
Secondly, of course, books. The first book was “Drive” by Daniel Pink - I was advised by the coach within the same 360. From there I got a thought that was completely obvious to me then (thanks to those people who had previously raised their hands that they absolutely trust their people) that if people trust and let them do their work, they will do it. Yes, there are all sorts of nuances there, but mostly they like to work very much, they like it when they have work, when it can be worked, when it is possible to come in the morning and dig at something on the server, write code, write an application, fix it attachment. They love it, it inspires them, and they will do it if they are not touched.
The second book — Lesha Pimenov recommended it to me — is Patrick Lensioni, “The Five Vices of the Team.” I don’t remember a damn thing out of her, except that trust is generally the main thing in a team. People need to be trusted. And after that, I was somehow let go, I relaxed, I began to have fun.
I told the people, “First, here is your backlog, here are your high-level tasks. I don't care what you do. Please, this one for this date should be ready. I will occasionally ask you, Vasya, are you doing this task or not? Because it is important to me, and I have to report to the management that we will not save it, but I will not understand how you do it, what you do there with it - your problems, you may not do anything, then last night everything I do not mind if this will work. If this does not work, we will talk with you, draw conclusions and there we will continue to understand. If this works, I'm generally happy. Not my headache, how do you do it. "
The second thing I said: “Guys, I understand your desire for a free schedule. Head. Because I am hurt by the army, it is difficult for me to understand this with my heart. Let's do this: I have such-such-such problems (I stated them earlier - the lack of communication in the group, the lack of communication with colleagues, and so on). Let's come up with a solution. ” We sat for a couple of hours, really came up with a solution. We said the following: we have a free schedule, there are eight hours in the workday, and this is not discussed (we signed up for this when we came to work), and from 12 to 16 o'clock we should all be here. Everything.
What happened?
At some period of time I became a morning person and I think: "Now I will come to work by eight in the morning and work quietly alone." Where there! I now come to work at eight in the morning, and four people are already there. I sometimes come to work at eight in the evening - I forgot something - they sit there. My work day has essentially expanded by four hours. That is, the division of working time increased by four hours. Instead of working worse, they began to work better. Bastards (smiley).
In addition, as I said, from the unit I directly supervised, well, one person quit, returned three months later. Now two of them have gone abroad, the dollar has become twice as expensive, it dumps us a little bit.
What helps us in all this? First, it helps to listen. I have already said: your working body is your mouth. Mouth closed - the workplace was removed. But the main thing after all is to listen. For me, this was a 360 review, when I heard the opinion of colleagues and the opinion of subordinates. For you, it may be something else.
It also helps, for example, to have such a Pavlik Morozov ... No, not a snitch and not an informant - these are bad words in our culture ... A person who will tell you completely uncomplicated what is happening in the unit. I have this happened. I had a wonderful custom - once a week to hold a planning meeting, that is, I collect all 14 people, plant them in one office, and they begin to report who did what in a week. The tool is really gorgeous in itself, because it allows you to be generally aware of everything. This is the very beginning of my management career, so to speak.
After some time, this one comes to me, now let it be Quartet Quartektovich, and he is such a straight guy, very good, honest, but a straight line is generally just like a stick, and says: "Your gliders are people, let's say, demotivating, upset people." I, of course, immediately dismissed him, what should I do here? Ha, only one person understood that this is a joke. Of course, I haven’t dismissed anyone yet and am not going to. I went to my people whom I have known for a long time. In the company I had worked for this time for many years, my subordinates had the people with whom I started working. I came to them, saying: “Guys, this way and that, there is such information. Is that so? ”-“ Yes, this is true. ” I sat down, scratched my turnip, as I do, and canceled the sewers. I found another way to do this, to be in control. But the person who tells you what is happening right at that moment,when this happens, not once a year, when you go through 360, but right now, I came, issued a new decree “with my royal grace I order to do this and that,” and immediately after this solo performance he comes and says: “Sasha, did nonsense, let's roll back. " This is generally an invaluable thing. Feedback is always good.
What else helps? As I said, stop doing everything for them. Let them do their work. It is their job to work, it is their job to edit configs, write code, correct errors, twist tails of databases. It's not your job anymore. Stop doing someone else's work, stop taking their bread. In the end, in a year, in two, in three, you will start to make this work worse than they are, which means you can handle more than they do, and it’s better not to bring this shame to this. Take away your rights, put the account in the safe and do not touch it.
Well, the last, I guess. This is what I said about control - we do not control their every step, instead of controlling every step, we control ourselves so that we pass on the information correctly (everyone remembers the owl or what happened). Our task is to convey information correctly, we control that they understood us correctly. And, by the way, every time they misunderstand us, who is to blame? The one who spoke is to blame. Talking head. And control the result to which we came. Then, in principle, these mistakes that have occurred to me (you, probably, also happen, some), they will be a little bit smaller, a little less critical, it will be easier for you to cope with the consequences.
Friends, if the topic of managing teams of developers is more relevant to you than ever, we are sure that you will find many interesting and useful things at our February conference TeamLeadConf 2018 . The program already has about 40 reports!
By the way, we posted videos of the ten most interesting performances last year on the conference website. Plus for all habrovchan we have a promo code HabrTeamLead2018, giving 11% discount.
The publication is based on the decoding of the report of Alexander Trofimov from HighLoad ++ 2017
About speaker
Alexander Trofimov
Head of Department at Kaspersky Lab. In the "other", engineering life was a system administrator, security consultant, technical support officer, Microsoft MVP, and a speaker at technical conferences.
')
Now, besides leadership, she is interested in the topics of self-development, personal productivity and management.
I have been working at Kaspersky Lab for ten years, I have been in charge of units for six years, and slowly I begin to understand what kind of pains there are in our lives.
I used to be a good engineer, was a Microsoft MVP for 7 years, but then everything changed. How has it changed? I'll tell you about it now.
You may not be able to directly take advantage of my experience, but, nevertheless, the patterns that I will talk about are quite general, I see them among my colleagues and subordinates. And I recommend at least try to apply what I tell you - it will be useful and at least show that it is possible to fight this scourge.
So we became leaders. What has changed?
The picture, I think, is clear to everyone. Completely vulgar character. "We are responsible for those who have tamed."
The most important thing that happened: you no longer directly responsible for the system - you became responsible for the people. These people are absolutely not you, they somehow do something there. In its own way. Not the way you like, not the way you want. And you are responsible for all this mess. For people, for systems. These are not empty words, you have not only got some weekly reports, the ability to punish or award a bonus, salary, but other great things.
I was once at a training, and there I really came, as they say, insight. I was stunned by this responsibility.
You have pencils and pens, you have a notebook, and if you want, you can try training now with me. The essence is as follows. Today I will portray your leader. I get a task - a certain picture. Well, let's say we are a design agency. I tell in simple terms what we need to do with you, and you try to do it.
If you want to practice, take a clean sheet and pen. Now we will draw. I will say what it is, and you will sketch. Quickly, quickly, because the deadline is already, as usual, yesterday. Once again: we draw quickly, simply. No need for perfection. So let's go.
We draw two vertical intersecting ovals, moreover, so that in the middle they have nothing.
Draw as you understand, as understood.
In each oval we put a thick point, such a big black circle. We hold a semicircle above them. From each of the ovals from above we draw an arc to the side. Place 3 triangles above each arc. And now, from the bottom edge of our semicircle, which we drew, on each side we draw a small arc, but convex inside the entire pattern. From both edges of this arc we draw more down the arc so that they intersect at the bottom.
Here, you smile, but you need to draw something - otherwise there will be no prize.
Those places where they intersect, we connect in a semicircle, which is convex downward, and below this semicircle we make two groups of three small interlocking ovals.
I saw the original picture, so it is difficult for me to spoil it badly. According to my own description, I drew this:
We will consider this an ideal, because this is what the manager drew. Who got better? Please show me. Wow, you're better than me, better than a manager. I'll photograph it later. Fine. We needed to draw this:
Funny, huh? We at this training was also funny. True. And it was a cool training. The coach was no worse, and, most likely, better than me, but then he asked us a question. That is, not to us, but to this wonderful manager: “Guys, did your team work well? Did you team work well? After all, there are options - here are cobras, there I don't know, something very beautiful. Attention, the second question: will we give you a bonus? ” Opinions are divided. In this part of the hall, I see, apparently, after all, an engineer, and there I see the Chief Executive Officer. In the interim, there is an unhappy manager who doesn't really know, because he sees his team, which really worked well. He understands that it is he is a handle, that is, I am a handle, sorry, guys, except for one person who painted an owl better than me, but I won’t give you a bonus. And this feeling of responsibility should actually pass, you should understand that, like in that old joke: your workplace is your mouth, you shut your mouth, the workplace was removed. And if you use this place incorrectly, then your people and your company suffer.
Actually, all this is good, but what else has changed?
Changed the amount of information. So I personally love Guiness beer, or imagine something else - now it is fashionable to craft. And it's very good when you have a personal personal tap and a mug. Here is your mail. I do not know how many letters the engineer receives? Five, twenty a day? Well, another fifteen hundred from robots - but this is all uninteresting. As a result, five to twenty letters a day. Occasionally he will be called for some meeting. And everything's good. There is one personal tap from which information is poured; there is his head, that is, a mug into which he pours. He becomes a leader. Beer becomes much, much more.
It's good. It's great. But there is a problem - these tapas are not closed, but the circle is still one. Over time, it becomes a little more - stretched. Nevertheless, she is still the same, and the tapas are already 9-10-15 - as lucky as anyone. Some are lucky, and they have three or four tapas - but this is still very much, it is very difficult to digest it yourself, but at first it is necessary. And this, in principle, is possible, but there are ambushes on the way.
Today I will talk only about two of them. Why about them? In fact, simply because for me it was a pain, I got into it in full measure, and I created two of these ambushes through and through. And today I will tell you how.
Ambush number one: "I know the way!". Who do we have in the industry, at least in the companies I have watched, appointed as managers? Usually the best engineers. And what is good for an engineer? He is good at engineering work - he knows best how to do it. But all these knuckles are actually worse than this engineer, they know how to do it, they mow more, work more slowly, for a long time to explain to them, in the end. And it turns out a wonderful picture: “Vasya, you are your hand, let me bring you some coffee, and I’ll do it quickly for you right now.” And, in principle, if the team is not very big, it works for a while. We turn into such octopus spruts, we do everything for our entire team, for all eight or five people.
Some manage to try to do it for 12 people. And it seems that all is well, but in fact this is not the way.
I saw an engineer who became such a manager. Wonderful guy, well, let it be, say, Poluekt Poluektovich. Good, cheerful, the soul of any company, completely open, great engineer. He came to lead one of our divisions and really began to do everything for them. There were more than 10 people, he really managed to do everything for them - he was on duty, monitored, repaired, set up something. He did everything except managerial work. The result is natural - the reputation of his group is below the baseboard, his personal reputation is also shaken.
The end of the story in this case is good - he found the strength in himself, returned to the engineers (it is possible with us, it is not punishable here) and now works, happy, one of the best and most talented engineers of the third line of our system administrators. He probably gets a salary more than what he received when he was a manager (by the way, we also have such a thing), and happy. And I am happy that he is in our team and does not take more leadership, because he has enriched his experience, he is an excellent engineer who understands the problems of business, but at the same time he does what he likes.
What to do? Here I am forced to retreat a little from my canons, because I tried to paint terracotta warriors, and I got a crowd of militant Gopnik -
Therefore, the picture will be stock, so this:
I was immediately given a big team, there were eight people in it. Eight people are not 100 taxi drivers, they are really hard to manage, they are high-level engineers who know a lot and know how. At that time, in terms of knowledge, I covered, in principle, 90% of their field, but I simply could not work for them. Yes, I had other shoals and problems, but, nevertheless, I did not try to work for them. And it was happiness. And what about those who are not so lucky as me?
Now there will be an extremely pixelated video, I hope that after all with a voice, but, if anything, there is a linux. Let's take a look at it for 40 seconds ( playback will start from the right part ):
This video gives a very simple recipe - just don’t do it, stop doing it if someone does it. Does anyone even try to do work for their subordinates? Yes, we are many ... Stop it! Stop doing it. You do someone else's work, you rob the Indians from Bangladesh.
How to do it? I understand that there is a problem - we do not trust these people, because they have not yet earned our trust, we worked with them as engineers, we saw how they worked, and here we are managers.
Option number 1, for example - do everything for them with their hands.
For example, I know which line needs to be corrected in the config. I say: “Vasya open the config, no, not with Notepad, please open it with Visual Studio, because it is xml'ny. Vasya, no, not this config. Here, thank you, well done. Correct the line. Not this line. Not this constant. Not 30, but 25 "...
Total two bonuses. First, he will gradually learn. Secondly, you will make sure over time that it does not handle or handle within acceptable limits, and stop controlling it so tightly. But to stop this behavior is absolutely necessary. Where you can’t teach a person to do his job, and you can do yours, something is wrong and something needs to be fixed. I do not say the magic words “dismissal”, “deprivation of a premium” or something else, but there is a problem that needs to be fixed. It must be found.
Well, the last option - to bring the number of its units to 15 people. Then you will have no option but to leave them alone. Well, or quit.
Then a natural question arises: what are we doing now as managers, since we have ceased to edit configs, write code, and I don’t know what else we are doing as engineers?
Well, sometimes we ship servers - it also happens, and we have to make sure that people get an owl. At least this. Ideally, better.
This is our main job, which is why we should not be distracted by going down and working for people. You have a lot of them, let them work, let them breathe out.
Ambush number 2 is the absolute ring, I call it that.
We got the power. For some, it is formal - this is the head of a group or department. For some, it is semi-formal - it is often said that a team leader is a person who leads people, but at the same time cannot manage them. It doesn't matter, we have the power. They gave it to us, it is confirmed by our authority (as former technicians), it is confirmed by our management, which came and said: “So, Fedya now leads you, Fedya gives you tasks, Fedya assesses you”. And the temptation to use this power is great, because we can really control within these eight working hours a lot of what our people do.
In fact, this may even be good, because when you just became a leader (again, we are only good techies, we are not good leaders yet, we don’t know what the whole group is, what obligations it has, patterns work, to us from the standpoint of an ordinary engineer, this is not visible), we loop back all the information, we begin to analyze it.
I will tell the story of my personal almost fakap. It really happened to me. Why I say that this is all personal experience. I will not cry, do not expect.
I became a team leader about six years ago. The first thing I did, as I just said, was to get all the information flows to myself, everything, not a single meeting without me, not a single meeting about a new project, even in writing, without me, all the correspondence of my people at work passed through me. I repeat - this is probably normal. I saw other engineers who did the same when they became managers. It helped me. After a while I entered the whole system, I understood what was going on, I began to understand.
What have I done yet? I started with all my people - by that time there were already 10 people - 10 people started giving out tasks for the day. To everyone: “Petya, you have five tasks for today — such and such, such and such.” I evaluated them according to the laboriousness with them, everything was fine, they managed, with difficulty, but managed to do it. I worked 12 hours a day. I came home at ten in the evening, we met with a colleague in Skype For Business (then it was Lync): “Hello, Vanya, hello, Sasha” ... And we started to recruit these ten people with these tasks. That is, we are wool all backlog, watched that more priority. The last thing I did - I made a tough visit from 10:00 to 6:30.
This is my personal, let's say, birth injury. I hope that none of you have it, but, nevertheless, I did it. I, unfortunately, had certain prerequisites for this. I'll tell you - it works. The performance of the guys, the group as a whole, grew by 30-40 percent. I measured it, I am the manager, I measure everything.
But there were problems. The people began to be a little dissatisfied with life, I was already preparing to lynch. Worse, the people began to think quietly, but wouldn't they leave? And we, by the way, generally few people quit - this is so, a moment of advertising.
In the end, I had to do something about it, because there was a real danger that the team would simply fall apart - people were tired, they were frustrated, they could not explore something new, because they were busy with my tasks for the day, they came by 10:00 and left at 18:30.
What to do? From what I have said, it is obvious that control should be removed.
We take control. And here, I believe that any normal person should immediately have a question - here we are, let's say, allow them to come when they want, they will not come at all. Or they will come so disjointedly that they will not communicate with each other, there will be no transmission of information within the unit. Or they will come so sooner or later that other people who need them will not be able to find them. And for all this I just get on the head. Letting them choose their tasks - they will not work then at all. It's true? Or, as an option, they will choose the simplest - something that could not be done. And anyway, I'll get it on the head. In general, it turns out this picture.
Who does not have any such doubts about their people, raise your hand. One, two ... Guys, I envy you. I envy you because I was not so mature.
All this has only the last part in your life: if your guys are nosyachat, you will get off your head. This is right, this is good, it should be so, but even this is not really interesting. A little later I will tell you how I came to the conclusion that I nevertheless decided to remove it all, but the main thing is that the control needs to be removed.
How much to shoot it is also an interesting question. Just to say: “Guys, do what you want” - it will not work either. Some kind of control is necessary and, what is most funny, everyone needs their own control. I will not delve into this jungle, because we can talk about this separately for several more hours or days. There is, for example, the theory of situational leadership of Paul Hersey and Ken Blanchard - if someone has not heard, google. If there is such a problem, read the interesting thing, and it seems to work. For me, at least, for sure.
How did I venture to let go of control? Well, I had a few activities, as I said. I started to understand little by little that because I looped the entire flow of information about what was happening, I learned how to live and process it with this flow of information, because I no longer had 5-12 letters a day, and 300 letters a day, and somehow I live normally with it.
Secondly, I passed the so-called 360 review. This is a tool that everyone hated. Who knows what it is? Almost everyone knows. Who hates? - this is the next question. Why? The answers are: “everything is wrong”, “it is very difficult to shake off information from everyone”, but this is still such a procedural question ... And why, by the way, is it difficult? No one wants to speak badly, no one wants to tell the truth, everyone will be following in the opposite direction.
There is an opinion that it is better to collect feedback in person, but these are two non-mutually exclusive tools. Live feedback is required. But some people just have a hard time doing it, because, again, guys, we are better than introverts. Best engineers who? Introverts. Go chat? I sat for ten years at the console. What did you tell me to do? Chat? With the director? A, hello, director, goodbye, director. All right, absolutely perfect, but just not always possible.
And once again - this tool is often used incorrectly.It is used to evaluate a person, to raise or lower his salary, to dismiss / punish / encourage. This tool is not for this. This is an employee development tool. The first time I was offered it by our HR's. I passed it and suddenly realized what it was. The second time I ordered it myself. I did not order it anymore, because the situation had changed a little, but if I again have many subordinates, I will order it again, because it is a tool that, if applied correctly and correctly explained to everyone, what it is as a feedback tool, which tells you what is your reputation among your subordinates, colleagues and the manager.
By the way, with the leader - yes, there anonymity works in general in full growth, I agree, but here there are no problems. For some reason, some managers are easier to put a tick in the test and write something there than to tell you in person. At 360 I received a completely constructive response from my manager, but sometimes it’s almost impossible to get a feedback from him live. Now it's better, but still bad.
And this tool showed that I am the last reptile. Just like that.At least among many of my counterparties in life there was an opinion that this is so. Actually, no, I'm a good guy - you see everything. But the reputation was so. She was not catastrophic, she was somewhere two or three in some places. This is bad, but not horror-horror. And it revealed to me that the guys do not treat me very well.
Secondly, of course, books. The first book was “Drive” by Daniel Pink - I was advised by the coach within the same 360. From there I got a thought that was completely obvious to me then (thanks to those people who had previously raised their hands that they absolutely trust their people) that if people trust and let them do their work, they will do it. Yes, there are all sorts of nuances there, but mostly they like to work very much, they like it when they have work, when it can be worked, when it is possible to come in the morning and dig at something on the server, write code, write an application, fix it attachment. They love it, it inspires them, and they will do it if they are not touched.
The second book — Lesha Pimenov recommended it to me — is Patrick Lensioni, “The Five Vices of the Team.” I don’t remember a damn thing out of her, except that trust is generally the main thing in a team. People need to be trusted. And after that, I was somehow let go, I relaxed, I began to have fun.
I told the people, “First, here is your backlog, here are your high-level tasks. I don't care what you do. Please, this one for this date should be ready. I will occasionally ask you, Vasya, are you doing this task or not? Because it is important to me, and I have to report to the management that we will not save it, but I will not understand how you do it, what you do there with it - your problems, you may not do anything, then last night everything I do not mind if this will work. If this does not work, we will talk with you, draw conclusions and there we will continue to understand. If this works, I'm generally happy. Not my headache, how do you do it. "
The second thing I said: “Guys, I understand your desire for a free schedule. Head. Because I am hurt by the army, it is difficult for me to understand this with my heart. Let's do this: I have such-such-such problems (I stated them earlier - the lack of communication in the group, the lack of communication with colleagues, and so on). Let's come up with a solution. ” We sat for a couple of hours, really came up with a solution. We said the following: we have a free schedule, there are eight hours in the workday, and this is not discussed (we signed up for this when we came to work), and from 12 to 16 o'clock we should all be here. Everything.
What happened?
At some period of time I became a morning person and I think: "Now I will come to work by eight in the morning and work quietly alone." Where there! I now come to work at eight in the morning, and four people are already there. I sometimes come to work at eight in the evening - I forgot something - they sit there. My work day has essentially expanded by four hours. That is, the division of working time increased by four hours. Instead of working worse, they began to work better. Bastards (smiley).
In addition, as I said, from the unit I directly supervised, well, one person quit, returned three months later. Now two of them have gone abroad, the dollar has become twice as expensive, it dumps us a little bit.
What helps us in all this? First, it helps to listen. I have already said: your working body is your mouth. Mouth closed - the workplace was removed. But the main thing after all is to listen. For me, this was a 360 review, when I heard the opinion of colleagues and the opinion of subordinates. For you, it may be something else.
It also helps, for example, to have such a Pavlik Morozov ... No, not a snitch and not an informant - these are bad words in our culture ... A person who will tell you completely uncomplicated what is happening in the unit. I have this happened. I had a wonderful custom - once a week to hold a planning meeting, that is, I collect all 14 people, plant them in one office, and they begin to report who did what in a week. The tool is really gorgeous in itself, because it allows you to be generally aware of everything. This is the very beginning of my management career, so to speak.
After some time, this one comes to me, now let it be Quartet Quartektovich, and he is such a straight guy, very good, honest, but a straight line is generally just like a stick, and says: "Your gliders are people, let's say, demotivating, upset people." I, of course, immediately dismissed him, what should I do here? Ha, only one person understood that this is a joke. Of course, I haven’t dismissed anyone yet and am not going to. I went to my people whom I have known for a long time. In the company I had worked for this time for many years, my subordinates had the people with whom I started working. I came to them, saying: “Guys, this way and that, there is such information. Is that so? ”-“ Yes, this is true. ” I sat down, scratched my turnip, as I do, and canceled the sewers. I found another way to do this, to be in control. But the person who tells you what is happening right at that moment,when this happens, not once a year, when you go through 360, but right now, I came, issued a new decree “with my royal grace I order to do this and that,” and immediately after this solo performance he comes and says: “Sasha, did nonsense, let's roll back. " This is generally an invaluable thing. Feedback is always good.
What else helps? As I said, stop doing everything for them. Let them do their work. It is their job to work, it is their job to edit configs, write code, correct errors, twist tails of databases. It's not your job anymore. Stop doing someone else's work, stop taking their bread. In the end, in a year, in two, in three, you will start to make this work worse than they are, which means you can handle more than they do, and it’s better not to bring this shame to this. Take away your rights, put the account in the safe and do not touch it.
Well, the last, I guess. This is what I said about control - we do not control their every step, instead of controlling every step, we control ourselves so that we pass on the information correctly (everyone remembers the owl or what happened). Our task is to convey information correctly, we control that they understood us correctly. And, by the way, every time they misunderstand us, who is to blame? The one who spoke is to blame. Talking head. And control the result to which we came. Then, in principle, these mistakes that have occurred to me (you, probably, also happen, some), they will be a little bit smaller, a little less critical, it will be easier for you to cope with the consequences.
Friends, if the topic of managing teams of developers is more relevant to you than ever, we are sure that you will find many interesting and useful things at our February conference TeamLeadConf 2018 . The program already has about 40 reports!
By the way, we posted videos of the ten most interesting performances last year on the conference website. Plus for all habrovchan we have a promo code HabrTeamLead2018, giving 11% discount.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/346808/
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