Social aspects of leadership, or how to still “kick” employees. 2 years later.

Article about “kicking”, “tightening the screws” and controlling tasks, different styles of communication and management, about the complexity of delegation, self-motivation of employees.

Question: I read your article “Social aspects of development” and was stunned! Up to this point, I believed that such ideas are only from the area of ​​utopias and are impossible to implement.

Now I realized that this is realizable. I myself have always professed a similar approach, to myself I call it "humane management . " I tried to use it when we started our first business several years ago with our partners, but we didn’t manage to implement it in practice. Under the pressure of our partners and inadequate assessment of what is happening, we nevertheless fell to the system of “kicking” employees, and then I decided that this approach is not yet implemented.
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I soon pulled away from the management of our company and did what I always wanted to do - creating games, assembled a development team, found investors and launched a project to create an online game in the strategy genre. However, I seem to be failing to fully implement the “business with a human face”.

Symptoms: loss of discipline, low development speed, loss of enthusiasm.
I would now call my leadership style “conniving” .

And so, as soon as my patience was over, and the next day I was going to "tighten the screws as tight as possible," I stumble upon your article. It was like a balm for a bad heart. I immediately with great relief refused the idea of ​​kicking , but I understand that I still have to do something , but I do n’t know where to start ? I would like your advice.

Answer: In 2 words it is,
- Bring elementary organization into the process. This is not "kicking" - this is your job.
- Different style. With cool - sincerely, with young people - friendly, with "prima donnami" - dry
- Use emotions to “ignite” people. Read Take emotions with you.
- Use 4 models of leadership based on the task and person. These are questions - Maybe? Will take?
- Get ready for the fact that you will have problems with the directory style and delegation.
- Strive to ensure that your team has only people with strong self-motivation, for whom your work is a hobby, a passion, a favorite thing. Help others understand themselves.
- Rally the team: collect in one room, hold general meetings, set common worthy goals.

Pro breeze and draft

One and the same action, depending on whether we consider it to have a positive or negative effect, is called different words.

We call the breeze that we like “breeze”, if we don't like the breeze, we say “draft”. “Kicking” is an annoying, redundant type of “Control” that we don’t like.

Here you can trap yourself. To consider any non-0 volume of control as “kicking” (attitude towards which is negative). This is not true. Being too carried away by the ideas of “human management”, you can bend over and slip into a total lack of organization, chaos.

In the article, I gave the "correct pressure models"


If the “control” (pressure) is less than a certain level, then the opposite effect occurs, the timing increases.

When control is needed

After 2 years, I would clarify this model. In our conditions, with our people, our companies, I almost did not see the problem of excessive control (which we call “kicking”). What I saw is a reverse problem, chaos, a very weak organization of work, the absence of elementary control.

With zero control, or close to it, the terms increase dramatically. And the less experienced a team is self-organized, the worse. The more complex you have to solve problems, the worse.

To be honest, given the problems of our companies, I would consider my article harmful. It is one-sided, and there can be a misinterpretation that any control is bad, that any control is “kicking.”

As a result, having a situation close to “chaos” in my project, instead of introducing organization and elementary control, the person who read the article makes the situation worse by weakening control.

So what kind of control is needed?

More specifically, what to do. Do not go too far. Checking tasks once a week is for very organized employees who have shown that they have developed self-management skill, and only if the tasks for you are not very important.

For most: talk in the morning what to do when a person leaves, tells / shows results. The less confident you are in a person, the more often you control. The more a person is removed from you, the more you control him. The more important the task, the more often you control it. Different approach to different people.

Remember that the lack of control, the lack of your participation in the work, lowers the importance of the task in the eyes of the employee (= you are not interested). Do not think that people want you to completely leave them without your attention.

One of the weeks I conducted an experiment: I did not ask for assessments of the tasks, I determined the tasks themselves and eliminated them for almost a week. When we had a retrospective on Monday, people said that they did not like it, it seemed to them that they were engaged in unimportant tasks, they were not interesting for me. They themselves asked me for my greater participation.

Different style

Recently, my friend and colleague Anton Antonov helped me articulate what should be the style of communication with different people.
Since cool - sincerely,
With youth - friendly,
With prima donnami - dry.

Recommend.

Management styles. Can? Will take?

I also recommend a situational model of leadership depending on 2 aspects of the work: “task” and “relationship”. The “task” aspect is defined by the question: “Can a person do the work?” Relationships - by the question: “Will a person take responsibility for this work?”

1. Can not, and will not take - Directive or mandative style.
2. Can not, but will take - Consultative. “It is necessary here to do this and to do it this way (the person does not know how). Call me if you need anything. ”
3. Maybe, but NOT takes - Participating. “It’s necessary here to do exactly how to do it - decide for yourself, participate when it’s necessary to share responsibility.”
4. Can and Will Take - Delegation. Front works outlined and retired.

The leadership model is determined by the situation, and the situation is determined by the task itself and the person who will perform it.

The authors of this system, Paul Hersey and Ken Blanchard, write that, on the basis of their experience, managers usually have problems with sector 1 (cannot and will not take the directive style) and sector 4 (maybe take it. Delegation). We are not sufficiently directive when necessary. We also have problems with delegation.

Sometimes be tough. Be able to delegate

The root of the problem with delegation is that it is difficult to answer the questions “Maybe?” And “Take?”. We are not sure. We prefer not to risk when we are not sure, we choose a safer way, we do not delegate. Always remember this example. You are a father and you teach daughter to drive. If you do not want to carry her before the age of 40, you need to take a risk and give it a try. You need to risk it! You need to delegate!

People who have a poorly developed emotional component (EQ) are said to have a problem with these 4 types of leadership. So again, "You will go to work, take emotions with you!"

When work is a favorite thing

The key point is the self-motivation of employees. A person should love what he does, get pleasure from it. You should not have other people. Help it realize your people and make them the right choice. Maybe someone will leave. But the right people will come. And it will be good for all. You will not be able to add enthusiasm to a person who does not like what he does. Yes, I know that most of the teams are different, but I want to see only those like me around me - people for whom our work is a hobby, a passion, a favorite thing.

Nothing adds as much enthusiasm as effective (organized) teamwork, as a leader whom the team respects and which constantly denotes the importance of goals and the materiality of the team’s achievements. Some ideas for a leader are right here.

In general, for the team it helps a lot: set a team of shared goals that are higher than each of the people, tell people what is happening, put them together, help them realize the importance of their work.

Different people different tasks

It is also important to understand that different people like different tasks. It’s usually hard to believe, but it’s worth seeing once and for all, and you begin to believe in it. There are people who enjoy the fact that they "put in order a mess of numbers." You need different people in the team, and they need to be given different jobs.

Sumea experience

I remember the report of the Technical Director of Sumea on the leadership of the porting team (mobile games) at GDC. Surprisingly, he did not talk much about technical things. He said that the key task, as he understood it, was to find people with the right motivation.

Usually, teams do not take any special people into porting; they take those who are in the company - those who came to make games. And here there is a big problem for the person who came to make games - he terribly does not like to do in his understanding of dull and boring porting.

Everything fell into place when they began to look for other people whose goal is not to make games, but to create universal systems, to optimize production as much as possible, to develop tools. About the same experience we have.

To be continued..