I'm a tech lead, most of the team I work with have less than a year of experience. The business is quite demanding, my direct manager supervisor doesn't support me very well, and I am very much not interested in changing jobs at the moment. What I would like is tips from anyone who has been here, what works what doesn't.
The specific scenario I am in is this: I feel like everyone around me gets scared they'll make a mistake, and freezes up, and they start focusing on looking good instead of working hard. Every time I show leadership, and confidence get the team moving, some random business person, client or manager steps in, and effectively kicks us right back into the frozen state of affairs. It's driving me nuts. I've resorted to just getting my own work done, and become fairly passive aggressive. Has anyone else run into this?
I appreciate you taking the time to assist me here.
You don't really explain what the management intervention is doing to cause people to freeze; nor what it is you do to get them moving. So I'm guessing a lot. But...
Use the 'five whys' exercise. Start with "why are they afraid of making a mistake" and work down from there to the root cause(s) of the behaviour. You could also do this on the business side, starting with "why are they intervening?"
If you are out of step with your leadership, you'll never break that cycle. You may need to talk to them about what you have been trying to do and why; and ask them why they are intervening the way they do. Don't be combative about it, just try to understand what's motivating them. If you don't want to talk to them directly, maybe there's someone in the organisation that you do feel comfortable talking to about this - ideally someone with a bit more visibility into management, who you could approach for advice.
Even if you don't feel comfortable broaching this directly... a key question to ask yourself about everyone involved: what are they being measured on? People will always focus on whatever determines their ongoing employment and remuneration.
The answers here could be a huge variety of things.
It is probably something else entirely, these are just generic "IT team problems".
I would go for the simple idea:
Grassroot movements have to start bottom up. Leadership is 'nice', usually no one says thank you, everyone complains, you have meetings, discussions, managment complains ... welcome to leadership everything you do is wrong. Like being a parent... I heard.
You have to do it because you want it, not because an external source tells you to. And by staying consistent and motivated slowly there will be change. It will take time and a lot of work.
as Lazar Pavlovic pointed out the main thing is that you get your team on track and that you guys agree on something. only if you agree and talk about it there can be change. Also it's very important to do things outside of work even better cross department, but I don't know how big your company is and how the hierarchy works.
That's all I can contribute. If you want to lead you need to lead and this means also not giving up but constantly moving forward and with that you can inspire people.
Although it's very natural to get frustrated.
Btw the reward is usually 2-3 years later when someone for example skipps company and tells you what he learned to appreciate about you after seing the contrast of missing it.
Joseph S Stevens Here are my thoughts about this topic:
Learning by doing - Building a team culture where people do mistakes is a really hard task to do, but it demands a consistent approach. Encourage them to fail. If everything worked right, we'd all be out of a job, wouldn't we?
Team effort - Teamwork makes the dream work. By working closely enough, everyone will be able to be supportive once the failure occurs. On my first task, I failed miserably. Lucky enough, I had people who started laughing and encouraged me to fail even more.
Knockbacks - Someone will always come and knock us on the ground. And yes... it is demotivating. But you have a chance to mitigate this pressure. This will 100% happen at some point, and you know it yourself. Get your team prepared in advance and it wouldn't be as big of a problem.
Bonding as a team - Look it on a bright side... If you made a mistake, you just found out one way that doesn't work. Grab a beer🍺 and celebrate! If it worked perfectly, well, team dinner time!
Stress release - Find something that will completely shift your thoughts from work. For me, music, football, basketball, and longer walks are functioning very well (not to mention a couple of beers🍺🍻).
And remember one thing: just because you're lead doesn't mean that everything needs to come from you. Be an example that you want your teammates to be.
Hope you find this useful!
Anton Rich
Elm land executive
Tell the managers and to any other person who interferes these exact words:
Every time I show leadership, and confidence get the team moving, some random business person, client or manager steps in, and effectively kicks us right back into the frozen state of affairs. It's driving me nuts.