Don't boil the ocean - part 2

In the previous edition of our newsletter, we delved deeply into sources of frustration, the dynamics of frustration in various situations and offered general tips to handle frustration. In this edition below, we will focus on specific strategies tailored to address each unique situation:?

Decouple response from analysis of the situation

During a live site, our incident manager on the bridge repeatedly inquired about the responsible person for the incident. However, the team faced a dilemma as the individual responsible happened to be a junior developer participating in the same call. Sensing his discomfort and reluctance to respond, I swiftly intervened to redirect the focus of the discussion towards solving the issue rather than assigning blame. Additionally, I took initiative to address the incident manager privately reiterating the importance of collaborative problem solving. Within the next 30 mins, we mitigated the issue and wrapped up the bridge. The following day, junior developer came up with a long term fix himself, demonstrating a deep understanding of the problem and a willingness to take ownership. He even took the time to email me, expressing gratitude for the support provided indicating a positive shift in his perspective and level of responsibility.

Previously, my immediate reaction was to dive into analyzing the problem at hand. However, decoupling the root causes from the problem can build a broader work relationship with all your team members. By prioritizing bias for action to solve the situation over analysis has helped with getting more time in building a well-thought through response than a reactionary response.?

This strategy is particularly useful during live site situations causing a serious impact to our customers (or/and) discussing about a deployment goof up in a stand up meeting.?

Practice active listening and asking right questions

Two team members found themselves at odds regarding the approach to tackle the technical design challenges on the team. Despite attempting to facilitate resolution through individual discussions, their differing perspectives persisted, leaving other team members feeling the strain of perceived disconnection and lack of managerial intervention (mine). Recognizing the urgency to address the issue, I convened a meeting with both individuals, providing them with a platform to express their concerns fully. Despite strong egos and technically valid arguments on both sides, I guided the conversation by posing high level perspective questions, encouraging them to consider broader implications of their positions. Through active listening and strategic questioning, the clarity began to emerge, leading to swift resolution. The conflict was resolved with 30 minutes of listening and 2 minutes of questioning. By focusing on understanding the underlying issues and facilitating constructive dialogue, we were able to navigate through the conflict and realign the team towards a unified direction.?

Practicing active listening, acknowledging the points in the conversation with due importance to all the points is essential to win the trust from the team. Being inclusive and hearing every point of view in the meeting, will help discover unexplored territories as well as build confidence in the team. This strategy comes in handy when you’ve to resolve conflict between two employees (or/and) possibly set a tone for a direction in the team (or/and) coach employees on feedback.?

Recognize, build support, positive self-talk and reinforcement to others

One member on my team struggled with confidence in articulating their ideas effectively, despite possessing valuable insights. Even when they did not muster the courage to speak, they often struggled to capture the attention of their audience. It was disheartening to witness such potential go unrecognized, especially when lacking support from peers. In response, I made a conscious effort during meetings to acknowledge and amplify this team member’s contributions, ensuring their voice was heard and valued by others. Over time, with encouragement and support, the employee developed newfound skills and confidence. Eventually, they began to confidently share their ideas, earning the trust and respect of their colleagues.

Reinforcing a positive self-talk to assure everything is going well without showing any discontentment during the process is critical to build support. Every situation is not black and white with clear sides. Identifying the positive sides and recognizing those is critical for the winning trust. This strategy is very helpful when you're pulled into a heated up conversation with little (or) no context where people are blaming each other for a problem.?

Building your own perspective without voicing to the team

During my time as a manager for a critical team, we had one key project delay in my team that was initially attributed to our team’s shortcomings. This perception was reinforced by several leaders within the organization. However, after diving deep, it became apparent that our team was hindered by a lack of crucial information necessary to progress even after multiple reminders to other parties - thus delaying dates. I quickly unblocked this information and changed the perception by providing dates to the stakeholders. For the situation above, during my initial days of manager role, I would convey this to my team. But, with more experience, I preferred to understand a little more and stay more patient to build my perspective.?

As a manager, you are given many perspectives with each one having their own personal agenda sandwiched with work place politics. Building a perspective of your own will play a critical role. Staying a little more curious, a little more patient to get all the details will play a crucial role in setting the tone in the team. The team looks up to you for setting the right direction on the team – jumping the gun will be challenging to course later. More importantly, it’s also important to communicate the view point to the team member at the right time. This strategy is beneficial when you’ve multiple teams involved in a live site incident and unclear on how the issue happened (or) you’ve hearsay feedback for an employee/project without clear sources.?

Bring the team along

We recruited a couple of principal engineers on the team to bolster our expertise. The team had some preexisting critical issues with solutions discussed and closed. However, a situation arose where a junior engineer on the team submitted code review only to face disagreement from one of our recently recruited principal developers. The principal developer proposed a different approach that would essentially discard the junior engineer’s work and the decisions we made on the path forward. Soon this came to my attention, the team tried explaining the problem and options explored, but that did not convince him. Looking at that, I walked him through the history of all the challenges we faced and the journey we went through with the stack. The contextual evolutionary insight changed his perspective leading him to offer support to the code review. Looking back, if he had been part of all the challenges we went through as a team, he would have come to the same conclusion but the part that was missing was the journey we had undertaken as a team.?

Bring the team along for as many situations as possible so you don’t have to be the only judge for the situation. Use others perspectives as signals to your decision as well as ask senior people to also influence other employees on the team in the right direction. Going through a journey together, gives a richer story than joining the journey at a point and learning about it. This strategy is immensely beneficial while you have a team with a lack of clear vision.?

Give space for others to step in and contribute

During a meeting, the team was discussing at length regarding the resolution of design challenges on our team. However, I, as a manager already knew the technical solution to the problem being discussed in the meeting. I chose to maintain silence in the meeting and allow the team the opportunity to discover it by themselves (of course with a time limit in place). This deliberate approach fosters an environment conducive to employee learning and the enhancement of technical expertise, more importantly the opportunity to step in. After a thorough hour-long deliberation, the team arrived at the solution (the same as my idea)-? I listened and gave some minor course corrections to help them navigate it further.?

There are situations when you as a manager need to step back, give space for others to contribute. There may be conflicts which might lead to little frustration but this is healthy and would enforce a sense of belongingness, inclusion along with some great ideas which were unexplored earlier. This approach is useful when the employee is unable to handle the ambiguity of the problem and is seeking help from other team members.?

Appreciate and recognize wins

In my team, motivating members to engage in knowledge transfer proved to be a daunting task, particularly as senior members expressed concerns over limited bandwidth. After several pushes, the team agreed to the boot camp. After a month, the team successfully finished boot camp for all knowledge on the team. The boot camp consisted of 20+ recordings of vision, technical depth, diagram docs etc. Although this achievement may not translate to product success, I felt it was crucial to acknowledge the team for their success and sent out a congratulatory email and gave a special mention in our next team’s all-hands. Several team members came together and cherished the appreciation. Within a few weeks, my senior developers started appreciating the initiative as junior developers could solve live site issues by themselves without having to rely on SMEs. This change in behavior is hard to realize without appreciation.?

Recognizing wins and appreciating with a cake cutting, lunch (or)? small morale gift (or) event will help increase the morale significantly. Personal congratulatory messages from senior leaders will also play a crucial role in shaping the motivation of an employee. Indirectly helping to build more trust and showcase appreciation in the team. As leaders, you want your employees to know how grateful you’re for their contributions. There is no successful manager without hard working team members standing behind him.

Ultimately, these strategies cultivate self-awareness among employees, encouraging them to reflect on their actions independently. However, in cases where self-awareness is not triggered naturally, it's essential to identify the underlying sentiment and choose the appropriate timing for communication. We'll explore this further in the next section.