How do I manage my engineering leader when I'm not an engineer?

I’m a CEO with a business background. How do I manage my engineering leader? He has a ton of experience so I decided to leave him alone to work his magic, but things are not going as well as I’d hoped. What do I do?

-CEO of a fast-growing startup

Dear CEO,

It does take some magic to create something out of nothing. But we can’t leave it to magic. The real answer here is alignment. You need to find a way to set realistic goals, manage expectations, and measure progress.

The fact that you are not an engineer doesn’t mean that you get a hall pass. You can’t just delegate engineering, or any function, and forget it. You are the CEO, and you need to understand how things are going. More specifically, you need to know what success looks like in every area as well as how people are progressing towards those goals.

Sure, we know tech people like to figure things out on own, but you still have to understand what they are doing. You also have to become literate in what you want so you can communicate it. You should become technically proficient. I’m not suggesting that you have to be an engineer, but you do have to be able to speak their language and your engineering leader should be able to speak yours.

It’s time for you and your engineering leader to get on the same page regarding what a great job looks like. So where do we go from here? Work together! Collaborate with the engineering leader to build a language you can both understand and engage in open communication so everyone knows what’s going on—in good times and bad.

How do you get a handle on what’s going on, especially when you are not a domain expert?

·??????Establish a regular cadence for discussions. ?

·??????Get great at asking questions.

·??????Build credibility with your team members. Work with people in a way that is affirming to them.

·??????Listen. Have your leader and the staff bring you up to speed on things.

·??????Set goals together and make sure they are inspiring, but realistic.

·??????Build a culture where people bring up problems early. When they come up, fix them fast.

·??????Employ methodology that can help you measure how you are doing. Consider something like the Capability Maturity Model (CMM), a methodology to help you develop and refine your process.

·??????Make sure that everything you are doing today will make tomorrow better. Progress isn’t about completing a specific project, it’s about advancing the future.

Every week I respond to a new question. Ask me your question in the comments section.