In Praise of Tech Teams
Duena Blomstrom
Podcaster | Speaker | Founder | Media Personality | Influencer | Author | Loud &Frank AuADHD Authentic Tech Leader | People Not Tech and “Zero Human & Tech Debt” Creator | “NeuroSpicy+” Social Activist and Entrepreneur
A crisis of EQ is what we spoke about this week in the other newsletter and we covered both what it looks like and the fact that there are very simple but effective things that can be done .?
For tech teams, this appears an even more urgent and less of a “done” ticket for many reasons.?
One valid reason is the fact that technologists have a much higher cognitive and emotional load than other professions to contend with by the mere nature of the speed of the industry. Constant learning and continuous improvement are not elective, they are part of their everyday reality and in their absence, they couldn’t be delivering anything.?
Additionally, skilled professionals are never plentiful in any organisation and everyone is constantly expected to bite more than they can chew, so being extremely overworked is the norm. That translates into massive pressure for most- the burnout in the tech industry will soon start to show glaringly at every corner.?
Layered over all that still, is the fact that we have employed these professionals to do one thing and now we are practically asking for another. Deep independent work in isolation was what we initially asked for and now, that makes up for a minute percentage of the work and instead the need is for human interaction. Stand-ups, retros, demos and 1-on-1s alone are taking a lot of time and can be challenging, but then there’s also being in dojos, pair-programming, joint learning and so many other collaborative occasions that no one ever was trained for and yet they make up the bulk of the professional ask these days.?
We won’t even dissect the cliche of the lack of ability to tackle human topics that developers are famed to supposedly have here, in particular as we at PeopleNotTech don’t actually agree and subscribe to that point of view at all.
We don’t believe tech people can not do the “fluffy bits”. We met more empathetic and willing to do the human work devs than we have accountants or teachers. While yes, there can be a lot of resistance when starting developers on the path to do the people work, that resistance stems chiefly from how they don’t trust the organisation when it claims it’s now time for this work, that they will limit WIP and measure them for it and ultimately they distrust the organisation even cares enough. Once they overcome that mistrust and they get stuck into it, they are quicker than almost all categories of professionals we’ve ever worked with to fully embrace the work once two conditions are in place: they see it’s valuable (by data and results) and they are emotionally invested enough in the company and each other to do the work regularly.?
We often wonder why that is and can only attribute it to their inbuilt need for continuous improvement and their intellectual tendency to acquiesce to the proof in the data when that is presented to them to show the benefits of the new behaviours they encouraged together.?
That is genuinely the key. Having goodwill, data and consistency. Everything else is SO easily learned.?
There is no special skill set required to do some of the basic things needed to get better at this human work task - there’s no required special wiring or personality type either.?
For the most part, the fundamental stepping stones to see monumental cultural change happen are truly basic - “learn about emotions” (can be done individually just as it can be done with the team and it is a minimal time investment) or “change from boss to leader” aka “understand and practice being a servant leader who is compassionate, adaptive and people-focused in lieu of the command and control one who was relying on fear and line of sight” (can easily be accomplished with enough organisational goodwill and investiture). And let’s be honest, these first steps are within everyone’s reach, they don’t need to start as the big organisational change programs they rightfully should eventually become.?
Of course, doing these, learning about emotions and even bringing new leadership in, is not the end-all-be-all answer to eradicating all HumanDebt but it’s a start. Once that’s done, the organisation truly needs to wake up and look around.?
Look at the people-and-principles-at-DNA-level organisations.?
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Look at the people-first ones that had the luxury of coming from a best-intentioned-and-agile tabula rasa place.?
Look at the winners in the Accelerate report.?
They already have those first steps down pat and what keeps them truly competitive beyond them, is in the way they have reframed everything to eliminate fear; focus on real outcomes (i.e. ecstatic customers); and let people bring their best selves to psychologically safe teams.?
It seems so simple and easy for them and yet so prohibitively complex for the incumbents.?
This is such a vast topic - how do technical teams really feel? Is it different from other categories of professionals and is it worse for them or have they developed higher resistance, are more flexible and more adaptive? Do they know how to put what they feel into words? Do they even feel entitled to feel anything? Ask for respect and care? Are they willing to learn those words? Do they have the space to discuss that with their peers in their teams? Do they feel safe to do so??
What about the sense of self-worth that helps to be brought to the team dynamic if it encompasses a quietly self-assured and own-brand-aware quality that emboldens the truth? Is there more of that because we’re speaking about IT professionals? Are they perhaps more equipped than other categories to adapt to the VUCA nature of it all from agility to ways of work and to this new poignant need to do the human work to stay highly performant? Can we learn from them and emulate their implicit growth mindset??
All of that is worth thinking of and debating so we can all change. Perhaps there is something we can learn from tech teams and their stupendous natural ability to overcome the resistance years of HumanDebt have created in them and apply themselves to all of the fluffy things be they about bettering team dynamics and increasing psychological safety; the way they have to keep working to increasing their EQ or the bigger autonomy, structure and clarity and new leadership piece.
Perhaps their years of high intellectual pursuit coupled with the evident need for collaboration and learning while being extremely overworked have offered them more inbuilt openness than we realise and perhaps, just maybe, they’ll be able to do the human work as a natural and solid consequence of their need for outcomes in the same way they would do agility even if they had no name for it once they are given the chance, tools and permission to do it. Let’s hope they do and let’s hope we all learn, increase EQ, feel and never fear in order to soar, and outperform. ?
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The 3 “commandments of Psychological Safety” to build high performing teams are:?Understand,?Measure?and?Improve
At?PeopleNotTech ?we make?software ?that measures and improves Psychological Safety in teams. If you care about it- talk to us?about a demo?at?[email protected] ??
To order the "People Before Tech: The Importance of Psychological Safety and Teamwork in the Digital Age" book go to this Amazon?link
Retired!
2 年Thank you for another fantastic newsletter Duena. There's lots to ponder in this. Servant Leadership is a topic that's close to my heart, and I see people doing extraordinary things every day to help themselves and their teams. I think many, even most, managers get it, but often there is a layer in large organizations that doesn't believe it's also their job to serve their people as much as it is to drive for success and achieve corporate goals. I hope this doesn't come off as organizationally classist; certainly senior management has its own challenges too. I'd love to read your thoughts on that sometime.