Support Main - at Work

In life, I have found my best spot is always being there to make the people around me better. In League of Legends, I always play support. In Overwatch, I always play a support healer. It is a consistent pattern that I believe carries over quite well to my current role as the executive in charge of our software and platform development team.

Some background: in video games, the support character is generally one who is not counted on to be the superstar; they are not going to make the critical kill or a spectacular defense of an objective. In fact, they are specifically there to shine only when there are other players around to make better. Alone, they are usually helpless. But when they do their job well, the team excels.

It's kind of funny - I've rarely been the key figure in my various team endeavors. Playing soccer, even though I was a forward, my high school coach used to stop scrimmages to not-so-kindly request that I never shoot the ball because I was the 10th or 11th best scorer on the field. But I still started nearly every game because I knew how to pass the ball and be in the right spot, even if I was almost never the one who put the ball into the net.

When we took the Strengthsfinder test at work, it is no surprise that one of my strengths was developer. In many of my roles in my career, I have found that the transition from individual contributor to mentor or teacher has made things more interesting and engaging for me. This past year as we have hired new grads and watched them flourish and surpass my technical capabilities in about six months (or less!), I have been reminded that there will always be new smart people and we will always get farther by spreading the knowledge, building the team, and growing together.

It is really a parallel with the support character in video games that I see with my day-to-day job though. In both, I am effective when I see the whole playing field, understand my team strengths and weaknesses, and be there to make sure that we are using that knowledge to our advantage. Prioritizing which teammate needs a boost, or my attention, or help with direction and doing it in a way that makes them want to listen not rage-quit. Never worrying about my own KDA but instead staying focused on the team goals and success. This aligns with the fact that most of the pro teams have a support be their captain.

Sometimes my job is to just be there for the team... by standing there

Image credit Blizzard Entertainment

Just like in video games, I see "teams" in work settings that don't have a support and remember playing against the opponents that decided to go all damage and never-mind a support. (Spoiler - my team usually won those games.) If your boss got their job because they were the "carry", that could be a great thing if they can teach their skills to the rest of the group. The other possibility is that they might get you through the one match/deadline/project, and even enable the team to be successful, but nobody will ever want to play/work with them again. That is probably not the best for long-term workplace stability.

Thinking of my job in these terms really helps me understand why I have this job and how to tell when I am doing it well. I can also spot the others who are born supports for their office, whether it is another manager, a project lead, executive assistant or admin. For all the great teams, there are people making the team tick.

It also reminds me that we will do best if I have the superstars around me to lift up instead of me doing it on my own. That is a lesson that I get reinforced every day when I leave work too and head home to my family, because as a dad that feels like my number one job as well.