Building Better Developers

Welcome to Building Better Developers, the Developer Nord podcast, where we work on getting better step by step, professionally and personally. Let's get started. Well, hello and welcome back. We're continuing our season where we are looking at mistakes, missteps, errors, and ways to improve from them ways that they maybe were stepping stones for better things in the future and other points of view that are not, we'll say, negative with regard to these things. There is a definitely a series of mistakes and failures and learning from those that you can trace to almost every big quote overnight success. They had a lot of attempts before they got around to that. Sometimes it's not as easy to see it, but you have to step back a little bit and say, oh, we learned A, B, and C from this and that helped us later on. This episode, this has got a, it's a combo. There are a couple of mistakes that went here on here. One was the one I'm going to focus on for the most part is my mistake, but also there I worked with that had a similar mistake and it's something we will probably view later and then one of them, because I've made the same mistake once or twice as well. Now, this is a professional one and this was early on. This is actually my first official management job and we had a team that had disappeared. Basically we had about a dozen people in this department. It went down to two of us in about a three month period. There was a change in management. The people that came in were not the same as the ones that were there before. It was a very different environment and a lot of people said, oh, I'm done. I'm not going to mess with it. We were down to two people and the two of us, well, it was the other lady that was there, the lady that was there was a network kind of person, did networking and hardware. I was a software person and we went to our new quote manager, our new boss and said, hey, we are still here. That's a plus, but we are not necessarily happy. We see that there's a lot of work to be done. This team needs to be rebuilt and we think we can do it. Each of us individually did this and said, go ahead, make us a manager over these teams we're going to build and we will rebuild it. Our manager said, yep. Our boss said, yeah, let's go ahead and do that. So we did. We started into it and he was not a fun person to work for or with, but we started bringing people in. We built up a team and we had some, along the way, some contractors that were brought in, some consultants to help staff up. In particular on my side, I had a couple that worked for me at the time. They were from some employees, but they're also some contractors. One of them I had worked with previously and had gotten to know, was very comfortable working with him. He's very comfortable working with me, so it was great. The problem is that he wasn't comfortable with my boss nor was really anybody, truth be told. I ended up a lot of times running interference or smoothing things over after my boss had ruffled a lot of feathers. This was internally and even across other departments. I don't remember what prompted this specific incident, but I'll paint you the picture the best I can because this was a few years ago to say the least. We're sitting in my office and working through something. We being me and this consultant. We were troubleshooting it, heads down, working through some stuff. My boss comes in and he started talking whatever it was he was going over, talking through his little issues or big issues. It really didn't matter what size they were, but he was talking through some stuff. It really was more or less was talking to me, came in to talk to me and was sort of ignoring the consultant. The consultant hearing this sort of made a couple of, made some feedback comments, which now had him in the conversation. This is where my mistake was, is that I was in a conversation with my boss and allowed it to get redirected so that it was now a group discussion. Because really this is one of those things where the consultant didn't need to be a part of it. And actually because I know, knew the personalities and the tension that was going on, the smartest thing would be for him to not be a part of that conversation. That's just one of those things that all it does is at best complicates things and at worst ends up as this one did. Well in coming part of that conversation, this consultant thought that it was, that I was the one essentially that signed his checks and that I was the one that he needed to, and it was sort of a protection kind of thing, I guess, is that he felt I think a little bit of need to help me out and to, I don't know, be a little bit of a buffer or something like that. Because it wasn't an accusatory or super negative conversation, but it was just something where there was some stress or some pressure. And so it was a little bit him stepping up to have my back to support me. The problem is that if you're a manager, it is not your employee's position or they really should not be backing you up or have your back. It's vice versa. As a manager, your job is to clear the way for the people that work for you to get their jobs done and to do the best that you can to help them do the best that they can. If they're having to, quote, cover for you or back you up on something, then you probably don't have quite the right relationship. And this is a mistake I made as a manager is that I was not of that mindset at that point. To me, it was still a, we'll say it's a team effort. And so I was the, think of it as more like, I don't know, they call a player coach or something like that. I was still part of the team. I just happened to be the person that scheduled meetings and was sort of the last voice on decisions if that was required. Some things like that. It was more like a lead role, I think, that I was viewing myself as rather than a manager. And this thing devolved fairly quickly because of the tensions. And it ended up, and I don't remember what prompted it. I do remember the statement was made by the consultant to my boss that was along the lines of, well, I don't work for you, implying that he worked for me instead. Well, not entirely true because since I worked for my boss, that means anybody that worked for me also worked for my boss. My boss understood that and said, you're right. And actually he didn't even say he worked for me. I'm sorry, I want to correct that. It's he actually, he worked for his, the consultant worked for his boss at the consulting company. And that was true. So it's not like he could get fired completely without his boss at the consulting company saying so. However, my boss quickly said, you're right. You worked for this other guy and you can go ahead and deal with him and work with him because you're done here. You're not working here anymore. It didn't fire him, but definitely kicked him off the project. And you can see where that would be a mistake by the consultant. He got a little too emotional, things got out of hand. He put his foot in his mouth. Like I said, that's not the first time that we will discuss such mistakes. But this one I wanted to focus on two mistakes that I made. That one was a manager and that's that first one is that I allowed this, allowed one of my team that worked for me that was, I should be protecting them. I allowed them to step into, we'll call it harm's way and step into a situation that they didn't really need to be in. And it's not that he couldn't contribute valuable information to the conversation. It was that his ability, his skill set for working with that, with my boss was not complete. He didn't have that relationship. It's one of those things where you can, you can maybe you've got a friend and they're their sibling, their brother or sister can point out some mistakes that they make because they're family. But you can't because even if you know them, you just don't have that same relationship. The same thing happens as business. There are, even though I'm not a huge fan of roles and labels and things like that, there still are assumed relationships that come from those roles and positions and titles. And this would be one of them because it really is a situation where in that case, there's unless requested, there's really no need for that consultant to be talking to my boss. And so my first mistake was allowing that, allowing him to be brought into that conversation or him to step into that conversation as opposed to essentially saying, hey, hey, come out, we're going to have this conversation. You go ahead and get back on the work you're doing and just extracting him from being there almost from the start. It should have been something that when my boss came in and I realized he wanted to talk to me, I should have just told the consultant, hey, take five or whatever. We've got this thing to discuss. You go, you can go work on some other stuff because it really was not productive for him to be sitting there anyways. I mean, he was being distracted by our conversation as opposed to whatever other work he was he had on his list. So now I'm actually, instead of clearing the way for him, I'm actually being an obstruction in that situation. The second mistake was I saw the conversation, this conversation change from me and my boss to much more my boss and this consultant. And this is where my second mistake was, is that I really should have stepped in then seeing that conversation and also seeing the tension grow. And particularly because I was the one that was probably the one that was least emotionally involved or invested in that conversation. My mistake was not stepping in and sort of saving both of them from an emotional situation. It may seem patronizing or something like that to say that two people are having this emotional discussion and you're stepping in to try to split them up and remove the emotion. But emotional stuff is a fact of life that happens. Sometimes we're having a bad day or a good day or there's other stuff going on, whatever it is, it doesn't matter. It's that sometimes we are not at our best. And it has a particularly as a manager for the guy that worked for me, knowing that he was not at his best, I should have stepped in and done that. I was in a position because I was between those two people in a sense, in a organizational sense. I had an opportunity. I could have, there were many ways that I could have stepped in and changed the direction of that conversation and focused it back on me versus the guy who works for me or worked for me. And so as a manager and particularly as a young manager, this was a valuable lesson to learn. I've told you about how I see managers now and how you have to run interference, but also clear obstructions and clear the way for the people that you manage to do their jobs. That's really first and foremost. And at least that's my opinion. And you can see a lot of books on management are along those lines. Sometimes it's even referred to as servant leadership, but that's a little bit different from this approach where it basically says, look, you, people who work for me have this particular set of skills and you have the ability to get things done. My job is to help you get those things done. That's going to, and if you want to be successful as a manager, that is a great approach to take. Now, moving forward from this, this particular incident and believe me, it was something that was discussed for weeks and maybe even months, maybe even years afterwards. Because I still had a, I was still friend with this consultant that got tossed out and actually ended up working with him again. Many years later, we were at the same place actually working for the guy that that consultant worked for at the time, that consulting company account manager basically that he worked for. We both ended up working for him later. And we discussed over the years that situation and we're able to laugh at it to some extent because it was, it was something where he was the one person that was, it was something where he just, because someone really wanted to leave. He was, he was tired of, of the abuse and all the other stuff there. So it really didn't hurt his feelings to get kicked out other than it was, he got kicked out. So it was a wrong way to look at things. It was the wrong way to end it. But I continued on and have had numerous managerial type roles, numerous consulting roles. In that situation that those couple of mistakes that were made there have been, were great ones to learn early on. They have been excellent, I'll say reminders at times at how I need to view professional relationships and professional discussions. And particularly when you have some sort of personal connection as well. There is definitely in the, in the corporate world, a need to distinguish between professional and personal relationships. And I don't mean like a romantic relationships or anything like that. And not even when maybe you work for your best friend or they work for you or something along those lines, there's just relationships that come from working together and going through, you know, shared experiences and things like that, that you have professionally. And when you end up in situations that your professional relationship is different, whether you're peers or coworkers or one works for another, however that works out, there are, we'll say constraints and properties to those relationships that you need to keep in mind and be able to differentiate the professional and the personal. And the people that I've seen that are very successful in the consulting world are actually able to build and maintain these, both of these at the same time. These are consultants that can walk into a business meeting of any kind and be very personable and know things about the people there and talk to them about personal things. But also once the meeting officially starts, we'll say, they can switch gears and be very businesslike, very professional about it and say, this is what this is, this is how this, you know, this is what I see, this is what I'm supposed to do, this is what you, your job is and where you're at, whatever it is. There is a, there's a difference between those because I can like you a whole lot and get along with you great. And yet professionally have a critique of you that says, you know, you're not doing this right or you're not doing that right or vice versa. I can see you professionally as a star worker, as a standout being professionally awesome, but maybe personally there's some, you know, we have some gripes or something like that. And there it's, you know, often referred to maybe as compartmentalizing, but, and that's not, you don't have to necessarily have that skill. If you do, it's a bonus. If you don't, you do have to, at the very least remember what is the context of this conversation? Can I be, or should I be, we'll say a friend, or should I be a coworker or a boss or an employee? And going through that, that little series of a couple of mistakes I made and seeing what happened and really it did get out of hand fairly quickly. Seeing all that has been a great help moving forward in my career and being able to talk to people at various levels and have various relationships that are all dealt with properly in business. Not perfect. You know, there have been times that the lines have been crossed and stuff like that. That's like, ah, that probably wasn't a good idea or definitely wasn't a good idea, but we'll save those for a later time. I think for now we've, we've beat this one up enough and looked at a couple of key things that can come out of it. And hopefully you don't end up having to go through a similar, similar experience and have some of the same fallout. And the consequences are the challenge for something like this. Hopefully you can avoid those. That being said, I think it's time to stop avoiding the day and get out there. So go out there and have yourself a great day, a great week, and we will talk to you. Thank you for listening to Building Better Developers, the Develop-a-Nor podcast. You can subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Amazon, anywhere that you can find podcasts. We are there. And remember just a little bit of effort every day ends up adding into great momentum and great success. One more thing before you go, Develop-a-Nor podcast and site are a labor of love. We enjoy whatever we do trying to help developers become better. But if you've gotten some value out of this and you'd like to help us be great, if you go out to developernor.com slash donate and donate whatever feels good for you, if you get a lot of value, a lot. If you don't get a lot of value, even a little would be awesome. In any case, we will thank you and maybe I'll make you feel just a little bit warmer as well. Now you can go back and have yourself a great day.