Pawel Brodzinski on Leadership in Technology

Whatever it takes to lead a team, build a product, and run a business

Tag: team management

  • Why Money Doesn’t Motivate

    I touched money and motivation subject recently. Since the post generated quite a discussion it seems the subject is important for many. It also seems many people disagree with the opinion that money doesn’t really motivate which is nice since it gives me excuse to beat the dead horse again.

    In short my points were:

    • Money is more a hygiene factor than a motivator.
    • When you pay less than some healthy level expected by people they start looking for a job.
    • As long as you match people’s comfort level they get, or don’t get, motivated by non-monetary factors.

    I received a number of counterarguments in comments, which I’ll try to address here. I’m aware I overstate bit here and there but that (hopefully) doesn’t change validity of arguments.

    Money does motivate people (and go sell your crap somewhere else)

    A nice thing about Dan Pink’s TED Talk is that he’s making a case. He brings arguments – studies made all over the world – to prove the point: money doesn’t seem to make people work better. Now, I haven’t looked very hard to find research studies which prove the opposite, but maybe you can redirect me to them. For now I consider it is 1:0 for Dan’s team.

    I saw teams whose productivity increased significantly just after bonus money was promised. The problem is usually they were just tricking the system. They knew they could do the job in given time but it was better to slack at the beginning waiting for the magic wand of extra money to be used. Then everybody got at full speed to save the project. The only thing which surprises me is where the hell the management was and why nobody did anything about that sick situation?

    I know lots of examples of people working their asses off because project required their extra effort. Usually they got a big bag of money at the end and everyone was happy. Does it mean money motivated them? Well, I think we’re messing the cause with the effect here. They didn’t start discussing with their managers how much they were going to get. They just gave more, because they thought it was a right thing to do (I know I totally oversimplify here, but we won’t discuss everyone’s individual drivers here, will we?) Then the effect usually was they got some extra money, which was of course completely fair.

    And for the end, if money motivates people my question is: why they don’t get more and more motivated as they get more and more money? I gave quite a lot raises and huge piles of extra money in my career and my observation is it makes people happy. Happy, not motivated. They’re engaged as they were. They give a lot, as they did. But somehow they don’t seem to be motivated better.

    Of course sometimes they consider the money they got as an insult and their motivation fall flat in its face but we’re talking about motivating, not de-motivating, here.

    Companies (and villains running them) want to have engaged people but only to exploit them (that’s what villains do after all)

    That’s true for some companies and some villains running them. But if that is your only experience with your employers please accept my humble condolences. There are toxic companies out there. There are normal companies with toxic managers as well which, from employee’s perspective, is no different. The world however isn’t inhabited with villains only. There are superheroes as well. If you’re sick of work among bad guys maybe it’s time to join Rebel Alliance, La Resistance or other good guys of your choice.

    I know it’s easy to generalize basing on your own situation and experience (that’s what I do on the blog virtually all the time), but be sure to check what’s happening out there in other organizations, especially when your experience is limited to one or a couple of teams/companies.

    Because of rapid development of IT industry we face deficit of good, experienced leaders and managers. It’s even truer in countries where the industry is even younger, like in Poland where I live. But still, that’s not a reason to dismiss the existence of healthy companies or decent managers.

    People should earn amount they expect or they get frustrated (which is bad since frustration is such a nasty word)

    Well, yes. Sort of. We come back to the discussion over a healthy level of salary. If I get paid above some expected minimum, which is a very individual thing, I could always use a raise but I don’t get frustrated about money. However if you asked me how much I wanted to earn my answer would be likely something more than I get. That’s how humans work – we always want more than we have.

    And now that you asked me, yes, I do have a pitch to ground why I should earn more. But don’t be stressed, I’m not going anywhere only because my pitch doesn’t convince you. See? I’m not frustrated.

    However I do agree that once we don’t get the amount we expect there’s always a risk that the other company would offer us more and then we’d be really incentivized to make a move. But I guess that’s the risk most of companies tend to accept. After all last time I checked running a business was about earning money and not spending everything just to pay people more.

    Best moment of motivation is when you see the money on your bank account (let’s switch to weekly wages, shall we?)

    OK, I admit, I don’t get this. At all. You mean once you see a bunch of money on your account you’ll be coding like crazy till the night? Would it be a better motivation to earn weekly wages than monthly salaries only because they’re um… more frequent?

    It’s difficult for me to address this argument but I guess we define motivation differently. As industrial bloodsucker I consider motivation as something good not because the word sounds nice but because motivated people tend to produce better results when they work. Call it a better productivity, bigger involvement or whatever.

    I understand people are happy when they see salary on their account but if we can build no connection with their work quality whatsoever let’s not call it motivation, OK? Of course feel free to correct me if I’m missing something here.

    Over time people get more experienced so they should get raises (like levels in RPG games)

    Um… no. Next please!

    Well, actually that’s the tricky one. Once we get more experienced and more knowledgeable it’s a natural thing we tend to want more, thus expected raises. The problem is employment isn’t an RPG game and our contracts aren’t a leveling system.

    Contract and salary represent a result of a kind of compromise. It’s about how much specific employee is worth for specific employer. It means that the same employee would be judged, and paid, differently depending on the hiring company. And yes, it does mean your salary depends on company’s clients, hiring strategy, specific managers you’ve been talking with, shape of the industry, organization’s career paths and a hundred of other factors which are completely independent on you.

    Sometimes getting more experience and/or knowledge doesn’t make you more valuable for the company. So maybe it’s time to learn what makes one a more valuable person for the specific organization instead of waiting for a reward for seniority?

    There are many jobs which can’t be loved which means people do them for money (after all love and money are the only motivators in the world)

    True. There are many jobs which can’t be loved, especially in the corporate world. But that doesn’t mean people do them for money and for money only. If they hated virtually everything about their jobs they would be looking for new ones like crazy. Somehow vast majority of them do not. I assume it’s not that bad then.

    We don’t get frustrated with our jobs in a second or after a single issue. Frustration grows over months, possibly years. Then yes, it is about a single problem or a single situation but it’s just the last straw.

    Our happiness with our jobs is a complex thing. I could count multiple things I’m happy with and multiple of those I’m definitely not happy with. However the overall mark is pretty good so I’m not going anywhere and probably one new ugly thing isn’t changing this attitude.

    I think it works pretty much the same with jobs which are considered as, well, not-so-nice. Corporate world is the one where conditions are usually less humane but then majority of corporations don’t deal with the risk of being extinct in a few months – something which is pretty common among startups. It’s of course only one of examples but the theme is similar in many cases. After all, when the company offers only jobs which are totally hated they’re going out of business soon as CEO won’t deliver all the projects single-handedly.

    Now, I’ve shared my arguments a little less briefly but I’m sure I haven’t convinced everyone (that wasn’t the goal by the way). Let’s get the heated discussion started.

  • Money and Motivation

    A few people have left. Or I should say a few good people have left. Yes, the company has tried to stop them but well, when people decide to go it’s usually way too late.

    The next station is realizing that people are gone. Well, they will still come to the office for a couple of weeks but they are gone. Gone. If you wanted to change their minds you should have worked with them a few months earlier.

    And then there comes the idea that you should at least take care about those who are still here. When people leave, their colleagues start thinking about leaving too. That’s how it works.

    So we come to the point where most of managers use tools they have to keep retention on reasonable level. Quite often they use the only tool they think they have, which is money. “That should keep them motivated for some time. And they won’t leave either.”

    Yes, except it isn’t true.

    As I think more about money and motivation I’m closer and closer to Dan Pink’s approach: pay enough to get the money off the table and then focus on things which really motivate people. By the way if you haven’t seen Dan Pink’s TED talk about the subject you really should do it now.

    OK, so what kind of effects you should see when you throw more money at people? For some of them it would take the money problem off the table. Will it keep them in the company in the long run? I don’t know. You are either able to build creative, motivating work environment or you aren’t and raise won’t change anything in the long run.

    For others money wasn’t the issue in the first place. They will happily accept raise, that’s for sure, but is it going to change their approach? Not so much.

    Now you can point a number of examples when someone you know has changed jobs purely for money. I think they fall into the first group. The only difference is in their cases money was a major problem and not a minor one. Bigger salary doesn’t make them motivated – it just gets the problem off the table. It isn’t guarantee that they won’t eventually leave. If your organization suck they will. You can buy a few months but the outcome is going to be the same – they will be gone soon.

    In short: if you have a big bag of money you can make people stop complaining about their salaries, but you won’t make highly motivated top performers out of them.

    I know people who are leaving with no change in remuneration whatsoever. Heck, if you look for people who changed job and got lower salary in the new place I’m one of examples. And yes, I’d do it again. I’ve never left any organization (or project) for money, even though sometimes it was an issue.

    If all you have is a hammer everything looks like a nail. If the only tool you have is money, every problem seems to be solvable with cash.

    But then you see teams which don’t get any bonus money whatsoever and they’re motivated and those which spend days complaining about lack of bonus money. All in the same organization. They are even paid basically the same. I see two possible explanations: one supports argument above and the other includes words “black magic.”

    If people go, you won’t change that if the only thing you can think of is throwing more money at them. Unless you’re paying peanuts, that is.

  • Being a Leader

    Recently a subject of leadership pops up on Software Project Management pretty often, but usually I look at it from manager’s perspective. After all that’s something I do for living – managing teams. So yes, being a leader is the first and probably the most important role of manager (by the way, the post on role of manager turned into full-blown presentation which causes some buzz every time I deliver it). But leadership isn’t exclusively attached to management.

    We are leaders in our workplaces, but we lead in different communities and informal groups as well. And even if we stick to our professional lives we can lead in technical areas or be typical people leaders. Leadership has many names. This was exactly the theme of my recent presentation on the subject which I delivered as a guest on Toastmasters contest.

    Being a leader

    A very interesting discussion followed the session. I used leadership definition I’ve heard from Mary Poppendieck: “Ability to attract followers is exactly what makes you a leader.” The definition neatly covers all sorts of tech leads – if I believe you’re knowledgeable and experienced person in a specific area I will come to pester you every time I need help with that matter. In other words I will follow you, which according to definition makes you a leader.

    The argument against that approach is that we call it authority and not leadership and leadership is/should be discussed from a perspective of leading teams/groups. I can’t say I agree with this point of view as we’d have to cross out many leaders who build their follower base thanks to extraordinary knowledge and technical skills. What do you think?

    By the way, after criticism I faced on my slides from AgileEE I built this slide deck differently. Happy now?

  • One Measure to Appraise Them All

    Once your organization start talking about performance reviews you usually hear about some formal system with the same structure for everyone involved. That doesn’t really sound like a good idea, right? Why companies are using this approach then?

    If you have like a couple hundred people on board C-level exec can’t really say anything reasonable about vast majority of people in the organization. However leaders have to make some decisions basing on employees value, like firing rotten apples or promoting best candidates for managers.

    This is the point where management is tempted to build an appraisal system which makes it possible to compare people easily, so all these decision can be made basing on hard data. The system ends up as stiff and structured checklist which produces grades in the same categories for each employer.

    And this is utterly wrong.

    Actually I believe you can hardly do worse. This approach not only makes an illusion of producing comparable results but also harms relations between managers and their subordinates since performance reviews following this pattern just suck.

    Do a simple exercise: take a description of a few requirements and send them out to a bunch of managers working in software development teams. Now ask them to judge each feature in a few categories in a scale from 1 to 5. Let them judge difficulty, work consumption, innovativeness and business value. Grab these numbers from managers and compare them.

    You will see that someone hit average of 3,5 and another barely 2,5. You will see how differently people look as specific categories. You will see how vague one-word category definitions are. Basically, you will learn what subjectivity means.

    Now, I have a message for you: people are hell lot more complex than software requirements.

    If you used the same system for people what you would get is a set of top marks for a handful of organization’s gurus, handful of worst grades for a bunch of incompetent slackers and like 90% of random results for the rest of people.

    In uniform appraisal system this is taken as reasonable data which decides on a number of things, starting with promotions and money and ending with general respect. These numbers make or break careers. And yes, I’ve just called this data random.

    But that’s not the worst thing which is introduced by uniform appraisal system. Yes, it can be worse.

    Formalized, homogenous appraisal system degrades performance review to simple mark trade instead of making it an occasion to exchange feedback.

    You get what you measure. If you measure few criteria, and these criteria are uniformed among the organization, you create incentive to fight about better marks, so people would get more money, have better chances for promotion and would be able to boast in front of their colleagues how cool their marks were on the last review.

    There is a side-effect too. This approach creates an incentive for managers to run crappy reviews. Instead of focusing on two-way communication, learning what motivates their people, they just go through a simple script: programming three, communicativeness two, quality four, team work two, creativity five, next please. Hey, this is what the system expects from us, doesn’t it?

    Running performance reviews is pretty damn hard job. I always feel stressed when I’m going to talk about one’s performance, no matter how official or unofficial it is. Yes, it is easier to just go through a number of marks and call it a day, but that’s not the option which works for reviewed people. Unfortunately not everyone understands that, so we should build systems which create incentives for positive behaviors, not the negative ones.

    So while I don’t agree that performance reviews are evil in general, we can hardly think about worse approach in this area than a formalized, homogenous appraisal system which unifies measures among all employees. That’s just not going to work.

  • The Ultimate Competence Test versus Deming

    My recent post on verifying competence triggered some reactions, one of them being specifically interesting. Bob Marshall pointed that my idea of competence test isn’t congruent with Deming’s teachings, namely 95/5 rule.

    Deming says that 95% of performance is attributable to the system and only remaining 5% can be attributed to individuals. Does it render the question “Would you hire a discussed person to your own dream company to work in the same role?” irrelevant?

    I don’t think so. The question isn’t really a very generic one and there are a few assumptions made already before you ask it.

    • You have control over the system. Actually the question is about your own company, which means it isn’t some hypothetical organization or random system. We’re discussing the organization you’d like to have. The best possible one you can think of. Besides, you will have a chance to improve the system too.
    • The system is the same for everyone. We don’t discuss best possible performance in the world (whatever that would mean) but performance of different individuals within the same system, namely your company. This means the only differentiators which come into play are individual traits and individual performance.
    • We compare similar systems. Even though we have in mind our dream company we shouldn’t assume it would automatically be top-performing system. If we worked whole professional life in average systems what we are likely to achieve is slightly-above-average system. The change between two organizations (current workplace and our company) won’t be as dramatic. Theoretically it is of course possible, but not likely.

    Besides, what we look for in the competence test isn’t aimed at finding the best performing work environment. It is aimed at finding the right people. Of course I silently assume you won’t hire wrong people to do wrong jobs. I would probably hire none of great developers I know if I started a restaurant.

    If I’m not clear enough let’s go through an example. There is Mark the Coder who works for yet another average software shop. Mark the Coder stands out, at least at his current organization. Now let’s hire Mark in another average software shop. Would he still stand out? Pretty likely.

    OK, so now hire Mark in low-performing company. His personal traits which made him shine in the original organization will play even more important role as the background is worse. Would he still stand out? Yes. Would he perform better than in original situation? Rather not. Actually relatively he should perform worse, but he would still be considered as great performer in his new environment.

    What happens if we hire Mark in high performing organization then? He will likely perform better, as the system itself performs better, but it isn’t so obvious whether he will still be considered as one of top performers. Why? First, high-performing organization is a competitive background for personal traits and second, high-performing organizations tend to draw many top performers making it more difficult to stand out. Either way Mark the Coder should cope with the new situation, even if he loses the guru plaque.

    I know that what we really consider asking the question “Would you hire that person in your own organization?” is the last scenario, which is also the one with least obvious outcome. However if someone has a chance to become a top performer in the new high-performing system it is likely the one who was already among top performers in the old organization, thus Mark the Coder serves as a good candidate here.

    So no, I don’t find the ultimate competence test conflicting with Deming’s teaching. Do you?

  • The Ultimate Test of Competence

    Every now and then we judge people we work with. We go through performance reviews, we recruit and we chat over coffee or beer backbiting our colleagues.

    We use different metrics to make our judgment, anything from formal appraisal process to gut feelings, which renders the results incomparable. There is however one method you may use to decide about competence of different people, from junior team members to your managers.

    The ultimate test of competence:

    Ask yourself whether you’d hire the person to your own dream company to work in the same role.

    If the answer is “I don’t know really” you should count is as “no.”

    If you’d pay someone your own money to have them in the team and in the company it is obvious indicator telling that you consider the person as competent, non-toxic and cooperative. The same situation is with leaders – if you’d like to hire someone as a manager in your dream company they can’t suck. Or do they?

    If you ask me, I’d hire my whole team in my own company. After all, this isn’t the first organization we all work in.

    Now think how many of your current colleagues and managers you’d want to see as a part of your own business. I’m curious to hear your answers.

  • We Achieved This but I Screwed That

    I was a part of an interesting dialogue:

    – Pawel, tell me about your last success.

    – The last launch went flawlessly which means the way we chose to organize the project proved itself as pretty damn good.

    – OK, and what about your last failure?

    – I feel I can’t get through with ideas on improving the organization.

    Now the good part isn’t really me answering these two simple questions, even though I think it is a great idea to ask your people from time to time about their successes and failures. The good part is something I caught myself at after a while.

    It was our success and my failure.

    And the better part – it is not just about words. It is about the way of thinking. I might have said I had chosen our methodology and probably no one would have noticed. But what you say isn’t as important as what you believe.

    If you just switch words to the right ones you will achieve something important – recognition in front of execs is quite a token of motivation after all. But if you really believe in what you say you’ll achieve much more. You’ll always act as the success was an effect of collective effort, not only when you are in front of senior management. Besides, it was an effect of collective effort, wasn’t it?

    So tell me, what your last success was. And how about your last failure?

  • You Need (More) Team Buy-In

    I discussed recently changing the process in one of teams in the organization. In theory everything is totally easy. We need to assess current situation, find out what should be changed to improve the way the team works, apply new ideas and support them over some time to make them persistent and then go for a couple of beers and congratulate each other a stunning success.

    In this specific situation we have already a couple of ideas which should help. And yes, they include K-word. Yet still the plan is to start as we didn’t know much about the team. We try to act as the hammer wasn’t the only tool in our toolbox, even though we do have a hammer too.

    Once we know what is wrong we can apply a cure. And that’s where the hard part begins. If you look at typical pattern of change implementation you will see that the first period after inviting change sucks. People don’t know yet how to work with the new tool, process, rule, you-name-it. Outcomes are likely to be worse than with the old approach. After all, no one said changes are easy.

    Now, here is the trick: if you’re trying to implement change you not only strive to overcome typical issues but also have a reluctant team, which doesn’t want any change at all, you’re going to fail.

    People will get enough arguments to abandon change and if all they want is to get back to the good old way of doing things they will use this chance. What do you need to do then?

    Get more team buy-in.

    Actually this is what you should start with. When you assess current situation you talk with team members. If you don’t talk with people your assessment stinks anyway and I don’t want to touch it even with a stick. Use this opportunity to get people buy-in. You will need every single supporter you can have when issues start popping out.

    Don’t implement change unless you’re able to convince people it is a reasonable idea which would help them and you really don’t try to make their lives more miserable. Even if you personally are convinced that you have a silver bullet which would change your crappy software house into another Google, only better, you won’t win against people who have to follow your process, execute your idea and deal with all of side effects of a new situation.

    When I read discussions about some approach, which appears to be working rather poorly, the first thing which comes to my mind is lack of buy-in among people who are affected by the change. In terms of implementing agile we often forget that problems seen within development team are often triggered outside, likely by management. That’s why, for the purpose of this article, I use term “team” to name everyone whose work will be significantly affected by the change.

    Anyway the pattern remains the same. You just need more buy-in. You may need to work on this with development team but you may need to work with management too. Whichever case is true in your situation, go fix it before you start implementing change. That is, unless you find it pleasant to fail.

  • The Role of Manager

    I took part in a very interesting discussion today. We were talking about criteria we should use to appraise leaders and managers in the organization. The most surprising part, at least for me, was discussion about notion of line manager among disputants.

    It came out that we considered average functional manager as anything between pure-manager to person who does 90% of engineering work mixed with 10% of managerial tasks. That’s a variety of options, isn’t it? As you may guess I supported rather the former than the latter.

    Well, if I’m such an opponent of letting people do what they used to do before they were promoted to management, likely coding if we talk about software teams, what I think they should do all day long? In other words what is, or should be, the role of manager.

    Leader

    This vague term describes first and most important trait most managers should have and only few have. If I’m a team member I expect my manager will show leadership and charisma. I want to be ignited to follow his ideas. I need to be sure he knows why and where we are heading. I have to see him around when problems arise. I eager to be managed by someone I’d like to follow even if no one told me so. A good manager is also a good leader but these two are not the same. What a pity it isn’t common mixture.

    Coach

    Help newcomers with learning the organization. Help inexperienced with gaining experience. Help everyone with growing. Help those with problems with fixing them. Easy? No, not at all. First, you need to know who needs what. Then, you need to know how to reach people so your helping hand won’t be rejected. Finally, you need to work carefully and patiently sharing your knowledge in experience in a way which doesn’t frustrate or dishearten people. Repeat when finished.

    Shield

    As a line manager you have some senior management over your head. This is a bad news. Actually there’s usually a lot of crap flying over there and, because of the gravity, it’s going to land down on heads of your team. There will be blame games. There will be pointing fingers. It is your time. Be a shield. Take enough bullets on your chest for the team. You’ll earn respect. You’ll earn a bunch of loyal followers. And that’s how you earn your spurs.

    Advocate

    As a manager you’re also an advocate. Devil’s advocate to be precise. You have to present and defend different decisions made up there, in the place where only C-level execs are allowed. Sometimes these decisions you won’t like. But for your people you’re still the face of the company so don’t play the angry boy and act like a man. We don’t always do what we want. After all, they pay you for this, remember?

    Motivator

    Sometimes everyone needs a kick in the butt to get back to work at full speed. It would be quite a pleasant task but unfortunately kicking butts is used as a metaphor here. It’s all about motivation. And I have a bad news here, there’s no easy answer for a question what motivates people. You have to learn each of your people individually. Oh, forgot to mention, it takes quite a lot of time to learn what drives all these people.

    Adviser

    Yes, an adviser. Not a decision-maker. At least not unless you really have to make a decision by yourself. People will come to you asking different things. Well, they will if they think your opinion may add some value and you’re capable to understand what the hell they are talking about. Of course you can guess or shoot or use magic 8 ball but you better learn (oh no! more learning) what the problem really is and help your team to solve it. Note: it is different than solving it for them, even if you know the answer. If an association which comes to your mind is delegation I must praise your reasoning.

    Now if you are done with those and still have enough time to keep up your outstanding engineering skills, please do Mr. Anderson. Unfortunately chances are good it is enough to fill more than a full working day so you’d have to choose between focusing on your management or technical skills.

    And if you happen to spend two third of your day coding, well, I dare to say you aren’t a manager I’d like to work for. Your people would say the same, but you don’t talk with them so you don’t even know. After all there’s no time to chit chat, you have to code, right?

  • Performance Reviews Are Dead, Long Live Performance Reviews

    Recent NPR story about (lack of) value in performance reviews caused a stir. Esther Derby reminded her long-time hate relationship with performance appraisals pointing that not only employees but also a lot of managers hate them. What more reviews are tied to merit pay which is also evil.

    Well, I think it is oversimplification. We think performance review and we see corporate environment with multiple levels of management, constant fight for budgets, tough negotiations about rises and likely yearly appraisals which are so outdated that hardly bear any value for employers. If we discuss this kind of reviews, then agreed, they suck. They should be banned and people enforcing them should be forbidden to manage teams for at least 5 years.

    Now, tell me I’m lucky but I had probably just a couple of these crappy appraisals. And hopefully I have performed none of those by myself. By the way if I did it to you, feel free to kick my butt if spot me somewhere.

    Actually I tend to agree more with Scott Berkun who says that it is better not to do performance reviews at all if, and only if, they are done badly. It basically means most of the time we shouldn’t run performance appraisals but I boldly state I can to do better.

    So this is the time I should answer simple question: “How the hell do you do this damned thing?”

    Don’t make it all about money

    To some point I agree with Esther. If performance appraisal is reduced to a discussion about merit bonus or raise it is fruitless at best. Money-related negotiations always suck and this isn’t an exception. If you follow some formalized process you likely have to talk about money too, but then make it as short as possible. It is no fun for both of you so make it quick and move on to more pleasant parts of the ceremony.

    It is your goddamn duty to listen

    I am a chatty guy so this one I should tattoo this on my forehead to remind it to myself every morning when I look into the mirror. Performance review is one of the best occasions to listen what your team mate has to say. Let me guess, you, as a manager, don’t have a lot of one-on-ones with folks from your team. And even if you have, there are people down there who are always omitted. By accident of course. When you run performance reviews you suddenly have to meet every single one of them, so don’t miss this chance. Learn what they want to tell you. Let them talk. Listen. Not everyone will be open but at least give them opportunity to talk.

    Make it more a chit chat than a formal meeting

    One thing I learned during my early years as a manager is that when people are stressed they won’t tell you much. Yeah, that’s an epiphany, isn’t it? The most valuable things I learned about people, about teams and about me as a leader I heard during informal chit chat which I often turn my performance appraisals into. When we have the hard part (money-related) done we can talk more openly. Actually we may discuss your last holidays for an hour if you like. If nothing else I will know that you love hiking next time we meet in the kitchen. But we may also discuss situations when I screwed up as a boss or new technologies you’d like to learn.

    Let them set the rules

    You have different people in the team. There are those who don’t really care. Performance review is something you both have to get through but they don’t give a damn. The money doesn’t matter. Your opinion doesn’t matter. A discussion doesn’t matter either. What then? Don’t waste time of both of you. Say what you have to say and get back to work. But there are also people who want to talk. Let them talk. Listen. Learn. There are people who need a discussion about different things. Be a partner in this discussion. There are people who look for information. Share it. Besides the small part you have to go through, it’s not you who should write the agenda.

    Be open, be transparent

    If you are about to say a bit more than on weekly team meeting would there be a better chance than during one-on-one? If you are about to show your human face would there a better time? If you are about to discuss your motives standing behind tough decisions would you wait for another occasion? Yes, we managers are scared to shit when we share our secrets (or things we think are our secrets). But believe me; we should do it more often. As one of the best game strategies of all time says, if you play fair you will get the same in return. Be honest, be open and you will get exactly the same from your team. Isn’t that a fair deal?

    With these few simple rules I believe I’m able to run performance reviews which people don’t hate. Actually the last performance appraisal I’ve run I’ve started saying “As you already know no bonus money this time, so we can skip the formal part. Now, let’s talk.”

    I think it was pretty good appraisal. And yes, I’ve learned a lot. I’ve learned a lot despite I know the guy pretty long time already.