Google I/O 2010 - The joys of engineering leadership - VoiceTube: Learn English through videos!

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>>Male 1: Ok, hi >>Male 2: --Hi
>>Male 1: This talk -- >>Male 2: -- is called
>>Male 1: --no you go first. [laughs]
[audience laughs]
>>Male 2:"How to Lose Friends and Alienate People", we're not gonna read slides to you.
That's not what we do. But yes, if you're here its hopefully because you want to hear
something about social aspects of software engineering, which is what we usually talk
about.
And before we move on, we should talk; we had a very confusing URL. We replaced it with
this wonderful "alienjoy" URL. You can go on, do backchannel talk, if you have questions
you can put them there, discuss, do whatever you wanna do. Let's, let's get started.
>>Fitz: Ok. We'll start off with, "Who are we?" My name is Brian Fitzpatrick and I go
by Fitz.
>>Ben: My name is Ben Collins-Sussman. I go by Ben Collins-Sussman.
>>Fitz: And we are former engineers and recovering managers and, or leaders, as you might say.
We haven't been doing this but for four or five years and so, maximum, I guess. So, we're
not experts in it. These are mostly; this is mostly entirely conformed of our opinions--
[Ben laughs]
and we're perfectly fine if you want to disagree with them. But, you're gonna have to get your
own talk somewhere else.
[Ben laughs]
[audience laughs]
If you really weren't sure that--
>>Ben: But, we've been working together for like, 12-13 years now; various Open Source
project. A t one point I worked for him, then we worked on subversion together and--
>>Fitz: --Sorry about that.
>>Ben: Yeah, you can throw tomatoes if you wish.
>>Fitz: We use Mecurial now, it's ok.
[Ben laughs]
>>Ben: And then, after doing Subversion, we went to Google at the same time and we started
the Chicago Engineering office and now we sort of have evolved into management.
Not necessarily intentionally, but it's been on our mind a lot. Like, alright, "How do
we become managers? Is that good or bad? Is that ok?" And we wanna talk about some of
the things that we've discovered, I guess, >>Fitz: --Sure.
>>Ben: -- in the process of becoming leaders.
>>Fitz: So, who are you? Can I get a quick show of hands? Who here manages people?
>>Ben: Ok, wow. Wow.
>>Fitz: Wow. This is gonna be like a support group, isn't it?
[Ben and audience laugh}
Fitz: Hello, my name is Fitz. Hi, Fitz.
[audience laughs]
How many people in here are, are tech leads, or technical leadership roles? All right.
How many people here thought this was a different talk? Alright, ha!
[audience laughs]
>>Fitz: So, so we're, we're gonna take a couple different angles with this, but first thing
we wanna do is sort of, if we wanna a-, attack this, if we wanna define what the problem
is. And, a-, as we see it, that oftentimes leadership isn't intentional. Some people
don't really wanna get into it, but no matter what happens, there's always gonna be someone,
sort of, leading the way.
>>Ben: Right. I mean, if you take a bunch of engineers and you put them on a project,
even if no one is assigned to be the leader what you will find is after awhile there's
some self-organization that happens, right? And somebody starts becoming the person with
the big picture; the person who becomes sort of the main point of contact, right?
It starts maybe inadvertently organizing people, dividing up tasks, right? I mean, even if
they don't have official authority, it, it, they sort of fall in to that role and people
give them that authority, right? Because it has to be done; it doesn't scale otherwise.
>>Fitz: But, they start resolving conflicts and, and driving things toward consensus.
But, the-, they step into the role of the big picture person because every project really
needs someone to do that.
>>Ben: Right. And I guess, I, I've, I've been thinking about this because I see it happens
to a lot of people. I know it happened to me when we were working on the Subversion
project for five years. It started out with just a few of us in a closet writing code
and by the end of it, it, I was an I-R-C all day long eff-, effectively managing Internet
volunteers who were working on the code.
I wasn't much code in myself anywhere; I was just organizing people and noted that, they're
not my reports, right? But, I was leading them anyway. And I, I call this the "accidental
manager"; I guess maybe that's the best way to put it. And is, has anyone had that experience
here? Like, become accidental managers? Yeah, right, I mean you're like, "How, how did I
get here? What happened?" And we're here to say it's not a big deal. It's not; it's not
the end of the world. It's actually ok.
>>Fitz: Right.
>>Ben: So--
>>Fitz: And so, but first we wanna talk semantics, ok? And I'm not talking about the Semantic
Web here, but, I have an issue with the word "manager", ok? And--
[Ben laughs]
do the Will Smith thing that's manager is wh-, is old and busted and "leader" is the
new hotness, ok?
[laughter]
So, old and busted; new hotness, right? Manager really is a four-letter word, ok?
>>Ben: Why is it a loaded term?
>>Fitz: Well, it, it, it evolved out of the Industrial Revolution, right? You didn't have
managers three-four hundred years ago, or project managers, or people looking to maximize
their resources.
[Ben laughs]
Management is, is, it came out about the Industrial Revolution, the assembly line, right? If,
if you're gonna have somebody in a line stuffing meat into a can, you need somebody--
>>Ben: Yum.
>>Fitz: to manage people stuffing meat into a can.
[audience laughs]
But this works. It's very effective, this sort of carrot and stick routine when you
have people doing something by rote, right?
>>Ben: Right. You want to maximize efficiency by waving carrots and sticks at them.
>>Fitz: And you want people to be compliant and listen, ok?
>>Ben: Yup, yup.
>>Fitz: So, this is, and al-, this is some of the stuff we're talking about here comes
a lot from Dan Pink. If you haven't seen his Tech talk we highly recommend it. We'll talk
a little bit more about that towards the end.
>>Ben: Great stuff.
>>Fitz: So, so this traditional management mechanism works really well when you're managing
people like this. Ok?
[laughter]
It's really great if you have nothing that requires any sort of thought, but it's a colossal
failure if you're managing something that is, is complex, or requires any sort of creativity.
>>Ben: Like software engineering.
>>Fitz: Like software engineering, exactly.
[Ben laughs]
And so, as a result, this creates conflict.
>>Ben: It's also a reason why, why managers are hated, right? I mean, there's this, i-,
in engineering, just the word manager. "Oh, do you have a manager?" It's like, it's almost
like the word itself implies conflict or attention, right? And so, I mean, there's a lot of reason
for that. We have, there's a reason Dilbert has this stereotype pointy hair. Actually--
>>Fitz: You could do that pretty easily.
>>Ben: I can almost; I can almost make my hair pointy if I pull it out, right? I mean,
th-, lets talk about that Dilbert manager stereotype, right? They have no technical
ability, they're insecure, they get no respect f-, because of that, from their reports. They
don't respect the reports back. They ignore any past accomplishments of their reports.
They're, they're hired like zookeepers, to sort of caged people, like you don't trust
them. And, yeah--
>>Fitz: But, and a lot of them are concerned with their own self promotion and, and survival
as opposed to removing obstacles for their team, which is really what a manager should
be doing. But, but for all these reasons this is why that most engineers don't wanna be
managers. I, I mean, I, I sort of became a manager. I mean, my thought of managers was
always management according to the Peter Principle, right?
[Ben laughs]
That's the principle that you always get promoted one level beyond your capabilities, ok?
>>Ben: Well, give me, give me an example of that because I discovered a lot of people
have never heard of Peter Principle. We're just old.
>>Fitz: Like, an example of that?
>>Ben: Well, I answer, I mean, I mean the classic example is you have a software engineer
who is an amazing programmer and they keep getting promoted because they're an amazing
programmer. But, then the way most businesses are set up, management is "higher" than software
engineering so you get to the top of the programming chain, and if you want to get promoted then
you have to become a manager, right? And suddenly, now you have the world's worst manager and
you've lost the world's best coder.
>>Fitz: Right.
>>Ben: And that's, that's the classic scenario--
>>Fitz: Double failure.
>>Ben: that you see happen over and over, right?
>>Fitz: But th-, but the general thing is most engineers don't consider management to
be real work. You feel less productive. When I first met-
[Ben laughs]
moved from engineer to tech lead and then eventually managing people, I felt like I
did nothing. I came home the other day and said "What did I do all day?" I'm like, "I
talked to people and I sent email." I'm a human router, right?
[Ben laughs]
It was just like, it's awful, I mean--
>>Ben: It's hard to measure. It's really hard to measure.
>>Fitz: --It, it, it's almost impossible to measure other than your general sense of malaise,
right?
>>Ben: Or perhaps, what I discovered is maybe it's something to can measure on a long-term
timescale, right? If you're an engineer, you can sit down at the end of the week. "Oh,
I wrote this much code and these features have solved 15 bugs", right? When you're a
manager, it's like, "Well, over the quarter, our team achieved this." And I think it's
partially my fault.
[laughter]
Right? So, so it's harder.
>>Fitz: But, well, let's talk about what, what an engineering leader is.
>>Ben: Right.
>>Fitz: Ok? When y-, and I wanna really switch more to the general leader thing. But, a,
a leader is not a General in this case. You're not talking about Patton. It's not somebody
who barks orders at people, it's not someone whose team is there to serve them; a real
leader is someone who is there to serve, right?
[Ben laughs]
It's someone who serves the team, ok? Y-, you're role as a leader is really, more than
anything else, to remove obstacles for your team. So, to grease the wheels, to give advice
and guidance when it's l-, asked for, to help people with their careers as well. It, but
it's, it's not about this just barking orders--
>>Ben: Right.
>>Fitz: there's gotta be an element of trust there.
>>Ben: Absolutely. And, and the other thing you need to think about, as a manager, is,
is y-, you're responsible for two things; both the technical and the social part of
the team, right? And what, a, a lot of places where I'll see an engineer promoted to management
accidentally, they're only still focused on the technical side and they ignore the social
issues. And they're actually important.
If you ignore the social problems, you will have morale problems, the team will fall apart,
you'll, you'll, people will be fight-, I mean, you don't think it's possible but then you
start managing people and you notice it happens. And a lot of people put blinders on, right?
Likewise, you don't want a manager who's purely social, either, right? A manager should have
some technical skill, should be able to engage the team, right? And--
>>Fitz: Understand what they're doing and--
>>Ben: Yep.
>>Fitz: and be smart enough to get, get their nose out of it, right?
>>Ben: So, you need a mix of both. You need, you need to really think about both things
all the time.
>>Fitz: Right. So, so to touch on the, on the group therapy aspect of this--
[Ben laughs]
leadership is not a waste of time. It's a very important role and it's a way of getting
more done than you can do by yourself. So, it's a way of scaling yourself, right?
>>Ben: I remember one of my, one of my first managers I asked, I said, he had just into
management, right? And I said, "You're not writing code anymore, how you feel about that?"
And he's like, "Well, I realize now by, by managing you guys, like, way, way more code
is being written than if I were just jumping in and, and coding with you."
>>Fitz: Yeah.
>>Ben: Like, that's the impact I have. So, you can actually, it's hard to quantify, but
it's real, right?
>>Fitz: Right. So, so that sets the stage when we talk about. And the best way, I think,
to sort of explain what we're talking about here is what makes a good leader. Again, according
to our opinions and we have very little experience here, so you shouldn't listen to us,
[Ben laughs]
is to talk about the negative side, right, the antipatterns.
>>Ben: We'll start with antipatterns.
>>Fitz: Ok, we'll start with antipatterns. Number one--
>>Ben: Hurray! Be everyone's friend. And this is tricky, right, especially if you manage
a friend--
>>Fitz: Especially if y-, you're in a team and you're suddenly managing the team or leading
the team.
>>Ben: --To suddenly switch from peer to manager. Sometimes it's a problem, sometimes it's not
but, it's actually possible to lead the team with a soft touch. Like, I always say the
best kind of leadership is leadership you can't really see if it's happening, but it's
not obvious, right? And that, that's fine.
I think that works and it's not about becoming everybody's best friend, but it's not about
being distant, either. One of the best pieces of advice I've heard is like, eat lunch with
you team, right? Don't, don't sit in your corner office with your door closed.
You need to be hearing what they, what are they talking about, what are they struggling
with every day? Like, and that, that's like the same as being their friend, but--
>>Fitz: Right.
>>Ben: but it is being involved, right?
>Fitz: You can, the point is you can communicate and--
>>Ben: Right.
>>Fitz: be social with your team without necessarily being their friend. If you're, if you're someone,
everyone's friend, it really destroys the ability to sort of, sometimes you have to
sort of have to be stick and not the carrot, in some cases, and even--
>>Ben: To deliver bad news or--
>>Fitz: Or deliver bad news or, or just push someone in, in, in a general direction.
>>Ben: Right.
>>Fitz: So, so, the next thing is the parent-child relationship, right? Ok?
[Ben laughs]
People will, will behave the way that you treat them, ok? Now, so if you put a bunch
of bars up, up, on the windows and lock all the doors, everyone's gonna behave like a
bunch of caged animals. If you treat people like children then they're gonna behave like
children, ok? W-, there's a conference--
>>Ben: Yes.
>>Fitz: that we put on in Chicago and I, I got the conference facility all set up and
I went over and talked to guy and he showed me around and he said, "Here's the keys. I'll
see ya, I'll see ya in three days."
>>Ben: To the whole building.
>>Fitz: Yeah, and he's like, "This is where this is." And that sort of thing. And it was
an incredible amount of responsibility put upon me and there, and I was very appreciative
of that but I knew that I was, I was the one who had to take care of the place to make
sure nothing really bad happened and that sort of thing.
>>Ben: What about, one of the things I like about working at Google, the way our IT department
works, its set up as a service to help us rather than to cage us. Like, most IT departments
treat you like naughty children and how can we stop you from doing the bad things, right?
And we're gonna restrict you in every corner. And Google's IT department is, well, no, we
think you're a grown up and if you need something come and ask, and we'll give it to you, right?
Otherwise, we trust you to behave and I think that's a--
>>Fitz: And, and, there's some controversial s-, apar-, a, some controversial pe-, ideas
in here, too. Like, you may have heard that Netflix has no vacation. Their, their vacation
policy is you no fixed number of vacation days. You take it when you need it, right?
And that's, that's, I think it's really interesting and I think it's really, I'd love to see how
that works--
>>Ben: Peer pressure?
>>Fitz: Well, it's, it's a little bit of everything but you're not treating people like children
there, it's, it's an extreme, but it's something interesting to contemplate.
>>Ben: More antipatterns. Micromanaging, I don't think there's a lot to say here, right?
This is the ultimate sign--
>>Fitz: What I want you to say here is it's about distrust.
[Ben laughs]
>>Ben: That word, right?
>>Fitz: That word right there.
>>Ben: Right. So, it's about distrust, right? This is, this is the classic Dilbert situation.
And honestly, if, if, if you start micromanaging people, again, they get used to it, right?
They start behaving like children, like they stop doing work unless you poke them every
day. Are you done, yet? Are you done, yet? Are you done, yet? It's not what you want.
>>Fitz: Well, it can be tempting if you're very, if you're a very technical person that's
moved into this role, it can be very tempting sometimes because you possibly understand
more than someone who's just starting, or someone's who's a little more junior. And
the temptation, in some cases, is to give them A-B-C-D type directions.
>>Ben: Instead of letting them figure it out.
>>Fitz: Exactly, exactly. But that leads us into the next thing. Sometimes, micromanagement
is necessary if you follow the next pa-, antipattern, which is hiring a bunch of pushovers.
[Ben laughs]
You wind up, basically, with a team that can't move on its own and they, they require on
you to make every move. And, you need a team that's gonna power itself, that's not gonna
wait for commands. And so my general rule of thumb has always been
[Ben laughs]
since I, I, I first started managing about 12-13 years ago but then quit because I had
this horrible experience, which is why I'm here today. But, it was, I hire people smarter
than me, which isn't too hard for me, but you get people who are gonna just get things
done, who are gonna make things happen, where you don't have to worry about them not understanding
what's going on. It, I, at the time, I, I worked with another guy who, who made a, he
actually embodied this anitpattern. I hired all these people that were smarter than me
and they went off and did amazing things and he hired a bunch of people that he could push
and poke around. And he loved it because he had this team of flunkies that he could just
push and poke around.
>>Ben: Like a power trip, right?
>>Fitz: Yeah, and as his team got bigger, he started working longer and longer and longer
hours. And he would just sort of--
>>Ben: It doesn't scale.
>>Fitz: It doesn't scale, right?
[Ben laughs]
And he was sort of miserable and eventually wound up leaving. But--
>>Ben: Well, I, I, sort of I think related to this is the next pattern which is to compromise
when you hire. A lot of, a lot of companies will see, "We're, oh gosh; we're short-handed
on this team. We need two people, so let's interview 20 and we'll just hire the best
two no matter what."
>>Fitz: Bad idea.
[Ben laughs]
>>Ben: Very bad idea.
>>Fitz: B-, because performance and your quality is gonna go way down and if you have really
good people on the team, they're gonna go way away from you.
>>Ben: Yep.
>>Fitz: And they're just basically gonna leave. So, that ties a lot in again to the next antipattern,
which is to ignore low performers.
>>Ben: Holy cow. Has anyone ever worked with a low performer that nobody did anything about?
Right? There's nothing more, yeah, wow, there's a lot of you. There's nothing more aggravating.
Its like, "Oh my gosh, this person is dragging down our whole team, and I can't say anything,
and why isn't the manager saying anything to this person, or doing anything about it?"
I mean, like you said, it will cause the best people on the team to leave and find another
team or another job.
>>Fitz: Well, and this is probably the hardest thing to do as, as a leader of, of a team,
is to work with low performers. I, I think, there's a couple reasons for it. The main
reason that I've seen is you wait too long. You sort of like, if I don't look over there,
they'll get better, right?
>>Ben: Hope-, hopefully.
>>Fitz: It's gonna get better, yeah, hopefully.
[Ben laughs]
Hope, yeah, code powered by hope. I-, i-, it's just gonna get better and what happens
when you do that is you wait until it's too late. And you eventually reach a point where
it's hopeless and the only thing you can see is, "How do I get rid of this person?" Ok?
So, if you sort of--
>>Ben: And then that's the first conversation you have--
>>Fitz: Right.
>>Ben: with that person, when you've already decided that it's doomed. How do you even
rehabilitate or give them a chance to get better? So, you've already made this decision.
>>Fitz: Well, you, you made this mental sort of step in your head where you can't, can't
think about that. So, if you step in early you can actually help to manage them up or
out, as opposed to just like, "How do I get rid of this person?" Ok? It's not just gonna
get better. There's just, there's just doesn't happen.
>>Ben: I think, I think the next point sort of is a generalization is which we talked
about earlier is just there are human problems on your team. Not every problem is software
development, is about writing code, or technical problems, right? People, sometimes people
don't get along. Sometimes--
>>Fitz: People problems are much harder than code problems.
[Ben laughs]
>>Ben: Much harder.
>>Fitz: I have yet to find a bug that's as hard as a people problem.
>>Ben: Well, cause, it's, it's fuzzy. People are fuzzy and grey and computers are not that
way.
>>Fitz: Compilers are so much more consistent.
>>Ben: Exactly. Sometimes, well, I would, I guess well, this is a, this is a, sort of
a scary story. But, one of the things I see missing sometimes and th-, if you have like
a manager who's all technical, not interested in social aspects at all, the thing that,
that always lacking is just simple empathy, right?
That's sometimes all you need just to keep the social wheels greased. I had a friend
who was working at a company, he had his first kid, got a couple weeks off on paternity leave,
came back was still very sleep-deprived, discombobulated and he basically, was only working with one
other person in his office.
There was just the two of them. And he said, "You know I'm gonna be working from home and
doing I-R-C and chatting." And his manager found out and said, "No, you cannot work part
time from home at all. No, no, you have to be in the office." And why not? And basically
said, "Look, you have to be in the office. If, it's more important and--" What was the
phrase he said?
>>Fritz: He said, "People have kids all the time."
>>Ben: "Get over it."
[audience laughs]
>>Fritz: "Get over it."
>>Ben: It's like, what? I mean, that's amazing to--
>>Fritz: So, I can see the point of wanting someone to come into the office and work,
but that's just the wrong motivational thing to say.
>>Ben: Not, yeah, not understanding. So,--
>>Fritz: It's the rage button, the rage--
[Ben laughs]
>>Ben: So, happiness level--
>>Fritz: So you have to pay attention to happiness levels--
>>Ben: Right.
>>Fritz: You have to pay attention to the happiness levels of your team and it sounds
all like, fluffy and crazy, but you know, you really have to understand what, to be
able to, to have a productive team and be a, a good leader, the thing to understand
are people happy with the product, are they happy with where they're going, with how much
they're working, with the company. I mean, it's a lot of different things you have to
be sensitive to.
>>Ben: What do they call it? E-Q?
>>Fritz: E-Q, yeah, Emotional Quality, Emotional Quotient or something like that, yeah. Something
completely unmeasureable and fuzzy that engineers love.
>>Ben: Let's, let's talk about good things you can do, which I guess we've sort of been
doing it implicitly.
>>Fritz: This is the boring part. You can check your email--
[Ben laughs]
>>Ben: Honesty is one of the biggest foundations for everything, right? If, if you're stuck,
if you don't know what to do, go ahead and say so, right? Nobody expects you to be perfect
or to have all the answers, right? Well, actually, you should talk about the compliment sandwich.
This is the, the thing--
>>Fritz: The compliment sandwich--
>>Ben: the, the dishonest way to get heard.
>>Fritz: How many people have heard of the compliment sandwich? Ok.
>>Ben: Let's watch, something
>>Fritz: --Ok, so for the rest of you, so the compliment sandwich is this, it this traditional
management technique for delivering harsh feedback. You come into the room and you say,
"Ben, you know, you've done a really good job, you've been a great team member and all,
your code is really, really low quality, but I like your beard." Ok?
[audience laughs]
And Ben walks out going, "He likes my beard and I'm a good guy."
>>Ben: Awesome.
>>Fritz: The compliment sandwich is a lie, ok? It's like the cake, it's a lie.
[Ben coughs]
It's just a bad idea and I, I personally think that it's better to be constructive, straight
forward, and direct while still having that empathy for the person that you're giving
it to. I like nothing better than to receive very constructive feedback if I've done something
wrong. And I mean--
>>Ben: Right. But you have to be tactful when you do it, right?
>>Fitz: Yeah.
>>Ben: Honestly does not mean compliments, I mean--
>>Fitz: Give an example of that.
>>Ben: Well, yeah. Wha-, what's a good example of this? So--
>>Fitz: Well, here's, we had a guy, we had a guy that, that we worked with years ago
who was really technically strong, wanted to argue absolutely everything, ok? Everything
was an argument, ok?
>>Ben: --Great coder though.
>>Fitz: --Solid coder, right? Ok, so the nonconstructive is they say, is stop being a dick and fighting
with everybody, ok?
>>Ben: Right, not the way, the way to deliver the message.
>>Fitz: What do you think, where do you think that's gonna get you? They say, "Oh, wow.
I was being a jerk. I should stop this."
>>Ben: Right, right.
>>Fitz: So, so that's--
>>Ben: What's, what's the better way, the way you do it. I like the way you--
>>Fitz: The, the, the better way is, and this was explained to me by one of my previous
managers, is that you're in a station and a train's gonna come by every ten minutes
all day long, ok? Now, you need to pick which train you want to step in front of, ok?
>>Ben: You can't stand in front of all the--
>>Fitz: You can't step in front of every train or you're gonna be flattened, ok? Every time
you step in front of one of these trains, the engineers gotta slam on the brakes. Some
of them might hit you, but they're gonna be annoyed because you're throwing them off schedule.
>>Ben: I think it's a way of saying "choose your battles", right?
>>Fitz: It's a way of saying "choose your battles," right? But, it sounds more fun when
you're talking about trains, right? Everybody loves trains.
>>Ben: All right, let's, let's talk about the next pattern--
>>Fitz: But, but the other thing about the honesty that I wanna leave this on is there's
no such thing as a temporary lapse of integrity.
>>Ben: I like that.
>>Fitz: That's, that's something that, that was a piece of advice that I was, and all
this stuff really, a lot of this advice is coming from advice that we've gotten from
our mentors who taught us. But, that's one of the most important things I, I, I think
I've learned is the temporary lapse.
>>Ben: Yep. Temporary lapse.
>>Fitz: Temporary lapse of integrity ess-, that means you have no integrity. So, that's
where I think that the honesty really comes in as important.
>Ben: Speaking of folks that we, that we admire, there's, there's a manager at Google who we
love and we always refer to him as a Zen Master, right?
>>Fitz: Right.
>>Ben: We think of him that way because he, we're talking about, exudes calmness, right?
I--
>>Fitz: In, in, in utter chaos, I, we, we see someone come running into his office and
say, "Somebody's bombed 19 of our data centers, oh my God!" And he's just lean back and say,
"Hmm, I wonder why they didn't do 20?"
>>Ben: Right.
[audience laughs]
>>Fitz: That's, you know--
>>Ben: Yeah, right. So he, you want to ha-, have, this is something that we strive for
as well when we're having one-on-one's with people, or, or in any kind of meeting, right?
Is stay calm, stay focused, ask the team what they can do to measure the problem, how they
can be more productive, how, that, what, what kinds of solutions there are. When somebody
asks you for direct advice, if you have a direct opinion, you should give it, but if
you don't have an opinion you can do the psychologist thing, right, and respond with more questions.
Maybe--
>>Fitz: Well--
>>Ben: help them Socratically.
>Fitz: I think you should respond with questions off the bat first--
>>Ben: Off the bat?
>>Fitz: instead of, cause it's, i-, it's really tempting to solve it. I mean, we're sol-,
problem solvers by nature. Anyone who is an engineer, you're paid to pr-, solve problems,
ok? My wife loves this when I come home and she's like, "Oh, I had a terrible day." And
I'm like, "Let me fix it for you! Let me fix it for you!" And she's like, "Just listen.
Please. Don't fix it; I want you to hear me."
[audience laughs and claps]
>>Ben: That's, that's the Mars-Venus thing, right?
>>Fitz: That's the Mars-Venus thing, yeah. But if you, a, a lot of the time they don-,
they don't really wanna hear your solution to this. They wanna talk about it and you're
solution might have nothing to do with the problem.
>>Ben: No, but you're a sounding board--
>>Fitz: Yeah.
>>Ben: and it's ok.
>>Fitz: Right.
>>Ben: And it's good and if you can calm them down and, and just emotionally get them focused
again. It's a huge value, right? You're greasing the wheels again.
>>Fitz: And a part of this extends beyond your team, right? Ask your team how you can
be more productive and then measure that, ok? Outside of the team you need to build
relationships across the company and y-, you're gonna be that bridge to other teams and that
sort of thing.
>>Ben: This, this next pattern we've talked about in other talks; lose the ego. And, and
people, people misinterpret what we mean by this. We don't mean be a dead fish, have no,
have no confidence. It actually just means don't be egotistical, is what we're really
saying.
>>Fitz: Right.
>>Ben: So, we have, we have particular i-, examples of losing ego, right? Actually trusting
your team. They're down in the trenches every day doing stuff. It's ok. They know more than
you. They probably should know more than you, right? If they tell you something is or isn't
possible, listen. Because they know, right? And you're not down--
>>Fitz: But when it comes to the details of the particular--
>Ben: The details--
>>Fitz: area, right?
>>Ben: Have some respect for their abilities, for the accomplishments that they've done
so far, for, for what they've learned, what they know, what they're able to tell you from
being down in the trenches.
>>Fitz: Then, and the next one is, is something, Appreciate Inquiry. You should always actually
accept when someone gives you feedback or criticism. And try not to be territorial about
things. Try and think big picture. Now, I think this is really important in the, in
the high-tech world when you're writing software. I learned the hard way that this isn't necessarily
appreciated in other domains. I--
[Ben laughs]
I had a, a friend of mine and an electrician helping me rewire the basement in my house
and I was so excited about this cause I'm learning about stuff electrical. And I asked
this electrician about seven thousand questions. And, and I'm thinking, "Wow, I'm learning
all this cool stuff!" And he's thinking, "This guy doesn't trust me at all." Right?
>>Ben: Yeah.
>>Fitz: But, in, in our, in, in high tech again, when you're working on software development
this is something that's really important to, to listen if someone, if someone's questioning
something you're doing it's good to talk through it because they might actually have a good
idea for you.
>>Ben: Well, usually it's curious interest, right?
>>Fitz: Right.
>>Ben: That's, that's, maybe that's part of hacker cultures that, when somebody asks you
lots of questions it's usually cause they're just interested, not because they're questioning--
>>Fitz: Right. But, but annoying the hell out of somebody leads great into the next
thing which is to apologize.
>>Ben: Apologizing. There's, it's, it's so crazy that we have to put this slide up, right?
But so many people are just afraid to apologize. I see this all the time where they messed
up, they know they messed up, and the manager's usually the last person to apologize, right?
And it's ok, it's really, again, it's about being, it's about having some humility.
>>Fitz: So, that's about being a human, right? I mean, everybody certainly make mistakes
and, and especially if someone gives you constructive feedback, you go like, "Wow, I can't believe
I did that. I apologize."
>>Ben: I know it when, when, when my managers in the past have apologized it just increases
my respect for them, right, all the more.
>>Fitz: Yeah, so, ba-, back, again to stress the humility part, this doesn't mean you have
be a doormat.
[Ben laughs]
This doesn't mean, it, it's not the same as, as being unconfident, right? If, you can still
have self confidence and have opinions and this is the fine line. This is a lo-, this
is a really hard thing I think for some people. Some people have no problem with it, you know?
[Ben laughs]
But--
>>Ben: Part of getting some respect from, from peers also, like we've said before, is
getting your hands dirty. Like, effectively, it's ok to go down in the trenches sometimes,
or maybe you're curious, or maybe you wanna learn, or maybe you wanna help. And I think
it's good to occasionally do that if you have, if you have the time and the bandwidth, right?
Cuz it'll help you understand the problems that your team are dealing with more.
>>Fitz: You get a lot of respect and it, it shows that you're not just here to contribute
advice.
>>Ben: The next thing--
>>Fitz: And that's, that's again, and that's if you have time. If you're like swamped out
of your mind and doing way more than you can already do.
>>Ben: Right. But the next thing is actually hard for, for new managers. I know it took
me a long time to figure this out is that people don't delegate, right? The classic
new manager is like, "Ok, I'm in charge of like, instead of this charge of one thing,
I'm in charge of ten things now. So, I'm gonna try and do it all myself and ask people to
help me." And like, no, you still can only do one thing, which is to make sure the other
ten people are doing the ten things, right, that you delegated, right?
>>Fitz: Well, and you, you see something, you'll see a task that one of your junior
guys is gonna take three weeks to do when you can do it in three days and the temptation
is overwhelming to, to do that thing for them. And that's when you need to stop, right? Deep
breath, back up a little bit. But that leads into the next thing of, of delegating. If
you get a team that's doing enough stuff--
>>Ben: Self powered.
>>Fitz: that's self empowered, right. And there, you hire people a little smarter than
you, right? Just look to replace yourself, ok?
>>Ben: Sounds crazy but that's what sys admins do, right? Try to replace themselves with
shell scripts so they can play, play games at work.
>>Fitz: If you can replace yourself in a shell script, that's great, too. You can find something
else to do, I'm sure.
[Ben laughs]
Anyone writes a management shell script, please email it to me. That would be great.
[audience laughter]
>>Ben: But this is, but this is, I think this is, this is a measurement of success in management,
right? If you can take a team that is not performing well at all; lots of fighting,
lots of confusion and you can sort of push people in different ways.
So, they're still self powered, but they've become this well-oiled machine to the point
where you can almost just step back and you barely need to touch that machine anymore.
You're done, right? That is what they're paying you to do. That's what it means to be a leader.
And then you can move on to another team, right?
>>Fitz: Right, and if you have, so you have these capable peo-, if, bas-, what I think,
focus on what people can do and try and always give them a little more responsibility than
what they can actually d-, take, take on. Without killing them, right? You don't wanna
like, drive these people into the ground but you just want to give them the opportunity
to grow into that.
If they feel a little bit overwhelmed, or, or push back and realize they can't do that,
then that's ok. You should always give them the chance because if you cave somebody, they're
never gonna be able to show you what they can do. And, and you'll often be surprised.
>>Ben: Your successor usually comes from within the team.
>>Fitz: Right.
>>Ben: It's a great thing.
>>Fitz: So, I wanna talk about, briefly about making waves, ok? Know when to make waves.
[Ben laughs]
Right? Th-, that's, I was told that piece of advice and for, because I was basic-, well,
I don't wanna talk--
>>Ben: Google Wave?
>>Fitz: Not these kinda waves, I'm sorry. It's, it's these kind of waves. I had someone
who I, who I, who reported to me who was making my life complete hell and I was hoping it
would go away. This ties into the sort of hoping things will get better, right? There
are times when you're leading a team that every ounce of your soul is gonna tell you,
"Just be that calm center of the world."
>>Ben: Don't rock the boat.
>>Fitz: Don't rock the boat. There's something crazy going on, you just mellow out and it'll
be ok. And that's the time when you should be just like cannonball and jump right in
and, and make some waves in that team. You should attack it head on, again in a constructive
manner, but it's one of those things that's not gonna wind up--
>>Ben: Or sometimes, sometimes it's beyond your team. Sometimes it's things happening
in teams adjacent to you or within the company and if you ignore it, you're in trouble, right?
So, yeah, it's hard to break that inertia, that the, the instinct to just curl up and
just focus and stay safe.
>>Fitz: Right. And that, and another thing--
>>Ben: It's easier.
>>Fitz: We, we, we've sort of touched on this already but shield your team from distractions
from outside of your, outside, right? Usually, there's a lot of crazy things going on in
the bureaucracy of the company or in the upper echelons, and you should, or politics, bureaucracy,
that sort of thing. And basically, allow your team, give them the luxury of focusing on
what they wanna get done.
>>Ben: This next idea is actually, I think it's more about language, its, it's a very
specific language tip. The, the worst thing I've seen happen is maybe your service falls
over and it's one person's fault on the team; they messed up, right? Took down your whole
service.
The, the wrong thing to do is to say, "Our service was down because of Joe." Right? And
you embarrass that person in front of the whole team, right? That is not the way to
do it. What you, what we talk about is when somebody messes up, they know, right? And
you have, and--
>>Fitz: The team knows.
>>Ben: The team knows and you know and the person knows, right? And you don't need to
publically humiliate or shame somebody. That's, that's a stick, right? That's Industrial Revolution
stick mentality. What you do is you; you talk about it in private, in a one-on-one. And
say what happened and blah, blah, blah, you know, what can we do to stop it in the future?
So, I mean, when talking openly to your team or talking to the company about your team,
you talk about we succeed and fail as a, particularly, you do public praise of an individual, but
you privately criticize someone, right? So, "Hey, our team succeeded. Isn't that great?
And super thanks to this person for helping out in this way, right?" Or, "Oh, our service
went down and we failed as a team, we'll get better at that."
>>Fitz: Right.
>>Ben: And then you take that one person aside in private and talk about it, right? So, it's,
it's just, it's just the way you handle it. There, there's a tactfulness that's important.
>>Fitz: Right. And another thing you should look to do as a manager is to, is to build
consensus, right? You need to be that cata-, catalyst that people can help make things
happen, right? You, if know, if, you need to know when to get your team unstuck, ok,
or when to take a risk, but, but also, you should be there to take responsibility for
the failures if you're pushing things along.
>>Ben: Being a teacher, or a mentor. This helps if you're older, I guess, or have some
more experience. But, especially when you've got new people on the team, right? Either
assign them a mentor, or try to mentor them yourselves. Letting them, we've talked about
this a few times already, but letting them make mistakes and not jumping in and doing
it for them. Letting them goof up and learn and--
>>Fitz: It's the whole failure is an option thing, right? Failure is ok as long as you're
not failing at the same thing over and over and over again.
>>Ben: You should tell your antidote.
>>Fitz: There's a, well, there's a, there's a story about the, the senior executive that
made a big business mistake and lost his company ten million dollars and he comes in the next
morning. He's all depressed cause he's gonna lose his job and the secretary calls him,
"The CEO wants to see you in his office." So, he goes into the office, he's like, "I
suppose you'd like my resignation and here it is." He says, "Resignation? Why would I
want your resignation? I just spent ten million dollars training you." Right?
[audience laughs]
So, that, that's a bit of a severe example of a failure or mistake, but--
>>Ben: But letting people iterate and fail is important.
>>Fitz: But I guarantee he'll never make that mistake again.
[Ben laughs]
Ok? And so, just, just to, to move on here, set, this is getting a little bit long here
but--
>>Ben: It's a good story.
>>Fitz: Set clear goals. Your, your team needs to agree on the plans and you really, I think
a mission statement is one of those corporate double-speak things that people freak out
about. It's really important. If you sit down and try to come up with like a quick sentence
to convey what you're doing, it's gonna really cause you to come up with a moment of clarity
in your team, and you'll probably find out you don't all agree on where you're going.
>>Ben: It's, it's surprising, actually. I mean, if you took a survey of your teams and
said, "What is the mission of this thing we're working on?" You're gonna get different answers
unless you've already sat down and, and written a mission statement together and it, it sounds,
it sounds hokey?
>>Fitz: Yeah.
>>Ben: But it makes a huge difference in getting focused, right? And we're not talking about
hiring a business consultant, spending weeks to, to tal-, just have, sit down over lunch,
or sit down for a couple hours and have this conversation. Because it's amazing when things,
your, you're bombarded with distractions all the time, right?
Other teams telling you we want this feature or that thing or we're gonna do this, and
if you have a written mission statement, it's very easy to know what is in your scope and
what isn't, right?
>>Fitz: The Google Web Toolkit--
>>Ben: It's a huge time saver.
>>Fitz: You know, I worked with the Google Web Toolkit team four years ago now to wor-,
with their mission statement and I was talking to Bruce Johnson who, if you've ever met him
he's a fantastic guy, I told him, I said, "I really wanna tell ya-" he said, he told
me how great that was for their team. He's like, "I never realized how unfocused we were
until we came up with that." And I said, "I'm really appreciative of you being so supportive
of me at the time to do this because I know some of your team members didn't want to do
it." He said, "Oh, I really thought it was a waste of time." He said, --
>>Ben: --At the moment, right?
>>Fitz: "But at the moment I wanted to give you a try." And it turned out to be one of
the greatest things that--
[Ben laughs]
that sort of helped them to focus and say, learn when to say no and when to say yes and
that sort of thing.
>>Ben: And this, I, this, this is the last pattern, I think? Yes, yes--
>>Fitz: I hope so.
>>Ben: Finally.
>>Fitz: Are we done yet?
>>Ben: When we've mentioned this before, right, about your job is not just to, technical health.
It's the social health as well. Right? Have a happiness meter. Ask yourself; meet with
your reports once a month. Before you go into your meetings or one-on-ones with them, say,
"Is this person happy?" And then ask them. Say," Are you happy?" I mean, it's, it's a
crazy question and a lot of people are taken back and they'll say, "Yes, I am." or "No,
I'm not and, and here's why. I've been afraid to tell you." Right? I mean, it's, it really
matters.
>>Fitz: One of the, the scariest questions I've ever been asked by a person in management
to me is, "What can I do for you? What do you need from me?" And the first time I was
asked this, I was just like, "What kind of question is this?"
[Ben laughs]
What are you supposed to say? But I thought about it a lot and the next time they said,
"What do you need me?" I was, man, I was ready.
[Fitz laughs]
[audience laughs]
>>Ben: But, but sometimes I've seen managers, who are very technical, who take this to heart,
but the way they deal with it is a very super technical solution. They'll make a spreadsheet
and they'll track, you know, here's all the people on the team and here's all the tasks,
and these tasks are fun, and these tasks are horrible, and I'm gonna assign the tasks this
way and then the next week I'm gonna rotate, I'm gonna ro-, so everybody gets a chance
to, to be miserable and happy and everything's fair. And that's fine. If it, if it works,
that's great, right? But then, at least, he's still monitoring the happiness level, right?
>>Fitz: So, what Ben's saying is spread the misery around.
>>Ben: Spread the--
[Ben laughs]
>>Fitz: Right?
[audience laughs]
But, but, by doing this you actually give everybody a chance to be seen by others outside
of the team and a lot of times--
>>Ben: --to grow.
>>Fitz: That's also important, right?
>>Ben: Absolutely.
>>Fitz: So, ok, enough with the patterns.
>>Ben: Let's, let's do our wrap up which is longer than the middle, no, I'm kidding.
[Ben laughs]
>>Fitz: No. So, I think I should tell you a, a story that, that, this is my mother-in-law's
philosophy, ok? My, my wife is the last of six children and my mother-in-laws philosophy
is about kids is that, and I think it applies to engineers as well, ok? So, engineers are
like plants. Everyone needs something different. Some engineers need more water. Some engineers
need more sunlight and some engineers need to be buried in bullshit, ok?
[laughter]
Your job as their caretaker or leader is to know who needs what, ok? Applying the same
amount of water, sunlight, and bullshit to everybody means that some people are gonna
get way too much of something they don't need and some people are gonna get way too little
of something they don't need.
>>Ben: Now, now let's do the spreadsheet version!
[Ben laughs]
>>Fitz: Spreadsheet version.
>>Ben: This is, this comes out of various management classes that we've seen and you
might have seen as well, right? Putting people on this matrix; are they excited about what
they're doing or are they bored? Are they very good at directing themselves and knowing
what to do next, or are they just scatterbrained and you just have to constantly tell them
what to do?
And, what you really want is you wanna get everybody into that sweet spot in the upper
left corner. How do you get there, right? Look at each person individually. More water,
more light, what do they need? If they are totally disorganized you need to give them
some direction, right? Not all direction is micromanagement, right?
Some people actually need micromanagement, as long as it's just for a little bit, right?
Not, not if it's all the time, if they need it all the time, something's wrong, but bits
of direction here and there are great. Get them, get them self-supporting, right?
>>Fitz: And you might have some people that aren't challenged enough, or aren't--
>>Ben: Right.
>>Fitz: regularly focused on what they're doing, or--
>>Ben: Or they hate what they're doing.
>>Fitz: Right. And so, they're gonna need some inspiration, right? They're gonna need
some sort of, you're gonna have to figure out some way to motivate them and we'll talk
a little about--
>>Ben: Let's talk about, let's talk about motivation--
>>Fitz: About motivation.
>>Ben: This is, this is the stuff from Dan Pink's talk, right?
>>Fitz: This is a great picture; by the way, it's a carrot on a stick.
[Ben laughs]
So there's the carrot and there's the work you just beat with the stick.
[laughter]
Ok?
[Ben coughs]
So that doesn't work in this place, right?
>>Ben: So, how many people have heard "Intrinsic vs. Extrinsic Motivations?" It's a trendy
topic now, right? The idea is that these carrot and stick work faster, that's, that's extrinsic
motivation, right? It's, its motivation coming artificially from the outside and on now the
cool thing in management, which I believe in, which science confirms, is that--
>>Fitz: --Science!
>>Ben: --Science!
>>Fitz: --It works!
>>Ben: Right. Is intrinsic motivations, in other words, getting, getting people motivated
internally, right? And it's not about waving money in front of them, right? It, it's getting
them to actually care about what they're working on and there's, there's three big parts to
this that you can name--
>>Fitz: Well, but you can never get anyone to, to, to work as, as hard, or care as they
do extrinsic mot-, intrinsic--
>>Ben: Right.
>>Fitz: extrinsic motivations, right? And this is the whole Dan Pink thing, right?
>Ben: So what are the three big intrinsic motivations? The first one is autonomy, right?
In other words, trusting people to work the way that they work best, right? If that means
working from home once in awhile, if that means having some flexibility in, in who they're
working with, or how they're doing their work, that's fine. There's a, there's a, let them
get their work; they know how to work best, right? You can't shoehorn--
>>Fitz: Well, the 20 percent time is an example of that, right? The, we, we, they get 20 percent
time to engineers at Google. A lot of the time, there's, the, they always talk about
what products came out of 20 percent time. But, a lot of time it's just permission to
go chase something down that's bugging you, right? If you have an idea in your head and
you sit around and think, "This is this great idea, it's a great idea. It's just gonna rot
there."
And, and you go on thinking, "I have this great idea." And if you took four or five
hours, you might actually get to realize, "Well, it wasn't such a great idea but it
was interesting and I learned this, this and this. Now I can go back to everything else
and focus more." And just, you have that sort of freedom to pursue.
>>Ben: The, the next motivation is, is what we call mastery. Giving people the opportunity
to learn and grow, right? I mean, it's great to be an expert in something and maybe some
people view it as job security, but let me tell you, you get really bored after awhile,
right?
And if you're not, and if your manager isn't giving you a chance to learn new things and
get better at something, then, then you're gonna be frustrated, right? And if it's like,
you're really interested, if there's a chance to learn something new, you're gonna get,
you're gonna get excited.
>>Fitz: Well, how many people in this room participate in the hiring process where they
work? Ok. Whoa. A lot, that's great. I, there's a, there's a analogy that I like to use is
that we're all out there looking for the sharpest knife in the drawer, right?
[Ben laughs]
We all wanna hire the sharpest knife, ok? There's two things you can do once you get
that knife in your hand, ok? You can go outside and you can grind it in the sidewalk until
it's dull.
[Ben laughs]
And then you say, "I have a dull knife." And you throw it away and you go looking for another
knife, and, "I have a sharp knife." And then you grind it down, right? And there's this,
this sort of burn, this is the process of burning people out and not giving them a chance
to learn and grow. You wanna focus on getting that sharp knife, but keeping it sharp.
Give people opportunities to learn new technology; to learn new things. Sometimes, it doesn't
even have to be directly related to what you're doing. We're, we're doing a thing in our Chicago
office right now, we're having robot contests now, right? We're building Mindstorm robots
and--
>>Ben: Yup.
>>Fitz: pitting them against each other in various ways. Arguably, I don't think we're
gonna be shipping any robots any time soon for, for our projects in Chicago--
[Ben laughs]
but, this, it gives people a chance to get to know each other, they're learning new stuff--
>>Ben: Work together.
>>Fitz: they're working together, etc. And it's just one example of many, right.
>>Ben: So, the last, last intrinsic motivation is just giving people a sense of purpose,
right? We, we've talked in other, in other talks about letting people drive the bus,
right, and not just one driver. Let them work on something they care about, give them a
sense of ownership or stake, right? And it isn't just some thing that's being handed
down from the highest levels of management and they're just a cog in, in the machine.
Let them actually have an opinion, have a voice, direct where it's going, right? Take
turns giving the direction.
>>Fitz: Right, cuz if you follow all of this stuff and you hired really smart people who
are really motivated, they're gonna wanna work on something really big like that. I
interviewed a guy once and I said, "If you could do anything in the world, what would
you wanna do?" And he sat there and he looked up and he thought for a second and he said,
"I just wanna add value." And I was horrified by that--
>>Ben: [laughs] I wanna add value.
>>Fitz: Really, that's all you can come up with? I give you any opportunity to do anything
and you want to add value, add value to what? I mean, are you an adding machine?
[audience and Ben laughter]
So, reverse Polish engineering. So, that's, that sort of sums up the majority of the advice
of being a manager and leading other people.
>>Ben: Can we say the words? Autonomy, mastery, and purpose, right?
>>Fitz: Right?
>>Ben: Thank you, Dan. So, let's, let's, let's--
>>Fitz: We have a secret extra session that, that we're not gonna tell anyone else about
outside of this room, except for YouTube. And that's the Managing your Managers section,
right?
[Ben laughs]
This is, this is how to, it's about a couple of things, right?
>>Ben: Well, well how did we come up with this section, right? Someone actually told
us when they heard an intro version of this talk, they said, "You know I walked away from
your talk saying 'I'm a software engineer, I'm not managing people, what do I get out
of this talk? What can I walk away with? What can I do, as an engineer to help my manager
help me?'" And we said, "Oh, that's an interesting take on something, right?" Help me to help
you to help me.
>>Fitz: And, and, and this isn't about any sort of evil manipulation and that, that only
really works if you have a really crappy manager, alright? And we're not gonna teach you about
dealing with a crappy manager; manipulation, you can figure that out on your own.
[audience laughs]
This is, this is about how to make yourself easier to manage, improve relations with your
good leaders, so to speak here, and how you can help them lead you.
>>Ben: Right. So let's, let's just give a few, a few takeaways for engineers--
>>Fitz: We'll do those pretty quickly.
>>Ben: This--
>>Fitz: You're all gonna be, you're gonna say, "This is so obvious." I'm gonna get obvious
now.
>>Ben: So obvious, right, right, right. First of all, act like a grown-up, right? Don't
expect to be micromanaged, get your work done on time without someone poking you, right?
And, well what, what's your story?
>>Fitz: I, I had a new engineer starting. He was a really senior guy and he's a, I,
I, I still work with him to this day--
[Ben laughs]
and as his first day--
>>Ben: --Much smarter than us.
>>Fitz: And, exactly, much smarter than me. And he came in his first day, at the end of
the day; he came to my office at like a quarter to five and said, "I gotta head out now. I
have an appointment that I set up like, months ago for a doctor and, you know, I just like"
and he's just going on and on and I'm just like, "Why are you telling me this?"
[Ben laughs]
And, and I said, "Look, don't tell me these things." I said, "You come to work when you
come to work, you go home when you go home. As long as you work 70 to 80 hours a week,
I don't care."
[audience laughs]
And he looked at me and said, "Wow, I'm gonna have so much free time at my new job!"
[laughter]
But, I, I sort of gave, try to give them like this sort of joke at the end there, but, I
mean, the, the purpose of the matter is that, look, I'm not here, I, I'm not gonna judge
your productivity by how many time, hours I see your butt in that seat.
>>Ben: Right. But if, if you were, get your work done and if you're not people will notice.
But, don't expect to be nagged to get your work done.
>>Fitz: Right.
>>Ben: The next thing you can do is to, and this goes with the mastery, right? Pursue
new things, pursue responsibility, don't just fall into your old, little world and put up
with a stick in a cave and this is what I know and I'm not gonna do anything else, right?
Show some forward growth; show some interest in other things. Go to your manager and say,
"I want to work on something new, or I wanna be responsible for this new thing."
>>Fitz: So you step out of your comfort zone, right?
>>Ben: Yep, yep.
>>Fitz: Another thing is to allow mistakes, ok? Remember that failure is ok; take calculated
risks. If you screw up or something happens, write a post mortem, identify what went wrong,
identify what you've learned from this--
>>Ben: Absolutely.
>>Fitz: and, and move ahead. And again, the whole "failure is ok" thing is, is really
important as long as you're not failing at the same thing and use it as a learning opportunity.
>>Ben: The other thing you can do as an engineer is, is to, to talk. Just let people know what
you're thinking. Let your teammates know what you think, let your manager know what you
think. Nothing, nothing is, is more frustrating to me, at least as a manager, is when somebody
goes, "Ok, I got my task. I go off in my cave, see you in a week." It's like, well, are,
are you frustrated? Or is it going ok for you, is it not going ok? Like, what do you
do? I don't wanna just talk to you once a week.
>>Fitz: Well, they just expect that you're omniscient; you're just gonna figure it all
out.
>>Ben: Yeah, yeah. So, so, share, share what's going on, right? It helps if somebody is sitting
next to you and you can turn around and say, "I'm really frustrated right now." Or, "This
is great."
>>Fitz: Or I have a great idea for something, that sort of thing.
>>Ben: Yeah, absolutely.
>>Fitz: Pointing out obstacles is also, also very helpful.
>>Ben: It ties in.
>>Fitz: Yeah, don't, it's, it's sort of that constructive, almost criticism of the product,
in that case. Don't be shy; don't be afraid to point out that this is what's a problem
that you see because--
>>Ben: Your manager is not omniscient.
>>Fitz: Right.
>>Ben: So many obstacles that need--
>>Fitz: And this is something that's really important to me is, is argue, ok? I don't
want yes-men working for me. I, I, cuz I probably got way too much going on for me to get all
the details right and someone would ask me a question and I, I would interrogate them
a bit and I'll say, "Yeah, what about this?" And they'll be like, "Yeah!" And they'll go
off and do it when I, what I really wanted to do was have more of a dialogue and hear
more of what they're thinking.
>>Ben: Right, but dialogue is the way you solve problems, not, "Here's my idea." "Yes,
sir." That doesn't solve--
>Fitz: Wait, I'm gonna admit that I'm wrong. My mind is changed; I changed my mind and
if, if I deserve it, then criticize me. Certainly.
>>Ben: Let's finish up.
>>Ben and Fitz: Is anyone still awake?
>>Ben: Ok, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So, let's talk about three concepts
you can walk away with, right? Here's the three things to remember when you leave the
room. First of all, being a manager is about serving people, not having them serve you.
You serve them.
Second thing, all the patterns and antipatterns somehow trace back to mutual respect, right?
You respect them; they respect you back, vice versa, right?
And the third thing is think about what people, what's motivating them, right? It's not carrots
and sticks. It's whether they actually care about what they're working on, are they growing,
are you giving them autonomy and trust to, to, to do what they need to do?
>>Fitz: And with that, so stop being a manager and start being a leader.
>>Ben: That's it.
>>Fitz: And with that, thank you guys for joining us today.
>>Ben: Thanks.
[applause]
>>Fitz: Everybody's like, lunchtime, they're out of here. If you have a question, just
step up to the mic.
>>Ben: No, I think they're hungry. Or we'll let the hungry people leave. If anybody has
questions, we'll stick around.
>>Fitz: Oh, he's got a question.
>>Male audience1: Hi. I got a question on, on the Wave?
>>Ben: It is on the Wave, we didn't see it.
>>audience1: There, there are a couple of questions you can check, too. Managers invest
a lot of effort in sharpening the knives, or keeping them sharp. And the problem I'm,
if that, if you're a good manager and you have your, all your knives are sharp, other
managers start looking for your sharps. So, what would you recommend for your sharp knives?
So, what would you recommend for improving the, the team, I don't know how to say it
in English, like fidelity or, or people--
>>Fitz: Cohesiveness, you're trying to retain your people?
>>audience1: Wanting, wanting to stay in your sharp drawer and not someone else's.
>>Ben: So, the questions about if you have a drawer full of sharp knives, how do you
retain them?
>>audience1: Yeah.
>>Ben: Without other people, --
>>Fitz: How to keep other chefs out of your knife drawer?
>>Ben: I'm not sure I like the, I'm not sure I like the underlying assumptions there, right?
There's a territorialness that, it's a little odd. I mean, I, I know that's sort of the
norm for corporate culture is to have managers fighting with each other over people.
>>Fitz: I think, I think that the, the real solution to that is to turn it around, is
to focus on making, making your, the, work environment and the culture of your team,
and focusing your product, no matter what you're working on as being compelling and
as interesting as possible for people. And let, if someone decides they wanna go somewhere
else, or they want a change of venue, or need to move somewhere or something, they're gonna
do that and--
>>Ben: And try to make it not your fault, though.
[Ben laughs]
>>Fitz: Yes, exactly. Try to make them leave because they found a more attractive knife
drawer, not because they hate yours.
>>Ben: Yeah, or, or they're bored with your project or something.
>>Fitz: This analogy is just not going that far, right?
[Ben laughs]
>>audience1: Thank you.
Next question?
>>Male audience2: Hey, this is on the Wave, too. Do you guys do anything different for
volunteer projects versus managing a team at a paid organization?
>>Ben: Do we do anything different for volunteer projects compared to a big organization? In
my experience, it has not been very different but then again, Google is not a typical company,
either, right? It's sort of run in a very open source-y kind of way.
>>Fitz: I think, I think it can be harder, the, I think it's always harder at, in an
environment where its paid and I, even at Google. I would argue just because people
who are volunteering are there because they want to all the time and I feel like they're
excited and happy because they're part of that team because, the interview processes
is what gets you into the company and you're just dumped into a team, in a lot of cases.
When you join a volunteer project, like--
>>Ben: They're intrinsically motivated already.
>>Fitz: Right. When you join a volunteer project, you're not only intrinsically motivated, but
you, you're typically, the culture sort of selects for you, right? So, it takes a certain
amount of, it's sort of like a transmission. You have to get up to speed and mesh gears
before you're gonna join that team, or they're gonna accept you. And so, if you, if there,
if there isn't that gear meshing and people don't see it as a, more of a privilege to
be on a team, then I think it, I think that's what makes it harder.
>>Ben: I see it as volunteers are intrinsically motivated so they typically need more direction,
where when you're in a company, you're getting paid no matter what. I think people need more
intrinsic motivation, and less direction. I guess that's how I would weight it.
>>Fitz: Yeah.
>>Ben: Other questions? Come, come to the microphone.
>>Male audience3: Please, please, last question. It's not very clear for me i-, what happen
if one person of your team is, is your real friend, is a best friend for you. What do
you do in this case?
>>Fitz: What do you do when one per-, well, what do you do when the person standing next
to you on stage reports to you? Hmmm, what did we do? Well, I mean, in our case, it was--
>>Ben: We dodged a bullet.
>>audience3: What do we do when we lose--
>>Fitz: Well, Ben actually reported to me for awhile because Chicago needed someone
to run the engineering office. And, it, it, at first, I think we both thought it would
be a little bit awkward, but it, I don't think it was because, it was easy in our case because
Ben is very intrinsically motivated--
>>Ben: Right.
>>Fitz: and, and doesn't need a lot of direction. If it had been the other way, I don't know
how easy it would've been.
>>Ben: If it's like, if, if your peer is not performing well and you're supposed to deliver
news, I honestly I would get out of that situation I guess. I would've gone, if I ever found
myself in that situation, managing a friend who is not performing well, I would've asked
to, to, for my manager to change the situation.
>>Fitz: Sort of recu-, you recuse yourself from management in that case.
>>Ben: Yeah, yeah.
>>Fitz: That's probably would have been the best thing to do.
>>Ben: If the persons just an awesome performer then you can just turn a blind eye and it's
not a problem.
>>Fitz: Right, cause you're running to keep up with them anyway.
>>Ben: [laughs] Right.
>>Fitz: One more question?
>>Male audience4: You're advice was don't ignore the humans element in your team, which
is very good advice, but sometimes your team members have personal issues outside of work
between themselves. And there's this very thin line between trying to intervene in their
personal lives and it's also affecting their work. So, I know this is probably not an easy
question to answer, but, have you had any experiences where your teammates had personal
issues between themselves outside of work that is affecting their work?
>>Ben: So, if, the question is have we had problems with teammates having interpersonal
issues outside of work affecting work? How do you deal with that?
>>Fitz: Well--
>>Ben: Without crossing a line.
>>Fitz: There's, I, its, its, it's very careful, its, it's a very, its, it's a problem that
be, that has to be handled with care and with empathy, I think. But, the, it's not like
you get them both in a room. I'm gonna lock you in this room and you're not coming out
until you both write 25,000 lines of code or something, or work your issues out. I think
the real answer there is that you, you can look to see if there's, if it's possible to
easily and simply move someone to another team--
>>Ben: That's what I would do.
>>Fitz: That's, that's the easy way out. But, the, the fact of the matter is I would probably
sit down in a very cour-, short and frank conversation with both of them and say, "Look,
you know, what I'm seeing here is some sort of issues working with so-and-so."
>>Ben: --Which is impacting the rest of the whole team.
>>Fitz: "Which seems to be impacting the whole team. Can you tell me why that might be?"
Ok? And this is a, this is a great technique that I learned--
>>Ben: Socratic.
>>Fitz: on, on delivering hard feedback, is to sort of ask them questions. "Why is it
that you're having, that there's an issue, that I perceive an issue with it? Why do,
why do you think I'm seeing that?"
>>Ben: "What do you think we should do about it?"
>>Fitz: And, and then just keep asking questions, they'll give your answer. And I would talk
to both of them quite frankly about that,
>>Ben: And then compliment their beard.
>>Fitz: And then compliment their beard, right.
[laughter]
>>Male audience5: It's interesting that, this is some famed, renowned company right now,
so I'm deeply, personally involved in the, figuring out the question. R-, the answer
to this question but it's interesting that you spend a lot of time talking about "team",
but every company I've worked for in the past, at the end of the quarter it's, "Who's the
employee of the month?"
And to me, that's the number one destroyer of team because, well, I helped that guy a
lot solving his problem and he got the recognition and I didn't. So, one of the things I-, I've
really thought about is I'm trying to build a culture of my company is there will be no
individual awards. There will be team awards with one person designated as helping, with
the team deciding how to distribute the reward because as soon as you have an employee of
the month, it's all about me now.
>>Fitz: So, you're creating one winner and a whole bunch of losers--
>>Ben: With the leader awards, right?
>>audience5: Exactly, right. It's, this--
>>Ben: I think I like Google's solution to the problem which is to have peer bonuses.
Like, if somebody you, you run into somebody at Google who does something amazing, way
beyond the call of what you expected from that person; could be on your own team, could
be some other team. You can actually nominate them for a peer bonus and usually it'll get
approved and then they, it may not be announced to the whole company, but that person feels
appreciated, feels like they went above and maybe it's just private between the two of
you, right, and the manager, and that's it. I think that's, it's pretty effective without,
without getting into the whole superstar--
>>Fitz: But, but there's, it, in summary, yeah, I agree with you.
[Ben laughs]
>>audience5: I was hoping you had a insight, but I like the peer award--
>>Fitz: We have no insight at all really.
[Ben laughs]
I think we're fresh out of insight. No, I mean insight on how to basically build culture
in that set-, in that setting.
>>audience5: Well, how, how to reward, how to reward without picking, like you said,
who, who gets to be up on stage and who doesn't? Who gets the recognition and who doesn't,
right? Which is a very, like you missed the cutoff by like, point one percent kind of
thing, or something stupid like that. Only one person can be valedictorian.
>>Fitz: I think the, the way that I reward, I reward top performers that are working with
me are, is, basically with more opp-, more opportunity. I, I focus really hard on what
I can do--
>>audience5: Hold up, I'm gonna interrupt you. I'm not talking about the top performers;
I'm talking about the people that enabled the top performers to be top performers.
>>Fitz: Well, I think I recog-, ok, so, I also help them, I mean, it's again, anyone
who's working toward the betterment of the team is a, is a good performer, a good, solid
performer, ok? So it's not about, there aren't any awards that are sort of extrinsic motivations,
like, "You're gonna get two carrots, and you're gonna get three carrots." Right? That sort
of thing. I, so, we can chat more about that later.
>>Ben: We're actually; we're actually out of time.
>>Fitz: We are out of time.
>>Ben: W-, w-, we'll go in the hallway--
>>Fitz: Ok.
>>Ben: if you wanna keep chatting.
>>Fitz: Thank you all. Have a good day.
>>Ben: Thanks.
[applause]