I. M. Wright’s “Hard Code” : People

Spontaneous combustion of rancid management

ericbrec — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 06:00:00 GMT

What's good for you isn't always good for your group. Obvious, right? You can call it local versus global optimization. You can get geek philosophical about it and say, "The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few…or the one." Or you can simply notice the difference you feel between zany ideas from the intern (cool) versus zany ideas from your general manager (scary).

For example, spontaneity in an individual is a good thing and unvarying predictability makes Jack a dull boy. But when Jack is running a large enterprise, unpredictability can wreak havoc. There are managers who grow up and learn this lesson, and there are managers who are Randomizing Ambiguous Nimrods Causing Incessant Distraction, or rancid for short.

I despise rancid managers. They think they are responsive and flexible when in reality they are the fastest means to team dysfunction and failure. If you are a manager and you tell your team, "Hey, I've got a great idea," and they look back at you seemingly saying, "Does it involve tying yourself to a tractor and driving off a bridge?", then you might be rancid.

It's not that bad

What's so bad about being a rancid manager? Isn't consistency and predictability boring? The answer lies in Brownian motion, which describes the movement of particles under random bombardment. Particle movement in Brownian motion could best be described as erratic.

Consider a large team of engineers who are constantly being pushed in different directions at random intervals by their general manager. You'd expect the same erratic movement from that team. Their chances of actually accomplishing anything as an organization are negligible.

Alternatively, if the team is consistently pushed in the same direction they will gather momentum and make significant progress toward their goal. Therefore, a successful manager sets a clear direction, points the team in that direction, and consistently pushes in that same direction until their goal is achieved. Course corrections that naturally come along should translate to gradual team nudges, until the correction is made. Only severe circumstances should prompt major changes in course.

I’m talking about high-level direction, not the day-to-day details which require more agility and flexibility. The key is aligning the day-to-day detailed decisions to the high-level direction. You can’t do that if your high-level direction constantly changes.

Do I look all rancid and clotted?

If teams run by rancid managers are erratic and make little progress, why are there so many rancid managers? Here are three reasons:

§ Being rancid seems responsive. Instead of always pushing in the same direction, rancid managers respond quickly to outside influences, giving their management a nice warm phony feeling of agility.

§ Being rancid means never having to achieve anything. Since the world of a rancid manager's team is always changing, there's a self-fulfilling excuse for why nothing gets accomplished ("Hey, a bunch of stuff happened!"). If these managers weren't rancid they'd risk being accountable. They'd have to do the hard work of setting an achievable vision and direction for their team and then achieve it.

§ Being rancid keeps you occupied. Where's the fun in consistency? What do you do all day to stay busy? What value do you bring to the team if you're always saying the same things? Making a call and sticking to it is difficult. It's scary and you might need to do real work to support it.

Of course, rancid upper management breeds rancid middle management. It's hard to escape. Often people don't even know how good consistent management can be until they finally experience it.

It's a path made of principle

When managers stop being rancid and start being consistent, a number of wonderful things happen. First and foremost, teams start achieving results. Managers move from creating havoc to preventing havoc. And team members actually understand what they are supposed to do each day, and know they have to do it because it won't be different tomorrow.

All this leads to a higher sense of purpose and higher morale. At first, the team may struggle to get fully aligned, but soon the job of a manager becomes easier. You're not always changing your story. Once the team is aligned there are fewer problems to resolve. It's easier to track and show progress.

What challenges does this leave for managers? The biggest is to paint the picture of where the team is going. You need to be clear and understand it deeply in order to describe it consistently and repeatedly to the team. Once you have your story of the future, the challenge is to stay on course at a high level as team members and external factors change. You must discover and communicate adjustments as needed, and prevent upper management from inappropriately disrupting your course.

It's not easy. You need confidence in your convictions and strong thinking behind your direction. It helps to have principles you follow and communicate. They let people know what you expect and how you make decisions. Doing so helps them align their decisions with yours and gets the whole team behind you.

Eric Aside

Upper management edicts can sometimes be hard to discern. Are they appropriate customer or business driven changes worth disrupting your team’s course, or are they inappropriate distractions you should filter from randomizing your team? The best way to find out is to ask your manager or a trusted mentor within your organization. Be direct. Find out the background and thinking behind the change. Even if the change is distasteful it might be the right thing to do. Even if the change is alluring it might be wrong to follow.

Picking your battles is a critical skill to master if you hope for a long and prosperous career. Understand the context. Learn who you’d have to fight, how tough it would be, and how much you’d stand to gain or lose. Then make an informed decision about whether the battle is worth engaging. Discretion can add years to your valor.

Oh, the noise! Noise! Noise! Noise!

"But things change!" protest the rancid managers, "Is your team supposed to blindly follow some ancient plan? Our agile competitors will beat us every time." Of course things change and plans, architectures, and designs must adjust. Details and understanding constantly evolve, driving continuous iteration of our work. But if your goal today is to build a social computing experience, no detail or external influence should be switching you to build tractor tires.

Strong managers know that all kinds of variation in team structure, competitive landscape, market fluctuations, and technical challenges precipitate changes to the best laid plans and designs. However, it's rare for those variations to necessitate a complete shift of direction. A strong manager welcomes change and contextualizes it for their team so that their momentum toward a shared goal stays strong through many corrections in course.

Eric Aside

Great managers directly confront distractions to keep them from disrupting their teams. Some have a regular "rumor mill" portion of their staff meetings to discuss the latest gossip. Shining a light on these issues and nipping them early keeps teams focused.

All progress has resulted from people who took unpopular positions

Being consistent as a manager may seem dull, but it's the kind of dull teams truly appreciate—the kind of dull that leads to results. While it sounds easy to be consistent, it requires courage. Courage to stand your ground and stand behind your words. Courage to be accountable for the direction you've set.

I'm talking about commitment. I'm talking about integrity. I'm talking about shaping the world to fit your vision rather than mindlessly following the latest trend or circumstance.

Our vision should be shaped by the needs and aspirations of our customers and the imagination of our collective minds, but in the end our vision belongs to our leaders as individuals. Our success depends on them having the courage to speak it and steadfastly pursue it. Do you have that courage?

Hire's remorse

ericbrec — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 09:00:00 GMT

Looking for that perfect candidate to fill a role? Good, that means you'll never steal a great candidate away from me. I love it when industrial-strength stupidity renders my competition comatose. You can't hire the perfect candidate, but please keep trying. Maybe after six months I'll even get your open headcount.

This isn't a case of letting the perfect be an enemy of the good. Idiotic hiring managers aren't trying to create perfect candidates—they are waiting for them to appear. It's like a romantic awaiting their soul mate or a home buyer searching for their "dream house." Guess what? Dreams aren't reality.

If someone tells you on your first or second date that you are the man or woman of their dreams—run. They aren't dating you. They are dating their dreams. Sooner or later, they'll realize the two don't match. The same thing happens when hiring managers get caught up in seeking their dream candidate.

Hiring people instead of pipe dreams

It's natural for a hiring manager and their team to imagine what the new hire will be like. When you spend so much time checking resumes, doing phone screens, informationals, and interviews, you can't help but think about the potential outcome.

Unfortunately, there are three dangers with getting caught up in fantasy:

§ You may not interview a great candidate even if they meet your needs because they don't match your preconceived notions.

§ You may hold off on an offer to a great candidate because they lack attributes that were imagined but not essential.

§ You may regret hiring candidates who turn out different from your projection of perfection, compromising their chances for success.

Of course, you shouldn't hire people who don't meet the high bar we set, but it's awful to lose out on strong hires because you were busy hallucinating. Let's dive deeper into each case.

Eric Aside

I talk about informationals and interview loops more in "Out of the interview loop" (Chapter 9).

I found myself much more reasonable

If you have a preconceived notion of whom you're hiring (worse case—someone just like you), then you're certain to subconsciously filter applicants based on that template. You may get candidates that match your musings, but you'll miss a crowd of candidates that meet your needs. If a good hire is one in a hundred (not far from the truth), the sooner you review a hundred qualified candidates, the sooner you'll hire someone. In addition, less filtering brings more diversity, which leads to better balance, better products and services, and better customer experiences.

If you hold off on an offer to a great candidate thinking that the next candidate might be even more ideal, you're likely to lose both. Surely another team will want your great candidate, and your next candidate will be at least as flawed. They say, "A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush." Thus, the next candidate better be twice as good if you hold off. Otherwise, make an offer now before your great candidate becomes your great regret.

Speaking of regrets, ever order something only to regret it shortly after? That feeling of buyer's remorse can afflict managers as well. Hire's remorse happens when you've imagined who might fill an important position, fill it with a real person, and then regret the decision because that person isn't precisely who you wanted. Quit sulking and get over it. Only movie directors occasionally get what they imagine, and that only lasts while the camera is rolling. You've hired a great person, now give them a chance.

Well, what do you need?

How do you differentiate what is really required for your open position from your unintentional biases? Consider the must-have results you seek from the role, and consider how soon you need those results. Then insist on candidates that have achieved those results in some general way. The sooner you need results, the more specifically the candidate needs to have achieved them before.

For example, say you need someone who can develop and ship code for a service. If you can afford to have them figure it out over nine months, hire someone who has demonstrated they can write code of any kind and ship it. It could be a game or a numerical algorithm for a thesis. All you need is the development skill and the ability to finish something. That could be almost anyone from any field—lots of possibilities.

However, say you're in SQL Server and need an engineering lead to step in right away. In that case, you need someone who has recently been an engineering lead. Your need for SQL Server expertise might not be as immediate though, so that's not an essential skill and shouldn't bias your thinking. You'd hate to pick a lousy lead with SQL experience over a great lead who can gain SQL experience over time.

The key is to focus on must-have results and the core skills essential to achieving those results. Then look for anyone who demonstrates those essential skills and gets analogous results. You can be more specific if your need is more immediate, but don't kid yourself. Getting picky may cost you candidates who'll deliver great results for years if you support them and give them a chance.

You could even say that he has principles

One item you generally won't find on a resume is a candidate's principles. Principles don't tend to align with appearance, skill set, or even achievements. Thus, when you imagine your ideal candidate you often don't think of principles, which is yet another reason not to waste your time imagining your ideal candidate.

What principles are important to you and your team? Integrity? Transparency? Accountability? Selflessness? Loose coupling? Screen for them. They are just as important as skills sets and demonstrated results. Many would argue that principles are more important. People can learn skills and work together to achieve results. Principles can be harder to attain or change.

Don't know what principles matter to you and your team? Figure it out—now. Let your team know. Being principled is itself a principle. For me, it matters the most and is the first trait I seek when talking to candidates.

I'm trying to tell you something about my life

Life is not a novel you get to write where everything turns out the way you conceive it. It's full of twists and turns for you to ride and hopefully enjoy in the end. Hiring and building a team is no different.

You have no idea who will respond to your open positions at what times, so don't try to guess. Instead, keep your mind open to all possibilities. Remember, you want a team full of differing viewpoints that are all aligned toward a common goal.

While you don't want unpredictable ships dates and quality, you do want unpredictable ideas and interplay on your team. They are the source of innovation and improvement. The more your team is filled with variety instead of clones, the more your team will enjoy learning from each other—a result reflected in more thoughtful designs and improved customer experiences.

So, consider the needs of your team, but stop short of projecting who might fill them. Keep your mind open to the possibilities, give offers immediately to great candidates unless you know the next candidate is twice as good, stick by your principles, and avoid hire's remorse. Everyone complains about insufficient resources—the sooner you fill your open positions the happier and more productive your team will be.

I hardly recognize you

ericbrec — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 09:00:00 GMT

The annual engineering awards are being given out this week at the Microsoft Engineering Forum. Annual reviews will soon follow. These are great opportunities to recognize impactful work. It's too bad most managers are tragically ignorant of how to recognize their employees or truly why they should.

If you are a manager, you're probably relishing this opportunity to heckle all those bad managers. Guess what? I'm talking about you. You don't know how to use recognition properly. You don't know why you should. "But I'm great at recognizing my employees," cries a clueless manager. "I'm always congratulating my team—I even shaved my head once." Let's call this manager, "Chaos."

Chaos thinks recognition is all about morale and motivation. Certainly, there are real benefits for Chaos being a team cheerleader. But if that's the depth of his use of recognition, then chaos is what he'll get.

Everybody wants results

What Chaos fails to recognize is that recognition is a form of reinforcement. Reinforcement drives behavior. Behavior drives results. Results are king at Microsoft. Good recognition focuses on reinforcing desired results (and correcting undesirable ones).

If you aren't thoughtful about the results you seek, recognition can easily drive detrimental behavior. For example, Chaos shaved his head when his team met a tough milestone. To meet that milestone, team members cut corners on quality and deferred fixing structural issues. Those issues increased the "bug debt," prolonged stabilization, and reduced release quality. More importantly, Chaos' team members learned that Chaos rewards cutting corners and doesn't respect quality.

Eric Aside

Cutting corners for rapid development is desirable for prototypes and new ideas, where learning about the problem space is the result you seek.

The end may justify the means

"Yeah, but we hit the milestone. We built team unity. That means something!" claims Chaos. Do the ends justify the means? No, not with your narrow view of the ends.

The ends for Chaos were a united team hitting a tough date. However, others ends were achieved—increased bug debt. If the ends had been defined as a united team hitting a tough date with zero bug debt, then the means can be left to the team.

Chaos is getting cynical. He says, "So if the team robbed a bank to get money to pay a vendor to reduce bug debt then that would be okay?" No, it wouldn't. Chaos has introduced another end—jail time. Define the ends as a united team legally and responsibly hitting a tough date with zero bug debt, and that problem is avoided.

It's not easy to carefully define and communicate the ends you seek. It's much simpler to follow Chaos and reward haphazard results, ignoring the unintended consequences. However, setting clear expectations and recognizing your truly desired results pays huge dividends:

§ You micromanage less.

§ Your team innovates more.

§ You get the results you desire.

§ You have more time to focus on developing and recognizing the great work of your team.

The time has come to act and act quickly

Do you wait till the ends are achieved before recognizing them? Recognition is most effective when given immediately after achieving a goal. But you also want to recognize all the intermediate results that led to the end result.

For example, on the way to your united team legally and responsibly hitting a tough date with zero bug debt, your lead ran a great design review. You should immediately recognize her effort saying, "That was a terrific design review today. I love how you listened to everyone's opinion without critique. I also liked how you summarized that feedback and improved the design. Correcting those errors and misunderstandings early will save us significant time and lead us toward hitting our date with zero bug debt."

Notice the keys to great recognition:

§ It's immediate—the same day, or even better, the same minute.

§ It describes precisely what you liked—as opposed to the generic "nice job."

§ It's tied to the desired end result—reinforcing the real value of the effort.

You may not have the time or opportunity to recognize every positive step toward your end goal. However, you should keep your eyes open and address as many small victories as you can. Your team will love it, they'll better appreciate your expectations, and they'll be better aligned toward your desired result.

Let us celebrate

Chaos wonders, "Day-to-day recognition is great, but doesn't it detract from the big celebration at the end? Was I wrong to shave my head?" Chaos' grooming habits aside, a celebration marking a major achievement is just as important as day-to-day recognition. However, because it's a culmination of a long-term effort it's not as simple as sharing a few comments or shaving your head.

First and foremost, recognition should be for a carefully defined desired result, not something arbitrary like "great effort" or "someone said something nice." For example, don't give out an award for "teamwork." Give out an award for "teamwork across divisions and geographies that led to delivering a complete customer scenario."

Once you have clearly defined criteria for the recognition, plan the celebration. Here's what makes for a lasting positive experience:

§ Make it personal—if you defined the goal, the recognition should come from you. Include some personal remarks that express the spirit behind your goals and the way individuals or the team embodied that spirit.

§ Make it public—public ritual is important. It carries meaning, builds community, spreads the message, and creates a shared sense of purpose.

§ Make it lasting—the associated award should be substantial to the senses—heavy, bold, eye-catching, and tactile. Shaving your head meets many of these criteria, but so do heavy physical awards (like the Oscars) and giant signed banners on heavy poster board.

These guidelines give your celebration enduring emotional impact. Food or money don’t cut it.

I'd like to thank the Academy

The last element to consider is, "Do you give the recognition to the team or to the individual?" While you can certainly give the whole team a celebration and a day off, recognition for carefully defined desired results should be called out to a small number of recipients (typically, no more than five). Any more than that dilutes the impact.

Why is the impact diluted when given to more than five recipients? Because when you recognize a larger group, there are sure to be individuals who didn't embody the spirit of your goals. The message you send is that tagging along is just as good as being the driver. It isn't. Who originated the action? Who drove it to fruition? Those are the people at the center and in the lead. Those are the people you recognize and encourage others to emulate.

Eric Aside

I've been involved in the internal Engineering Excellence (EE) Award program for some time. It recognizes broad improvement in the way we engineer our products and services. The criteria are around demonstrating that improvement and making it available for others (business and customer impact, plus adoption). The recipients are those individuals who came up with the initial idea, first put it in practice, and drove adoption. The ceremony has ritual (Bill Gates used to host it) and the awards themselves are bold, heavy, eye-catching, tactile, and will last a lifetime.

Over the past several years, the EE Awards have recognized and encouraged dramatic improvements in our engineering—more secure and reliable products, better customer feedback, and broader language support. Reviewers in specialized areas are noticing the difference. Hopefully, when enough improvements are broadly in place, everyone will notice.

An interesting side note: a few years ago we gave an EE Award to a tool that consolidated a large number of duplicate efforts, gained broad adoption, and automated processes that improved our software. Unfortunately, the tool itself wasn't well engineered, which hurt productivity and reflected poorly on the award program. A great example of needing to carefully define the ends you seek.

All right, let's review

Now that you know how to recognize your employees and why you should, how can you apply this to the annual review process?

§ Describe what you liked (and disliked) about the results your employees achieved and how they achieved them.

§ Talk about the small results and the big results. Tie them together.

§ Set carefully defined goals for the future that will drive personal development and stronger results for your business and customers.

Clarity around expectations tied to consistent feedback described in plain language is critical to getting great results, and a happy and secure team. Recognition requires careful thinking and deliberate action, but it's not difficult to do. Avoid the chaos and you can even keep your hair.

I'm listening

ericbrec — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 10:00:00 GMT

It's Midyear Career Discussion time at Microsoft. Perhaps you just finished, but more than likely you're still trying to squeeze yours in. How'd it go? How will it go? For you? For your manager? Well, that depends.

It depends a bit on your prior performance and your manager's prior performance. It depends a bit on the feedback itself and how that feedback is given. It depends a bit on how your parents raised you and the comfort of your chair. But the biggest influence on the lasting impact of your Midyear Career Discussion is the way you and your manager respond to feedback.

Let me put this delicately to you. You have no frigging idea how to give and take feedback. Seriously—not one frigging idea. Think I'm wrong? You are only proving me right. If you actually knew how to give and take feedback your response would be a sincere and polite, "Thank you."

Thanks for the advice

In fact, there are only two valid responses to feedback, "Thank you" and "Go on."

The "Thank you" is simple and self-explanatory. Too bad most people don't use it. Most people defend themselves, explain their behavior and results, and describe how they are already taking the right steps.

Please, slowly and carefully shut your mouth, empty your mind, and listen. Perhaps you can even take notes. Then, when the generous soul is finished, say, "Thank you."

You don't say it to be polite. You say "Thank you" because you mean it. Your relationships, your life, and our products and services would reek far beyond their current stench if people were not kind enough to provide an outside perspective and help us improve. Thank goodness they are willing to do it. To ensure they continue it's essential to sincerely appreciate it.

Tell me more about me

In addition to "Thank you," a valid response to feedback is "Go on." As in:

§ "Could you talk more about that?"

§ "I don't quite understand—could you describe that further?"

§ "Thank you, that's helpful, what else can I do differently?"

Anything that encourages clear and continued feedback is appropriate.

Back off, man. I'm a scientist

What's inappropriate is anything that questions or cuts off feedback. This includes:

§ "I'm working on it." So what? You're doing the wrong thing, you haven't made much progress, or you are actually improving. Regardless, the feedback is valid and your comment is irrelevant and self-serving.

§ "I was trying to …" So that makes it better? Never confuse reasons with excuses. If you can get better, you should get better. No excuses.

§ "I disagree." So this is news? You're getting feedback. It's opinion. The fact that you like your current approach is not a revelation. When the feedback seems wrong, you've either missed something or left the wrong impression—that’s precious information.

Keep in mind that you don't have to follow whatever advice you get. All you are obligated to do is listen, consider the advice carefully, and thank the person for helping you.

Eric Aside

A particularly important time to keep your mouth closed, take notes, and simply say, "Thank you," is during an executive review.

Now it’s my turn!

Now that you know how to take feedback, it's time to learn how to ask for it and provide it. When asking for feedback and when providing it, there are three basic questions:

§ What is good [about what I'm doing or the work I've done]?

§ What could be better?

§ Any further comments?

You can structure feedback more, but the simplest, complete ask are those three questions. And it is those three questions that you want to answer when you provide feedback.

Eric Aside

Feedback is best provided immediately before or after behavior. The ideal is to provide positive feedback directly after desired conduct; and provide corrective feedback just before it’s needed. In other words, apply feedback at precisely the moment it is most constructive.

For example, a guy on your team sends a great email but forgets to copy a stakeholder. You reply to him right away, “Great mail—concise and insightful.” Later, just before he’s supposed to send the next update you write, “Remember to copy all stakeholders.” The reminder is more useful at that time.

We have come full circle

When providing your feedback, start with what's good, talk about improvements, add on your other comments, remind about improvements, and then reiterate what's good. That order is important.

§ You start with what you like. It sets up the conversation on an upbeat note and prevents the impression that all is lost. If you start with what's wrong, your listener may never hear what's right.

§ Next, you talk about ways to improve. Ideally, your listener should focus on just one change. One change is all that most people can handle at a time. Pick the most impactful improvement and emphasize it.

§ Of course, you'll have plenty of other thoughts that aren't as important. Feel free to mention those in the context of "a few other comments."

§ Then come back to your main message—the one or perhaps two improvements that would make the most difference.

§ Finish with what is going well. It's important to end on a positive note.

Eric Aside

Remember to always focus on the behavior or outcome, not on the person. People can't change who they are, but they can improve their actions and results.

We don't have much time

That's it. Being concise is important. If you want your feedback to matter it should be clear, consumable, considerate, concise, and centered on the receiver. Your feedback isn’t about you and your glorious knowledge; it is about helping the recipient.

If you are on the receiving end of the feedback you should be just as concise. Feedback is precious, whether it's from a customer, a peer, or your manager. Don't get in the way. Encourage it. Savor it. Appreciate it. Thank you.

Opportunity in a gorilla suit

ericbrec — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 09:00:00 GMT

It's annual review time at Microsoft. We differentiate pay between high, average, and low performers in the same roles. Thus, it's time to calibrate those who've made the most of their opportunities in the past year with those in the mainstream of solid...(read more)

Things have got to change: Change management

ericbrec — Sat, 01 Mar 2008 13:13:00 GMT

It's the political season in the United States, making "change" a happy word around here. Politicians fight over who better represents change. They proclaim themselves to be agents of change. Hysterical admirers jump up and down waving "Change" signs....(read more)

Lead, follow, or get out of the way

ericbrec — Sat, 01 Dec 2007 11:24:00 GMT

We're closing in on midyear career discussions again. It's time to place your hopes and humility in the hands of your hierarchy. I still haven't recovered from the amputation of our midyear ratings, which allowed managers to send messages and employees to salvage careers after a temporary setback. They've been replaced with a time-consuming CareerCompass that contributes complexity and confusion instead of context and clarity.

Eric Aside

CareerCompass is an internal Web application that allows employees to assess their competencies and skills against standards for their career stage. Managers and selected peers can also assess employees through the tool. It's a nice idea, but the first version was a less than ideal implementation.

Don't get me wrong, even though I want the midyear ratings back, I initially found the less confrontational career conversations to be, well … constructive. Unfortunately, though HR and managers may mean well, their advice is often cryptic. Take the biggest offender: strategic insight. The common conundrum: "My boss says I should think more strategically. What on earth does that mean? What should I do?"

Good question. Ask your favorite manager or executive about improving your strategic insight, and he or she will likely suggest getting more involved in planning, focusing on the vision, thinking more about the business, and other such well-meaning nonsense. Yes, strategy happens in those activities, but attending a pro football game doesn't make you a great quarterback.

Strategy is not an activity; it's a way of thinking. It happens anytime, not just during planning. If you want to get better at it, wasting more time in meetings isn't likely to help. You need to mature your way of looking at work and the world. You're not an ignorant waif anymore. It's time to wake up and grow up.

Blind Faith or Cowboy Junkies?

A friend was recently comparing two coworkers to me—a guy who did whatever he liked and a gal who followed the current business strategy. My friend said, "[The gal] is a better strategic thinker." No, she's not. Neither is thinking strategically at all. The guy is a cowboy without a herd. The gal is tactically contributing to a given strategy, which is far better, but is not strategic insight.

There's a growth curve for strategic insight. Take a look and see where you fail, I mean, fall:

§ Ignoring strategy: The self-centered cowboy

§ Following strategy: The tactical contributor

§ Questioning strategy: The strategic tactician

§ Evolving strategy: The strategic thinker

§ Determining strategy: The strategic leader

Let's break these down, examine the pitfalls of each level, and discover how you make progress up the curve.

Yippee-ki-yay, project buster!

The self-centered cowboy ignores strategy, considering it bureaucratic mumbo-jumbo that might otherwise prevent him from creating cool innovative products. His heroes are the storied rebels that broke the rules and created the killer features that vaulted them to the principal and partner levels. Oh, to be that bold and bright!

Eric Aside

The principal and partner levels are among the most senior at Microsoft. I know a number of these heroes to cowboys, and none of them ignored strategy. They ignored middle managers who took the strategy too literally instead of truly understanding the intent. The rebels did the right strategic work and were rewarded for it by upper management. The moral of the story is, "Make sure you deeply understand the strategy before you start messing around."

Yeah, right. Never mind what the actual facts might be in those stories; we're not a startup anymore, and most cowboys aren't working on incubation efforts. They are working on established products and services, and cowboys in the big city will get lost and ignored no matter how well they rope or play guitar.

Why do cowboys get lost and ignored on big projects? Because their individual actions are like random noise. Without coordination, each cowboy's efforts cancel out the others. Their features may be cool in isolation, but they don't fit into a larger whole. Thus, no one sees them, no one uses them, and they add no value.

What's worse, all the random features created by cowboys only confuse customers more. They actually do more harm than good. A cowboy, setting out on his own to change the world, is only setting himself up for disappointment. Not because he doesn't have good ideas or because the big city won't give him a chance. A cowboy fails because he doesn't organize with others to drive the product forward.

Resistance is futile

The tactical contributor follows strategy, trusting the plans of the collective and finding creative ways to bring those plans to life. Many cowboys feel that tactical contributors have cowardly relinquished their freedom for the safety of the collective, with a "baaaa" and a "moo" for good measure. However, the real reason for being a tactical contributor is usually one of the following:

§ "I'm not interested in the responsibility of deciding strategy." As I talked about in "When the journey is the destination," not everyone wants to become a VP or Technical Fellow. Some are happy to make their valuable personal contribution, and then spend time focused on their other interests. Understanding and following the current strategy is the best way to have significant individual impact.

§ "I'm not prepared to take responsibility for deciding strategy." For those who aspire to lead technically or organizationally, to expand their impact beyond themselves, they need a place to start. Even if you disagree with the current strategy, your smartest initial move is to learn it and follow it. Only fools try to fight or evolve something they don't understand, repeating past failures. Intelligent people seek first to understand the strengths and weaknesses of the current strategy before they change it.

Following the current strategy doesn't mean giving up original thinking or creativity. It's actually quite the opposite. Many of the world's greatest buildings and works of art were inspired by the constraints of the land or medium in which they were made. Finding ingenious and beautiful designs that meet a fixed set of requirements is a challenge that great minds delight in solving.

Tactical contributors are highly valuable employees, but they aren't quite ready to make the leap to strategic thinker. Before they can determine new strategy, they must learn to constructively question the current strategy.

Is that right?

The strategic tactician questions strategy, while still following it. This is not to be confused with idiots who complain about everything without providing any constructive alternative. The strategic tactician is still tactically following the strategy and wants to see it succeed. She simply knows enough and thinks enough about the strategy to question assumptions and approaches that seem suspect.

Some people are afraid to take this step. They don't want to seem like troublemakers, and they trust that decision makers know what's best. For the bashful out there, here are a few facts that might get you to the strategic-tactician level:

§ Decision makers are absurdly imperfect, just like the rest of us. They don't always have the right or complete information. They can be blindsided by their own biases. They might even be incompetent, though Microsoft has some real talent in these ranks.

§ Troublemakers aren't thoughtful. There's a big difference between thoughtful questions and annoying questions. If you ask a question you could have easily answered yourself, or you complain for the sake of complaining, you are being annoying and causing trouble. However, if you've thought about a situation carefully, and truly care about getting things right, you aren't causing trouble. You are pointing out areas that need a better explanation or potentially a change in direction. Most decision makers will thank you for your input and think well of you at the next review. If yours doesn't, perhaps it's time to switch projects.

§ The current situation is constantly changing. When the strategy was devised, it was based on what people knew at the time. Today is different. New issues come up. The market, technology, competition, and customers change. Leadership changes. Requirements change, sometimes in subtle ways. All these changes can cause the current strategy to become inadequate or inappropriate. It's your job to notice, check if the strategy still makes sense, and question it if it doesn't.

So how do you notice when to question the strategy? When your gut stops you and asks, "Wait, why are we doing this?" At that point, get the answer. Ask your friends and coworkers, "Why?" Keep asking till you either get a good explanation or have no recourse but to question the decision makers. They will remember you as a strategic thinker, not a troublemaker. Does that mean you are a strategic thinker? Not quite, but you are ready to make the leap.

I suggest a new strategy

The strategic thinker evolves strategy, adjusting it to account for changing conditions or gaps in approach. The big leap to strategic thinker is that strategic tacticians point out issues, but strategic thinkers resolve them. A strategic tactician brings up a problem with her manager, but a strategic thinker also lays out a practical plan to resolve the problem that fits within the current strategy.

In many ways, it's really not a big jump between strategic tactician and strategic thinker. You just must be willing to take responsibility for change, instead of leaving it to someone else.

Often people confuse strategic thinking with breaking the rules or making up your own rules. That's cowboy talk. A strategic thinker evolves the current strategy, coming up with resolutions that stay within its spirit, but expand or adjust it. That's why the tactical contributor stage of truly understanding the strategy and applying it is so important.

As a strategic thinker matures, he will start generalizing the strategy, evolving and expanding its impact. For example, say his team is suffering because they aren't documenting their interfaces sufficiently to comply with regulations. It's much faster and easier to document them from the start, especially with tool support, but no one is in the habit.

A freshman strategic thinker might propose adopting Sandcastle for documenting his team's managed code. A sophomore strategic thinker might add Sandcastle to the product-line build. A junior strategic thinker might add documentation completion statistics to build reports and quality gates. A senior strategic thinker might establish his Sandcastle build and report solutions internally on CodeBox or externally on CodePlex, and encourage his network to adopt the solution across Microsoft. A senior strategic thinker is one small step away from being a strategic leader.

I am not a leader of men

The strategic leader determines strategy for her group, her division, or perhaps even for the company. The difference between a strategic thinker and a strategic leader is that the leader defines strategy for whole new areas. While you can become a strategic leader on your own, it helps to have existing leadership sponsor your ideas.

Eric Aside

You don't need to be a manager to be a strategic leader. Architects are strategic leaders. Designers are strategic leaders. Experts who work out the next great approach to security, performance, or reliability are strategic leaders. It's an approach and mindset more than a role.

Often this can be done by circulating white papers with new strategic ideas, creating grassroots community around your plans, or taking on leadership roles within your network. However, you must be prepared to lead the effort to bring your strategy to life. When it's your idea, it becomes your responsibility to see it through.

Anyone can become a strategic leader, though not everyone may want that responsibility. The key is to not focus on yourself and your interests; they are too narrow and won't engage others to join you. Instead, focus on the interests of your customers, your group, your company, and the world. How can they be better served with the capability and resources we have to apply?

It's so easy to go after your own pet project, but you'd be putting on cowboy boots. Being an inspirational leader means walking in someone else's shoes, and serving their needs for a greater purpose. Remember that and you may become a great leader indeed.

Get a job: Finding new roles

ericbrec — Sat, 01 Sep 2007 09:18:00 GMT

It's the end of review season: time to reflect on your career and current situation. Some people have a career plan, know where they're at, and already have their next move lined up. I call these people "wise, successful, and yet, disturbing." Perhaps I'm jealous. After all, I should have a multistep career plan in place. But too much life seems to happen to my plans, and I find myself never quite being sure of what's coming.

That's no excuse to purely improvise either. Career improvisationists have a name too, "bitter and exploited." You need to plan enough to know what you want and how to get it. Even if you're happy with your current situation, life has a way of changing so it's best to consider your future options.

Of course, you could be ready for a change right now. Perhaps you feel dead-ended, getting by but not making any progress. Perhaps you are driving hard, but your current role is slowing you down. Perhaps you are utterly devastated—your career in shambles; your manager a nemesis; your daily job a study in panicked, misguided, and endless toil leading only to failure, waste, and uninspired mediocrity. It's time to find you a new role.

Eric Aside

I think people feel utterly devastated far more often than they actually are. Either way, considering a change would likely help you appreciate your current situation more or help you find a better one.

Now which way do we go?

If the time is right to move on, where do you go? Many jobs open up at the end of reviews because people move on, and because hiring managers can't fill positions while reviews are being written (candidates don't like giving their current manager bad news during reviews). This means many jobs will be available. How do you choose?

Naturally, you want a job where you can be challenged, make a difference, and have fun. However, there are many factors that influence enjoyment, impact, and growth. The common criteria people use to differentiate roles are:

§ The technology—what you're doing

§ The market—why you're doing it

§ The work style—how you're doing it

§ The team—who you're doing it for and with

Most engineers choose primarily based on technology. They want to work on something cool; after all, they are engineers. That's a mistake—technology comes last. You probably chose technology first for your current job, didn't you? How's that working out?

We've got a situation here

The most important criteria is the market. Is your new group working on something strategic and important, or is it one VP's bad hair day away from cancelation? There's a joke about a difficult star baseball player on a poor small market team. The manager tells him, "We can lose with you or without you." Don't join that team.

The next most important criteria is the work style. Will the job be a learning and growing experience for you, or is it the same old thing? The career model talks about this in terms of "experiences." You want variety in order to advance yourself and your career. Big groups, small teams, incubation efforts, different disciplines, and remote sites all provide unique opportunities for growth. Don't be afraid to seek something different.

However, market and work style criteria usually only help narrow down the choices. The real differentiator is the team. Whom you are working for and the people you are working with have the biggest impact on whether or not you like your next assignment, by far. The coolest technology can be made maddening by poor management. The most mundane technology can be made fascinating by your peer group. Ignore this advice at your peril.

Eric Aside

I give the same advice about college classes. The quality of the instructor is far more important than the subject.

There is nothing here for me now

By now, nearly half of you are probably saying, "That's all nice, but how do you find jobs that meet your bar? It's not like managers broadcast their incompetence and besides, good senior jobs are always gone before you can apply." Guess what? Hiring managers have the same problem finding good candidates. The solution is the same—cast a wide net and use your network.

Not all potential positions are posted and available, only the currently open ones. Savvy candidates find out about potential positions before they are posted. Naturally, the position still needs to be opened giving all candidates a chance, but the earlier you know about a job, the better chance you have of getting it. That's true inside and outside the company.

How do you find groups looking for someone like you, even before they realize it? The same way industry hires land great jobs—they use their network. As I discussed in “Get yourself connected,” having a strong network of peers is essential to your success. When you are looking for a new role, write to all of them. Yes, all of them. Ideally, potential managers will hear about you from three different friends of yours. That will make a strong impression and produce an abundance of leads.

Should you feel guilty if friends get you a great job? That depends. Did you earn it because you impressed them? It's a competitive market for talent out there. Using your connections is a measure of your influence and impact. It's the way senior people get jobs, so you better excel at it.

It's been a long time

The next hurdle to your perfect new assignment is the informational and interview loop. Pay close attention to how you are treated and how the team makes their decision. Those indications may signal how the team operates and what treatment you can expect in the future.

Prepare for the informational by learning about the team and their projects. If you've got a strong network, then some of your friends should be either on the team or have worked with them closely. Speak to them first, before talking to the hiring manager, and ask what life is really like on the team.

Eric Aside

Informationals at Microsoft are informational meetings you can request to have with hiring managers before you apply for a position.

As for information about you, be honest and forthcoming. However, no matter how bad your current situation is, never discuss your desire to leave your old team; always focus on your interest in joining the new team. That's critical, read it again. If asked why you're leaving, just say, "The opportunity on your team sounds really intriguing." If pressed you can add, "Sure, my old team is imploding, but that's not the main reason I'm talking to you." (And it shouldn't be the main reason—desperate acts rarely improve your lot.)

Should you be asked back for an interview, you might be nervous. Perhaps it's been a long time since your last loop; they are intimidating. Some people cram like they're back in college. While some mental preparation is quite helpful to boost confidence and refresh your memory, it's not the key to success.

The key is to be yourself. If you try to be someone else and get rejected, you'll never know if they misjudged you. If you try to be someone else and get accepted, you'll worry about living up to false expectations. ("Did they really want me?") Be yourself and you'll be more comfortable and confident, which always helps. You'll also know for certain whether or not you and the team are the right fit for each other.

If I go there will be trouble

What if your current team and manager don't want you to leave? What if you have critical unfinished work? What if those facts fill you with glee because members of your former group are pond scum and deserve every moment of pain and suffering you can deliver? Hold on there a minute, Mr. Kersey. Let's think this through.

Eric Aside

Yes, I am old.

First of all, no employee is indispensible. Life goes on in catastrophes far worse than you leaving a team. Therefore, guilt is inappropriate for you to feel or for your former manager to put on you. If they can't handle you leaving, then they do deserve what's coming.

That said, this is one of those times when being a professional is critical. Crazy things happen, particularly in our industry. You never know when you might need to work with or even for some of your former team again. It just isn't right to talk badly about your old team or to refuse to provide a smooth transition.

That means being up-front about interviewing, providing a transition plan, and following through within reasonable limits. Keep in mind, we are talking about a transition plan, not indentured servitude. If the work you do for your old team isn't about smoothly shifting your responsibilities to others, then it shouldn't be in the plan.

I must be travelling on now

Change is never easy, which means there's never a good time to do it. However, putting your career on hold is no good for you, your team, or Microsoft. After reviews and after shipping are great times to reflect on your career and decide if a change would do you good.

There's nothing wrong with being happy where you are, but if the moment has arrived for you to go, welcome it. Great managers will support and help you. After all, flow through their team is critical to their long term success (see “Go with the flow”).

Regardless of what's involved, finding the right challenge to learn new skills and become more valuable is well worth the trouble. Microsoft is a big place with a wide variety of opportunities. We hire the best, but you don't stay that way without working at it. The occasional change of scenery may be just what you need to stay ahead, engaged, and energized.

September 1, 2005: “Go with the flow—Retention and turnover”

ericbrec — Thu, 01 Sep 2005 02:45:00 GMT

I. M. Wright's "Hard Code" book excerpt

Review season is here. As entertaining as that can be for managers and employees alike, it’s just a primer for what follows: musical product groups. The music starts when review numbers are released. A whole bunch of engineers get up out of their office chairs and try to find an available chair in a different group. The music stops when all the interesting positions get filled. The same game gets played at the end of product cycles, but product cycles aren’t quite as predictable (different problem).

It’s tough on the folks left without chairs. Often they get alienated from their current teams for trying to jump ship. Tough luck? I don’t think so. Managers should encourage their people to pursue new opportunities, including people they like. Anything less is selfish, stupid, and shortsighted, not to mention destructive, delusional, and deplorable. When managers make business decisions that put their interests ahead of Microsoft’s, they’ve clearly stopped working for Microsoft. I think Microsoft should stop paying them.

Don’t tell me, “Oh, but the project depends on this person. It’s necessary for me to alienate him and stifle his personal development. It’s for the good of the company.” That’s a crock-load of dung. What you’re trying to tell me is that you didn’t plan for turnover, and now that it’s come, you want to avoid all the work to recover, recruit, re-educate, and reassign people. In other words, you’re brain dead and lazy, but you’re making up for it by being selfish and self-serving. Only ignorant nimrods are unprepared for turnover.

Eric Aside

Okay, I’ve held back till Chapter 9, but I have to say it, I love re-reading these columns. Writing them has always been a cathartic experience. Reviewing them for this book has allowed me to relive the satisfaction of unmitigated rage directed at behavior I truly despise. It’s nice in its own twisted way.

I’ll just walk the earth

Good managers should expect around 10% turnover a year. Bad managers should expect more, but they probably don’t recognize it, and I certainly don’t care.

If you’re a good manager of a group of 20, you should expect two people to leave your group each year, sometimes more, sometimes less. Even a lead with five reports should expect at least one person to leave every couple of years. People leave for all kinds of reasons, many of which have nothing to do with you or your team: friendships on other teams, new technologies, a change of scenery, and relationships outside work to name a few. You shouldn’t take it personally.

Nice dam, huh?

But how should you deal with turnover? Some managers go to extremes to prevent it:

§ They blow tons of money on extravagant morale gifts and events, when having more frequent, cheap events would be far better.

§ They promise larger roles and promotions—promises they don’t completely control, promises they can’t keep.

§ They deny permission to interview for everyone on the team, which poisons morale and makes the team feel like indentured servants.

Eric Aside

Microsoft has since changed its rules so that managers can no longer refuse to allow their employees to interview. Only vice presidents still have that privilege.

Trying to prevent turnover is like building a dam to prevent a river from flowing. It works for a short time until the dam breaks or overflows and your team gets washed away in a torrent of transfers. What’s worse, such measures lower morale and make your team less attractive to the new members you’ll soon need.

Flowing like a river

Instead, the best way to deal with turnover is to expect it and embrace it. How? Think flow, flow, floooooooow.

Think of your team as a river instead of a lake. A lake stagnates. There’s no energy or impetus to change. The same is true of groups that stagnate. They cultivate mediocrity and complacency; they abhor risk. A river is always running and changing with lots of great energy. You want a river.

A river depends on the flow of water, and your team depends on the flow of people and information. You can think of the people divided into three groups: new blood, new leaders, and elders ready for a new challenge. Here’s how those groups should balance and flow:

§ The largest group should be the new blood. Not all of them will become technical or organizational leaders.

§ Sometimes you’ll have more new leaders than elders, sometimes the reverse, but ideally you should maintain a balance.

§ For flow, you want a steady stream of new blood becoming your new leaders, and new leaders becoming elders.

§ The key to flow is new blood coming in and elders moving out. For this to work, you WANT your elders to transfer before they clog the stream and disrupt the flow of opportunities for others.

Not all technologies flow at the same rate. Central engines, like the Windows kernel, flow slowly, while web-based services, like MSN Search, flow quickly. You need to adjust for your situation, but even the most conservative technologies do change and flow.

How do you successfully encourage and maintain a healthy flow?

§ Keep a constant supply of new people.

§ Instill information sharing as a way of life.

§ Shape the organization and roles to create growth opportunities.

§ Find new challenges for your elders.

Fresh meat

For a constant supply of new people, nothing beats interns and college hires. Obviously, you’ll also recruit industry candidates and internal transfers, but interns and college hires should be your primary choice for their fresh perspectives and long-term potential.

Your number of annual college hire slots should be at least 5% of your total staff, counting open positions. So if your team has 20 devs, you want at least one college hire slot, more if your team is increasing headcount. Even in a flat headcount organization there is still at least 5% attrition, so look for young talent to fill openings even if none are currently available. College hires sometimes don’t start for nine months; anything can happen over that time, so plan ahead.

Interns are the next best thing to college hires, but they take an extra year to join your team. Therefore, you want as many intern slots as college hire slots. DO NOT plan on shipping interns’ code. At best, they should be pair programming shipping code. However, DO NOT give interns menial labor either. Instead, give interns strong mentors (people who’ll be your next leads) and exciting projects (buddy them up on the coolest features or incubation work). You want to measure them as future full-time hires and convince them that there’s no better job in the world than working for you at Microsoft.

Sharing is caring

When you have new folks on your team, you want them to grow into your new technical and organizational leaders. The only way this happens is through sharing information and knowledge. There is a cornucopia of ways to do this. Here are just a few:

§ Keep an online knowledge warehouse of how your group works. It can be a big, versioned Word doc; a SharePoint site; or a wiki—whatever works best for your folks. The key is to make it easily accessible and up to date. The first month’s assignment for a new person should be to update the content.

§ Use buddy systems for all projects and assignments. The arrangement can be anything from mentoring to assigned reviewer and backup to full-on pair programming. The key is to have no one working alone, no information isolated.

§ Get people together regularly, ideally daily, to discuss progress and issues. Nothing encourages sharing of information like regular high-bandwidth communication, even for as little as 15 minutes a day.

Buddy systems are particularly important for growing your new leaders and transitioning your elders. It’s never safe for an elder to leave if you lose key knowledge and capability in the process. By constantly sharing information, you release the stress-inducing stranglehold on your elder team members, and you make flow and transition a positive and natural experience.

Room to grow

Just like with repotting plants, you need to give your people room to grow. You can encourage this through how you structure your organization, how you issue your assignments, and how you design and promote growth paths for people to follow.

First think about growth paths. The new career models provide excellent and detailed guidance. How do growth paths apply to your team? You should know every employee’s desired growth path and current stage. Then you and your leaders should discuss if those desired growth paths are available for everyone, and if not, how will you adjust?

Often how your group is organized blocks your employees’ growth. All your senior people may be on one team and newbies on another. Change it, fix it, rebalance, reshuffle. The longer you leave your org unbalanced, the more trouble you’ll cause and risk you’ll carry.

Restructuring your organization can create dozens of new opportunities for growth. It’s critical to take advantage of them. Give your people assignments and new responsibilities that stretch them out of their comfort zone. Naturally, buddy them up with more experienced partners to reduce the risk and enhance the learning, but don’t just have the same people do the same things. Choose the assignments based on desired growth paths, and everyone wins.

I must be traveling

Of course, no one can move up if your most senior people stay put. Unless your group is expanding, the only way to make room for growth is to have your elders transfer out. Luckily, that’s exactly what they need. If they’ve been in your group long enough to reach the senior positions, then the only way for them to keep growing is to take on new challenges elsewhere.

Because you’ve focused on flow, losing your senior employees is no big deal. They’ve already shared their knowledge and experience. Their project buddies are already familiar with their work. Now all they need to do is find a good fit elsewhere with you supporting them every step of the way. This kind of loyalty and support will not only be appreciated by your senior people, but will be returned in loyalty and respect by the whole team.

Remember, the whole team watches how you treat your most senior folks. It’s an indicator of how you’ll treat them some day. Nothing wins over a staff like seeing the elder members being treated fairly and generously; leaving the group with praise, well-wishes, and a great future ahead. The message: “Stay with this team and you’ll be well rewarded.”

Surrender to the flow

When you fight turnover or let it catch you unprepared, you risk your project and the effectiveness and health of your team. When you embrace turnover, it becomes just a natural consequence of life. No fear, no worries, just healthy flow for an effective team.

What’s more, driving for flow of people and information in your team creates growth for Microsoft people and value for Microsoft customers. Less stress, more opportunity, greater flexibility, compounded knowledge, higher morale, and a stronger team. What more could you possibly ask? It’s time to surrender to the flow.

August 1, 2005: “Controlling your boss for fun and profit”

ericbrec — Mon, 01 Aug 2005 02:40:00 GMT

I. M. Wright's "Hard Code" book excerpt

There’s a great gesture you can do to show just how little you care about someone who is wallowing in self-pity. You lightly rub the tips of your thumb and forefinger together saying, “This is the world’s smallest violin playing, ‘My Heart Cries for You.’”

That’s how I feel when people complain about their helplessness in the face of the seemingly invincible power of their manager. “Oh, management will never give us the time to improve our build or change our practices.” “I wish our manager took this training. That’s the only way we’d ever take up inspections. (See “Review this” in Chapter 5.)” “I’m really uncomfortable with our product’s current direction and group’s organization, but there’s nothing I can do.”

Grow up, you weenies. Based on your pathetic excuses for inaction, nothing would ever get done. Don’t you think your bosses say the same thing regarding their bosses? If you don’t make desired change happen, it doesn’t happen. Period. The difference between you and someone powerful is not your level of control; it’s your willingness to act.

I have no hand

“Yeah, but my boss won’t listen to me,” is the common retort. “She has all these reasons why we can’t change.” Well, good. At least you’ve made the transition from being pathetic to being ignorant. You’re trying to do something about your situation; you’re just inept. Relax, most people are.

Unfortunately, influencing without authority rarely comes naturally; it is an acquired skill. When trying to enact a solution, most people jump right in. They go straight to their bosses with their idea, only to get shot down. Sometimes people even do a tremendous amount of preparation, writing a long white paper or presentation, only to be summarily rejected.

What you may not understand is how to prepare appropriately, how to present your idea effectively, and how to get your idea enacted. Let’s break it down.

Eric Aside

I gave an internal talk on this topic. Registration filled in minutes. The moral: many people want to know more about influence without authority.

Know the enemy and know yourself

Start with appropriate preparation. I’m going to list a bunch of steps, but they can all be done in less than a day (minutes for small issues).

First you need to scout the landscape. Only fools walk into a minefield without a map. Most people know how they want things to be, but that’s an endpoint, not directions to get there.

§ Understand your proposal.

What is risky about your idea, and how do you mitigate the risks? What can change about your idea, and what are the core principles you can’t compromise? Be realistic and honest with yourself.

§ Understand your history.

What were the reasons for your current processes and organization? Could you regress by changing them?

§ Understand your enemies.

Who prefers the current state and why? Are any of them strong enough or passionate enough to make change difficult? How would you placate them or even draw them to your side?

§ Understand your friends.

Who is unhappy with the current state and why? Do they like your idea? How strong, considerable, and passionate is your body of support?

§ Understand your management.

How is your management being measured or judged? What benefits would be worth the risk from your manager’s point of view? Can you increase the benefit to management or reduce the risk?

It sounds complicated, but if you have been paying attention to how your coworkers interact, you and a friend or two can scout the landscape in a candid short discussion. Talking to a few people is often necessary to unearth the history or understand the issues. Regardless, scouting is essential to success.

They succeed in adapting themselves

Now that you know what you’re up against, you need to adapt and refine your original idea accordingly:

§ Choose who to please, who to placate, and who to ignore.

Sure, you want to please everyone, but sometimes it’s better to just make sure nobody gets upset and focus on the few you really need to make happy—like your boss. Some folks will be fine if you just keep them from harm. Others can be ignored if they follow whatever your boss decides or simply don’t care.

§ To please people, focus on the benefits in their terms and negate the risks.

Use your scouting information to frame the benefits in ways that impress the key players. If your manager cares about efficiency, talk about productivity gains; customer satisfaction, talk about quality and connection; on-time commitments, talk about predictability and transparency. To negate risks, talk about backup plans, go/no-go decision points, redundancy, and/or clear prioritization.

Eric Aside

This is the negotiation step of removing threats and fulfilling needs I talked about in “My way or the highway—Negotiation,” which appeared earlier in the chapter.

§ To placate people, neutralize whatever they find threatening.

Use your scouting to uncover what’s scary. If it’s risks, negate them. If they have a competing solution, embed it and give them ample credit and the limelight (“It’s our idea”). If they have extra requirements, satisfy them either immediately or in the “next version.”

In the end, you’ll have a plan with a bunch of backers, no one will be apprehensive enough to fight it, and you’ll be aligned with what the key decision makers care about. Now you’re ready to present it.

Selling water to fish

Selling water to fish really isn’t that hard, assuming their credit is good. You simply need to show them what life is like without water. The same thing goes when you are driving for change. You need to frame the problem before you talk about your solution.

The focus is on the key players, usually management. In the same way you use your scouting information to frame benefits in key player terms, you frame the problems in terms that speak to key player concerns. This should be the first slide after the title in a very short deck.

A few important notes here:

§ Anything about you or your ambitions will poison the proposal.

The proposal needs to be about the key players, the team, and the customers, not about you and your desires for fame, glory, or a high rating.

§ To target your presentation on the key players, you must slip inside their skin.

Use their terms, talk about benefits to them, and address their concerns. While the solution may have been spawned by what you care about, the solution will belong to the team, not you. It will be owned by the key players, not you. You must leave your feelings out of it.

Eric Aside

Generally speaking, slipping inside the skin of key players and leaving your own feelings behind is the hardest step. It’s also incredibly important to success.

§ If you talk about the solution first, no one will care.

If you skip over the problem, there is no impetus to change. If you talk about the solution and then the problem, people will fixate on the problem and forget your solution. Always start with the problem and then move on to talk about the solution.

§ You must keep your presentation short—very short.

Change drives discussion and debate. The debate will expand to fill any allotted time. If you can’t get through your ideas in two or three slides, you’ll lose all sway over the argument.

Eyes on the prize

Your second and possibly third slides speak to your vision of the future state. The vision should be clear, concise, and practical. The goals should be clearly stated in terms of benefit to the key players. Simply put, you cannot reach a destination if you don’t know where you’re going.

You’ll likely have many more slides with all sorts of data and detail about your vision and proposal. You might even have a 30-page white paper. That material is important to document the basis for the change, but relegate supporting material to appendix slides and resource links. You must be crisp to be successful; everything else is there for reference only.

Your last slide addresses how you get from the current state to the future state, or how to reach your destination. There are only two sections to this slide:

§ The issues section, which addresses how risks and concerns are mitigated. It’s where to put your backup plans, go/no-go decision points, redundancy, and/or prioritization.

§ The next steps section, which addresses who does what and when. Too often people focus on what needs to be done and not enough on who will do it and when it will happen. Without specific people assigned and specific target dates, the change flounders.

That’s it: a title slide, problem statement, future state, and transition slide. Now you are prepared to bring your idea forward. For smaller ideas, you can do all this in an e-mail message, but the preparation is the same.

Eric Aside

A number of people doubted you could put all this information on three slides and asked me for an example. My best example was a Microsoft confidential proposal that put all the information on one slide. It had vertical and horizontal lines dividing the slide into four quadrants: problem (four bullets in the upper-left quadrant); solution (three bullets in the lower-left); issues (six bullets in the upper-right); and next steps (four bullets in the lower-right).

Engage

You are now ready to engage with the key players. There are dozens of ways to do this, and none is dramatically better than the others. Sometimes the landscape may suggest one approach over another. In general, there are three basic types of approach:

§ Talk to key players one at a time.

This works well when the key players don’t get along or each has different key issues. It’s more time-consuming, but it’s usually a safe and effective approach.

§ Meet with the key players together.

This works well to build consensus and bring out hidden issues. It’s also a bit faster, but it works best if some consensus already exists about the problem and the issues. If necessary you can start with the first approach to gain that initial consensus, and then seal the deal with a meeting.

§ Target only the top player.

This works well when the top player is particularly strong or the organization is particularly compliant. Use this approach when no one really matters but the top player.

Go through your deck and be prepared to own the process you’ve created. Remember that it’s not about you—it’s about the team, the product, and the customer. Let people discuss and debate as much as they want, as long as they stay focused on the problem you identified. If new issues or risks arise, be sure to note them and devise mitigations.

Dare to dream

This whole process may seem like a great deal of trouble, especially when there’s no guarantee your solution will survive, let alone thrive. You may feel that it’s not worth it; that the status quo is acceptable or at least tolerable. Maybe that’s true, or maybe you’re spineless.

Just don’t start complaining about how powerless you are or how management won’t listen to you and doesn’t care. If the current state is acceptable, then accept it and move on. If it isn’t, then do something about it. Regardless of what happens, you will drive awareness of the problem and likely cause change. In addition, you’ll gain leadership experience and perhaps even gain leadership responsibility. In the end, you will become more powerful by matching your willingness to act with the courage to focus on your team instead of yourself.