Managing Up

Travis, Brandon, and Nick come back from a two-year absence to interrogate the question one of Travis's engineers asked him about using AI: this feels like cheating — what am I actually paid to do? What happens to an engineer's sense of value when the syntax they spent fifteen years getting good at is suddenly the cheap part? Why have managers, of all people, adapted to AI faster than the senior staff engineers they came from? What does "ego" really mean here — superiority, or just the load-bearing identity that gets shaken when the work changes underneath you? And when we say "fail fast," do we mean it, or do we just mean it on the recruiting page? They get into the identity crisis baked into the manager-IC transition, why the same cognitive move makes you good at both, and the version of "ego" and "failure" worth keeping. Also: Brandon's existential crisis is "permanent and ongoing," thank you for asking.

In this episode of the Managing Up Show, Brandon, Travis, and Nick talk about meetings. How did they get a bad reputation? How can they be better? And no, the answer is not to abolish meetings, but rather to put the effort into making them actually good.

They share disaster stories of meetings gone wrong and what makes one actually work. They cover:

• Setting a clear purpose for meetings
• Identifying the roles of participants, and
• Setting up discussions that unstick our work and sharpen our focus

Yep, there is such a thing as an effective, engaging meeting, and once you’ve had them, you’ll never go back.

Mentioned this episode:

• https://www.honeycomb.io/blog/standup-meetings-are-dead/
• https://www.amazon.com/Death-Meeting-Leadership-Solving-Business/dp/0787968056

Nick, Travis, and Brandon talk "hero culture" and how that affects teams. What are the drawbacks of encouraging hero culture? How do you draw the distinction between necessary heroism and chronic hero culture? What's the difference between heroism and professionalism? They also discuss common pitfalls of trying to overcome hero culture, and what it means to set a sustainable example.

Show Notes:

• Do Hard Things by Steve Magness
  • https://www.amazon.com/Hard-Things-Resilience-Surprising-Toughness/dp/006309861X/
• Navy Seals "Hell Week"
  • https://navyseals.com/nsw/hell-week-0/
• Radar Charts
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radar_chart
• Kevin Goldsmith's Lead Dev talk on combining ingredients for the perfect engineering team
  • https://leaddev.com/team/finding-right-ingredients-perfect-engineering-team

OK, fine, y'all win. We finally did the episode of "Managing Up" about managing up. In it, Nick, Travis, and Brandon talk about techniques for managing up, how they're similar to managing your own team members, and how it is sometimes very different. They share books and resources that helped them and talk about how communication, being crisp, and (gasp) _feelings_ play into managing your upward relationships.

Show Notes:

• Managing Up article by Stephen Gossett from Built In
  • https://builtin.com/people-management/managing-up
• Connect: Building Exceptional Relationships with Family, Friends, and Colleagues by Dr. David Bradford, Ph.D & Dr. Carole Robin, Ph.D 
  • https://www.amazon.com/Connect-Building-Exceptional-Relationships-Colleagues/dp/0593237099
• Emotional Agility: Get Unstuck, Embrace Change, and Thrive in Work and Life by Susan David
  • https://www.amazon.com/Emotional-Agility-Unstuck-Embrace-Change/dp/1592409490
• Ted Lasso: Darts scene ("Be curious, not judgmental")
  • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3S16b-x5mRA

The Managing Up Crew is joined by Estella Gonzalez Madison (@chicagoing) to discuss how they've changed the way they manage since the start of the pandemic 2+ years ago. They discuss tactical changes and how they've changed philosophically during this time, and how they square their own humanity and that of their teams during the last 2 years, as well as how this affects how they plan to manage in the future.

Show Notes:

• Estella Gonzalez Madison
  • https://twitter.com/chicagoing
• Talking to your past self (humor)
  • https://mymodernmet.com/julie-nolke-funny-viral-video/
• Rethinking Remote Standups
  • https://www.honeycomb.io/blog/standup-meetings-are-dead/
• Lara Hogan's Manager Voltron
  • https://larahogan.me/blog/manager-voltron/

Nick, pondering the Texas electric grid and the 2021 power crisis posits the question to Travis and Brandon: What role does pain play in leading teams? What is the role of a manager in managing and reacting to pain on our teams? What are the dangers of hiding or deflecting this pain? This leads to a discussion of processing feedback, helping teams learn from pain, and yes, launching trains at meteors. What roles do curiosity and fear play in managing organizational pain? What role do retrospectives play in this? How do you pronounce "gigawatt"?

Show notes:

• 2021 Texas Power Crisis
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_Texas_power_crisis
• The lottery factor (AKA bus factor)
  • https://towardsdatascience.com/maintaining-a-good-lottery-factor-1eeb2b2f52a6
• Ted Lasso: "The shower pressure is rubbish: make a note of that"
  • https://www.getyarn.io/yarn-clip/cff607e3-f79e-4a84-a38c-ab6124c596c6

Travis, Nick, and Brandon discuss the word "accountability". What does it mean? Why has it developed a negative connotation? What's the connection between "trust" and "accountability"? They discuss the sometimes uncomfortable conversations that must take in place before a conversation about accountability can bring real results. They also talk about how remote culture changes the shape of this conversation by removing shortcuts some leaders have leaned on in offices.

Show Notes:

• The Five Dysfunctions of a Team by Patrick Lencioni
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Five_Dysfunctions_of_a_Team
• Start with Why by Simon Sinek
  • https://simonsinek.com/product/start-with-why/
• Radical Focus by Christina Wodtke
  • https://www.amazon.com/Radical-Focus-SECOND-Achieving-Objectives-ebook/dp/B091ZL2SRL
• Remote by Jason Fried and DHH
  • https://basecamp.com/books/remote

Nick, Travis, and Brandon revisit the one-on-ones topic from several years ago and go beyond "1:1s 101". The hosts dive past the scripts and formulas to discuss challenges with regular one-on-one meetings with your team. How do you discern "gripe sessions" from a genuine request to intervene? When do you share context vs. listen? How do you get people to shift past surface-level concerns to the most important topics? What are some 1:1 antipatterns? Also: The group restrains themselves to only one Ted Lasso reference.

Show Notes:

• Episode 5: "One on Ones: The Basics" (Oct. 2018)
  • https://www.managingup.show/episodes/54705bed
• Ted Lasso
  • https://www.imdb.com/title/tt10986410/
  • https://twitter.com/TedLasso

Nick, Brandon, and Travis discuss the term "Marketing" and the myth that doing good work will speak for itself. How can you advocate for your team's work authentically without feeling like you're bragging? They talk about using tracking documents to track and showcase team accomplishments, and why it's important to demonstrate your team's impact, and not just their efforts. 

Episode links:

• Get your work recognized: write a brag document
  • https://jvns.ca/blog/brag-documents/

Nick, Travis, and Brandon talk about how they increase psychological safety on teams to create space for a variety of voices, starting by debating the value of "strong opinions, weakly held". They explore the questions: How do you bootstrap trust and safety when joining a team? How can you make space for less vocal team members? What are things managers do that reduce trust within their teams? How can you encourage and receive important and valuable feedback?

Episode links:

• Strong Opinions Loosely Held Might be the Worst Idea in Tech
  • https://blog.glowforge.com/strong-opinions-loosely-held-might-be-the-worst-idea-in-tech/
• How to Get Your Team to Challenge Your Ideas
  • https://medium.dave-bailey.com/how-to-get-your-team-to-speak-up-4d403bfc10c9