Ask HN: How do I deal with my engineering team and motivate myself?

I don't know you. But I know lots of people who have been through this. I would guess you are doing some things a bit wrong, getting a bit better, having some people problems for the first time, etc. But I bet the biggest problem you have is fear of the unknown, shame of not doing a great job helping others, and burnout at trying really hard at something new and not seeing progress.

That emotional filter is going to make it really hard to get your head on straight about both how you're really doing and what you can do to improve.

The most important thing you can do is try to improve your own self-understanding and get yourself mentally prepared for doing a really hard job. Unless you have a strong ethical/religious/psychological/mindfulness type thing in your life, you also are probably somewhat out of touch with the unintended but real impact that your words and actions have on other people. The worst managers I've ever had were well intentioned and smart but completely lacked self-awareness of their social impact.

I would start with trying to take stock and get your own feelings and perceptions under control. Once you can look straight at the situation, without fear or shame, but also with a critical eye, you can orient yourself and get better.

So how do you do that? Well, it depends on your background and what kind of thing is going to call you out of yourself and into a different way of thinking.

- Belong to a Western religion? Go look for something about contemplative prayer or discernment in your tradition. (Catholic or open to it? "The Discernment of Spirits: An Ignatian Guide for Everyday Living" is great)

- Into new age, yoga, or Buddhism? The book "Mindfulness in Plain English" is really helpful.

- Like agile, or at least the idea of self-directed teams that are coached rather than managed? Lyssa Adkin's "Coaching Agile Teams" has a lot of great content on removing your emotion from a situation, helping people succeed on their own, etc.

- Do you find yourself in difficult conversations, where you either are too harsh and people don't listen to you or too soft and you can't make your point? The books "Difficult conversations" and "Non-violent communication" have awesome advice on thinking about the way you talk with people and reframing issues in a productive way.

There are tons of other places to start, but I hope you embrace my core point. Start with yourself, get to where you understand your own bias, emotion, impact. Then worry about helping other people and getting better in your day to day.

I'm just going to have to call out the elephant in the room. If your team members think you are a jerk, it is just possible it's because you are a jerk. It might have absolutely nothing to do with what you are expecting them to achieve.

This is slightly embarrassing to talk about, but when I was younger I was not actually hugely popular with the opposite sex. I always prided myself on being a "nice guy" and I was incredulous as girls went out with "jerks", ignoring me. I convinced myself it was because I wasn't good looking enough, so I got into body building and got into great shape. Strangely this did not help.

I won't bore you with the details of my self-discovery, but eventually I did figure out the reason for my lack of popularity: I was self absorbed, arrogant, oblivious to the needs of others, etc, etc, etc. From the perspective of others, I was the jerk. My evaluation of the "jerks" was based on my set of values, which other people did not share. I eventually discovered that I needed to understand what other people valued and give it to them (if I wanted to be a "nice guy").

It's hard to know exactly what problems you are running into without meeting you. It is very common, however, to have the same kind of problem that I had -- you are judging everything through your own criteria and ignoring the criteria of others. Rather than trying to further your own goals, forcing others to fit your mould, you may have to spend considerable effort trying to understand what your team mates value and try to help them achieve it.

The tricky bit is that sometimes what your team mates want appears to be at odds with what the company needs. Often you will have to make the hard choice -- do I help someone get what they want individually, or do I help the team achieve the goals as stated by the company? To make it even worse, very often your idea of how to achieve the company's goals may be incorrect. My experience is that at 7 years of experience you are just starting to discover ways that will work, but there is still quite a lot to learn. You are likely to make many mistakes along the way.

You can imagine that if you chose to help the company against the desires of your team mates, if you fail (in their eyes) they will be extremely upset with you.

One last piece of advice. There is nothing wrong with choosing the side of team success, even at the cost of pissing off your team mates. The personal cost can be high, though -- especially if you make mistakes (as you undoubtedly will). I would favour a mixed approach where you help your team mates meet their own personal goals and only stray from that path when you are absolutely sure that you will be successful. YMMV.

These are great insights.

TL:DR; of this and other posts seems to be:

Managing is primarily about people, not technology

I've worked with a number of highly motivated managers trying to carry the entire team on their backs. Pushing everywhere they see a weakspot, or trying to drag the entire team in a certain direction. Just hammer on everyone until you make diamonds. The Steve Jobs approach. Certainly that method can work, but it is not my preferred approach. It's a huge time commitment, and you have to count on yourself always knowing what's best for the entire team.

Personally my philosophy towards management is all about humility and logistics. Get the right people in the right roles, and supply them with the right tools. Combine that with the humble approach towards things like credit for accomplishments and project ownership. Then suddenly you don't have to push any more. You don't run around telling everyone what they need to learn, instead they all teach you in their area of expertise. You give them the cover they need to go out and learn more in their own way. Instead of running around teaching, let them ask you (or each other).

A side note - it's difficult to earn the trust and respect of a team, especially if you come in as an outsider to a manage a close-knit group that's been together for a while, and likely has seen a few managers come and go.

There's also a certain amount of displeasure from purely technical folks on reporting to or being managed by trained managers; those with MBA's and whatnot - irrespective of your previous experience as a developer yourself. Obviously not by all, but a few here and there. Agile / Scrum etc fare much better with devs, not tradional PMO etc.

Both these things count against you, and the worst thing you can do then is to enforce the things you've learnt from your management training - as there will always be a certain amount of pushback, especially if you try and make them aware of the business case behind it - some devs like to know the bigger picture, others don't care; they don't want that pressure.

It comes down to paying attention to each person, not the collective, and figuring out their needs. Software or core skills make up very little of how they would see you; some of the most talented Scrum masters I've met have never touched a line of code, and I respect them more so for it.

As a manager / leader, some of the best ones I worked with and now try to emulate are the ones that trusted me to get the job done, and made it possible for me to do so. They sheltered the team from the flack coming from higher up, fought for various privileges, always took the fall for any shortcomings and essentially made an excellent environment for us to work and communicate, not to mention they never let you feel the pressure and allowed you to continuously fail and learn from it.

Instead of thinking of your role as trying to educate and lead, try thinking more in terms of "what can I do to help my team succeed?" and then ask them that exact question - every day, every week. You're not their teacher, nor are you their guardian. You are there primarily to make sure that your team can go about its business unhindered from all the bureaucracy and whatnot that gets thrown at them.

Once a team knows you'll go out on a limb for them, they'll trust you and then reciprocate with their work and actions.