What you've got is in fact a people problem
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What you've got is in fact a people problem
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Re: What you've got is in fact a people problem
#2> Talk to your ICs, and — taking care to make sure they understand that you want honest feedback and that they are safe to offer it — ask them what problems your organization has.
Can you reasonably expect for there to be a true “safe space” in a professional setting? It’s always good to be candid and transparent, but I’d never assume I’m in a complete safe space no matter which organization I am in.
Re: What you've got is in fact a people problem
#3> Talk to your ICs, and — taking care to make sure they understand that you want honest feedback and that they are safe to offer it — ask them what problems your organization has. Can you reasonably expect for there to be a true “safe space” in a professional setting? It’s always good to be candid and transparent, but I’d never assume I’m in a complete safe space no matter which organization I am in.
I used to believe that, but no, at this point in my career I have no confidence that anything I say won't be used against me in the future, or misconstrued in some embarrassing way.
Re: What you've got is in fact a people problem
#4It often is a people problem, and when it is, it's likely to be at the leadership level.
What stumps me however is how to move past those problems -- when the decision makers at an organization themselves are what's dragging the ship down, how will things ever change?
Blog author doesn't cover it, but my uneducated guess is... the consult ends with a technical recommendation, but the people problem remains unresolved.
Re: What you've got is in fact a people problem
#5Ha. After explaining the problems to leadership, my team and i were laid off and leadership is pursuing a nee and fancy cloud replacement for our jenkins pipelines.
I agree with the article 100% though. Just had insane leadership.
Re: What you've got is in fact a people problem
#6It often is a people problem, and when it is, it's likely to be at the leadership level. What stumps me however is how to move past those problems -- when the decision makers at an organization themselves are what's dragging the ship down, how will things ever change? Blog author doesn't cover it, but my uneducated guess is... the consult ends with a technical recommendation, but the people problem remains unresolved…
That’s an effectively intractable (and common problem). Even when there is a board involved, a skip-level approach to pointing it out is very likely an end of employment situation.
Machiavelli had advice for this situation, and it wasn’t kind.
Re: What you've got is in fact a people problem
#7It often is a people problem, and when it is, it's likely to be at the leadership level. What stumps me however is how to move past those problems -- when the decision makers at an organization themselves are what's dragging the ship down, how will things ever change? Blog author doesn't cover it, but my uneducated guess is... the consult ends with a technical recommendation, but the people problem remains unresolved…
Offer them a different behavioral strategy in the guise of managing those weaklings better?
I wish I could say. I suck at fixing that, too.
Re: What you've got is in fact a people problem
#8My suspicion is that a lot of this comes down to budget pressure causing management to constantly discourage efforts by technical teams to invest time in the quality of their systems rather than push out more features.
Then the same problems start popping up and the manager loses faith in their team. The times they said "no" to infrastructure development and working down technical debt may not even enter their mind.
After the manager declines to invest in engineering quality a few times, they have sent a clear message that quality and reliability are secondary to the desire to get things our the door. Then they blame the staff for their mistake.
Re: What you've got is in fact a people problem
#9It often is a people problem, and when it is, it's likely to be at the leadership level. What stumps me however is how to move past those problems -- when the decision makers at an organization themselves are what's dragging the ship down, how will things ever change? Blog author doesn't cover it, but my uneducated guess is... the consult ends with a technical recommendation, but the people problem remains unresolved…
That’s an effectively intractable (and common problem). Even when there is a board involved, a skip-level approach to pointing it out is very likely an end of employment situation. Machiavelli had advice for this situation, and it wasn’t kind.
What advice did Machiavelli have?
Re: What you've got is in fact a people problem
#10It often is a people problem, and when it is, it's likely to be at the leadership level. What stumps me however is how to move past those problems -- when the decision makers at an organization themselves are what's dragging the ship down, how will things ever change? Blog author doesn't cover it, but my uneducated guess is... the consult ends with a technical recommendation, but the people problem remains unresolved…
>What stumps me however is how to move past those problems -- when the decision makers at an organization themselves are what's dragging the ship down, how will things ever change?
People will start new companies and become leadership there (starting the cycle over).