Have fun. Do work.
It gets more and more difficult to find the right talent to match the right team every single year – I’m not sure that it’s the talent pool necessarily but rather my maturity as a leader that demands the top-bar of talent that comes through my doors.
Actually, nevermind – the moment I wrote that I knew the answer already: It’s me.
You see, the challenge is that appearances are so darn convincing these days – the internet allows me to see all that a person is capable of, but there are only a few that can really operate out of their strengths and pull magic out of the proverbial hat – there are too many frauds – well, that’s probably too harsh – there are too many people who believe they have figured out what they do and who they are and who they want to be (and can have mediocre execution) when they are actually not operating optimally at all.
There is no greater playground for this test than in computer programming and software development – true engineering is more than pushing code and making things happen – it’s a way of seeing the world, turning real life challenges and problems into viable solutions.
Call yourself a “developer” and I will demand a few things that very few so-called “developers” are capable of doing. For example, a software developer should understand fundamentally a few things – I’ll name two:
- Compiling – Do they understand what a compiler is? If not, you’re not a developer.
- Memory Management – Do they understand memory management with applications? If not, then you’re not a developer.
This purist take on names and titles might offend a few but I find it incredibly freeing (and so should you) – and here’s why I believe this especially in the context of building high-performance teams (the only ones that I want to work with and for): Because it simply strips away the fluff of building world-changing products. There is no time to waste, no time to operate diluted, and simply no way that I could possibly afford (literally) any talent for the bootstrapped organizations that I manage.
What this freedom should do for the individual is give them the opportunity to fully invest in who they are uniquely and the talents, strengths, and value that they bring that no one else can bring. It level-sets conversations and creates a common language for the entire team, which is critical because we move fast. We can’t afford to have any miscommunication that will soften our product’s effectiveness, hold back our timelines, and bring palatable profitability to our business.
It’s just not worth it – and great leaders know this. I’ve just begun to learn this, and it’s taken me quite some time to pull myself through the mist of assumed expertise and really hammer down the things that just didn’t stick well, with myself and with team dynamics.
Leadership and teams is more about individual self-leadership than anything else – and top talent knows how to have incredible self-management before they can ever lead anyone else. I don’t hire code-monkeys and I don’t work with any – I work with leaders who could independently create incredible businesses, life-changing applications, and sufficiently provide for their families on their own – they’ve just chosen to do it in the context of a team because they know that they will be infinitely more successful because of it.
And, they’ll have much more fun at the same time.
If you want to be a leader then you have to come to grips with who you are, what you do, and what you do uniquely well – what you can only do in the context of a high-performance team. If you’re working alone then you can’t possibly do this to begin with. That’s why I say that the solopreneur is completely dead.
Sorry if that offends you – it is what it is. Talk to anyone that you truly admire, the ones that are doing great stuff, the people that you read every single day in your RSS reader – they aren’t doing it by themselves, they have teams, partners, co-pilots, self-managed leaders that they sit with every single day, those people just might not get as much press as the guy up front. There are too many examples to name. Why then do you think you’re so special as to do it by yourself?
Go figure.
I know nothing about Compiling or Memory Management. And I’m okay with that.
“If you want to be a leader then you have to come to grips with who you are, what you do, and what you do uniquely well – what you can only do in the context of a high-performance team. ”
I love that sentence, John. These are great questions to evaluate ourselves as a leader.
Leaders today are plagued by confusion. There are buzz words and best practices, but increasingly few have clarity in regards to who we are, what we do well and what we are to do.
Failing to give clear definition and explanation to the terms and concepts we are using leaves our leaders in a perpetual state of uncertainty. We need to bring clarity and we need to begin with ourselves and our team’s leaders.
Great post.
thanks ben! really appreciate it!
Great words John. Although you say you don’t work with “code-monkeys” I know for a fact that you do employ a few “Chimps”… but code-monkeys and mail-chimps are very, very different creatures indeed. Eep eep!
who are my chimps?
You know, those cute lil guys that deliver your newsletter.
#LOL
I know developers that know everything about compiling and memory management, but had know clue about the processes where they wmhere developing for. Most of the time busy polishing theircown ego’s and alternate way of thinking and life philosphies. Well, I fired them all. I know from my experience as a manager, that leading men that live their lives 22″ day by day, is hard when they think more great of themselves than about the ones around them. The best laugh that a developer can create, is the smile on the face of a customer by delivering a good product, fitting to a real world. And that is no joke.
Bummer on that experience, Johan – not all of us are like that.
Then, Tom give me the definition of what I have missed in so many developers in my carrier. For me a developer must be much more than a “code monkey”, also a typical managers buzz-word. But I let the iniative to you to tell us what a good developer is. I have unfortunately seen a lot of “ego polishers” in my carrier. Very smart code, no documentation and millions of hours of debugging understanding their own cryptics after the customer needs modifications.
Generally speaking, a great developer should be able to communicate with clients and/or business leaders in order to understand their problem and efficiently and effectively provide solutions.
That said, they should also care about their craft enough to constantly be bettering themselves at the core of what they do – that is, engineering software. Staying updated on the latest languages, technologies, tools, and platforms all for the purpose of bringing better skill back to the table for building better products.
Most great developers care deeply about their craft and the people for whom they’re building products and with whom they interact with on a daily basis. They aren’t going to be attracted to positions where they are viewed and treated like “code monkeys,” anyway.
Above all else, software engineering isn’t much different than any other industry: it has its share of jerks and its share of innovators and everything in between.
Thank you for your reply. I totally agree with your definition. I do think however, that unlike many other industries, the development business has quite a lot of “and in betweens”.
But still I think, related to your definition, I have fired the right ones in my carrier. Maybe I was not so lucky.
Johan:
Interesting discussion so far. I’m curious, who was responsible for hiring these “in betweens” that you fired?
Sometimes they were already there when I came and for some I have to put the blame on me. Don’t worry, I am human too.
i’m sorry… but what does “live their lives 22″ day by day” mean…? Does that mean they work 22 hours of the day?
22″ as in 22 inch display, as a metaphore for a potential limited or biased way of looking at reality.
huh. fascinating.
“If you want to be a leader then you have to come to grips with who you are, what you do, and what you do uniquely well – what you can only do in the context of a high-performance team.”
Well, I think that the author of this article is still quite young. I am a manager now for over 20 years in different countries (in Europe), but even if you think you know yourself very well, it is the other that’s tries to surprise you. A good leader keeps a distance to his staff. Never become friends with his staff. And never let’s himself promise the same thing twice.
Respect is major. A good leader respects his staff, but should expect the same in return. I have not met many great leaders in my carrier, but the ones that were, I still admire.
I am still figuring out however, why for some it so hard to combine a great skill with a great will. So much talent is still wasting themselves. Mostly it is not the brain capacity, but the attitude that is hiding in it.
“never become friends with his staff.”
wow, this is one of the most archaic positions ever. sure, it might work at larger companies but even they have to be cordial and appropriate with their teams (even at the C-level)… and yes, i’ve been there.
i think you’ve labeled yourself as irrelevant.
I agree John, “cordial and appropriate with their teams”, but that doesn’t mean that you have to be friends. And it is not nice to label me as “irrelevant”, for I didn’t mean in any way to show disrespect to your article. I would do anything possible to keep my staff happy to do their work, but that doesn’t mean that we have to be friends. How do you tell a friend (collegue), that his last few performances were not as good as expected?
like any professional would.
i think emotionally intelligent teams (and people) can balance the two just fine.
If I had a friend who didn’t care enough about me to tell me the truth about my performance, then I wouldn’t consider them a friend at all.
you must read a lot of great business books.
I know what a compiler is and what memory management is, bcoz that’s what i am studyng.
And i know what it means to be a leader bcoz i am the headboy of my school(o.k, that was not modest)
what i hv learnt is that the time of heroic leadership is gone and i believe it. Great leaders today have to focus on taking the team forward together rather than be julius ceaseresque in their approach. But they should also be able to say “i dont need u” to someone not good enough. That needs being a very good communicator, which i feel is the most necessary quality for being a leader.
And you are a living example of that, John.
Do you know John? I mean in living person?
I’m a little late to this discussion, but I can actually say I know John “in living person.”
He isn’t perfect and he has much to learn – as do you and me. But what I can say about John is that he is an extremely engaging leader. If you take a second to look around at where you are, you’ll see this. John has created a community of people who volunteer to read his thoughts and actually take their valuable time to discuss the ideas openly. He’s built companies with people that he’s engaged via his web presence(s) and launched projects successfully because people want to work with him.
I believe the best definition of leadership is one that John Maxwell gives, “Leadership is influence.” If that is true, John Saddington is a leader. Perfect? No. Always right? Heck no! Worth following? I think the numbers speak for themselves on this.
No doubt you’ve done well for yourself in business. But I want to gently press on you with this question: What impact have you made? Have you left people better for having known you? Not financially alone, mind you. But how has the richness and quality of their lives been taken up a level by your presence in the story of their lives? Simply put, what is the legacy you’re leaving? Is the wake of your life rising the ships around you or creating a tidal wave of destruction?
A leader who cares about those he leads will press them to be better because he/she cares more about the people than the dollars. If that means a bad performance review, then they will give that poor review. If it means letting a friend go (and maybe losing the friend for a while), they do it because it will set that person free to hopefully do something they can be amazing at.
Hope that helps, Johan. You sound like an man with great strength. I hope you learn in the next 20 years of your career how to use that for the benefit of the people whose lives you touch. Good luck!
thanks noel! i’m working on it!