Social aspects of leadership, or how to “kick” employees all the same. 2 years later.

    The article is about “kicking”, “tightening the screws” and control tasks, different styles of communication and leadership, about the complexity of delegation, self-motivation of employees.

    Question: I read your article “Social Aspects of Development” and was stunned! Up to this point, I believed that such ideas are only from the realm of utopias and impossible to implement.

    Now I realized that this is feasible. I myself have always professed a similar approach, to myself I call it “human management”. I tried to use it when we started our first business with our partners several years ago, but to put it into practice did not work. Under pressure from our partners and an inadequate assessment of what is happening, we nevertheless fell into the system of “kicking” employees and then I decided that we did not implement this approach yet.

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    I soon pulled away from managing our company and took up what I always wanted to do - creating games, assembled a development team, found investors and launched a project to create an online game in the strategy genre. However, to fully realize the “business with a human face”, it seems to me, again, it does not work.

    Symptoms: lack of discipline, low development speed, loss of enthusiasm. I would now call my
    own leadership style"Conniving . "

    And so, as soon as my patience was over, and the next day I was going to “tighten the nuts as tight as possible”, I stumble upon your article. It was like a balm for a sick heart. I immediately with great relief rejected the idea of ​​kicking , but I understand that I still need to do something , but I do n’t know where to start ? I would like your advice.

    Answer: In 2 words this is
    - Introduce elementary organization into the process. This is not “kicking” - this is your job.
    - Different style. With the cool - sincerely, with the youth - friendly, with the "prima donnas" - dry
    - Use emotions to "set fire" to people. Read Take Emotion With You
    - Use 4 leadership models based on the task and the person. These are the questions. Maybe? Will take
    - Be prepared to have problems with the Directory Style and Delegation.
    - Strive to ensure that in your team there are only people with strong self-motivation, for whom your job is a hobby, passion, favorite business. Help other people understand themselves.
    - Rally the team: gather in one room, hold general meetings, set common worthy goals.

    About the breeze and the draft


    One and the same action, depending on whether we consider it to bring a positive or negative effect, we call different words.

    The weak wind that we like, we call the "breeze", if the weak wind we do not like, we say "draft". “Kicking” is an annoying, redundant type of “Control” that we don't like.

    Here you can trap yourself. Consider any amount of control “kicking”, other than 0, (the attitude to which is negative). This is not true. If you are overly carried away by the ideas of “human management”, you can go too far and slide into a complete lack of organization, into chaos.

    In the article, I gave the “correct pressure model”.

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    If the “control” (pressure) is less than a certain level, then the opposite effect occurs, the terms increase.

    When control is needed


    After 2 years, I would clarify this model. In our conditions, with our people, our companies, I almost did not see the problem of excessive control (which we call “kicking”). What I saw is the inverse problem, chaos, very poor organization of work, lack of elementary control.

    With zero control, or close to it, the timing increases dramatically. And the less experienced the self-organized team, the worse. The more complex problems you have to solve, the worse.

    To be honest, given the problems of our companies, I would consider my article to be harmful. It is one-sided, and there may be a misinterpretation that any control is bad, that any control is “kicking”.

    As a result, having a situation close to “chaos” on the project, instead of introducing organization and elementary control, the person who read the article makes the situation even worse, further weakening control.

    So what kind of control is needed


    More specifically, what to do. Do not go too far. Checking tasks once a week is for very organized employees who have shown that they have developed self-management skill, and only if the tasks for you are not very important.

    For most: in the morning to say what to do when a person leaves, tells / shows the results. The less confident you are in a person, the more often you control. The more a person is removed from you, the more you control him. The more important the task, the more often you control. A different approach to different people.

    Remember that the lack of control, the lack of your participation in the work, reduces the importance of the task in the eyes of the employee (= you are not interested). Do not think that people want you to completely leave them without your attention.

    One of the weeks I conducted an experiment: I did not ask for task ratings; I determined the tasks themselves and resolved for almost a week. When we had a retrospective on Monday, people said that they didn’t like it, it seemed to them that they were engaged in unimportant tasks, they were not interesting to me. They themselves asked me for my greater involvement.

    Different style


    Recently, my friend and colleague Anton Antonov helped me clearly articulate what should be the style of communication with different people.
    With the steep - sincerely,
    With the youth - friendly,
    With the prima donnas - dry.

    Recommend.

    Management styles. Can? Will take


    I also recommend a situational leadership model, depending on 2 aspects of work: “task” and “relationship”. The “task” aspect is defined by the question: “Can a person do the job?” Relationships - by the question: “Will the person take responsibility for this work?”

    1. He cannot and will not - Directive or command style.
    2. It can’t, but it will take - Advisory. “This is what is needed here and what needs to be done like this (a person does not know how). Call me if you need anything. ”
    3. Maybe, but he won’t take it - Participating. “Here we need this, how to do it - decide for yourself, participate, when you need to share responsibility.”
    4. Maybe Take - Delegation. Front work outlined and retired.

    The leadership model is determined by the situation, and the situation is determined by the task itself and the person who will carry it out.

    The authors of this system, Paul Hersey and Ken Blanchard, write that, based on their experience, managers usually have problems with sector 1 (cannot and will not take. Directive style) and sector 4 (can and will take. Delegation). We are not directive enough when necessary. We also have problems with delegation.

    Sometimes be tough. Be able to delegate


    The root of the problem with Delegation is that it is difficult to answer the questions “Maybe?” And “Take?”. We are not sure. We prefer not to take risks when we are not sure, we choose a safer way, we do not delegate. Always remember this example. You are a father and you teach your daughter how to drive. If you do not want to take her to 40 years, you need to take the risk and give her a try. You need to take risks! You need to delegate!

    It is said that people with a poorly developed emotional component (EQ) have a problem with these 4 types of leadership. So I repeat: “You will go to work, take emotions with you!”

    When work is a favorite thing


    The key is employee self-motivation. A man must love what he does, enjoy it. You should not have other people. Help your people realize this and make them the right choice. Maybe someone will leave. But the right people will come. And it will be good for everyone. You will not be able to add enthusiasm to a person who does not like what he does. Yes, I know that most teams are different, but I want to see next to me only people like me - people for whom our work is a hobby, passion, favorite thing.

    Nothing adds so much enthusiasm as effective (organized) work in a team, like a leader whom the team respects and which constantly indicates the importance of goals and the materiality of the team’s achievements. Some ideas for the leader are here.

    In general, it helps a lot for the team: set joint goals for the team that are higher than each of the people, tell people what is happening, bring them together, and help them realize the importance of their work.

    Different people have different tasks


    It is also important to understand that different people like different tasks. Usually it's hard to believe, but once or twice you see it, and you begin to believe in it. There are people who enjoy the fact that they "tidied up a mess of numbers." You need different people on the team, and they need to be given different jobs.

    Sumea Experience


    I really remembered at GDC the report of the technical director of Sumea on the leadership of the porting team (mobile games). Surprisingly, he did not say much about technical things. He said that the key task, as he understood it, was to find people with the right motivation.

    Typically, porting teams do not take any special people, take those who are in the company - those who came to make games. And here a big problem arises for the person who came to make games - he terribly does not like to make dumb and boring porting in his understanding.

    Everything fell into place when they began to look for other people whose goal was not to make games, but to create universal systems, optimize production as much as possible, and engage in the development of tools. We have about the same experience.

    To be continued..

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