Way Back Then

a quick reflection and then some thoughts on tasks vs. people

Hard to believe it’s been a month since I recapped 2023 and took a break. It’s also been just about a year since I unintentionally wrote a controversial post on why most teams don’t need dedicated testers. I’d like to remind readers that I’ve already offended in 2024, that I didn’t invent this concept - I just speak and write about what I’ve been seeing in the industry for years. What’s been interesting for me in the last several months is I’m seeing more people beginning to say the same things. Bryan Finster, for one has preached in several blog posts about the Modern Testing / Delivery Principles without ever reading them. I don’t know if there are actually more people talking about modern software delivery, if my linkedin feed has adjusted, or if it’s just frequency illusion, but the truth is out there.

I hope to be done writing about that topic for a while (but you can hear me continue to talk about it on the AB Testing Podcast).

On With the Show

Over on the old site, I mentioned that I burned through some fiction over the quiet days at the end of the year (I was also away from home quite a bit - more on that in a later post). I was rereading Leaders Eat Last (Sinek). I do a thing with books I’ve read where, for reasons even I don’t fully understand, I decide I need a refresher. So I sort of read/speed read/skim in order to remind myself why I thought it was a good book in the first place. And then I saw a highlighted quote:

The strength of a culture is not just about how well people work together. It's about how much they care about what they're working on together."

…at which point I down-shifted my reading speed and caught myself up on the concepts of a healthy culture. I’ve written quite recently about engagement (Treacherous) - and will probably continue to write about it a lot because it’s something I think about a lot.

In Leaders Eat Last, Sinek talks about building trust (“a circle of safety”) and leading with empathy (now I realize where so many of my blog ideas may have been born).

Then I got to another highlighted quote:

The value of a culture can be measured in the increased performance, the decreased costs, and the quality of the relationships. But none of these are the point. The point is that a great culture captures the collective hearts and minds of an organization.

The gist Sinek gets at here is that effective leaders create an environment where team members feel valued, safe, and motivated, ultimately leading to improved relationships and collective outcomes that benefit the organization.

This is not a chicken and egg problem. You will never get a healthy culture by focusing purely on delivery and tasks (but you will get a contant turnover of employees). Delivery comes from culture every single time.

People Over Tasks

Quick Tangent - if you’re a reader, and don’t know everything about leadership already, spend $120 a year and subscribe to Harvard Business Review. Or, open the links in a private window if you want to read more than two articles a month. You do You.

In my big pile of HBR bookmarks, I found this article from Marcus Buckingham. In the article, he says:

I’ve found that while there are as many styles of management as there are managers, there is one quality that sets truly great managers apart from the rest: They discover what is unique about each person and then capitalize on it. Average managers play checkers, while great managers play chess

I’m going to ask you to play out a quick thought exercise. Think of the time in your career when you were most excited about your work. What was your relationship with your manager and other leaders, and what did they do to lead the team. My guess is that in your personal moment of I-love=-my-job-so-much-that-I-can’t-believe-they-pay-me, you had a leader who invested a lot in the team and their well-being.

Or, if it’s easier (and I’m truly sorry if this is the case), think of your most miserable job. I’m going to guess that your manager barely knew you and they just wanted to know when shit was going to get done.

Read the whole article linked above.

People over Tasks wins every time.

Human Touch

I dug deeper in the archives. It’s amazing that some things haven’t changed in the last 25 years. Look no further than this article from 1996 on The Human Side of Management. I dare you to read it withough nodding your head. Yep - seen that. Yep - that too.

Shit.

I want to highlight the whole article, but I’ll settle for the bit the article highlights as well (but again - read the whole thing).

Managing is not a series of mechanical tasks but a set of human interactions.

Don’t manage the work. Lead the people. Create a working culture and environment so good that your teams can’t help but deliver. Remember - it doesn’t work the other way.

Leaders Eat Last

As a leader, your team is more important than you. I know this is a pill that some people can’t swallow (I worked for a few at Microsoft). In my re-read of LEL and the articles above, one resounding truth emerges: leaders who prioritize people over tasks leave an indelible mark on their organizations.

Lead the People - Not the Tasks.

Happy New Year

-A