The Byte Stops Here

I was just informed I didn't make it to the group this year. As you know, its been renamed as the Adobe Community Professionals.

The group is limited to 30 professionals every year, and I believe Adobe wanted to bring fresh faces to the group. As you know, I'm an oldie.

Its OK. I'll live. And continue to give back to the community as best I can.

Over the past year, I've had increasing management responsibilities. I'm currently the Director of Product Management at a SaaS company whose products suite is built using ColdFusion. This gives me a unique viewpoint on ColdFusion, and I'll continue to voice that.

Throughout 2009, I've been reviewing books before publication (very exciting!), reviewing POSS service offerings, writing more open source code, and beta-testing (pre-release) Adobe software.

Lets see where 2010 takes me!

In case you haven't seen this already. (Trying to motivate folks to keep innovating!)

I've been working extremely hard lately, and I found this article useful, so I thought to share.

Read more @ http://www.alistapart.com/articles/burnout/.

I saw this InfoWorld article entitled: "Five ways to drive your best workers out the door", and thought, instead of linking to it, I'd talk about how we try to keep talent.

One of the blessings of working at my company is the great talent I get to work with. I get to see tons of brilliant code on a daily basis, and as a manager its always a concern when working with talented people. But we try to create an environment thats a bit different from other software companies.

1. Mistake No. 1: Keep the creative juices bottled up. - The article describes clashes between programmers and management on the best route to take. Fortunately here, we have brilliant ideas coming at us left and right, and the problem has been keeping a lid on them and prioritizing them using a formal change control process. The team meets twice a week, everyone has access to walk into anyone's room, and ideas get approved based upon priority and impact, not politics. Its fortunate that we have such an environment. The key is not nly having an evironment like this, but also keeping it. And yes, we allow programmers "officially" 2 hours of R&D time each week.
   
2. Mistake No. 2: Micromanage your staff. - Over-burdensome paperwork, lack of trust, and management having to check each and every day (if not several times a day), all add up to a culture of micro-management. Don't get me wrong, our company is the most metric driven organization I've worked with, but we do it in stride. I meet with Senior members of the team daily, take part in cross-department upper-management meetings daily, and hold a department meeting twice a week. We all know what each of us is working on, I have metrics I have to sign off on at the end of the week, and most of all, we all trust each other to get the work done. Whenever things need additional clarification, we schedule meetings or meet ad-hoc. Team members always feel empowered that they have others support to get things done.
   
3. Mistake No. 3: Deny new opportunities and challenges. -While training funds are tight now a days, developers are encouraged to read blogs daily, and keep up with the world out there, and life on the bleeding edge. There is a constant influx of ideas, areas to do self-learning, and time to do R&D. I'm also working on having people come up with more and more ideas themselves. We're always throwing new challenges at developers, breaking new ground in development, and stretching our understanding of web applications. We're also always going back to do refactoring, re-visiting and optimizing old code can be a great challenge as well.
4. Mistake No. 4: Don't listen to your employees. - This one is a no brainer.
   
5. Mistake No. 5: Change the work environment without considering the impact on employees. - We have a high bar for hiring, and a high bar for firing. Both are extemely rare, and we know the introduction of one person to the team changes the complete dynamic inside the department. This is where we look for talented employees who are not only skilled technically, but people-wise as well. It all comes out in the interview process. And we consider them as well. As a member of the management team, I have more and more says on how employees work load gets assessed, and how we keep them engaged on the mission of the company. Radical shifts are severely discouraged, and if warranted, we look to get everyone's buy in. No one should feel like they were broadsided.

I'm blessed at my current workplace. I wouldn't classify anyone I work with as even close to being diffcult. But this has not always been the case.

In a conversation with a friend and fellow CF'er (name withheld), he mentioned how his team has members who are VERY difficult to deal with. I remembered a lot of my training on team dynamics, and thought to put together a lot of what I've learned over the years and what's available on the web regarding this subject in hopes that it may help people.

Please don't take any of these items as a comprehensive list. They are general guidelines, and not every one applies to every situation. Some in fact may be wrong advice for your situation. Tread carefully.

1. Remember your goal, and feel free to state it. For example, "Remember, we're both working to make this portion of the product easier for our customers." This draws attention to the goal, and helps to throw attention away from any issues that may exist between you two. In other words, your issues are not the subject, the customer and the product is. Also, it shows you two share something, and that is a commitment to the product and the customer, and you're not as alienated and different from each other as you might feel. Feel free to agree with the other person as well, instead of sending signals saying "NO" and showing your displeasure through verbal or physical cues.
   
2. If things get heated, you get mired down into semantics, or there is some sort of stalemate, feel free to keep using #1. At the same, not everything must be decided in one meeting, feel free to adjourn and revisit in a few hours. Give people breaks; they might feel threatened, and both time, and re-iterating common goals helps.
3. Use selective language: Don't say "You said", "you thought." Instead use "we" to draw away any blame, and say, "one alternative proposal is" or "it was mentioned" without naming names or calling people out. It makes them feel included, and not targeted at the same time. Some people are sensitive, and a slight change in language goes a long way.
4. I had many difficult professors in school. One professor decided to give me a D in a class, because he felt our group project was not up to par. For some reason, he had issues with me. I didn't want to speculate why. But I made my case via email, that in fact, I had to do most of the preparation and work for the group, and the issues I dealt with, and in comparison with all the other groups, ours was in the top 3 based on what I saw. The professor didn't bite (maybe he was having a bad day when we presented?). I could tell there was something on his side (some idea, pre-conceived notion, or bias?) that was affecting my grade, so I said in my last email: "You know what, why don't we discuss this in person. Are you still keeping your office hours?" Next thing I knew, he emailed me that he would give me a B instead. What happened? I "called" him (in poker terms). He knew if I met him face to face, my case would be stronger than his. Lesson learned: Take things only to a specific point when communicating offline. Be ready to take it face to face. When people act irrational, assume you don't have complete information - act quickly, take it to next level. You'll be surprised how many things resolve themselves at this point.
5. Keep your words short and sweet. Some people care a lot, and have to give big explanations, but during that explanation you'll either lose the person, or lose credibility yourself. Very few situations call for lengthy explanations, err on the side of short and sweet. Take this to the point of avoiding open-ended questions, like "How is it going?" and say, "Good morning" instead. When talking to them directly: "instead of saying, 'I expect you to improve your attitude,' say, 'There will be no more incidents of raising your voice to another employee.' "
   
6. Realize its VERY hard to "change" people, but a goal worth shooting for is "shaping" their relationship with you. This can be subtle, or very overt like saying: "You can do X with person Y and Z, but not me." Sometimes asking people to create an exception for you works. Other times, people don't even realize how they have been behaving, and come away shocked at themselves as much as anything. "While research shows that most bullies are unable to make deep changes to their personality, they are sometimes able to modify their behavior to the extent that they are more tolerable." Along these lines, don't take things personally as much as you can; difficult people are usually difficult to everyone. If that is not the case, and its just you, then you ask "why".
   
7. Feel free to document behavior. If things ever come down to meeting with your boss, be ready, and don't make it personal - speak the facts plain and clear. Acting professionally and "un-difficult" compared to the other person will speak volumes with management, who notice these things.
8. Don't fight back using the same tactics. To quote one expert: "Don't fight back or try to beat them at their own games. They have been practicing their skills for a lifetime, and you're an amateur."
9. Difficult people have an unusual appetite for appeasement, and getting their way. Don't always give them what they want in an effort to resolve the issue. Handling this is an art, and probably deserve a seperate post. On the other side of the coin, don't restrain from compliments where they are due. If you're holding back from being nice, you are taking it personally.
   
10. Regarding Overly Aggresive People: "Stand up to them, but don't fight. Overly aggressive people expect others to either run away from them or react with rage. Your goal is simply to assertively express your own views, not try to win a battle of right and wrong." People will make up their minds based on how the conversation goes, and the views expressed in most circumstances. Don't fight a war over right and wrong, but handle the battle confidently.
11. Practice: "Dealing with difficult people takes practice, so don't get discouraged. Although these strategies won't change the difficult people, they will break their ability to interfere with your effectiveness... Most important, you'll feel more confident and you'll start to enjoy your workdays."
12. Not everyone deals with difficult people the same. Some go into shock, others revolt, even whine. While its easier when someone is difficult with everyone instead of just with you, don't rely on people to back you up. If you continue discussing the difficult, people may end up seeing you as a whiner, or worse, labeling you as difficult. It doesn't make sense, but happens! In the end, you've got to deal with whoever is making your life difficult, and know that not everyone is going to take your side.
13. Look at yourself. Double check its not just you, as stated above, but also ask yourself, are you making life difficult for someone else? Are you doing the same thing? Sometimes changing your own behavior will help you with others. And know when to let go and move on.
    
14. Pick the right time to escalate issues with a boss. Remember previous tips on keep documents. Try to offer solutions, and don't just talk about your problems; keep the conversation constructive, and not negative. Ask for advice on what you can do to help; be humble - not aggressive.

Again, this is not comprehensive in any sense. Feel free to agree, disagree, or share your stories. You can find a lot of advice on the internet by searching my blog entry title on Scroogle.org. You'll also find hundreds of books on the subject as well.

Besides these, we learned additional tricks to take control over people. I don't want to go there just yet...