208: Do You Make This Common Mistake in Engineering Management?

There’s links for all the goodies there in the show notes. I was on a session with a guy named Greg, engineering manager, really successful. Top talent leader in his organization. And he’s been working with me for quite a while. And we had a one on one session to check in on a few of the areas that he’s working on in his own leadership development and career growth.

And when we got on the call, I asked a few questions, high level to get us started. And I could tell that he seemed frustrated, fatigued, not. In that same, you know, high vibe energy that I’m used to experiencing with Greg when he’s on our coaching sessions. So I called him out, said, Hey, here’s what I’m picking up.

How are you doing? [00:01:00] And he said, Zach, yeah, you’re right. Uh, right. As usual, you’ve, you’ve guessed on my tone and my energy. I am a bit tired. I feel like I’m out of balance and I haven’t been really living the My values when it comes to whole life balance that we’ve been working on these last months, and that’s been frustrating to me and I’ve really felt that I’ve been burning out a bit, putting in more hours than I want to.

And that’s actually a great topic for us today. We should dig into what’s going on there and I need to get back on track. This is not uncommon. You know, making these corrections in burnout and moving towards whole life balance, setting healthy, strong boundaries between work and personal life. All of us are working on this all the time.

I’m sure you can relate. Sometimes you crush it. Other times you fall off the wagon and there’s always the unexpected or the emergencies that come up at work or at home or a really busy season. You’re in the middle of a [00:02:00] product launch or going live with some new features. So I asked. Greg to expand a bit.

Well, what’s, what’s been going on? What is creating that excess demand on your time with work? You’d been doing really well. So what changed? And he thought about it for a moment and said, well, I think, honestly, the mistake that I made was jumping in and redoing some work that one of my team members was falling behind on and had taken the wrong approach.

So we had to rewrite. A lot of the code that they had been working on for the last week. And so I put in a bunch of extra hours on the nights and the weekends to get that done. And I shouldn’t have taken that on myself. I fell back into my old, I see top performer mindset. And instead of helping my team member work through it and get it right and delegating better and coaching better, [00:03:00] I just decided I needed to do it myself because we were out of time.

There’s a deadline and my reputation and my product, my project is on the line. Uh, so I needed to step in and get it done. And that wasn’t the right decision. And I asked Greg, is that really true? Is it true that that was the wrong decision? Because you have this major deadline and your reputation is on the line.

Is it really true that that was the wrong decision? And he thought about it for a minute and said, well, I guess a good thing that I got it done, but I’m also burning myself out. And I just. Feel trapped. Like there was no right decision. It was lose, lose. If I focused on the coaching, the mentoring, the training, the delegating, then we would have missed the deadline and that would have been bad for me, but by going this other route, I burned myself out and I’m out of balance and I’m now tired and frustrated and feeling the negative side of that.

And that’s. [00:04:00] Not working either. And you could just see he was feeling stuck between these two problems and not sure which one was the right one. How do you make that tough decision? And as he was processing through this, he said, well, I guess sec, the thing I’d really like to work on then is how to delegate better, how to make sure that this doesn’t happen again in the future, because I can make peace with the decision to work the overtime.

And to hit this deadline, but I don’t want to have to do it every time. So let’s focus on me being a better manager and a better leader so that this doesn’t happen again in the future. So, okay, that’s a great idea. Let’s unpack that. And to be honest, Greg and I had already talked about some of these ideas and he’d made some big improvements already.

With his entire team. And so as we started to look back on where he may have missed and what opportunities there were to get better, something became really, really [00:05:00] obvious. And it was something that Greg was aware of, but not actually bringing up as a part of the problem. And it was that his team member wasn’t capable.

wasn’t living up to the standards and skill set requirements and the ability to deliver great work for the team. You see, the code had been written in a way that wasn’t going to work and Greg had to step in and fix it. And when he delegated other things to this same individual in the past, He’d had similar problems where he had to constantly intervene and check in and redirect and provide more guidance on aspects of the project that frankly should have been easy for this person given their title, their level and the expectations of that role.

So I asked Greg a really [00:06:00] important question and it’s a question that you need to be asking yourself. If you’re an engineering manager, senior manager, director, anybody who reports to you, I don’t care what your title is. I asked Greg, does this person on your team have the capability to do the work that you need them to do?

Can they do it? Do they have the skills? Do they have what it takes to do the job? And, you know, nobody wants to be blunt and mean about that, especially when you’re talking about a team member. So Greg started in the kind of runaround. Well, they’re, they’re really good at this one area. They’ve been at the company for like 12 or 15 years.

I don’t know a long time. And it’s just this other thing that I’ve been giving them lately where they’ve not been successful, but they have a good track record in this other area. And, you know, he’s just kind of waffling between the pros and the cons. And I just asked him again, Greg, does this [00:07:00] person have the capability to do the job?

He said, well, I guess I just, I don’t know. I think. In several areas here, the answer seems to be no. And I shared with Greg the most important question of engineering management that I ever learned my entire career that I use with everyone who I coach, whether you’re a manager or a vice president, this question I learned from the great entrepreneurial leaner Vern Harnish, it goes like this.

Knowing what you know now, would you enthusiastically rehire that person? And you can ask this question about everybody on your team. Knowing what you know now, would you enthusiastically [00:08:00] rehire that person for that job? And when I asked Greg this question about the team member who was underperforming, He said, well, I don’t know.

I, probably not because I’ve had a lot of issues with them, but, but Zach, they were on the team when I got this job, I inherited this team. And like I said, this person’s been at the company for a really long time. So I just assume that they’ve been here and they’ve, you know, been around a while and they were already here.

Like, what am I supposed to do about that? I didn’t hire them. I inherited this team and after Greg and I had a conversation about a fixed mindset to get him back into the right mindset for our coaching, said, look, it doesn’t matter if you hired them or if you inherited the team when you got the job, which Greg had only been the manager for maybe 12 or 18 months, but still 12 to 18 months of time where this person had been [00:09:00] consistently underperforming.

Greg was consistently covering for that by giving those assignments to other people on the team who were more talented or taking it on himself. That is not a sustainable way to run your organization. It is not going to help you create a lifestyle that you love, and it’s not going to help you get to the next level in your career.

It’s actually doing the opposite, creating an anchor, pulling you down the career ladder, not propelling you up. Would you, knowing what you know now, enthusiastically rehire every single person on your team? And if the answer is no, then we have work to do. If the answer is no, we have work to do. Like I said, it doesn’t matter how the person got there.

If you made a poor hiring decision, or if you inherited a team where someone [00:10:00] is underperforming, if the answer to that question is no, I would not enthusiastically rehire this person, knowing what I know now, then we have work to do. There are two options. And as a manager, as a leader of a team, you must decide which of these two is the right solution for that person based on where you’re at in the relationship, the context, the challenges, maybe the company culture.

There’s a lot of inputs, but there’s only two paths. Option number one is you coach the person up. You coach them up. You put together a development plan. You provide them the resources, the training, the buddies, the peers, the one on one time with yourself, the tools, whatever they need to be able to close that skill gap, to meet the standards that the role [00:11:00] demands for them to be a top performer and a player on your team.

What does that look like? Give them clarity on exactly what those expectations are, what exactly the gaps are in their current performance versus the expected performance on your team. And in this company, make sure they know exactly what that looks like, exactly how to measure that success, both in what they deliver and how they deliver it.

And work that coaching plan with focus and intention and hold the person accountable to the growth. Here’s the thing, if you choose this path to coach someone up, it is your responsibility as their manager, 100%, to provide the available resources they need to close the gap. And it is their responsibility, 100%, to use and leverage those [00:12:00] resources to do the work.

to close the gap. It’s not 50 50. It’s not you’re responsible and they’re not, and it’s not they’re responsible and you’re not. It’s 100 100. 100 percent responsibility on both sides. You are responsible to provide for them the opportunity to close the gap and the resources that it takes to do so. And they are responsible to make sure that the gap does get closed.

If that means they need to put in some extra time, some overtime, some weekend time, some evening time to learn, to study, to practice, to, to meet with other people and mentor with them, to learn from them. So be it, help them understand what those expectations are and the timelines to close. The other path, if you choose not to coach them up.

Is to coach them out and coaching them out of your organization can be finding them a role in the company where they are [00:13:00] better suited to succeed. Sometimes you have the right person in the wrong seat on the bus, and that is okay to say, look, we’ve got a person here with great values that match our company values, who wants to be here, who cares about our customer, and it’s someone we’d love to keep on the team, but the role we have them in is not a match for their skill set.

How can we position them on the bus in a seat where they can succeed and be an A player? That’s one option. And you can help them to find that opportunity, work with HR, work with the other managers, and coach them out of your organization and into a place where they can succeed. That’s one way to do that.

The other way is to coach them out of the company altogether. All right. Following whatever the process is within your organization, you know, the size of your company may dictate some of the formality of going through performance improvement plans before you can fire someone, but keeping an underperformer on your [00:14:00] team doesn’t help anyone.

It doesn’t help you and your team. It does not help that person. Letting somebody live a life of constant underperformance and being, you know, a drag on all the people around them doesn’t help them. I know that the empathetic part of our heart is like, yeah, but this is a person who has a family who needs the paycheck and, you know, I don’t want to create this challenge for them and we feel shame or guilt about doing that, but you must trust.

Retune your mindset that you’re not actually helping someone by letting them live in constant underperformance by letting them be at, at a place in their life where they’re not actually getting the job done and you’re enabling that you’re not helping them in that place. I could tell you story after story after story of somebody who gets coached out of an organization and goes on to find something that’s a great fit for them.

That is better. For their life long term and [00:15:00] while it may include short term suffering, the lessons that they will learn from you having the courage to tell them the truth that they’re not performing and that’s not an option in this organization that will help them in the long run. Everybody wins when you tell the truth about that situation.

Would you enthusiastically rehire every person on your team knowing what you know now? If the answer is yes, congratulations, you have a great team. Keep helping them, keep developing them, and go crush it, have fun. But if there is someone on your team where the answer is no, like Greg had, this constant underperformer who he had inherited on his team when he took over as manager, then you must decide, am I going to coach them up?

Or am I going to coach them out? That’s it. And I’ll tell you for me personally, I always start, always start with [00:16:00] coach them up. That’s just me. That’s my value system. If they’re on the team, I want to give them a chance to meet the standard. But remember, they must know clearly what that is. And if they don’t, that’s on you as the manager, you must provide that clarity, provide the support, the resources, the coaching.

I always start there for me personally. You don’t have to. It’s okay to say this person is an underperformer and we don’t have the capacity or the time to coach them up. We need to coach them out quickly and find somebody who can step in and perform on day one. That’s okay to do. Alright, your job as a manager, as a director, is to coach them.

As an executive is to put together a high performing team of a players and a players don’t want to be on teams with BNC players. So if you are putting more work and more burden on your all stars, because you don’t have the courage [00:17:00] to go tell the truth to the underperformers and say, you either close these gaps or you will be managed out of this organization.

That’s on you as the manager. When your A player leaves for another company where they can work with all A players, that’s on you. So be decisive, be a leader, make a decision for everybody on your team right now. Here’s your action. It’s a really simple action plan for you as you listen to this episode of the podcast.

I want you to do it right now. Look at your team of direct reports. Ask this question about every single one, knowing what I know now, would I enthusiastically, sincerely look forward to hiring that person? If yes, congratulations, move on. And if no, decide today, will I kick off a coaching plan to coach them up and close those gaps?

Or must I begin a [00:18:00] coaching plan to coach them out? Talk to HR. Talk to your, your own leader and let them know we have an underperformer here and we need to begin taking action to help them find a different seat, whether it’s on this bus or somewhere else. Greg and I had this exact conversation. And the truth is he simply did not want to have the courageous conversation to go tell this person that they were underperforming.

His fear of that conversation and that conflict. caused him to pick that work up and do it himself on nights and weekends. Well, we practiced the conversation together, did a little role play. He had it the next day and the person responded to that challenge of closing the gap extremely positively. They were appreciative of knowing that where they were at was not acceptable.

And while it was hard to [00:19:00] hear, they rose to the occasion. They took it seriously. They began practicing. They leaned into the resources Greg provided, and it worked out really well. I’m going to tell you the truth. It doesn’t always go that way. Sometimes people will respond really negatively, and it’s an indicator of their fixed mindset.

It’s an indicator of a person who’s not going to close those gaps, no matter what you do. And by having that courageous conversation, now you know which of those two roads may be the best for you to walk that person down. Coach them out. Go take action on this for your team. Don’t sit like Greg did for 18 months covering for someone’s underperformance because you haven’t had the courage to ask this question, be honest about the answer and go put the plans together to close gaps, coach people up or coach them out.

If you need help with this, if you’re stuck on it, let’s [00:20:00] connect. Let’s talk about what’s going on with your organization. Be happy to support you in your own career development and skills like Greg is working on here for lifestyle, for career growth, for everything that it takes to crush it at work while loving your balance at home, jump back into the show notes.

You can grab some free resources there or book a free coaching session for us to get some insights for you and tell you about what we’re doing here at the oasis of courage in action. Developing and coaching and training talented leaders like yourself. I’d be happy to share all the ways we can support you.

Let’s do this.