On Herding Cats

Last night I was at the Cambridge Tester meetup for a workshop on leadership. It was a two-parter with Drew Pontikis facilitating conversation about workplace scenarios followed by an AMA with a group of experienced managers.

I can't come to work this week, my cat died.

Drew opened by asking us what our first thoughts would be as managers on seeing that sentence. Naturally, sadness and sympathy, followed by a week? for a cat? and I only got a day for my gran! Then practicalities such as maybe there's company policy that covers that, and then the acknowledgement that it's contextual: perhaps this was a long-time emotional support animal.

Having established that management decisions are a mixture of emotion, logic, and contingency Drew noted that most of us don't get training in management or leadership then split us into small groups and confronted us with three situations to talk through:

Setting personal development goals for others.
Dropping a clanger on the first day in a new job.
Balancing being a boss and a buddy.

Highlights from the conversation I was part of:

The employee who rejected training on the basis that "I'll be here for ever anyway."
The manager who suggested no personal development goals because "you're doing so well on the project already."
Most people have career tactics not career strategy, if they have anything.

Giving a new employee the wrong address for their first day in the office.
Missing a work flight to the US, paying for it out of pocket, then failing probation anyway.
What we've done to make first days easier for people ("buddy" schemes, checklists, immediate pairing, encouraging them to ask all their questions earlier rather than later.)

The best bosses are not above, not directive.
It's hard to be (seen to be) fair when some people ask for the moon on a stick and others ask for nothing.
Being promoted from colleague to boss can dramatically reset relationships.

Drew was also part of the AMA panel along with Farah Egby, Teresa Reynolds, Nick Sheppard and Neil Younger. I'll summarise a few of the sentiments:

To move forward sometimes you have to disagree and commit ...
... being open and talking to each other will help.
Good managers are stress absorbers for their teams.
One of the arts of management is maintaining a view up and down ...
... and also giving feedback in both directions.
Shielding your team from bullshit is sometimes the right thing to do ...
... but at what cost to the business, to them, and to you?
Build up credit when you get the opportunity ...
... because tough times will come and you'll need to spend it.
The hardest conversations involve delivering bad news to other people ...
... and they are hard on both sides ...
... so if you haven't considered hiding under the table ...
... you're probably losing your empathy.
We all suffer from imposter syndrome in leadership roles at times.
Leaders need just enough ego ...
... to want to do the job and to believe they can ...
... but also to be sufficiently self-confident to step back and let others shine.

With all of that wisdom dispensed, maybe it's time to reveal that, when presented with the statement about the week off work and the dead cat, my mind went straight to the circus and lion tamers who'd be stuck without some poor beast to shake a chair at.

But I suppose some people do say management is like herding cats.
Image: Wikimedia

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