[This post is a continuation of a conversation I had with a good friend and school buddy who graciously set aside one Sunday morning to talk to me about his new role in managing and motivating his team.]

In your new role as a Network Ops Manager, do you have to get hands on? [I ask him]

Yes…very much. Mine is not a pure managerial vertical. I would say 40% managerial 60% technical. A good thing is a couple of them are technically strong.

How do you motivate your team?

Motivation levels vary…it’s up to me to motivate ‘em. The trick is to make ‘em feel that they are not doing redundant stuffs.

Keep giving them some new challenges?

Yes….make sure they are adding values to themselves, being on the cutting-edge… so I need to keep rotating stuff [responsibilities].

Yes.. Very true, which is a plus point in your line of work… they get to work with some good hi-tech stuff.

Yes…basically talk to them and understand what they would like to do, make sure you align their tech verticals accordingly. Some guys would like programming. Some guys would like networking, server setups etc… As their leader, I have to make sure that I manage their expectations well.

In most mid-sized growing companies, that has become the toughest challenge now.

See, redundant stuff would always be there…. you can’t help it but what you could do is they wouldn’t mind doing 40% redundant work if the other 60% is the exciting stuff. And the 40% redundant work, you could try automating stuff to get the redundancy down….that’s an added motivation.

Well.. in the s/w services industry where these companies mainly cater to US clients/projects… the issue is that we don’t get challenging work. New development mostly happens in-house in their own IT wing. All maintenance work goes offshore.

Yeah….good thing in my company is that we don’t do maintenance….we’re still developing on our IP [Intellectual Property]

When u say “could try automating stuff to get redundancy down” what do you mean?

For us it’s mostly scripting, running cron jobs on our server, etc. We automate all these using PERL. So people who are interested in programming also happy.

Got it. But isn’t it like digging your own grave. Once it is automated you don’t need that 40% allocation of a developer.

Don’t worry. We have enough work as it is. My primary objective is to attain a high degree of automation. I would want to free up minds for solid research work, and not waste ‘em on redundant stuffs. We have enough things to do as it is.

Yes. Automating work, Building processes, etc. That’s the way to go. Also, on a technical front, find innovative ways to do what we do better. But i m sure in your arena the challenges are orgasmic.

Yes, very much. Not many companies do stuff that we do.

I can picture it now… 30 odd perverts in your company.

Correction….50 odd perverts

Does anyone in your team not listen to you? Did you ever have to be harsh on anybody?

All that comes with the package…. you need to be diplomatically harsh.

So was that a piece of cake for you? I mean… something u could easily do? Put the point across in a diplomatic way!

Nope. Thought a lot about it and I’ve been observing all these when I was a lead. Incorrigible guys are shown the door.

That brings an interesting question…. What is it that you have seen in your manager that you don’t want to ever be or do? What kind of a manager do you NOT want to be?

Do less bull-shitting hahaaaa

Ha ok… that’s an obvious one but you would have to do some bull-shitting. It’s part of the game.

Hire and fire. You cannot live without it but fire only in extreme cases. You would try to fit in a non-performing guy in another team.

Ok.. Now I have interesting response to that… about firing and hiring. A manager should not or cannot afford to wait too long or act too fast in hiring or firing. You have to do it perfectly. Not making a decision or delaying a decision itself is a bad decision. You’ve got to trust your gut at some point because if you listen carefully, you know if the dude in your team will work out or not

Yes…100% agree. Especially if you have very aggressive schedules, that’s where a technically sound manager would help. He could cushion the impact that a non-performing engineer would generate to a certain extent. That could be your way of evaluating the guy, to see how much of your time you needed to put in.

Yes. True. However, in aggressive schedules u need to have your backup resources planned.

There is an interesting test every manager can try out:

1. Take a blank piece of paper.

2. Take a pen and write “strengths” on one side and “areas of improvement” on the other.

3. Think of any person in your team… anyone.

4. Note down 1 strength and 1 improvement area.

Based on where your move the pen first tells you a lot about what your opinion is about him/her. If the pen moves towards improvement areas first, the next question you should ask yourself is – What is his/her improvement plan? Have you put one in place? What do you think?

Sounds like what we do in our quarterly appraisals.

Yes… but it might be too late by then. It’s a fact that most managers fire people “too slow” because most of us are scared to go down that path.

I know but as I’m involved in a lot technically, I don’t want to do this hastily. I guess that’s all the more reason for going the extra mile of keeping the good guys in the company.

You mean to say… because you are not a full time manager?

Yes.

Ya, but still u have to keep an eye on your team member at all times… the 40% of your time that you are doing true managerial stuff would be enough.

Yes. You can very easily make out if the guy is slipping. I’m not disputing on whether it is required or not. The only constraint is time.

[My time was up. He had to leave.]

Appreciate what you are doing buddy…..really would help lots of budding managers.

Thanks man.

The following are excerpts from a conversation with my brother, on teams and selfless leaders…. read on.

“How do you come to grips with the down and dirty side of the team culture? How does one deal with selfishness, favoritisms, incompetencies and discrimination in a team? Rather than changing or attempting to change the environment, do we complain and wait for an opportunity to take off to another role… to escape? How do you cope in such an environment?

Is the leader to blame? Is the department head to blame for choosing or hiring the wrong person to lead the team? The leader in this case is seen to focus only on the results and not on the unhappy employees in the team. He/She does not realize that unhappy people weakens the team and in the long run, weakens the organization.”

“For a leader, building a ‘strong’ team should be as important as getting the next project. The growth and satisfaction of the team should be always on his/her radar. The performance of a leader must be measured by the success of the team. A leader must spend time & energy with each team member and work towards building their careers and earning their trust – not by being the nice guy or the buddy BUT by being fair to oneself, to the team and to the project.

We need a leader who will stand up for the team, who will put energy and time in grooming them, and who will kick them in the butt when they do something wrong. In the end the success of the team is the leader’s biggest achievement. Instead, when the leader puts his/her own interests and agendas first, the team will fall apart and the project will fail.”

This was the first post of the new “Let’s Talk” series where I talk to some very interesting people and pick their brain on a specific topic. Then I share it with you. I hope you found this conversation interesting and thought provoking. Thank you for tuning in. Let’s talk again soon.