Tag: Leadership

Lessons in Communication: Balancing Empathy and Professionalism

I want to share a story about a brilliant engineer whose personality, while unique and engaging, ultimately presented significant challenges within our team. This experience served as a powerful reminder of the importance of setting clear boundaries and navigating complex interpersonal dynamics when managing individuals.

By late 2023, our Ruby on Rails application had become increasingly fragile and difficult to maintain. Recognizing the need to enhance our team’s engineering fundamentals, we decided to shift our hiring strategy to attract individuals with a stronger foundation in core engineering principles.

Note: Rails facilitates rapid application development, which is a significant advantage. However, a team lacking strong engineering fundamentals can quickly encounter limitations as the application grows in complexity. This can lead to technical debt and hinder future development efforts.

Both the engineer and I tend to be quite expressive in our communication style. This shared characteristic fostered a sense of camaraderie, allowing for open and candid conversations in private. However, our more direct communication style sometimes clashed with the expectations of the broader team. I recognized this early on and began to gently guide her on the importance of adjusting the communication style in public settings.

While it’s generally advisable to maintain consistency in one’s communication, the engineer’s conversational style felt familiar and comfortable to me, making it difficult to consistently enforce professional communication standards.

She quickly adjusted her communication style, and the initial interactions seemed promising. I believe in providing challenging opportunities for my team members to grow, so I entrusted them with our most critical project of the year. I was eager to see them excel and showcase their talent. However, it quickly became apparent that the high-pressure nature of this project was exacerbating the existing tensions.

As the research progressed, I observed a gradual increase in the engineer’s stress levels. This became a recurring pattern: I would address their concerns, offer reassurance, and express confidence in their abilities, which would temporarily alleviate the pressure. However, within a week, the stress would resurface, creating a cyclical and unproductive dynamic. In retrospect, I realize I should have recognized the severity of the situation much earlier, but my own biases and a desire to support their success likely blinded me to the escalating issues.

I believe my shared background and generational similarities with the engineer may have inadvertently led to an overestimation of our compatibility and a reluctance to address the escalating issues more directly. I inadvertently granted more latitude than was appropriate, failing to recognize the severity of the situation until it reached a critical point.

It’s important to note that I value open and authentic communication in private settings. My primary objective is to understand and support my team members, and I believe that effective communication can take many forms.

While I am open to direct and even passionate communication in private settings, I cannot tolerate disruptive behavior in public forums. This includes raising one’s voice or engaging in disrespectful language during team meetings. Unfortunately, this is what happened during a code review session.

I had presented a code solution that did not align with the engineer’s preferred approach, and they proceeded to express their disagreement in a highly emotional and disruptive manner, raising their voice in front of the entire team. The shock and discomfort on the faces of my colleagues were palpable. This incident marked a significant turning point in the situation.

The following day, I issued a written warning along with a Performance Improvement Plan (PIP). The meeting that followed was understandably emotional. As always, I made a concerted effort to listen to the engineer’s concerns and perspectives. After a lengthy discussion, we concluded the meeting by outlining clear expectations for future behavior and performance. Unfortunately, the situation did not improve, and the employment relationship ultimately ended.

In retrospect, I realize that while I consistently listened to the engineer’s concerns, I failed to truly grasp the escalating severity of the situation. I did not fully recognize the extent of her frustration and the impact it was having on her well-being. This was a difficult and valuable lesson for me.

My previous approach, which emphasized a permissive environment for open communication, inadvertently failed to establish clear boundaries between appropriate and inappropriate behavior, particularly in public settings. I now approach private conversations with a greater emphasis on both empathy and clear expectations. While I still value open communication, I strive to maintain a balance between fostering an inclusive environment and upholding professional standards.

The Unexpected Teachers

There are several stories that I tell, whether you want to hear it or not about learning. There are two stories that mean a lot to me that I share as often as I can. I want to share them here.

In the late 1990s, I was not working in software engineering and it was not on my radar. I was working in metrology. Yes it is a word and it has nothing to do with weather. I was sold that it was a good career and was stable. Needless to say, I was ok with that and didn’t look much past it.

One day I overhead a manager from a different group talking with one of his technicians. I heard the technician say “Why do I need to learn about combustion engines?”. At first, realizing that our field has nothing to do with those types of engines, I wanted to hear the response. The manager asked a seemingly simple question, “Do you know how they work?”.

The response seems silly since the technician had zero interests in combustion engines. I walked away not thinking much more about the exchange. It wasn’t until later that night that I replayed the comments. The message that I extracted was there was something that the technician didn’t know, so why not take the opportunity to learn about the engines.

The comment was not intended for my ears, but I have taken that lesson with me. For almost 30 years, I have taken the opportunity to learn anything and everything that presents itself to me. It was that lesson that has carried me this far in my career. I was a self-taught software engineer for almost five years before I decided that I needed to get my degree. During those early days, I read everything. A lot of my Friday nights were spent at the book store and my then girl friend loved it. Honestly, she hated it but she understood what I was trying to achieve.

He doesn’t know it, but I owe my entry into this career to you Shawn. I tell that story all the time, because it had such an impact on my life.

Fast forward to the mid 2000s and then I saw something that taught me a similar lesson. I was working on web applications and we didn’t have mainstream JavaScript libraries like jQuery, so a lot of the code we wrote was for handling the browser quirks. Most people could see the writing on the wall that JavaScript would keep spreading throughout the industry.

One day, I was walking down the cubicles and I stopped at one of my colleague’s desk. I struck up a conversation about JavaScript and sharing the resources that I was using to get up to speed. She said to me that she didn’t need to learn anything new, because she already knew enough. To be clear, she was not being a know-it-all, she was a good person and not like that.

Her response didn’t sit well then and it further cemented my commitment to life long learning. My colleague stagnated and their career didn’t progress. In fairness, not everyone is so passionate about learning or growth and that is OK. If you are content and don’t have the desire to do anything new, then I respect that.

Those two lessons have served me well for that last 24 years and has made sure that I will always seek out opportunities to grow. I share these two stories with anyone who will listen because they have been so pivotal to my journey. Keeping a growth mindset has made me hungry and keeps me going. I hope you can find these two stories as valuable as I have.