Sunday 14th April 2024

Topics:

• After twenty plus years in the tech industry, you start to spot patterns.
• Some of those are positive, but many are pointless or even harmful.
• For the negative ones, tech people like to use the term anti-pattern, which according to Wikipedia is defined as: "An anti-pattern in software engineering, project management, and business processes is a common response to a recurring problem that is usually ineffective and risks being highly counterproductive.", source - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-pattern
• One such situation is when a new leader joins an organization, and I must admit to being guilty of these myself in the past.
• There are a few classic moves that I see new leaders in an organization repeat over and over in their first six months:
  1. Team reorg - this can include firing existing people, reducing overall headcount, or bringing in their own trusted people from their past.
  2. UX refresh - this is a classic response: blame the product for the current problems, and immediately design a new UX to address this.
  3. Process re-engineering - again a classic response: blame the current processes for the problems, and bring in new processes to address this.
• After a few decades in an industry, these patterns become dull and predictable.
• I have come to the conclusion that most issues are cultural issues, and that takes time to fix.
• Sadly however, a new leader may only have a few quarters to make an impact, especially in a public company, so it can be tempting to reach for these easier levers to pull upon.
• The higher up an organization you climb, the less time you should be spending on detail, and the more time you should dedicate to culture and strategy.
• An inexperienced leader will tend to do the opposite, and get lost in the details.
• An experienced leader entering a new organization will know it will take them 1-2 years to make a meaningful impact on culture and strategy, and should negotiate such a timeline during their interview process.
• Patience is the key, and expectations need to be set accordingly from the very beginning.
• What I am working on this week:
  • Fighting against a spam bot attack on greppr.org
• Media I am enjoying this week:
  • Diaspora by Greg Egan.

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techleaderpro-2024-week-15.mp3

File details: 14.3 MB MP3, 9 mins 57 secs duration.

Title music is "Hidden Beyond" by Aiyo, licensed via www.epidemicsound.com

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