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Ask Them How They Want to Grow

“We’re working on development opportunities for our engineering team including some of the most senior folks on the engineering team. What are some interesting things we can provide to help them with personal development?”

I get versions of this question a lot and I have some default answers that I list below, but I would be very interested in what others do to make sure they have credible growth opportunities for their team:

  • Let’s start with: sending folks to conferences is a fine idea and relative low cost, but I find conferences are a short term growth bandaid and don’t give engineers longterm fire/recharge. However, speaking at a conference is whole other deal that I highly suggest especially for the folks who think they are not good public speakers.
  • Vacation is never the answer to this particular question. Vacation is lovely mental opportunity to mentally wander and I’m a huge proponent of mentally wandering, but time off as a growth opportunity often translates to mental wandering that results in resignations.
  • Open sourcing an internal project is an easy short-term win, but the ongoing cost of maintaining said project needs to be factored into this program.
  • Work out an engineering exchange program with another company. Details here. I haven’t done this before, but it makes all sorts of sense.
  • Have an individual work on whatever the hell they want for 90 days. No constraints. Just their project. Extra credit for pairing them with other likeminded engineers. This is hard to pull off because there is always something urgent for these folks to do, but would you rather have them semi-absent for a quarter or absent forever?
  • Ask them what they want to do and how they want to grow. Like I’m doing right now.

What’s your power growth move for yourself or your team?

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Rands Leadership Survey Update

Over 400 folks have taken the time to fill out the Rands Leadership Survey. Thank you. Some very brief stats:

  • I’m seeing a completion rate of 25%+ on desktops, tables, and smartphones which is a lot considering the survey takes 10+ minutes to fill out.
  • It is apparently easier to fill out the survey on a tablet. Higher completions, lower average time to complete. Tip of the hat to Typeform for making the survey simple and gorgeous on mobile devices.
  • 98% of the folks who filled out the survey want to hear about the results. 92% are willing to joining a mailing list on leadership. That seems like an easy win.
  • In terms of where folks are willing to invest their time, the current winners are: participating in a mentorship program (67%) and semi-informal serendipitous bitching at a nearby bar (67%).

As I mentioned in the introduction to the survey, I’m leaving the survey up for a month and will then publish results. If you haven’t already and you are a leader of humans, take 10 minutes of your time and take the survey.

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The Force Awakens – A Collage of Iconic Images

(This brief article assumes you’ve seen the trailer. If you haven’t what are you waiting for?)

The Return of the Jedi came out on May 25, 1983 which is really the last time that you saw new material on the Millennium Falcon was 31 years ago. If you were alive, close your eyes and imagine what you were doing 31 years ago. I was furiously begging my parents to let me see Return of the Jedi again.

As teaser trailers, The Force Awaken checks all the boxes. Introduction of characters. Check. Establish that the Star Wars universe has evolved since we last saw it. Check Bad guys. Check. Good guys. Check. Potentially annoying guys (Rolling ball droid?). Check. Lens flare. Check. Tip of the hat to the original series. Check.

Based on reaction of the rest of the family, everyone is excited to see the movie, but the trailer does little to introduce where the story is headed. It’s a delicious collage of iconic images. For me, there is only one shot that matters and that is the Millennium Falcon. We had a hint of the Falcon in Episode III as a much earlier version of the ship is docking in Coruscant, but that was three seconds and who knew who was flying it? We don’t know who is flying it in the trailer, but there is high probability it’s folks we know.

The Millennium Falcon is all I needed to see. I’m hooked.

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