Mentoring Recap
Feb 15, 2020
They say that in order to truly learn something, you must teach
it to another. This often rings true for me when it comes to mentoring. I find that mentoring helps me learn, as
much as it helps me “teach”. I learn many things from these conversations, including what people are struggling
with at work, what energizes them, what brings them down, what new trend is becoming top of mind, and so much
more. The topic we talk about becomes clearer in my head. The more I talk to my mentees, the deeper I understand
the subject of our conversation and my own experience.
This week, I had some excellent mentoring conversations. I wanted to share with you a few of the questions/topics that came up with my mentees. Perhaps you find these relevant and useful to you too.
#1: I am a senior developer, in a new role that has me working more with people and less with code. I am getting frustrated - not sure if I am making any progress with all these meetings and collaboration. Did you feel this way when you switched from an individual contributor to a lead? How did you cope with it?
The instant gratification you get from seeing your code work on the screen is powerful, like a drug indeed. To this day, I find that joy unparalleled. When I started working more primarily on leadership roles, and less on coding deliverables, I did miss that satisfaction quite a bit. Working with people can be frustrating, especially in early days of people leadership. Enabling people to be productive, helping them grow, can take a long time to show results. Bye-bye instant gratification!
As I started to understand my role as a leader, I realized that I actually didn't have much of a clue how to do it right. Unlike coding, they did not teach me "people skills" in college. Leading people was a skill that I sorely needed to learn. So I reframed my thought that "working with people is frustrating and less fun than coding" to "I need to become better at working with people". I had to learn to "debug people" like I knew how to debug code. This quest to learn something new was a challenge. The challenge excited me, and that excitement overcame my feeling of frustration.
The leadership training that Microsoft put me through as a new leader helped a lot. I learned about the SCARF model that unpacked the social motivations of people. I sought out books that helped me understand human behavior better. Some books I recommend include Emotional Intelligence by Dan Goleman, The five dysfunctions of a team by Patrick Lencioni, Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman, and Flow by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi.
Will shifting your focus to people mean you won't have quite so much time to code anymore? The sad truth is, yes, all of this takes time and there are only so many hours in your work day. Some people I know fill in the gap by using personal time in the evening to code. I used to do that more before I decided to branch out into other "side hustles". But do keep in mind that understanding people better and taking the time to build those relationships are not wasted endeavors. It is time well spent and will pay off multiple times more as you progress in your career.
#2: What is the Number 1 skill or quality that has helped you in your career growth at Microsoft?
This question is hard for many reasons. I cannot point to just one thing that has helped me in my career. Having access to opportunities and great managers has helped greatly, for sure, but so have my hard work and my ability to learn new things. But if you put a gun to my head (and I really hope you don't) and ask me to name just ONE thing, I'd say it is the energy I put into processing and responding to feedback.
People say that feedback is a gift, and when they do, it sounds like one of those boring cliches. But indeed, feedback is something that you should cherish, especially when it comes from people that you trust and respect. Whether it’s feedback on your code or your document or yourself, learn to respond and not simply react. When the feedback is critical of you, there is no denying that it hurts the moment you receive it. But learn to sift the grain from the chaff. Learn to put aside your own emotional reaction to it (after letting your emotions course through your system mindfully), and to act on the facts hidden within it. Make a plan to become better. Act on the plan. Show to the people that gave you that feedback that you're better thanks to the feedback they gave you. The people closest to me can tell you that I do "react" to feedback now and then, but I have learned to give myself the gift of time to reflect and process it better. That, I think, is something that can help anyone grow leaps and bounds.
#2: What is the Number 1 skill or quality that has helped you in your career growth at Microsoft?
This question is hard for many reasons. I cannot point to just one thing that has helped me in my career. Having access to opportunities and great managers has helped greatly, for sure, but so have my hard work and my ability to learn new things. But if you put a gun to my head (and I really hope you don't) and ask me to name just ONE thing, I'd say it is the energy I put into processing and responding to feedback.
People say that feedback is a gift, and when they do, it sounds like one of those boring cliches. But indeed, feedback is something that you should cherish, especially when it comes from people that you trust and respect. Whether it’s feedback on your code or your document or yourself, learn to respond and not simply react. When the feedback is critical of you, there is no denying that it hurts the moment you receive it. But learn to sift the grain from the chaff. Learn to put aside your own emotional reaction to it (after letting your emotions course through your system mindfully), and to act on the facts hidden within it. Make a plan to become better. Act on the plan. Show to the people that gave you that feedback that you're better thanks to the feedback they gave you. The people closest to me can tell you that I do "react" to feedback now and then, but I have learned to give myself the gift of time to reflect and process it better. That, I think, is something that can help anyone grow leaps and bounds.
#3: I recently became an
engineering manager, and have been successful in my career so far. Should I do anything different to
continue to be successful from here on out?
The other day, I saw a book in the library titled "What got you here won't get you there". I didn't check out the book and read it. But I do agree with the title. The skills that helped you succeed early in your career are different from the ones you'll need as you become increasingly senior. Here are some skills that I have found are important to hone in the more senior ranks:
Business acumen: Understand how your business works, what your market looks like, how you can impact the bottom line, what new strategy you need to develop, and how you can grow the pie. Constantly innovate, and constantly look for opportunities.
Communication: At a certain level of seniority, technical excellence becomes table stakes. Every one of your peers is likely proficient in writing/testing code or defining products (or whatever else you do). What becomes crucial in differentiating you is your ability to articulate. There are three situations in which you need to master communication
Bold decision making: When I was more junior, one of my managers told me that my growth would be limited by my lack of appetite for risk-taking. A lot of us that do not come from a position of privilege tend to naturally shy away from risks. We worked hard to get here, and we don't want to squander it all away by sticking our neck out. But being brave and taking some calculated risks, I have found, are essential for progress. Use data to drive your decisions, but do not get paralyzed in analysis. Give yourself permission to fail, to be rejected, to be not perfect. Doing that helped me a great deal.
So those were some of the topics my mentees brought up this week. It was a lovely week packed with many energizing conversations. Do you agree with my answers above? Do you have other questions? Write me a note in the comments below!
The other day, I saw a book in the library titled "What got you here won't get you there". I didn't check out the book and read it. But I do agree with the title. The skills that helped you succeed early in your career are different from the ones you'll need as you become increasingly senior. Here are some skills that I have found are important to hone in the more senior ranks:
Business acumen: Understand how your business works, what your market looks like, how you can impact the bottom line, what new strategy you need to develop, and how you can grow the pie. Constantly innovate, and constantly look for opportunities.
Communication: At a certain level of seniority, technical excellence becomes table stakes. Every one of your peers is likely proficient in writing/testing code or defining products (or whatever else you do). What becomes crucial in differentiating you is your ability to articulate. There are three situations in which you need to master communication
- Landing your ideas in meetings. You'll be in many meetings where you have to inform, persuade, or influence people. You need to be able to capture the attention of the room and articulate your ideas clearly and concisely. This is an art that needs a lot of practice. A tool I gave my mentee is to structure her ideas in her head in numbered lists. For example: "There are two options here for us. They are 1)...and 2)...", "There are three things I want to talk about today. 1)...2)...3)...", "There was four steps to this process", etc. A caveat is to not have a list with fifteen items - no one will remember it, including yourself.
- Public speaking and writing. Have a platform to speak about the product you're building, your cultural values, and your ideas. Cultivate a writing habit - whether it is in form of documents or emails to your team or blog posts. Lack of clear big-picture communication often is a detractor for team satisfaction. Seek out speaking and presentation opportunities and practice your public speaking skills.
- "Crucial conversations". These are conversations - with your peers, your team, your stakeholders, your customers - that require diplomacy and nuance. You need to learn to be empathetic while delivering success and showing authenticity at the same time. You need to learn to be agile, not just to think on your feet, but to course correct when things go awry. Of course, there are very few people I know that are masters at this, and it is a hard skill to learn. You can learn it by reading some of the books I recommended earlier, but there is no replacement for practicing it intentionally in your own tough conversations.
Bold decision making: When I was more junior, one of my managers told me that my growth would be limited by my lack of appetite for risk-taking. A lot of us that do not come from a position of privilege tend to naturally shy away from risks. We worked hard to get here, and we don't want to squander it all away by sticking our neck out. But being brave and taking some calculated risks, I have found, are essential for progress. Use data to drive your decisions, but do not get paralyzed in analysis. Give yourself permission to fail, to be rejected, to be not perfect. Doing that helped me a great deal.
So those were some of the topics my mentees brought up this week. It was a lovely week packed with many energizing conversations. Do you agree with my answers above? Do you have other questions? Write me a note in the comments below!