I saw this pic yesterday:
The Opposite Sex
We have the same exact idea in software development. It’s just worded differently:
Pick two.
If a project seems overwhelming you’ll feel hopeless. You won’t take action.
If a project is very exciting you may get overconfident. You’ll bite off more than you can chew.
Either way, you fail.
The solution? Baby Steps.
Here’s how I tackle projects:
Baby.
Steps.
This can be counter-intuitive. Doesn’t taking three years to plan out a project mean you are being patient and disciplined?
You tell me: Is it disciplined to try to anticipate the details of the software you’ll be using in 3 years? Is that realistic?
If you need a tool in three years, then you probably need it now. So why not get something now? Something you can really touch now. Something that can show you the flaws in your thinking and the bad assumptions you’ve made? Something that can start earning its keep right now?
Baby.
Steps.
I was happy to read Joel Spolsky’s column in Inc. Magazine this month. More so than usual because the story he starts out with is completely and totally familiar. No, I was not in the Israeli Army. In my case I worked at Wienerschnitzel as a teenager. One day, just like Joel, a less than stellar task was presented to me: Scrub out a toilet. And I was taught the exact same way. The general manager of the restaurant personally took me into the bathroom, pulled out a bottle of bleach and a rag and said “This is how you clean a toilet”. Then he jammed his fist right into the guts of that toilet and scrubbed it clean.
(photo: pedrosimoes7)
Lately I’ve been reading the Evolving Excellence blog. The posts are always a good read. They do a lot of factory tours and talk to the management at successful companies both in the US and abroad. Recently they did a series of posts on manufacturing plants in Japan. Two of those posts had specific examples of leaders who had “lowered” themselves to work on tasks which some managers might consider beneath them. This post in particular shows a picture of the president of a $100 million dollar company on his hands and knees washing the floor. And wouldn’t you know it? The second comment on that post is someone that doesn’t get what’s going on there. “is that really the best use of the President’s time?“, he asks. Are you kidding me? I think it is a great use of the president’s time! And not for the reasons that some people might think. That sort of a thing is NOT an exercise in showing the troops you’re “one of them”. That kind of faux-leadership is for douche-bags. You are “one of them”, whether your arrogant ass realizes it or not. I think scrubbing a floor is a wonderful exercise in humility and a great reminder of that fact. Also, if it is truly done from the heart – and your employees can tell, trust me – it sends a powerful message of how seriously you take the place you all work and the work that goes on there.
Similarly, about 15 years ago I read a book called “Accidental Empires” by Bob Cringely. The book is about Silicon Valley history and start-up culture. At one point Bob describes a company that was making millions of dollars and one day the toilet backed up. I think it was a Sunday and they couldn’t get a plumber. So the CEO fixed it. Bob seemed surprised. I wasn’t! I mean, duh, who the hell else is supposed to fix it? It was a software company, and they were working on a Sunday. Most of you already know what that means: Something is late! Who are you going to drag away from productive work in order to fix the toilet? Anybody? I didn’t think so. And it damned well better get fixed because people don’t work very hard when they have to pee!
I am not the CEO of a zillion person company. I just run a little software company. Nothing fancy. So maybe I don’t have the right to make this kind of assertion. But I tell you, I’ve seen over and over again that the good leaders I’ve worked for had a philosophy that emphasized direct, personal leadership like this.