Communication and counseling, recruitment and dismissal, etc.
Communication and coaching
According to a survey report by Princeton University in the United States, communication accounts for as much as 75% of all factors affecting work. And 80% of the problems in our work are caused by improper communication, which shows the importance of communication. Most of the time, we only want to express our opinions and only pay attention to what we want to say. We will try our best to use beautiful PPT, gorgeous language, a lot of data, and even quotations, and don’t care if others understand it. Not thinking about whether others want to hear, whether others can understand.
Communication is ubiquitous in our work, and you will find that especially in the technology circle, the proportion of people who can communicate effectively is even smaller. Communication is usually divided into downward communication (communication with subordinates), horizontal communication (communication across teams), and upward communication (communication with boss) according to the types of communication objects. Next, we will only discuss how to communicate with subordinates. The most effective communication method: one pair One communication.
One-to-one communication, also known as one-on-one meetings, One-on-one, etc., is a common communication method used by Internet companies. Although one-to-one communication is widely used, there are few articles involved. Here I recommend the books "Grove's First Lesson for Managers" and "The Difficulties of Starting a Business: How to Do Things That Are Harder Than Hard ", these two books have more introduction to one-to-one communication. Grove is the president of Intel. He successfully led Intel to complete the transformation from semiconductor memory to microprocessor. He is also a CEO I admire very much. Ben Horowitz, the author of The Difficulties in Starting a Business, is a top VC in Silicon Valley and has invested in companies such as Facebook and Twitter.
In the book "Grove's First Lesson for Managers", Grove's introduction to "one-to-one communication" is as follows:
At Intel, one-on-one meetings are usually convened by a manager summoning his subordinates, which is also the most important way to maintain the affiliation between the two parties. The main purpose of one-to-one meetings is to exchange information and learn from each other. After discussing specific matters, the boss can pass on his skills and experience to his subordinates, and at the same time advise him on how to approach the problem; and the subordinates can also report on the problems encountered in the work.
In my opinion, most of the technology R&D students are relatively introverted and do not easily express their inner thoughts to others. The meaning of one-to-one communication is to enable information to be transmitted from the bottom up, and at the same time to communicate some questions, ideas, opinions, problems, plans, etc. with managers, so as to obtain information that is not easy to obtain in other channels and ensure transparency .
1on1 What to talk about
In the book "Difficulties in Starting a Business: How to Do Things Harder Than Harder", a section specifically mentions one-to-one communication (1on1). I specifically talked about those content and gave some suggestions. As a TL, I usually talk to The team members talked about the following topics:
- Do you think your value and ability are underestimated? why?
- Do you think you can learn something at work? What have you learned recently? In which areas do you want to study?
- In the recent period, what are you satisfied with and dissatisfied with?
- What are the confusions in the current work? How can I help you?
- Some expectations and suggestions for the team and me.
- In terms of company strategy and goals, what is the most unclear to you? The
above content is difficult to find other channels to effectively solve except in one-to-one communication.
Through these 1on1 communication, I can really get a lot of feedback information, and even some of the information I got surprised me. It turns out that there are still these details that I have not done well. One-to-one communication constitutes a channel, which is bottom-up, so that all of the above can be listened to and resolved.
Some notes on 1on1 communication
★ Find a private environment.
Find an empty meeting room or a corner where others can’t hear the conversation. Don’t do it in a work station or a noisy environment, because a private environment can reduce the psychological pressure of being heard by others in communication. In order to express yourself more easily and truthfully.
★ It is best to inform 1on1 team members
in advance. Generally, they need to inform the team members about the topic and specific time of 1on1 communication one week in advance. The advantage of this is that team members can prepare the content of the chat in advance, because temporary communication is easy to occur because The problem of human memory led to some problems that I wanted to talk about at the time.
★ Regularly
In the book "Starting a Business Difficulties", Ben Horowitz believes that one-to-one communication needs to be guaranteed at least once a month. Grove believes that different levels of control need to be carried out according to the familiarity of the subordinates with the work.
In addition, Grove also believes that the speed of changes is also a factor in the frequency of one-to-one communication. As a technology R&D department, I usually conduct a 1on1 communication every 1-2 months.
★ Listen carefully and act.
Communication must be effective. Listening carefully and being sincere are the necessary prerequisites. Otherwise, it is impossible for employees to raise the questions in their hearts.
Being sincere requires not perfunctory questions raised by any teammates, no matter how acute the question is. If you don't know how to solve this problem, you might as well discuss with your teammates to see if you can find a feasible solution together. Don't talk about empty words and idioms. Once the teammates discover that this is an ineffective communication channel, the "bottom-up" channel is closed.
★ Appropriate guidance
Not every employee understands the importance of one-to-one communication, and not every employee can proactively talk about problems and seek help. Many programmers are more introverted, and some are not even good at expressing themselves.
Therefore, although employees are the "protagonists" of one-to-one communication, their bosses need to be guided appropriately.
As for the difficulties in the work of the employees that the boss has discovered, they can take the initiative to bring them up for better discussion, which will also make the employees feel very considerate.
Recruitment and dismissal
For a team, talent is the core and key. Recruitment and dismissal are a big challenge especially for a newly appointed technical TL. Next, we will focus on these two topics.
Recruitment
Recruitment often depends on the company's development period and what kind of people it needs to recruit. In the start-up period, it was impossible to recruit all experts. At this time, survival is more important than anything else. Attitude and taste are the key points. After rapid development, it may be necessary to introduce some talents who can bring new ideas, depending on the alignment of business, technology, and organization. At this time, it is not only necessary to have high skills, but also to have a good attitude and habits.
Before setting up a technical team for recruitment, it is necessary to clarify the type of team. Generally speaking, there are three different types of technical teams, namely project-driven, business-driven, and technology-driven. Different types of technical teams also have a lot of opportunities for recruitment. The big difference is that for a technology-driven team, you may need a person with a deep foundation in middleware and language and a big-picture view. A business-driven team may need people with business sense and good technical and business architecture capabilities.
In the recruitment process, I also went through a detour. At first, I paid more attention to the candidates’ background, language skills, architecture ability, operation and maintenance, and database. I hoped to recruit full-stack technical talents, but later found that I had overlooked A very important point is the ability and attitude of communication and collaboration. Later, after the newcomer came to the team, although the technology was excellent, he liked to work behind closed doors and did not like to communicate with others. The teamwork ability was not good enough, and the overall output and efficiency were not high. Therefore, in the process of recruiting new recruits, one should not only focus on the candidates’ experience, framework and other technical aspects, but also need to focus on their comprehensive qualities. A candidate with good leadership can quickly integrate into the team. Can also learn some knowledge very quickly.
★ Recruitment steps:
- According to the goal of building the team, make a good recruitment plan.
According to the team's own positioning, recruit suitable talents. There are a few points that TL needs to pay special attention to. As a TL, you must be responsible for the growth of candidates. Don’t hire people for individual projects. For example, the front-end team recruits some back-end developers and the engineering team recruits algorithms. As a result, it is difficult for candidates to integrate into the team after they come in, and there is no sense of presence, which will lead to new employees leaving for a long time. - Determine recruitment requirements (fixed posts and responsibilities): List the responsibilities, skills and other requirements of each position.
In the final analysis, recruitment needs are what kind of people are needed to match the overall business and organizational development. - Reasonable use of talent recruitment channels
From my own experience, most of the talent recruitment channels are more reliable through Internet recruitment channels and friend recommendations. For high-level talents, headhunting can be used to recruit people.
★ Talent selection:
As a technical interviewer, the selection of talents is also a very important and critical link. You must select suitable talents according to your team’s goals, set a time limit for completion, and focus on professional skills and management. In terms of ability and values (company identity), the general requirements are as follows: - Highly match with the professional skills required by the position: pass the professional and technical skills interview, and determine the position and responsibility;
- Strong communication skills: understand the company's business, know the management, and understand the company's development direction;
- Responsibility: everything is explained, everything is settled, everything is echoed;
- Reliable and positive energy: not complain, take the initiative to solve problems, understand the importance of discipline, make a promise;
- Value recognition: identify with the company, have goals and ideals, have passion and drive;
- Background investigation: a very useful method that can greatly reduce the risk of selecting candidates. Don't be afraid of trouble. The work will always be worthwhile.
In addition, what I want to say is that technical interviewers need to have a certain ability to identify talents, and at the same time to consciously improve this ability, I offer the following suggestions to technical interviewers: - If you are hesitant and entangled with the candidate, please give up the candidate. The problem you worry most often will happen with a high probability.
- Clarify the criteria for candidates we recruit, such as back-end JAVA research and development: JAVA basics and distributed domain knowledge and skills surveys are necessary. Ask fewer memorable and too theoretical questions, and more from the candidates’ practical experience. Extract more valuable judgments about this candidate.
- On the one hand, it is very important to ensure objectivity and fairness. The subsequent crossovers and final aspects often refer to the previous evaluation feedback. Today, we are not only selecting talents for our team, but also for the company, and we still have high standards. From a psychological point of view, cross-interviews are necessary, and the feedback given by the cross-interviewer is often more objective and pertinent, and the evaluation of the cross-interviewer should be the main focus.
- Interviewers should not use what they are good at to examine candidates. They need to carefully look at the candidate's resume and examine the person's comprehensive ability from the candidate's experience.
The most important thing for the healthy development of a team is the core technical personnel, so the recruitment must be cautious. Once someone joins, it is equivalent to getting on a boat. The entanglement, pain, and joy must be faced together. The cost of recruiting an unsuitable person is more than just salary. So please let go of those interviewers who have good experience, good qualifications, but hesitate to match and integrate into worryingly. Most of their endings are mutual pain.
As a technical TL, the most successful thing is to recruit people who are better than you. You don’t need to worry about whether you will be replaced. One is to achieve the individual and the team. As a TL, you should have the development idea of how to achieve the team. To become a ceiling, your own technology should not be what you do best! The second is to be inclusive and develop diversity. Liu Bang is good at using the three outstanding masters of the Han Dynasty, and his individual ability is not as good as Han Xin and Zhang Liang. TL should not use its own length to measure the recruits, but look at the gaps and development items in the team's skill view.
Dismissal
Dismissal is usually more for employees who violate the company’s culture, principled red lines, or who continue to be unable to keep up with the company’s rhythm. There is also an old saying in Ali: "If you have not fired or fired an employee, you are not a truly qualified manager." Most technical managers have a more easy-going personality and don't like to fire employees.
However, employees who violate the red line or who cannot keep up with the rhythm, especially those who do not recognize the team’s values, will affect some negative emotions and behaviors on other students in the team. Therefore, it is necessary to make decisions and use appropriate methods to let employees leave. . Of course, if you are just employees who cannot keep up, you can also recommend suitable positions to other companies, so that your brothers who have fought with you will have a good home, and the current employees will feel warm. On the whole, "kindness is not in charge". In the matter of opening up people, senior managers should not hesitate too much. For one or two people, the morale of the overall team will not be worth the loss.
Most Internet companies have corresponding KPI assessments for technical personnel, and will eliminate those who fail to meet expectations. Dismissal is particularly challenging for newly appointed technical directors. I believe that human nature is still kind. As a technical TL, I don't want team members to face this problem, including myself.
As a company is growing, the organization must be upgraded, and it is normal for personnel to change from new to old. If the team member’s performance is not up to expectations, he will not be told through the KPI assessment mechanism that he may not be aware of some of his own problems and he will never grow up. Compared with these short-term economic returns, personal growth is more critical important.
There is an old saying in Ali, "If you don’t experience a 3.25 life, it’s not a perfect Ali journey." When you are at a low level of development, experiencing a final assessment result may make him sober, realize his own shortcomings, and thoroughly stimulate One's own potential can bottom out.
There is a famous Dunning-Kruger effect in psychology, also known as the Duck effect. The general idea is that it is easy for people to have cognitive biases towards themselves. In the simplest terms, they will overestimate themselves. Graph of the Duck effect:
The above picture reflects that most people are actually at the pinnacle of ignorance. To be able to grow into a wise man and a master, one must first fall from the top of ignorance to the valley of despair, then climb hard, accumulate knowledge and experience, and become a wise man and master. An important responsibility of a responsible manager is to push his subordinates from the pinnacle of ignorance to the valley of despair. As for whether they can climb the slope of enlightenment, it depends on personal luck.
A qualified technical TL must create a valley of despair for team members and at the same time allow him to see a slope of enlightenment, so that employees will continue to break through themselves. As a responsible manager, we should not be in the role of a good old person, but we must also have a cold and ruthless side. Ali also has an old saying, "The heart must be kind, the knife must be fast", when there are some in the team that cannot meet the team's requirements. The manager should take the initiative to pull him out. If he fails to meet expectations after repeated attempts, he should be asked to leave. Because at the halfway point, and then cruelly eliminated, both the organization and the individual will suffer greater losses.