Grow and make impact with peer focus mindset
Many times, I see managers hold on to this idea of owning the team and focusing solely on working with their team members.
You own the outcome of your team, and your outward view helps them achieve that efficiently
Sometimes, it is necessary to increase your team size to achieve the business outcome. This is especially true for growth companies, where rapid expansion may be required. Unfortunately, performance management and interviews often focus solely on the size of the team managed by the manager, rather than the actual outcomes the manager achieved. This approach fosters a cultural norm where the emphasis on team size takes precedence over the business impact. As a result, competition between peer managers’ team sizes becomes a significant factor, turning it into a zero-sum game.
Scaling a team comes with its own challenges, and there is a lot of learning for managers as they go through that process. However, the growth of the team is a means to an end, and that end is the desired outcome. Would you rather have a small team that is high-performing or build a big team without considering how they will perform to achieve the desired results?
During a recent conversation with a leader, one of the discussion points was an area of opportunity that is often overlooked by engineering managers: growing their impact through collaboration with peer managers. This involves managing up and managing your team’s performance. To be able to make a real cultural change and move your overall organization towards achieving extraordinary results, it all starts with you and your peers.
As a manager, your peer managers are your key team. Patrick Lencioni puts this as “Team number One”. Here is the video where talks about it with an example at executive level. This applies at all levels of leadership.
Benefits of focus on peers as the key team
Few benefits of you making success of this key team a top priority are
- By helping your peers be successful, you are moving the broader organization forward, not just your team. Now, visualize that impact!
- By understanding what is happening outside your team, you can optimize what’s happening inside your team.
- You increase your broader visibility, scope, and influence within the organization.
- You are setting the tone for what collaboration should look like, encouraging your team members to engage in cross-team collaboration. This often results in breaking silos and improving decision-making speed and quality
Concrete steps to take
- Set up regular check-ins on a specific cadence. Generally, bi-weekly meetings have worked well for me. Keep the communication open and be flexible to change the cadence as you build the relationship.
- Learn about their pain points and needs, share your thoughts, and offer actual support to solve their challenges if you have the necessary knowledge within your team. It could be a pesky technical challenge that someone on your team knows how to address or a process you’ve successfully implemented before. Write down the key points, brainstorm together, create action-items, and follow through on your commitments.
- Don’t hesitate to be vulnerable and share your challengeswith them. See if they or someone they know can offer assistance or valuable insights.
- Invite them topresent to your team or co-facilitate an offsite team meetings, which can help improve cross-team collaboration even when you are not present
- Go beyond simple collaboration and consider setting up secondment or mentorship programsto manage fluid cross-team talent opportunities.
A big pitfall to avoid is getting stuck in an IF-THEN loop in the relationship. Don’t fall into the trap of thinking, ‘IF they do something for me, THEN I will do something for them.’ This approach might hinder any progress, especially if your peer thinks the same way. Consequently, you both end up at a standstill without making any progress. Instead, take the initiative to break this pattern. Focus on the impact for the organization as a whole, and then go ahead and collaborate with your peers to achieve it.