How can I help you?
In 2018, NBC began airing a medical drama called “New Amsterdam”. In the show Dr. Goodwin came in as the new medical director, who set out to reduce bureaucracy at the hospital and focus on exceptional patient care. Whenever Dr. Goodwin met new people on his team, he repeated the same question again and again: "how can I help you?", and then proceeded to make their request a reality.
His leadership approach of asking this question is contrary to a more traditional "telling" style. In a "telling" approach, the leader makes decisions and communicates them to their reports. They provide specifics (who, what, where, when, and how), define the action(s) to be taken, closely supervise delivered work, and ask questions to check for understanding. This leadership model assumes that the leader at the top has the most experience, the most context, and thus knows best. This style breeds a team that performs their tasks adequately but their motivation lacks. They might feel uncomfortable challenging their leader, or suggesting more creative ways to approach work.
The actual question hidden here is: "how can I help you do your job better?" As leaders, and also while collaborating with colleagues, we don't want to be the blocker preventing work getting done. When people have to constantly come to us with clarifying questions, we become that blocker. Thus, we are not growing the team's skills or letting them take responsibility for their work.
If you wish to increase team motivation, ownership, and responsibility, you need people to learn how to find the answers for themselves. One way is by aligning everyone on a clear vision. Asking lots of questions is another. Like Dr Goodwin, remove yourself as a blocker, provide the support they need, and inspire your team to do their best work.
~ Elle
What's been happening?
Community of Practice — July cohorts
Professional development as a leader or executive is impossible to get within the organisation, which is why this program exists. It enables growth that's good for you and your organisation. The benefits for you include addressing actual challenges at work, gaining ideas from other companies, and building a support network of trusted peers. Fresh insight from an external perspective will help you reduce risk by exposing your blind spots.
For our next cohorts, we're looking for either engineering leaders (chief of, vp of, head of) from small to med-size technology organisations, OR Engineering managers/directors. If that is you, or someone you know, you can check out to apply at https://blackmill.co/do/community-of-practice or book a chat with us to learn more at https://meet.blackmill.co/blackmill/30min
Leading engineering teams workshop — August
Last week we ran our 13th Leading Engineering Teams workshop. It means that our 14th workshop is now on sale for August.
This workshop is most suited to new, current, and prospective engineering managers and team leads. If you are new to managing teams or want a refresher on the basics, want to lead your team to the next level of effectiveness, and learn from like-minded people, this workshop is for you!
Early bird tickets are available until the end of June. To learn more and purchase a ticket visit: https://blackmill.co/workshops/leading-engineering-teams
Executive Counsel — June Special
We're trialling a new offering that gives you access to our experience and advice on a monthly retainer. Bring Blackmill to be your thought partner and sounding boarding. To help you make solid choices, while avoiding possible snags. To get fresh perspectives based on our experiences. As an experiment, we are offering five of these at reduced costs. Email us on gday@blackmill.co for more details.
What are we reading?
- Choose Boring Culture – Charity Majors with a great cultural adaptation of Dan McKinley's Choose Boring Technology. We particularly enjoyed the points around "The purpose of your culture is to make your business succeed."
- Do You Understand What Accountability Really Means? – Jonathan Raymond discusses accountability as a dial we can turn depending on context. The concept of accountability as a long-term personal conversation between manager and team member resonated with Lachlan.
- Find Out What's Valuable and Do Nothing Else – Jonathan Stark interviews Denis Čahuk about how he runs his business and delivers value for his clients. Sometimes eliminating waste is more important than improving current processes.
- The Last Heartbeat at Zed – Lachlan's former GitHub colleague, Petros Amoiridis, details his lessons from working on the Zed Editor. The transparency and trust of his relationship with the Zed team is outstanding. Some of his insights are fascinating too.
- 7 Questions Tough Job Candidates Will Ask. Be Prepared – when looking for work, know what questions to ask of prospective hirers.
A cuppa with Carla Hackett
1. What do you do? And what do you like about your work?
I am a brush lettering artist, creating letters with a brush and paint for things like signage, design work and live lettering events. I also teach with my mentor and former Showcard and Ticket writer Barbara Enright. We have taught private workshops and also teach brush lettering at RMIT University for the third year Communication Design Degree students one semester a year.
When I discovered lettering, I was completely hooked and loved that it gave me more hands on creative work that took me away from the computer. I love that there is real tangible progress over many years of learning the skill and there is always room for improvement and exploring new styles and techniques.
2. What aspect of your work do you find most challenging?
Finding the time to dedicate to just practicing and honing my skills. I find managing clients and the social media comparison trap sometimes debilitating.
3. What are you passionate about?
Since meeting Barbara and hearing her stories from a long and successful career, I am passionate about this skill living on and passing these invaluable skills on to as many people as I can. There is nowhere you can formally learn this skill anymore, but with the resurgence of hand crafts and a craving for uniqueness in design, there are people who are interested in learning.
4. What are recent accomplishments you are happy with?
Barbara and I have recently launched a lettering book and brush kit in collaboration with Public Journal design studio. It’s been years in the making, sparked from the idea of turning our workshops into a book format with a how-to guide and lots of eye candy. It’s letterpress and riso printed and comes with your very own lettering brush that we had the handle stamped with ‘Keep Flourishing’!
5. What is one mistake that you will never make again?
Spill an entire pot of paint onto my painting buddy’s pants at a live lettering event!
6. How do you manage stress?
Being a Mum of two energetic young boys, I feel like I don’t get a lot of time to check in with myself, but I see a psychologist regularly to talk through anything that comes up. I find Pilates definitely gives me a chance to focus on my breathing and body. My cats sleep on my desk while I am working, so patting them helps, also mastering the art of the afternoon power nap.
7. What is the best advice you can give?
If anyone wants to improve their handwriting (I get asked all the time!), the one thing you can do is to slow down. Ball point pens have allowed us not to lift the pen off the page. If you can slow down and think about each one of your strokes, you might see an instant improvement.
8. What one thing would you change about our society?
I would love to see women appreciated for the mental load and work that goes into running a family and home. After taking a break from lettering after having my two boys, I felt enormous guilt and felt like it wasn’t ‘enough’ to take the time to raise children and support my partner to be a CEO of a startup whilst putting my lettering on the back-burner.
9. What are your goals or aspirations for 2023?
After a big break from lettering during the pandemic and having my second baby, I have found my motivation and inspiration returning after some challenging times. I have participated in a few workshops so that the time is set aside to practice my skills and regain my confidence without the pressure of client work. I have reached out to a local sign writer who has agreed to teach me how to gold guild on glass. I’d love to keep honing and expanding my skills and am interested in the crossover between sign writing and fine art. I would love to start creating original artworks for personal expression and commissions.
Also my go to recipe for when I have overripe bananas lying around: https://thehealthychef.com/blogs/recipes/spelt-and-honey-banana-bread
And we’re out
Thank you for showing an interest in our newsletter and we hope that you enjoyed the read. Feel free to contact us if you have any feedback, a burning question, or just a recipe that you would like to share.
Until next time, keep learning!
Everyone at Blackmill