Fear is the enemy
Fear is the mind-killer … or something like that.
It’s also a momentum killer for engineers and engineering teams.
Processes slow and progress comes more haltingly when engineers and organizations are afraid.
Sometimes, they’re afraid of making a mistake, sometimes they’re afraid of disappointing other people, sometimes they’re afraid somebody is going to let them down.
Any state of fear stands in the way of progress (this is true outside of this context, too, but I’ll save that for when I run for political office one day).
It’s why folks advise against Friday deployments - even when Fridays are close to the ideal day to deploy software.
It’s why we bend ourselves in knots of processes and planning - afraid of the repercussions if we don’t.
It’s why junior - or even just new to the team - engineers sometimes struggle to make progress at the pace you’d expect, when even the simple things seem harder than they should be.
They’re afraid of making a new mistake in front of their new team - even if they likely won’t vocalize that to you or even themselves sometimes.
If you’re a manager, your primary goal is to eliminate fear from the system wherever you find it.
It’s why new engineers to my team - no matter how junior - deployed code to production within their first week.
And it’s why I told them on their first day that it’s better for the business if it’s a little broken when they do it - so we can show them how to fix things, and that making mistakes is nothing scary, and something we all do all the time.
Mistakes are how we learn - it’s how we make progress.
And we don’t have time to let fear get in the way.
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It’s tax season, so I figure I should check an update on how things are going for the business and on the book.
I have two Fractional CTO gigs going right now on a month-to-month basis - one primary and one smaller secondary one.
These two gigs give me a base that roughly approximates what I was pulling in from a full-time position before.
Both seem pretty happy with things and are likely to renew.
I can’t really rest on that, though - after all, likely is not certain.
So, I’m hoping to either land another smaller, secondary Fractional gig, or start pulling in revenue from engineering management consulting and products.
The first product is in the book and course around people management. It remains on track for release before Memorial Day.
One other component of that release is personal coaching. I have one proposal out to a business (that I’m following up on later today), but I also figured I’d open it up to the small audience I have here.
Said coaching is personal, 1:1 coaching delivered via Zoom meetings twice a month (or somewhere local if you’re in Central Indiana and would rather).
It’s intended to provide an outside resource for engineering managers or executives to get better at their craft - our just have someone outside of their reporting structure to bounce ideas off of (or complain about their job for a bit).
More to come, but if you’re interested, you can sign up here: https://buy.stripe.com/4gwaHp81a9Ad3pS144
I’m limiting this offering to 25 managers at a time. And other than the business proposal I mentioned earlier, y’all are the first folks I’m offering this to.
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On a final note, today is Eclipse Day here in central Indiana. As you’re reading this, I might be out on my back porch watching the moon slowly eat away at the sun.
Leading up to this, my son has been obsessing over the weather - wondering if we’d get a clear view or not.
It looks like we might get a clear view - but as I told him, there’s no sense worrying about it.
The moon will slide in front of the sun no matter that weather or cloud cover between our eyes and the event.
And we’re there to witness the moment in time however it comes.
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Past editions
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