Repetition
This week is short, as it is Memorial Day today in the US. Since I’ve only lived a short time in the US, I still get pleasant surprises from the US holidays, a welcome day to rest and recover.
Last week, I took the week to nudge people around specific topics that needed follow-up.
Those activities during the week made me think about how much we have to repeat ourselves as Staff Engineers. In most cases, people do their day-to-day activities and are hyper-focused on short-term ones. From my perspective, nudging people is more about bringing a long-term topic back to their attention that we had discussed in the past via a meeting.
Repeating ourselves is part of the leadership journey and how we can charge organizations.
Meeting first, then nudge
In this new remote-fist reality, I have a call with the affected parties whenever I have a long-term project or goal for the organization.
This way, we can have a conversation, and hear their input and opinions on the matter, then, I send meeting notes, and if we agree, I write the proposal in the public document so that others might comment.
After these meetings, I nudge the team every few weeks to know if they’ve allocated the time or kept it on their radar.
I used this strategy mostly when having a project with a single team or organization. When I need to do things transversally, I try the next option.
Same message, multiple formats
I use public forums, like Slack channels, emails, and weekly staff meetings to communicate with the organization first.
After I’ve shared the message as widely as possible, I switch to repeating the message in more focused settings, like team meetings, weekly reviews, etc. I adjust the format of the message depending on the environment, either more or less detail depending on the audience.
A public document also helps redirect people to the overall context and why we want to do this.
Repeat by example
Another way where we repeat ourselves, especially when we look to change a behavior, is to repeat ourselves by example.
This would lead by example, multiple times daily, per week, etc. I’ve also seen this help with teams and share that you are there with them, doing the same work you want them to do.
Repeating ourselves by example is a compelling way to convey a message.
Your turn!
Have you caught yourself repeating the same message? Let me know! What have you seen works when repeating yourself?
Happy coding!
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