Coaching for people managers

We all want to improve, absorbing feedback is the most important step in the process of improvement. Even when we get feedback, we don't know how to act on it. We have good techniques for giving feedback like SBI (Situation, Behavior, Impact) however, it took me some time to develop a good framework to absorb and act on feedback. Let me start with a real-life situation: A couple of years back, I received feedback, however incapable of acting on it. I was struggling to make any improvement. During this phase, I developed the framework which helped me.  This framework has two attributes " Understand Deeply" and "Act Swiftly".  Understand Deeply is about understanding the feedback and situations where behaviour is depicted so that you can relate to the situation. Some situations bring out the same undesired behaviour. It is also very important to understand the intent of the feedback.  Act Swiftly talks about acting on feedback, taking steps to ...

Redundant ! but why? What about job security? Shouldn't we be consolidating our position instead of going redundant? All these questions are obvious when you read the title of this article. Don't worry, we are not talking about how to get yourself fired but opposite, how to grow faster by making yourself redundant in a role . In a job, we are expected to play roles that are needed from us e.g. program manager, project manager, people manager, technical lead are few roles engineering managers play to be successful. This article talks about how we can progressively outgrow in our current role and start learning (or mastering) the new roles. Transferring responsibilities to people you are managing are the best way of making space for learning something new. Over the past couple of years as an engineering manager, I have been following this philosophy to learn new things. Let's take an example of leading a project to understand this better. Engineering Managers are the b...

Being an engineering leader is not an easy task, especially when you are stepping into this role as a first-timer. Seldom you go through a training, however in most situations you are expected to figure it out yourself with little or no guidance. Often leadership demands you to play following roles: People Manager Product/Business knowledge Architect/Senior Developer Vision for technology I will be writing separate blogs to cover the first two roles. For a beginner, last two roles are very important to gain credibility of the team which is the most important factor in succeeding at your job. As a technical leader, you will be facing the challenges from all the directions like decision making, improving team efficiency and choosing the technology roadmap for your team. However, I hope adopting following patterns can help you sail through these challenges. Decision Making : When hit with the problem, as a techie you rely on your technical skills and often start suggestin...