Leading the Way by Doing

The power of doing something is enormous in the efforts of changing a culture or elevating performance. I’ve often seen a team fall into a rhythm and routine of delivering what they’ve always delivered including maintaining limitations that have always been limitations. I’ve changed entire cultures of teams by simply being able to “do” rather than simply “encourage” change.

Nobody like to hear the words “how hard can that be” from someone who really doesn’t know how hard things are to implement. I’m very conscious of the impact that a flippant comment can have on a team; you can lose them if they think you’re belittling the hard work they do. But there has to be a way to challenge a team to do more, better work. The ability to demonstrate that a barrier can be overcome with your own hard work is so very powerful. Doing beats everything.

Being a Technical Leader Brings a Unique Ability

I’ve worked in organizations where leaders are technical, and in organizations where leaders are not technical. The supreme benefit of being a technical lead is being able to “do” when facing resistance to change. This works as a technical leader if you’re part of a team or if you lead the team. If you can deliver results, demonstrate that the “impossible” is indeed possible you disrupt the status quo in a very positive way.

I experienced this myself when I joined a team that was struggling to make a system perform for a large customer - the largest customer they had ever experienced. The team believed a screen couldn’t be made to load in as short a time as we needed given the volume of data that was to be processed. This conclusion was true if we stuck to the model of development that required we manipulate the data through the heavy-handed SQL queries originally developed. I knew it could be much faster if we changed our model to retrieve the data in very fast queries, and manipulate the data in memory in a typical MVC model. In the end, I was able to demonstrate significant performance improvement by actually doing this change rather than simply trying to convince my team to try it. And doing trumped every objection.

Another experience I had in changing the overall productivity of a team was hiring a significantly better technical individual contributor on a team of individuals that weren’t performing at the level we needed. In our first session pointing stories in our iteration planning, this new engineer gave a much lower estimate (3 points) than everyone else on the team (20 points). He didn’t understand, and said he didn’t understand, why this story was so big. It should be simple, he said. He effectively said “how hard can that be” with one huge caveat - he could back it up with “give me the story.” And he completed the story in the time he expected, and demonstrated it could be done 10x as fast. It put people on notice that the bar was raised and they needed to push themselves to be better. It changed the tenor of the team and the performance we got was higher than it ever would have been without that technical leader.

You’re Setting an Example, Not Taking Away Responsibility

It’s not always your role as a technical leader to jump in and “do” something. You need folks to be capable and free to experience and do their own thing. This tactic should be used sparingly. If folks don’t feel trusted or empowered to try and experiment, it won’t matter if you can do it better (you’ll be doing it alone). But you can effectively us it to elevate your team and teach them something new, the best folks will be receptive to learning. The best folks will want to take the new thing and build on it. The best folks will see the restraint you ripped off and pursue it with enthusiasm like you gave them a new toy.

I believe this works in a number of situations, from production development to proofs of concept. I find it works best when you can pair with someone and work together; so you’re not seen as working behind the scenes. In some cases working independently can come across as “unveiling" something you expect will revolutionize their world. Instead taking the initiative while still engaging others can help keep folks walking alongside you as you demonstrate a new way. It’s better if you have the position to require folks to stick with you (if they recognize your role power), you can work through relationship power as well (ask them to help you as a favor) or information power (offer to teach a new tactic or technology).

Doing is Engaging, and Engaging is Always Good for a Leader

You need to lead by example sometimes and step in and “do” in the face of resistance or the feeling something is impossible. Either you’re going to learn a new reality (that maybe it is that hard), or you’re going to teach a valuable lesson (that it isn’t that hard). And so long as you approach it without ego, and with a willingness to both learn and teach, the end result will be positive for the team.