I was on a boat for an event.
The ship had three levels – the dance floor, the catering, and the top where you could see the city lights. The party was meant for business networking so I held a drink roaming up and down the floors talking to strangers.
A man several decades older than me was standing alone so I introduced myself. We chatted for a bit. The usual hello and what do you do.
He then asked, “What brings you here?”
I answered, “Oh right now I’d like to figure out my philosophy of engineering management.” I explained how I was writing about my experiences and embarking on a personal journey to develop a unique view.
He paused, “That’s interesting. I was once CTO at a certain company you might have heard.”
He looked like he’s seen multiple server fires. When I learned the name of where he worked before, he was legit.
He continued, “Well. Let me ask you a question then. How do you define success?”
I told him how I would do anything possible to land things on time. At my previous company I’d receive tasks like complete documentation for due diligence, chain the systems together to deploy to another cloud service and motivate the team towards the acquisition. We sold to a big company and that felt pretty good. I would count that as a success.
“Mission complete,” I concluded, mentally patting myself on the back.
He countered, “You pinned your entire success on one singular outcome?”
I said, “Well we had an objective. Either we complete that or not.”
“So let me get this straight. Are you like this for every project you work on?”
I guess so.
“Then you are failing all the time until that singular blip in time when you reach the goal? And if you didn’t?”
I responded, “Yeah that’s a fail? I didn’t complete what I was set to do?”
“Boy you must have been sad the entire time. And then once you moved past the goal how did you feel afterwards? You probably got a new project. Instant failure!”
I had no response. Whatever pride I had a few moments ago deflated.
“You can’t live your life like that. What you’re doing is not sustainable. When you reach the outcome, you need to revisit how you do things. How well did you run the process along the way to your goal? Independent of the outcome, that is how I define success,” said the engineering veteran.
He continued, “You could have lucked out. You could be making the same mistakes in future scenarios. Plus you’d be a lot less stressed if you knew you and your team were on the right track most of the time.”
We headed towards the coat room, away from the engines of the ship as the boat chugged away from the city. He was right. When given a deliverable, I’d rally the team and bolt through the project to hit the end date. I never thought about our approach afterwards.
He said, “You want to know my philosophy? It’s called zen management. I focus on how I’m walking through the journey.”
As he got up to leave, “I’m happy when I know I’m adhering to the steps I’ve laid out. If I am, I don’t worry so much about my destination. Good luck.”
When I checked my phone, we spoke for an hour – I appreciated the coaching he gave me.
Here’s a few things to think about:
- When was the last time you reviewed your team process?
- What does success look like for ICs, managers, and the team?
- What do you do if things seem to run fine?
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