Stuck in a perpetual puberty

Three and a half years ago I became part of a startup. I am a developer so in the first months there was quite a lot of coding. But then we hired some other programmers. When you are 3 developers there is not much managing to be done there. But then we grew a bit more. And it became necessary for me to have some management tasks. As the team grew also the management part took more and more of my time. I started getting frustrated: “Why do people need me to manage them? Can’t they just figure it all by themselves? I have so much coding to do and everyone is constantly interrupting me! I can’t work this way!”

Then I had a drink with our adviser Bill Boorman. As he would tell you he is recovering recruiter. He has spent too many years in the HR space recruiting and consulting. He knows his shit. So he told me about this theory — you have four levels of development at the position you are in (eg Developer, Manager, Cook, PR etc):

1. Enthusiastic Beginner — you are new on the job. Fresh from school and you know it all. If they just give you the job you can make the world turn in the opposite direction. You should be mentored every day. If your mentor does not check up on you regularly you could put yourself and the company in quite the conundrum.
2. Disillusioned Learner — apparently you can’t make the world spin in the other direction. Who cares. Everything sucks anyway. You couldn’t do your task. But it wasn’t you fault — you are surrounded by idiots. You could have done the task in a perfect world. This is the puberty phase. Again you have to be mentored regularly but now you are unpleasant. You can do some stuff right. But you are not good at acknowledging your mistakes.
3. Reluctant Contributor — You can do stuff right. You start to believe in yourself. But right when you believed you mess up. It is drivers most dangerous level. You have learned to drive, you’ve got confidence, you can do this aaaaaand it’s a car accident.
4. Peak Performer — You don’t need a mentor. You can be forgotten for a month and you will bring great results.

This should work for every position in the company. The moment you start a new one you start from the first level. Bill hasn’t seen me work but he knew quite well how I have gone through phase 2 as a manager. I guess this is true for a lot of programmers. You think management is stupid and you wish you could just code. After all you were at higher level there. Why can’t just people leave you alone. Yeah. Puberty…

What I have seen in some IT companies is that mentoring is only for the tech stuff. Mentoring others how to deal with people is not common. And managers… They seem like they are always stuck in puberty. The most popular ways of coping are 2 — either becoming despotic and telling everyone they are stupid or loosing confidence and hiding or cheating.

I went to founders weekend to mingle with other founders of startups. And there I heard it all around me:

My employees are the worst. They make mistakes and I scream at them. People should not need mentoring. I have so much work. I should not deal with this trivial stuff.

But if the people are unworkable then you should fire them. And if they are not unworkable you should mentor them. Either ways — management work. And I know it is a bit more complicated than that. But you should really start thinking about management problems. They are not just going away because you ignore them. Actually they will but you probably don’t want your startup to go away with them. The fact that you are going through the puberty phase of your position doesn’t mean that your employees will be understanding while simultaneously going though their own puberty phases.

In a big company you can become Peak Performer in your position but in a startup it is highly unlikely. When you are a co-founder of a startup your position in the company will likely keep on changing. You mentor other people. You help them go through their puberty phases. But there is not really someone to help you with your puberty. You have to figure out things for yourself. Other people are better at their job than you are at yours. This theory really made me look at the world in a calmer way. Now I know that I am stuck in a perpetual puberty. I know I am supposed to suck at everything I do and the moment I learn how to do it properly I have to mentor somebody else about it. And this person will become better than me at it while I struggle with the next thing that I have no idea how to do.