Establish a growth mindset
A growth mindset means that failure is acceptable: you need to have set clear outcomes and have learnt from it, and make it safe to fail. But failure also means you have learnt from it, and are now able to use that learning in useful and interesting ways.
The best engineers I have known and admired have had two traits: Curiosity and Camaraderie. Curiosity because curious engineers have a growth mindset and find better ways of doing things. Camaraderie because being a team player rubs off this sensibility of the people around you, and helps elevate the entire team.
Software is a team sport. It is soccer, not tennis. The quality of your pass to your teammate is as important as the goal being score. I overemphasize teamwork in hiring because that is what helps the entire team become better. My focus on hiring is centered around these two traits.
Once the core team is in place, you need ensure that the work environment enables to ask ‘but why?’ and feel that they are safe asking questions. Doing so enable everyone to feel real ownership, and avoids the authority bias (aka HiPPO effect) in decision making. A key part of doing so is having leaders say ‘I don’t know’ and listening to the team.
A key part of the growth mindset is asking everyone to take ownership of their career. A key mistake I made early in my career was thinking ‘ I need to do my job well, and my manager will ensure that I get the right outcomes’. This abdication of ownership of your career is wrong. At my current employment, I have completely flipped that around. I ask engineers to take ownership of their career. What does this look like?
First, there is a document ‘How to be a successful XXX’ created for jobs (Hat tip to to Chuck, who helped create the first such document). This document has a set of expectations for a role, and what an exceptional performance looks like — from a soft skills (common) to hard skills (divergent). Engineers use this to determine what their learning plan should be and what they should focus on.
Reviews consist of engineers creating a 1–2 page self appraisals, and deciding if they are ready for a promotion, based on criteria that are laid out for each level. Specifically, below the director role, the expectation is that promotions are driven by employees and not managers. Managers — and peers — contribute to reviewing the self appraisal, and a decision is made by this team. If the answer is a no, there is an explanation of why, and what needs to happen for the person to get a promotion, so they get to try again later.
To enable the growth mindset, we also offer opportunities to keep improving: Coaching is available to employees to help uncover things that block you from being your best. Any online learning that contributes to better learning and growth is paid for by the company.
