“Pendulum Expression” by tandukrusa

Let The Pendulum Swing

Change is all about finding the right balance, which takes time

In our ongoing effort to improve at Redbubble, we have introduced a career ladder for engineers a while ago. At the beginning, it was all about skills and impact — hence the name SIM, or Skills & Impact Model.

This was almost 5 years ago and we have introduced quite a few changes to it since then. One of the major ones was to put almost all the emphasis on impact. In the end, it all comes down to the impact someone has, not what skills they possess.

We thought that was a great change, one that aligns a lot closer with our values. But as it turns out, we took it too far…

Change is good. Not being open to change or adapting to our ever-changing environment means we are standing still. Without change, we are not as impactful as we could be.

But change is also frustrating. Adjusting to new core processes, products, or personnel does not come easy. It takes time. To find the right balance in your team, department, and company.

On a high level, there are two approaches to introduce change:

1. Little, incremental steps to (hopefully) edge towards a better world; or
2. Moving towards a (hopefully) better world in one big step.

Both ways have their benefits and drawbacks. Today though, I want to look at the big step option and how we can maximise our chances of success.

To introduce substantial change in one go requires a lot of upfront work and it needs to be planned out in detail. And often, we overshoot the target.

For example, we decide that a bit more process around our way of giving feedback will help teams. Only to become too strict and prevent giving feedback more than help it.

Or we try to ensure engineers have as much time on their tools as possible by minimising meetings. Only to find out that some of the cancelled catch-ups provide essential information and context.

The way we react to overshooting is to call the proposed change a failure and go back to the old ways. Not great. Instead, we would be way better off to look at change as a swinging pendulum. Take the outcome as a new baseline and decide whether a further adjustment is necessary.

Change is a process, not done in a single step. We want to prevent wasted effort caused by reverting a decision. And set clear expectations upfront for those affected.

Letting the pendulum swing also increases the chance of finding an end-state that is better than the starting point. Yes, it might take a couple of tweaks, but that investment is easily paid back over time.

…which brings us back to the story from the beginning.

Although it was considered, we are not just going back to the original SIM. Instead, we are exploring what pain the change has caused and how to bring back more of a skills focus.

We will not get it right, but we are one swing of the pendulum closer to where we want to be.