Instrument-Rated Management: Treating Conditions vs Symptoms

“I need a raise,” Larry tells me during our first weekly one-on-one. “I haven’t gotten one since I joined the company.”

There’s nothing unusual about Larry’s request other than its seeming urgency. Larry has found out how much other software engineers on our team make — salaries have a way of becoming public — and is wondering why he’s making less. Larry also knows how much his friends at Google or Facebook make, or the bonus his friend at a hedge fund got last year. Larry’s parents are also concerned that he’s been working for an unknown startup and doesn’t seem to be growing in his career.

I tell Larry I’ll do some research, and get back to him next week. In my perfect world, I’d shower everyone on my team with untold riches, and yet I choose to work at a scrappy startup where the main compensation concern is that everyone on the team is compensated fairly. In practice, this means that we aim right at the median of what similar startups in our city pay, given the role, specific skills, education, and years of experience. Yes, that means that if you’d like to maximize what you’re making now, you should consider working elsewhere. It also means that if the benchmark so indicates, your coworker may be making more than you.

At the next one-on-one, Larry looks over the salary benchmark I share with him, which shows that he is squarely in the middle of the range. Without skipping a beat, he declares that he wants to be promoted to a Senior Software Engineer. Normally, this is a meaty (and welcome) topic about what it takes to get to the next level of one’s craft. But Larry’s not asking “how”, he’s asking “why am I not?” and “when will I be?”

I’ve only been on the job for a few weeks, and don’t have the full measure of where Larry is on his career path, though my gut is telling me that he’s not quite a senior engineer yet. “What will you be able to do once you have the senior title that you can’t do now?” I ask. “What will you be happy to stop doing once you get promoted?” I can anticipate Larry’s answer to both of these questions: “Nothing.” On our small team, everyone does most things, both out of necessity, and because early-stage startups attract generalists who love becoming masters and mistresses of many trades. In fact, not being restricted by titles is one of the attractions of working in our company.

I also realize that Larry is in pain. Not the excruciating pain of a root canal without anesthesia, but the dull, anxious discomfort deep in one’s stomach: something’s not quite right at work. He doesn’t yet know exactly what’s causing the discomfort, but he’s looking for something to make it go away.

Not surprisingly, at our next one-on-one Larry brings up the idea of transitioning into a data science role. Now we’re getting somewhere, I think, but my heart sinks when Larry explains: “This kind of work is valued more at this company than what I’m doing.” Many of us derive a great deal of energy from doing things that are valuable and impactful, but I sense that Larry is not feeling valued in his current role. We discuss some immediate data science projects where he can work on alongside our more experienced data scientists — a chance to deepen his skills in a new area — but in the end Larry doesn’t seem all that excited about it.

At our fourth weekly one-on-one, Larry is noticeably more upbeat. I ask him if he’s had a chance to work on any data science projects. “No,” he replies, “but I’ve been thinking, and I’m really missing working on mobile apps. I’ve started to tinker with them again on the side, but I really want to work on them full time.”

“That’s great, Larry!” I say. “Though, as you know, we’re not planning to do anything mobile…”

“I know,” he says.

“So what are you going to do?”

Larry pauses. “I’m going to start my own mobile development company,” he says, smiling nervously. “I’m going to go back to building apps!”

And just like that I’ve lost an engineer. I think about how hard it will be to replace Larry, even though after a month of observing him, I’m sure it will be better for both Larry and the team if he worked elsewhere. As we have both discovered at this point, the kind of work that grabs and energizes him is simply not available at our company. It’s sad that we took a while to realize this, but that’s only hindsight. It’s not anyone’s fault.

We spend the rest of the meeting planning the transition, including which companies I can introduce Larry to — companies that need mobile engineers. I notice I have a headache, and I try to figure out if I need coffee or an aspirin. It’s not a tumor, I think, and I know that as soon as the headache goes away, I’ll forget all about it. But what if the headache returns?

When things feel off at work — when the pain is not acute but instead lingering and not easily placed — we often reach for the quick and obvious cure. We ask for a raise or a title that we feel we deserve, and might even get what we ask for because our managers want to keep us happy and at the company. But if we don’t understand the underlying conditions — if we only focus on easing the uncomfortable symptoms — the pain will likely come back after the anaesthesia of a bit more money or prestige wears off. That’s the reason that most people who accept counteroffers to stay at a company leave within 6 months. As managers, we have to dig deeply to understand the conditions so that we can act appropriately, even though we’re often under immense pressure to act quickly.

Maybe the bar of seeking the kinds of work that we would do even if we weren’t paid is impossibly high — it’s also not an option for those without a safety net (or a Fuck Off Fund). But again and again I’ve been amazed at what folks can accomplish on teams where being highly engaged is the primary concern. I’ve experienced how energized and happy people are when they discover the right kind of work for them — work that uses their strengths, aligns with their values, and supports their longer-term careers — and when they have the means and the courage to pursue this work. Managers have an important role as well, namely to help people discover the right kind of work for them, and encourage them to do it. Even if it means supporting people through a transition to a place where the right kind of work is available.

This is a first post in a series I’m calling “Instrument-Rated Management”. Pilots who train to achieve Instrument Rating learn to fly solely based on what the airplane instruments are indicating. This is often counter to what they feel or see, but allows pilots to fly in conditions of limited visibility (e.g., through dense clouds or at night.) Similarly, managers often face conditions of extremely limited visibility (like the case described above). Such situations require measured approaches that go against what managers may be feeling or seeing. In order to navigate such situations successfully, managers can develop their own “instrument rating”, namely by learning to trust counterintuitive (but proven) research or hard-won experience instead of obvious, folk remedies.

Thanks to James Turnbull, Camille Fournier, Roy Rapoport, Preston Bennes, Randall Koutnik, and Kristian Kristensen for improving this post with their thoughtful comments, suggestions, and encouragement.