Have you read the manual?

Part 2 on personal growth and helping others grow

Training staff is a key role that managers play. It’s a lever to increase productivity, retention and longer term to attract talent based on your reputation. It’s difficult to do, and uncommon to see done well. This is part 2 of two posts which are a mixture of my approach to personal growth and my techniques for helping others to grow. The first post is here.

Expanding your comfort zone

“Outside a handful of extreme examples—such as the height of professional basketball players and the girth of football linemen—scientists have failed to find much evidence of natural abilities explaining experts’ successes. It is a lifetime accumulation of deliberate practice that again and again ends up explaining excellence.” - Cal Newport, So Good They Can’t Ignore You.

Learning compounds, skills and experiences build upon and unlock other skills and experiences. This is a fundamental concept which is essential to keep learning. Belief in this is often called “growth mindset” and I occasionally encounter people who lack it. It’s uncommon to find someone who has a completely fixed mindset, it’s more common to find people who have a fixed mindset in certain domains. They have accepted that there are things they cannot learn often you'll hear them say things like “I did it one time and I wasn't good at it.”. The antidote to this is simple but difficult. Do it again. And again. Be like a toddler learning to use a cup, keep tipping it all over yourself until you master it.

I recently watched a documentary on Alex Honnold, a free solo climber who tackles El Capitan in Yosemite National Park. Free solo climbing is a form of rock climbing where the climber ascends without any ropes, harnesses, or protective equipment. It’s considered one of the most dangerous and mentally demanding types of climbing because any mistake can result in a fatal fall. Alex is an incredible individual, conquering fear to push himself to his limits. He describes his approach to this as being incremental and gradual. He talks about his “comfort zone” and how with each climb he slightly expands it by pushing a little further. He also does work with children in classrooms and finds that the same approach has served him in this domain. He used to be afraid of standing up in front of a room and speaking, gradually over time he has built comfort and now regularly speaks in front of large groups of people he has never met.

Have you read the manual?

Like Alex, the best engineers and technologists push themselves and expand their comfort zones. They drive their own growth, with large goals broken down into smaller steps. Some do this through intentional professional development planning, others in a more ad-hoc manner. Most folks could benefit from spending more time thinking strategically about their growth. To grow skills you need time and practice on the right activities, specifically ones which are difficult and uncomfortable for where you're at now.

I learned this during my time at Microsoft. I was at a place in my career where I was hungry to learn and grow. There was a lot of support to do so including great training and structure around professional development planning. Not only were professional development plans expected, I had a performance goal to complete 2+ weeks of technical training per year and to engage with a professional community. The culture was one of smart people eager to learn and share ideas. I remember working with a senior developer who was helping me to master C#. I would frequently ask him questions about the standard library and how the framework worked as this was an area he was very knowledgeable about. One of the first things he showed me was how to use the documentation in my code editor. Partly this was him directly giving me feedback to self-serve (therefore bother him less with questions!) but it was also a ‘teach a man to fish’ moment as the documentation for .NET is rich. To this day I have fond memories of conversations with him, all of which began with him asking “have you read the manual?!”.

Finding motivation in coffee

I love espresso coffee and it has been a hobby of mine for a long time. I’ve followed coffee trends for years, and my family often jokes about how much coffee gear we have at home. In recent years new methods and tools have emerged for preparing the coffee ‘puck’ before brewing. Despite industry experts endorsing them, I’ve been hesitant to try them. That is until I recently stayed overnight in another city with a family member. In his kitchen in the morning I made coffee and found a tool for puck preparation I wasn’t familiar with. It was right there in front of me so I experimented with it. Wow, this was effective. I returned home and ordered the same tool and another. I started watching youtube videos on their use. I proceeded to evolve forever the way I brew espresso coffee. Sometimes you need a kick start, something which triggers your latent motivation just enough to light that internal fire.

​​Feedback can sometimes be that trigger for people. Feedback doesn’t have to be about big things. Letting someone know when you think they could be 1% better is difficult but can help them move beyond a blindspot. I once shared with someone that I thought they could improve at how they communicated by reducing their usage of filler words. It was clear to me and to others that they would be substantially more influential if they slowed down a little and found a way to stop in between sentences. The way I delivered the feedback missed the mark, I could tell I had offended the person and caught them by surprise. I was uncomfortable and rushed, I wanted the conversation to be over as quickly as possible. I didn’t take the time to understand where this person was at or what their motivations were. Since then I’ve learned and adjusted my approach. If I were to do this today I would position it as a suggestion in a curious way with an open mind. I would ask questions and be prepared for a slow conversation.

I try to create environments where others around me can and want to grow using these ideas. I share my goals and professional development plans with the people I work with. I talk about growth and learning and I share both my successes and failures. It’s certainly been my experience that hearing leaders talk about failure creates safety to try new things and ask questions - even if the answers are right there in the manual.