4 Problems Managers Run Into - and Practical Solutions
The management job comes with interesting people challenges. Here are four I've run into more than a few times and what to do when they land in your lap.
Welcome to the Scarlet Ink newsletter. I’m Dave Anderson, an ex-Amazon Tech Director and GM. Each week I write a newsletter article on tech industry careers and tactical leadership advice.
Free members can read some amount of each article, while paid members can read the full article. For some, part of the article is plenty! But if you’d like to read more, I’d love you to consider becoming a paid member!
I’m listening to The Rhythm of War again. It’s been a bit since I read it, and I’m not entirely sure if I read the Wind and Truth book. Which is funny, because I’m a huge Brandon Sanderson fan. But I suspect that I was distracted with other books, and didn’t get around to reading Wind and Truth when it released.
Anyway, I’m excited for this re-read, and I sincerely hope I didn’t read the Wind and Truth, because I love the idea of a whole new book to explore.
I had a couple of questions in my inbox from managers who were looking for advice for situations they had run into. I decided that I could make a list of situations managers run into, along with some concrete advice. Since I like concrete advice.
I intended to write an article about 10 problems managers run into, but the first problem and solution ended up at over a thousand words. I soon realized that I couldn’t sufficiently explain an issue and a proposed solution in the necessary few hundred words to make this a “10” article. Which is fine, as much as I like the neatness of a list of 10 things.
So I took the time to properly walk through the 4 items below. If you’re interested in another article like this, it just requires a few of you to write me with your requested situations. I’d be happy to bundle them up into a new article.
Team members complain about their peer.
In a one-on-one with one of the senior engineers on the team:
“Jian (a more junior engineer on the team) is driving me crazy. He nitpicks on every single change. He insists that I rename variables, update comments, and slightly change lines of code that don’t matter. I don’t send code reviews to him, but he still jumps on them and comments. Beyond that, he makes annoying comments during our design reviews and won’t stop talking at our morning stand-up. I can’t stand working with him.”
The tone used is, “I’ve tried to deal with this for so long, I’m done.” Which is a bit unfair to me, considering this is the first I’ve heard of it.
I explain that I’ll look into it, but I need some patience all around.
The next day, in a one-on-one with another senior engineer on the team, I ask how things are going with Jian.
The engineer sighs. “Oh, I don’t like working with Jian. I try to avoid him.”
“What exactly is the issue?” I ask, concerned. I’ll point out now that I’d worked with Jian through his onboarding and on a few projects and didn’t see anything concerning.
A shrug in response. “He’s annoying. He doesn’t listen to feedback. He talks too much. He’s overly pedantic.”
I pay attention to Jian during the next few days. I can see what they’re talking about, but it doesn’t overly bother me. Jian talks a bit too much. He is overly confident that he knows the right way to do things. But I have to say, many engineers are quirky and annoying at times. Jian doesn’t stand out.
The real problem isn’t necessarily Jian. It’s that conflict has appeared between people on the team. When we create small subgroups to tackle various projects, they privately tell me that they refuse to work with Jian on it. When we’re in team meetings, they begin to make their dislike known.
If you manage long enough, or with large enough teams, you inevitably end up with interpersonal conflicts.
Some issues are out in the open. Two people clearly and openly hating each other. Other issues are more subtle, like this situation.
Who is at fault, and what’s a fair reaction? It’s rarely obvious. In fact, if you think the answer is obvious, it’s likely that you’re biased.
Those two might be ganging up on Jian on purpose. They’re also overly sensitive to someone junior acting inappropriately. Jian’s attitude and behaviors are also at fault. In the end, it’s certainly a combination of everyone’s fault. This is almost always true in interpersonal conflicts.
But it’s not my job to decide who’s right or to do what’s fair. It’s my job as a manager to ensure my team is as functional as possible. Team cohesion is going downhill without any changes. I need to make a change.
Step one - Coaching
I’d always try to coach and smooth things over first. Because this has the least impact for the team.
I would give feedback to the two engineers that they need to embrace being uncomfortable and talk to Jian directly about their concerns. And they probably need to take a deep breath and chill.
I would talk to Jian about team dynamics. He needs to speak less and listen more. He needs to remember that his teammates are more experienced, and being right is not the only consideration when providing feedback to a co-worker.
Step two - Separating troublemakers
I think about team interpersonal dynamics in terms of trajectory. If something is bad and getting worse, we can either fix it with coaching (see step one), or we remove the issue. In this case, it usually involves transferring one of the people in conflict to another team. Leaving it alone is like a festering wound. Which is a gross analogy.
Because sometimes personalities just clash. Surely you know of co-workers you don’t like much. You can try to work around it or ignore it. But if things are bad enough, you could end up with literal years of team dysfunction.
It feels destructive, but forcing a team to persist with a bad dynamic almost always ends with someone leaving anyway. While at Amazon, I was lucky enough to always have an option to send someone to another team. If you don’t have that option, that’s rough for you.
Step three - Fire a troublemaker
If it’s clear that the team dynamic problem is due to one person’s issue, you should handle it rather than transfer it away. I’ve been in situations where Jian is a bad co-worker, and I decided to fire him to resolve the issue. I’ve also been in situations where those senior engineers were jerks ganging up on a co-worker, and they had to be fired instead.
In either case, it’s better for everyone involved if the troublemaker is at another company.