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Do you want to be more effective - ā€œbreak your armā€

Manager hell


What is typical work of a manager for us in a more or less large company? Meetings, planning, summing up, delegating tasks to subordinates and something like that. It is addictive, it is absorbing, it just sucks the working day. The percentage of productive meetings with each new meeting is reduced to zero, since it often happens that by meetings we just try to justify our usefulness here and now. An endless cycle of rallies and negotiations, how to break out of it and realize your working day optimally.

The main goal of all that will be lower is to show that in each situation it is necessary to look for an opportunity for growth and cross-application of new skills, as well as how a transfer of perception of one sphere to another can occur.

Do not forbid others to do what you cannot afford


So, somehow, on New Year's holidays, I went to Vietnam and almost immediately grabbed a bad dislocation of my shoulder, I wonā€™t tell you in detail how this happened, but in short: silly, painful and uncomfortable.Three days later, the pain became tolerable, but the restriction of movements remained, so I had to start looking at the world differently. At that very moment, not only thoughts began to be forced in the mind, how to lace up the shoes, but how to apply their new experience to optimize all tasks. And one of the highest priority skills of a leader of any level is the ability to competently delegate, to be able to choose those who are best suited to solve a particular problem. Sometimes we are afraid to entrust our work because of fear and mistrust, it seems to us that only we can do well, do the right thing, this often ruins the manager in a good developer, who, by the will of fate, fell into a managerial position. But, with a broken shoulder, you simply will not be able to do everything yourself from the word in any way and will have to be trusted. Starting to share your tasks, you can let the situation go a little for yourself,you will cease to languish over your zone of power and let outside people go there and believe it will be the right decision, only team work can achieve truly worthwhile results.

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In truth, the presence of a good orthosis and timely fixed joint is only part of a successful treatment, it is necessary to prevent re-dislocation, and for this you need to think before each movement, imagine and plan all the way from bed to bath, because any awkward turn and everything, re-dislocation, which develops into a familiar one, and this is already a direct path to the operating table, but if we try to draw a parallel with our work, we often donā€™t learn from our mistakes and repeat them from time to time, each time we receive a fakap it seems to us that this is the last time right from the next project, weā€™ll certainly do everything right and select the stack better and hire a more professional team, but this is not so, and from time to time in the absence of the proper level of reflection, we step on the same rake,which ultimately lead us to a situation with lost time. Retrospective, daily, planning, demo are important meetings of the team, yes, sometimes colleagues want not to spend time on it, which they so zealously take from coding time, but after spending two hours to identify problems or 15 minutes on the day, we can not break previously broken arm. After all, after each fracture, or in our business, this is called a failure to meet deadlines, the team will more and more grab the demoral. If you do not study the causes of the problems and do not draw conclusions from this, the day will come and the joint, and in our case this is a team, will stop working even with the smallest load.which they so zealously take away from the time of coding, but after spending two hours to identify problems or 15 minutes in the day, we can not break a previously broken arm. After all, after each fracture, or in our business, this is called a failure to meet deadlines, the team will more and more grab the demoral. If you do not study the causes of the problems and do not draw conclusions from this, the day will come and the joint, and in our case this is a team, will stop working even with the smallest load.which they so zealously take away from the time of coding, but after spending two hours to identify problems or 15 minutes in the day, we can not break a previously broken arm. After all, after each fracture, or in our business, this is called a failure to meet deadlines, the team will more and more grab the demoral. If you do not study the causes of the problems and do not draw conclusions from this, the day will come and the joint, and in our case this is a team, will stop working even with the smallest load.will stop working even with the smallest load.will stop working even with the smallest load.


In general, when everything is in order and we have no restrictions on movement, few people think that even the strangest and / or useless movement can be extremely, simply vital. In our body, there is nothing just like that, just as our body, the team is an organism, with its own laws and rules. There is nothing accidental or insignificant in a team as an organism, as long as the atmosphere in it is healthy, we feel calm and with full confidence we feel our important role in this whole story. It is a pity that hell is in the details. As one acquaintance said, we do not have healthy people, there are underexplored people, and on the whole I agree with this statement. In the early stages it is very difficult to notice which organ of your team began to donate, where is the cancerous tumor. All this is hidden due to the fact that different people have a different character and psychotype,someone will hide his dissatisfaction until the very end and quit abruptly at the crucial moment, while another at each rally will shout how everyone got him, but he will be with you to the end. To work with this, a lot of methods have been invented in the world, people classification and methodology, all this can be found in management courses, but hereā€™s what I want to add from myself, constantly measure the teamā€™s temperature, communicate with everyone together and with each individual, go beyond work questions, try to understand the life of your colleagues, who they are, why you chose such a hobby, study people. When asking about others, do not forget to tell yourself, communication built on trust will allow you to lead without orders, and you wonā€™t have to lead either, as in properly built relationships within a team where trust is above all done without orders.Become good companions. Many former colleagues have become my friends.

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With a broken arm, it is simply impossible to do something quickly, it hurts and is at least inconvenient. Gradually, all the processes in my life began to slow down a little, I began to plan my routes and affairs more carefully, because I knew that I wouldnā€™t have time to do everything right away due to physical limitations and would spend a lot of time on all kinds of things like tying shoelaces and closing the door. Gradually, thinking began to follow the physical state and, of course, was reflected in the work. I stopped making an assessment here and now, systematically working out all the options for the development of events in the team and project, choosing the most optimal in terms of the balance of risks and results. Each meeting in my head turned into a certain sequence of decisions in the future, which turned into plans.In a word, it helped to think wider and consider any decision in the absence of any emotions, but exclusively within the framework of business goals and the state of the team.

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The more the possible consequences of the trauma were revealed to me, the more they occupied the mind, at some point it was full of a certain kind of anxiety on the topic of how to prevent certain consequences. This mobilized the internal state and helped to concentrate on the main thing, on treatment through rehabilitation, it is surprising that this was reflected in how it was possible to make a decision at work. From a certain moment, the little things about work tasks disappeared, earlier they were very troublesome and engaged in most of the thought process, although this was not necessary. Most of what I was worried about before was simply far-fetched problems and no more. After all, most of what worries us is just our perception, our, most often, unreasonable fears. We often forgetthat time gives answers to all questions and for a number of tasks the best solution is to take the time and do what you are doing, develop a strategy and follow it without unnecessary stress, because the worst is not that the project will be overwhelmed, the worst is when not health is potentially the one who has more health and more money to earn with the right skill level. Therefore, try to squeeze out petty experiences from your mind and replace them with something from your life outside of work, in my case this shoulder treatment in your hope there will be something more positive and bright. The most interesting thing is that such an approach to the separation of emotions helped to spend energy only on what is really worth attention, eliminating from the thought process useless pondering of unnecessary tasks. This made it possible to concentrate on the main thing and not to spray on everything.

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In general, a sore hand has another very key feature, it hurts and hurts almost always. This pain helped, you wonā€™t believe, to concentrate during meetings on key and important things. As soon as the dialogue during the meeting went into an area completely unrelated to the agenda or empty talk, interest was instantly lost and the feeling of pain grew. All this was for me an internal facilitator, which clearly showed when the meeting began to become unproductive. The pain in the arm passed, but the feeling remained. That feeling, when you already understand that the meeting has outlived itself and colleagues are simply wasting their working time in vain and a sick hand taught me to tell everyone - stop, we all decided, it's time to disperse.Meetings take a huge amount of time in large companies, and for many this is the only way to feel their value. They will talk to you at least all day, each time Iā€™ll come up with new turns and reasons, but learn to say stop when everything is already clear and leave, in my case, the pain in my hand reminded me of this, in your common sense))))

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The next thing that a hand injury taught is responsibility, and responsibility in its broadest sense. Many people depended on how quickly and efficiently it will turn out to recover, starting with their relatives and ending with colleagues at work. Each traumatologist has his own approach and solution (just like programmers with their different stacks and ideal practices) and the important task was to choose one of several options, and not only how the arm will move, but also how quickly manage to fulfill their social roles in a society that has actually suffered from my injury. This is a huge responsibility that we assume when starting to work with a team, so itā€™s always worth remembering when you play the role of a leader or manager,that real people with their families and problems depend on you and you cannot give up and fall into gloom, so that it doesnā€™t happen, you need to make a competent and balanced decision without panic and vanity. The decision must be deliberate and no one except you will be held accountable. And in case of your mistake, you will be left not only with a sore hand, but also without a team, or even more likely without work. Turn off emotions, problems cannot be defeated by simple chatter, solutions are expected from the leader. Here, after all, as with a hand, you will choose the wrong doctor with the wrong architecture and thatā€™s it, kaput!and also without a team, or even more likely without work. Turn off emotions, problems cannot be defeated by simple chatter, solutions are expected from the leader. Here, after all, as with a hand, you will choose the wrong doctor with the wrong architecture and thatā€™s it, kaput!and also without a team, or even more likely without work. Turn off emotions, problems cannot be defeated by simple chatter, solutions are expected from the leader. Here, after all, as with a hand, you will choose the wrong doctor with the wrong architecture and thatā€™s it, kaput!

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From a certain point, regular exercise therapy exercises (physiotherapy exercises) usually begin. All this is necessary, because if the muscle does not work, then the body will never know that it needs to be restored and will find more suitable use for it, or it may not. So every day, preferably at the same time, you need to come to the gym or do it all at home. The main thing is regularity, time is wasted and from the moment the hand starts to move more or less, persistent motivation disappears, BUT you canā€™t throw it, now itā€™s for life. If you quit it becomes worse and the likelihood of a second dislocation increases. So how can we project all this on our work as a manager. In truth, projects with great ideas often fall apart and go nowhere precisely because of insufficient and inefficient operational management.People tend to mobilize forces at the moment of danger and a critical situation, but constantly keep themselves in shape, methodically moving to success from day to day - this is the most difficult way. We can get bored with regular events, we start skipping stand-ups, trying to ignore regular activities, all this leads to destabilization and loss of control. Most of the methodologies are built on regular and planned activities, from meetings to operational reporting. In the IT world, many consider this a bureaucracy and sometimes even run away from it, but if we are talking about the managerial functions of a manager, then without this there is nowhere. Loss of regularity in management is guaranteed to lead to the fact that you simply cease to understand where your team is moving and why certain problems occur in it.Try to involve people in regular events, when a certain format is annoying, make changes, suggest options, change the people who come to these meetings, try to interest and raise important problems of the team each time, don't let us get bored, but don't let the situation go to the booth. Keep a certain level of control with the ability to move a little from the ideal. Regarding reporting, I think one of the most correct options is to try to write down important aspects of what is happening. Create a picture of the team, determine the characters (as an option, you can use DISC), the skills and convergence of certain people in order to subsequently understand what task to send them to and how to form local groups within the team. It will also help you to further adequately understandhow to properly develop your team members. Develop your system for behavior and reporting if your organization does not have it, from the plan of regular meetings to personal cards and characteristics of your team members.

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Above was a lot about how you can try to project a situation with due reflection on the management process, but all this did not appear by chance. The opportunity to reflect on this topic also provided me with the current situation. According to the first, the hand was very painful and waking up at night for a long time I couldnā€™t fall asleep, all this time I was thinking about how to come up with something to make it comfortable to sleep, and in the end I came up with various designs from stops and pillows so that it lay correctly. I had a need that started the thought process, I felt it on myself with my whole body and really was ill with it. All this helped to discover many new ideas, including the idea of ā€‹ā€‹this article. With all of this I want to show you that just one need to do something is not enough, there must be a desire or a need,you canā€™t just tell someone to take and do this task, you need to talk, you need to explain, you need to be interested. Interest and motivation is also one of the main elements of working with a team. Only when feeling the need or responsibility the employee can find a solution, he should be interested, whatever one may say, we are all human. Alas, there are not always many interesting tasks, but your skill should not be to say why this or that task is required for you, but to explain why they can be useful to your colleague. Find a solution to his pain through a solution to the pain of the project. Itā€™s difficult, but itā€™s effective, this is the work with people. As already noted above, it is necessary to understand who your colleagues are, what are their interests and plans, where are their strengths,and where itā€™s worth pumping them and for this it is necessary to maintain communication at a high level. Create a challenge, carry away with your own example, live by what you do, otherwise nothing will come of it.

Something very similar to the conclusion


All that is described here certainly does not draw on a global scientific study of human behavior, but by drawing parallels you can realize that in our world there are things that you just need to notice and project on needs, my example is the conclusions that I made during the rehabilitation process hands and transferred some practices to his work. I sincerely wish you to have other situations and your experience, this is good, this is great. Most importantly, never look narrowly at a particular life situation, nothing happens by chance and you can draw conclusions and learn, draw parallels, look for patterns and shift one experience to another, always think wider than the situation in which you are considering even the most at first glance, absurd or non-standard situations, sometimes this is the best solution.

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