One of the main talents of modern team leader or technical specialist is the ability to find sensible specialists, assemble them into a close-knit team and work effectively together. And just in February, the TeamLead Conf 2020 professional conference was held , the only event only for team leaders. We wanted to learn about the experience of other companies, and we went to the conference. Under the cut - the most interesting topics that were raised there.

I read on the fence: "XYZ"

Anton Kosterin, Tinkoff Bank

Sooner or later, the manager remarks that he cannot find a common language with younger or older employees. The first thing that they propose to study in this case is the book “The Theory of Generations”. So it was with me. I read the book in the original. She describes the American history of the period in 1584-1991.

The theory is based on the assumption that historical events in the United States are cyclical in nature, which is associated with the existence of repeating generations.

Generation

A generation is people who were born in some common historical era. Events and scientific discoveries influence how people develop at different stages of their lives.

Generations have some common beliefs and behaviors. As people grew and matured in the same historical periods, they begin to value the same things equally. For example, they love the same genres of music, are interested in the same art. Accordingly, representatives of a generation share a sense of belonging to this generation itself. For example, you might have heard from your grandmothers or parents that we were like that, and you are some other. The collective “we” is the reckoning of ourselves to a certain group of people by age.

Let's look at the generations that exist today in the labor market.

The first generation is baby boomers . These are people who were born somewhere from 1943 to 1963.

The next generation is the generation of the X . By archetype they are “wanderers”: basically, in childhood, they did not know what their parents' control was. They went to school themselves, warmed up their own food, themselves were engaged in their entertainment, they themselves did everything that they needed.

Third - generation of the Y . These are people who were born from 1983 to 2003.

A generation Zwe still do not see in the labor market, the oldest of them at the moment is 16-17 years old. In the best case, they can do some kind of freelance work, go on an internship to your company. These are the people who will fill your teams in literally 2-3 years. They will finish the first year of university and will come to you to be hired by coders, analysts.

How to use the theory of generations in work

First of all, you need to formulate the problem between representatives of different generations that you want to solve.

Then - go to the product cycle , that is, formulate a hypothesis that you want to test. For example, I have management tasks that need to be delegated. I would like to transfer these tasks to younger energetic guys, because, it seems to me, firstly, it will help them grow professionally, and secondly, their enthusiasm and energy will give a good result.

When I go up to the guys and directly propose doing management, they refuse. I started looking for studies that would help me understand why people find themselves. The first data that I found was surveys of representatives of various generations on the topic "Do they want to become a leader." It turned out that generation X, which everyone considers to be born leaders, actually wants to manage a little less than everyone else, and Z wants to lead no less than Y. So why do they refuse?

The first reason that came to my mind: guys are afraid of stress, difficulties, problems that arise in work. I found a study that found that 54% of people refuse to lead because of stress. This is a significant reason, but it does not show the difference between generations.

The authors of other studies say that representatives of generation Z allegedly take great care of their work / life balance and want to spend more time with their families, doing themselves and a little work. Is it really? I looked for data: it turned out that this is not so. Generation Z calls this the reason for rejection half as often as Y and X. There is probably an explanation for this, because Z have not tried themselves as leaders yet, while they look at it purely theoretically.

Perhaps the motivation of these people will give us the key to invite them to become leaders? I found the following data. People were asked to choose the reasons for the attractiveness of becoming a leader. If X, basically, called the possibility of mentoring their motivator, then Z wants to have a higher level of responsibility and more freedom of action. Therefore, in order to persuade an employee of 1997 year of birth to take on several duties of a manager, I need to offer a little more freedom.

Although generations differ, these differences are often not as significant as, for example, gender or geographic differences. For example, in order to motivate a man and a woman to take a leadership position, it will be necessary to make significantly more changes in processes and approaches than just to find the difference between generations, because men and women are brought up differently in childhood, they have different values.

An example of geographical differences: in India, many people like to work in collective labor and few people like to lead. And in Europe there are a lot of ambitious people who want to quickly climb the career ladder. As a result, the geographical aspect has a greater impact than the generational one.

Generation theory is a source of hypotheses that you can try to use. But the more vague the area of these hypotheses we take, the more efforts must be made to test in practice. Without experiment, taking on faith what is written in these articles is probably wrong: most likely, you simply quarrel with your colleagues.

HR myself

Arthur Dementyev, Direct Credit

Let's talk about hiring people. Whatever leader you are - team leader, department head, CTO - we all need to hire people on duty. It would be nice to be able to do this quality.

Somehow I was called to a startup of used automotive parts to make an aggregator of these spare parts. They were looking for the head of the development department, who will start the development of the functionality of warehousing, loading prices, selling spare parts, delivery and so on.

My first TK was: “We have a store that sells spare parts, and there are buyers. Let's connect them. ” Naturally, one cannot start work with such TK. How is it possible?

First, you need to collect project criteria; turn these criteria into roles, that is, positions; understand where to find people and how to attract them, how to select people and not stumble on pitfalls. I took a pen and a notebook, and went to the factory to find out what was happening there.

I studied everything from an investor to a driver who delivers these parts. It turned out that we are talking about an old program in Delphi. The site was once bought on Bitrix. Moreover, the program and the site generally lived on different planes. I needed the opportunity to work through the web and from mobile devices. There must be integration with advertising platforms. There must be a financial unit. It is necessary to make the beginnings of an aggregator. Another requirement: do it all in 3-4 months. In general, not the most rosy story.

The first thought that creeps into the head - well, nafig it, you need to get out of here and not take a steam bath. Nevertheless, I did not leave, but tried to build something there. I collected the requirements. What's next?

First of all, I painted an action plan in which I indicated what needs to be done, what services to implement, so that it can even be launched. The plan was only for six months, because then it was pointless - it's a startup. Then he began to wonder, and on what technologies I, in principle, can do it. Here you need to take into account the job market, because specialists can be expensive, but it may turn out that they are not there at all in the right amount.

Now it was necessary to understand where to take people. Our startup has positive and negative aspects. They need to be identified, described and understood, how we can pack it beautifully in order to attract applicants. I don’t mean that someone needs to push something in - just beautifully present.

What were our advantages?

No legacy.
Fast growth.
There is no manual.
I knocked out training (trips to all kinds of conferences and so on).
You can get a unique experience.
The ability to work remotely.

In fact, any startup has these advantages, I did not name anything new.

You can create additional benefits that are not always obvious. For example, I wanted people to be involved. There is a task that is not fully described. I come to the team and say: " Guys, let's discuss how you will solve it." At first, no one offers anything. Then I tell how I would do this, I ask each of the team members to express their opinion. And slowly people are getting involved in the process. Once I gathered a meeting, and when I arrived, the guys are already discussing without me. They were completely involved.

The next step is to understand where to get people from. Acquaintances and social networks are a standard option, but you need to understand that we may not recruit the number of people that we need. Anyway, the developers are like a good apartment: after 2 hours they’ve already rented. I had to use all the channels for attracting employees at once.

I received 54 responses in the first few hours, picked up the phone and personally started phoning the applicants. Of course, I did this because of hopelessness, because there was no personnel officer. But it turned out that this has many advantages. Firstly, not every technical specialist, team leader, manager will immediately personally communicate with applicants. It's nice. Secondly, the level of trust is increasing. You can ask some specific questions, even “sell” your vacancy, that is, tell you on which technologies and how you will do it.

What to look for when selecting employees

I made a tablet in Excel, where I wrote various skills, and asked the applicants to insert numbers from 1 to 10 opposite each of the skills. If the values of the applicant were small, I did not consider him for a vacancy. If medium-high, then asked specific questions, thereby saving a lot of time. For 4 years, only three people refused to fill out a tablet. I continued the conversation with the rest, and here is what I learned from this:

Be sure to listen carefully to the applicants, because they can talk about an experience that you do not even suspect. Remember that the applicant must answer for each letter in his resume.
You also need to find out from the applicant about self-education, because this will show whether he is doing something or not, whether he can name some books, lectures or podcasts. The applicant must be right for you.
Be sure to tell the applicant about the technologies on which you are doing the project, about interesting solutions. That is, interest him. In general, it’s better to rehearse this story. And ideally, so that a person does not have any questions left about how you do it.
It is very helpful to give feedback. A man came to us, he was bad, but I gave him feedback. He came six months later, and we hired him.

If a specialist suits you, take it soon, because tomorrow it will not be there. We looked at the tablet, two hours later wrote and made an offer. I have more than 50 cases when the next day people took me away.

The importance of the trial period

The probationary period is the best that humanity has come up with. You can’t check everything at the interview. It lasts about 40 minutes, and on a trial period you can already see how a person works on real tasks.

When very motivated people come, but without experience, a trial period is especially useful. Once we could not find a tester: either too expensive specialists came or did not know anything. And then came the guy who worked at a computer store. He "swam" in theory, but solved practical problems. I say: “ Let's try. I don’t promise anything . ” As a result, after two weeks we had Selenium with tests, and after two weeks there were already the beginnings of API testing. Naturally, we took it.

Another example: a sales manager came to us who studied JS as a hobby. I suggested to try. He took sick leave at his work, came to us for a week. As a result, I invited him to work, although he was without experience, like that computer salesman.

Hiring in IT does not begin with job posting, but with the formulation of criteria and requirements. It is necessary to study the market in order to understand who we can find and who we cannot. It is necessary to choose the technologies on which you will write the project, and think over the implementation order. It is imperative to correctly package proposals, understand your strengths and weaknesses. And finally, make a portrait of the applicant in order to understand whether you will be able to offer your advantages and disadvantages as a value.

If you came to work not in the most popular place, but, in your opinion, it has prospects, I advise you not to despair. I believe that out of several hundred candidates you can always put together an excellent champion team.

Why often you want to work, and sometimes not

Dmitry Smiryagin, ITExpert

Imagine that you need to write a microservice. Your boss says: " For this microservice, which was needed yesterday, I will pay a million rubles ." What do you think, in this case, what motivation will work to a greater extent - the motivation “to” or “from”?

Rather, "from." Why? As soon as a person has agreed with his boss that he will receive a certain amount, he already begins to consider this amount as his own. And since he considers her his, then further he tries not to lose her. Here the motivation “from” works to a greater extent - not to lose money. And often, performing work in such a situation, a person forces himself to work because he does not want to lose this money.

And if the boss simply outlined a picture of some potential big and cool reward for the job, it would make a person think about the reward in the process of work, visualize it, involve his imagination. Then the motivation “k” would be used.

All people have their own motivation, their neural connections, which were formed in the process of education and life. Moreover, each person has his own unique brain. We are not surprised that everyone has their own unique hands and feet.

There are 5 types of people according to their motivation. I overheard this classification from a business consultant several years ago. They almost always work.

1. The financier.This is a person for whom money is the main motivator. There are practically no financiers in real life. But it’s very easy to work with such employees. Everything is clear: I pay you money, and you do what I want from you. Moreover, since the financier is sharpened for receiving money, he is honing his professionalism. He is usually a very good professional in some, perhaps, narrow field. And for his time, his professionalism, his knowledge and skills, he wants to receive a monetary reward. Concrete, clear and fair. And better than fair.

2. The resultant.This man looks like a chess player, he calculates his moves. Result-oriented thinks in abstractions. He builds models of processes, how to achieve a result. He very well analyzes and conducts logical connections between certain actions. A person considers the world around him in many ways as a resource for achieving results, including people. At the interview, determining the “resultant” is very simple. He always talks about what has been done, what problems have been solved, what a difficult project was. He always focuses on the complexity of the project.

A result-oriented person, as he builds models, very often is not ready to bring the matter to a physical result. As soon as he built the model, as soon as the model has shown its effectiveness, he loses interest in this task and is already looking at the next peak, where to go further.

3. The star.Very easy to identify trait. Relatively speaking, a girl with a big red bow. That is, a person who stands out above the crowd, who always wants to be perfect, who is sometimes very difficult to bear his crown. The man-star thinks, first of all, self-centered, proceeding from his own "I". He pays a lot of attention to how others relate to him, he needs attention. And the strongest motivator will be just the same attention: a post with a great name, a well-known and significant project.

One of the most terrible demotivators for a star will be criticism. I knew one cool analyst, and any criticism from the customer was perceived as a personal insult. It is necessary to criticize the star very, very carefully.

4. Romantic, informal.A man who needs meaning in everything. Any action must be conscious, you need some kind of idea, mission, novelty. He challenges some social foundations. This type is very good if the tasks that he has to carry out fall into his matrix of what he considers important, necessary and cool. Then he will work 24 hours, with all his heart and with great pleasure. But as soon as interest disappears, a person can simply very easily leave the company.

An example from my practice. The front developer came. I got a job very quickly, got into the course of things, performed tasks well, we could not get enough of it. And once he said: “ I'm tired of you. I am moving to another city. I’ll work for two weeks. I want to see new projects and look for myself". In this sense, the romantic is very risk averse and very social. He must have some like-minded people, those people who go with him toward a goal, an idea.

5. The employee. A man who skillfully keeps a balance between work and his free time. He often has no fire in his eyes. He just comes to work in order to work. At the interview, the reason for leaving the previous place will often be voiced as follows: the boss has changed, or the boss has changed, or we have reorganized. That is, everything that kills stability, some established social ties, is all very painful for this type. There are few employees among the bosses. Leaders are often people with types of resultant or star.

In any group, it’s good when there is a set of all types. Because some tasks are best done by one, some by another. Each type will have more active certain neural connections that lead to the production of the hormone of happiness. And attempts to rebuild these ties are doomed to failure. This is impossible to do, insofar as it is very deeply ingrained in the nature of people, in the structure of neural connections, in the structure of the brain. But knowing your employees and understanding what is important to them is like a key to effective motivation.

Why do you often want to work? Because the very substances that are produced are hormones of happiness. They are developed situationally, not necessarily because of some global goal, but every day, in the process of interaction between people. Something arises that makes the necessary neural connections activate and leads to the release of hormones of happiness. The brain is pleased when we work.

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In our opinion, every competent leader should apply all the methods described above, from team leader to techdir. In one of our future articles, we will definitely tell you about the methods we use ourselves in Skillbox.

TeamLead Conf 2020: key reports