From Developer to Manager – The Mindset Shift | GeeksforGeeks

Key Takeaways

can you hear me okay yeah hi I can hear you can you hear me yes finally I'm so sorry it's been already 9 minutes past 8:30 I should have anticipated some technical challenges no worries so husb been like a very good morning to you first of all yeah thank you thank you good evening to you and good morning good evening good afternoon wherever everybody yeah so we just uh were discussing like what is it uh that General mindset is regarding the how a person transforms from a developer role to a mindset shift that is needed to actually be into an engineer manager or any managerial position role essentially so I'll probably first like to thank you thank you first of all to be giving us time and you know just addressing these questions is very important for our audience as well and anybody who's actually working in a developer role and and they're looking forward to actually look at their hierarchy and how they are going to look at as a as a career transition so these are the questions that we wanted to address with you especially because you're someone who's actually been through that journey and you can really help out the people who are in this position right now and probably someone who can help them in general from their experiences no nobody else came to our mind rather than you so first of all thank you for joining these these sessions thank you yeah no thank you for giving me the opportunity I I am a big fan of we for Geek and uh I've used it when I was also polishing up my technical skills as well so being here on this platform sharing whatever experience I've gathered uh is is definitely exciting and we connected on Twitter X right like so you know like I'm passionate about this particular topic and in general career growth so I I enjoy doing this so thanks a lot for giving me this opportunity toh share my thoughts today great great so let's let's start off with the really the head on top topic which is actually about how you know what is the actual mindset shift that is needed to be from a developer to a managerial position what is it that actually someone who's a developer can really think of in terms of being a mindset yeah actually before we get get to that just for the uh Tech technicalities and legalities for purposes just clarifying that whatever I say I'm not representing Google I just happen to work at Google thoughts are my own right so I think it's very important especially in the current days like when companies want to make sure that people are following policies and whatnot so uh anyways that that being said sh are you still there I lost your video hello he am I still audible how if people don't have unmute can somebody raise hand to see say whether okay yeah I think is saying I'm audible okay that's great should we wait for shikar I don't know where he is I think some technical issues on his side okay great at least I see something on the chat so all right is reconnecting Okay cool so let's just wait for a minute yes but I don't see you just give me a moment yeah yeah sure on with the camera camera we were discussing about the mindsets mindset ship is needed for a developer to be into a man and great that we went ahead with the disclaimer where as someone yeah shikar your voice is breaking up is it just for me or for others as well journey and really meeting uh let me check some glitch at my end is it fine now yes I think I can see you also oh oops you're Frozen again some again yeah yeah sure moment e got that e really sorry about that again just trying to connection if anything works I can hear you better now I can hear you now I can see you now so probably working out fine great sure so let's let's back to topic um the the thing that we wanted to know about what is that that is the difference between the mindset of a developer and transitioning to a manager what should be it that one should really keep in mind sure so as a developer like usually we also refer to developers as individual contributors right and that's the reason is because the main focus is on your individual contributions like how are you solving a problem how are you fixing a bug how you delivering a project Etc but then when you transition into management uh it the perspective changes a lot right it is it is not just about what you do directly but how you enable your team right it is it is not just based on your direct deliveries but how you enable the team what kind of uh how do you coach the team how what kind of productive uh outcomes impact it has on on the all goals Etc right so the shift is not just based on what I need to do but more on how I need to get how I need to deliver what my all requires uh and how I get my team to kind of do that so it is uh it's it's a fun mental shift it's not just about technical complexities it's not just about efficient coding it's not just about producing code faster or fixing BP but more on the on the team side so it's essentially about how you see your value to the company I would say that also matters uh so value I mean value is little overloaded word right like even individual contributors add value by doing what they're supposed to do by focusing on their own task whereas here you are kind of multiplying the value right like force multiply if if the word I want to use here is like you are not just like responsible for direct your direct contribution but how you are kind of multiplying these individual contributors value to the to the oran to the company yeah arranging different parts of a machine kind of like and making that the machine is smooth and functional and really adding value there yeah right because composition is also different right like it's not just every developer Works in exactly same way like some like skills or expertise levels are different so you have to have the holistic view of uh not just like equitably Distributing the work but Distributing the work according to individual strengths and also catering to their career goals right so it is it is like the you you correctly I think identify like it's like the whole car and like different parts of the engine it's not just like a specific thing that one needs to focus on okay I think we lost you again CH Frozen okay till shakar comes back how about folks sending a message on chat how is everybody doing and also we'll be interested in knowing that are you folks managers right now or are you developers wanting to get into management what are you trying to get out of this session Etc y uh sorry it keeps disconnecting me again again uh weird sorry about that again yeah no worries and you were talking about how different uh Team functions and how different team members function and how they are accountable for their own work but then manager is accountable for the whole uh team's purpose team output yeah yeah um and how does you I mean from transitioning from an individual contributor to a manager uh what are the different kind of daily responsibilities that change of course they're not as a manager you're not really working on the individual persons or any like you said it's not really about producing code it's not really about uh just solving bugs and anything so what are the general work uh daily work look like yeah so there is no typical day as such I would say so I I like to for me like the framework that I to use is like it's a two-dimensional thing so on one dimension you have people project and processes and on the if you if you try to let's say plot a graph right like so people project processes and then across I look at strategic and tactical right so because all these these three things like people project and processes they have both strategic and tactical angle so for example for for people the Strategic aspect would be how do you grow your team do you have the right team do you have right people in the right seeds right the Tactical aspect would be Performance Management right like how effectively you are giving feedback like how effectively you are Distributing work for them that aligns with the project also the same thing right like the Strategic aspect would be what kind of projects you need to introduce in the road map like how do you contribute to road map how do you make sure that your road map aligns with the organization values right and then the Tactical would be the execution of those projects like is the project going smoothly how are you handling stakeholders like how are you addressing quality issues uh all those things and uh so processes are also similar thing like do does your team need any particular process or what process do you have that need to evolve based on the or goals or requirements and then the uh the Tactical Parts would be how exactly do you introduce those processes right like how do you handle intake cues how do you handle bugs how do you do you have monitoring and deployment processes or do we need to introduce that or even from the project management perspective do you follow agile or waterfall or combination of both so all of these things like like it's not that on Monday you need to do this Tuesday you need to do this right depending on which what period of year you are uh you might need to focus on one thing over the other like at the Inception of the project you probably are in a lot of meetings with the stakeholders trying to understand what needs to be built uh what are your current capabilities and like is there a Gap how do you fill that Gap when you get to the actual execution mode the focus changes more on are you like are you like are you working on the right task like are people delivering the right task like do they need support are they blocked on anything so and then at the year end usually it's a evaluation time right so Performance Management like well Performance Management needs to be done throughout but you need to actually produce a doc explaining why this particular person uh deserves this particular rating Etc right so it the the focus changes so what you do every day it depends on what phase you are in either on the project or on the yearend reviews or in general like performance reviews ETA so some combination of this is basically how I look at my day and I I take it weekly planning to see okay what do I need to focus on this week and then working backwards based on that what do I need to focus on this day meetings are essential as a manager you need to have regular one-onone meeting so meeting takes at least like half half of my day so it it kind of varies accordingly and it's about also about managing expectations like from the business perspective you need to manage business expectations and you need to manage individual team members expectations as well yeah managing expectations is is critical right like you unless well unless you even from the individual contributors perspective or depths perspective right if they don't know what is expected from them like how would they know what needs to be done right like if they just take their own uh approach and if that is not what is expecting it is very unfair for the manager to then later on in the year say that hey you did not meet your expectations if you did not communicate the expectations that's not a right place to have and same with the stakeholders right like product managers may not have insight into the technical uh whatever architecture you have or complexities you have they want to build a product right but you need to make sure that they expect ations are realistic right if they say that oh I need to build this like how soon can we get it done right you as a manager you cannot always go to the team members asking this question right you need to that's why I think even having a good technical Insight is important to manage the stakeholders expectation that you are not just a pass through and always throwing the questions to the team but also like explaining them why certain things whether certain things could be done uh if yes then approximate time frame why certain things could not done or what we need to do to get get those things done so managing expectation from the stakeholder side is also important otherwise you are signing yourself up for Burnout and your team for Burnout if you are just a yes man saying that or a yes woman saying that hey yes I'll do whatever the product manager or my Superior is asking me to do yeah I mean you should have an answer for why can't we build our own llm right these days yeah and explain the cost benefit uh return on investment tradeoffs right like I mean a lot of people already are aware of trade-offs from system design perspective uh there is no Silver Bullet and just like that even here like can you build it if you have right expertise maybe or you have you have to like on board and then pay and then time it takes is it worth it or not like all these things you have to assess and explain yeah and uh going ahead with these things like uh what is it that you know you faed when you transition from an individual contributor to a managerial positions like what are the difficulties that you face uh in this transition it's been a while so I don't exactly remember so I I think I became a manager somewhere around 2013 or 2014 so it's been about 10 years but uh I I think whatever we just talked about applies right because that is not taught in schools right like even working with people uh but but actually there are a couple of things that I definitely remember uh as challenges like one is balancing the individual contributor work and the manager respon responsibilities because so I I became a manager in Bloomberg and so in Bloomberg their the first line managers are expected to p as well so it is not just purely manager position but you are supposed to produce your technical output and then also you're supposed to manage City balancing that is a challenge I don't think it gets easier at any time but I think with with with or it gets easy with at any time but gets easier as as you kind of grow and then the second challenge was uh gaining Trust of the team right because I kind of got promoted from the existing team I didn't go to a particular team as a manager right so lot of my then subordinates were my peers before so how do you kind of make sure that they don't look at you with a weird uh whatever thoughts or assumptions right right and like do you have the back right like it is extremely important to kind of establish that rle uh so those those were challenging like I had one person in my team uh with a strong personality so kind of working with them was was a challenge yeah but beyond that I think the the standard challenges that I think anybody would experience that I'm sure I did too was mainly around people management right like everybody's different like working with with machines is easier like yes you need to learn languages but when once you learn language once you know how to code the machine is going to react right it's just OB just going to throw some errors whereas individuals are motivated by different things they have different career aspirations they have different strengths they have different areas of improvement how do you talk to them right how do you talk to them in a way that they actually feel like you're on their side and you're at the same time like making sure that everybody is efficiently delivering and meeting the or goals right so the people management aspect feedback also right even feedback as an individual contributor you may need to give feedback to you give code review and feedback or even on some design reviews and whatnot but feedback from a manager perspective persective is very different right like you need to give clear feedback timely feedback based on how that person is doing if they're doing great you need to tell that right A lot of people uh don't do that and I think that's a mistake right like you need to feedback is not just meant for pointing out flaws right like if somebody's doing something correctly you need to call that out as well so that they know that it's a reaffirming thing and they also everybody feels good if people are saying that yes this is a it was pretty good but what you did and then also constructive side right like if you keep on ignoring the mistakes you're not giving that person a chance to grow so how do you do that effectively it's also not taught in schools uh maybe in management schools but I don't think there is a live kind of demo or practice that one does so people management aspect uh I I found challenging uh but I think I I got hang of that pretty well something some something I still struggle with that is also a challenge and people need to uh understand is the Strategic or Vision thing right uh it's it's not just executing projects right it's not just making sure that people are delivering you as a manager you are kind of responsible for setting the technical direction as well sometimes depending on again the org and whether you have senior folks and what is the expectation from from you personally and all but the strategy and vision part it gets more important and difficult as you grow in in your levels even managers have different levels right like entry level manager is different director and above are different so flexing that muscle or even like trying to build that muscle is a challenge and which I personally still struggle with right now a little bit I overcame some part of it but obviously not the whole part of it so the these were some of the things that I think like project management all I think even individual contributors uh go through that so I don't think that would be a different challenge but if you ask specifically about transitioning into management like I these are the two things that come to our mind like Forefront and you talked about how as a developer you are talking to machines and they're reacting in a always in the same way if you give a same out input right so anything specific that apart from this like what is it that developers face these why is it that developers face these challenges anything different that they have been going through first of all because this is not formally taught right like a lot of at least in tech industry like we we have CS related background like doesn't have to be engineering but something Cs and then we join as developers and then usual high performance performers are promoted into the manager roles uh some companies may have some onboarding in terms of what are manager responsibilities Etc but not not many companies do that right so having good understanding a good grasp of that so you can't really blame people for finding it difficult to adapt like they don't have formal training on that what could you do so that is that is one thing in my opinion second thing is going back to our first conversation right it's a mind mindset shift how do you kind of change that like it's not just about me anymore and how do I enable my team uh a lot of people find like everybody is adaptable in different ways right some people pick up things fast in no matter what the change is some people don't right so people who don't they they struggle with this mindset change some people think that based on some cartoons or whatever you hear in other places about managing is controlling right it's it's not right like and if you look at it from that angle then you are probably going to micromanage and that's going to backfire right so if people are approaching management from the angle of controlling then they are setting up for failure in my opinion at least so that could be another reason why people find it hard and uh third is well uh sorry the last part is also in terms of communication from the from the upper management right it's not always clear or if it is not clear of what is expected from you then you can't blame the manager if they are unable to kind of decide like am I supposed to do this or am I supposed to do that like it's just based on their own intuition like sometimes it may work but sometimes it may not so that could be another reason why they find it hard because even the communication from upwards is is not super clear right and when we talk about feedback like uh how frequent should it be like is it something which you do quarterly half early or early feedbacks essentially or is it something like if it is done quite frequently does it does it create any pressure on the employee or the team member which is there yeah I don't think there is any hard and fast rule as such well yearly you have to do based on your uh whatever or style or or this like processes about year and evaluation and whatnot but feedback in my opinion should be continuous but there is still a a balance because every single day if you're giving feedback that sounds like too much right but if you're waiting for a quarter you might miss out on some important things that happened earlier in the quarter or even a month before that in my opinion whatever that is worth calling out needs to be called out at that time meaning that anything if somebody went out of the way and handled a bug even though it was not their responsibility you need to tell that person that right away right like there was a great job you showed great ownership uh it was really important what was the impact of that if they don't already know uh Etc that is that is a feedback that's that helps them kind of feel valued right I think it's very important to make your team feel valued based on what they produce but that doesn't mean that if they complete a task in a day you congratulate them right like that's that becomes too much so that that's where you have to find the right balance and then the same is true on the other side right of constructive feedback like you have to give timely feedback to give that person a chance or opportunity to improve right if you wait for a quarter to tell them this month you did not do this well like you're GNA say why didn't you tell me at that time right like why you telling me now because they may have uh repeated the same mistake or they they might even not know that they are actually making that mistake right so even that thing should be done frequently but similar example as before like if they write this code l in a weird way doesn't mean you immediately have to call out that hey this is wrong you need to do something differently that will let that like you don't have to control everything like let that surface in in code reviews and you don't have to kind of pinpoint at every single thing that they could do differently but anything that is of significance that will help either grow or avoid any like failures for from the company perspective you have to do that very frequently and And Timely right right and like you mentioned about uh about things can be handled in code reviews as well so essentially I also wanted to touch upon like when you become a manager there there's a shift from you actually coding things and you are again learning about a lot of technical stuff so how does that Focus change how do you keep up with these with these things in terms of Technology because essentially technology is something which changes very fast it is hard man it it is very hard uh that's also something that I I struggle with on on on some of the angles right so I think being technical is is critical for engineering managers right for for two reasons one is uh to gain Trust of your team right if your team feels that this person doesn't understand anything it doesn't he doesn't know what complexity time complexity is it doesn't know why this particular architecture what like or what kind of trade-offs we need to make right like you're not going to gain Trust of your team and you need to have trust of your team so that is one reason why it is uh important uh second is as I said before like sometimes you as a manager need to set the technical direction for the team like that doesn't mean you need to code every single day but you need to understand the design of your system you need to understand what are the bottlenecks you need to understand the the limitations uh the scaling abilities or or what what you need to do Etc right to incorporate them in the road map because then that goes back to the realistic aspect like can you actually build this stuff if your current technology is not handling that so from that perspective like if you don't know like technology good enough you're not you won't be able to provide any useful guidance on either to your team members or to the upper management or what needs to change right so being technical is really important but then going back to the other the coding part right like people need to clarify where some companies require managers to code some companies don't so you need to make sure that what is expected from you but even if let's say it's not expected from you to go day today uh having a decent understanding of what's going on so doing code reviews in a way that maybe you somebody's not blocked on your your feedback but even kind of trying to see like how certain people are coding how the senior people from the team are responding to the code are they actually pointing out the right things or not right so just to get idea about you don't need to introduce yourself in the code of every single time but to just assess the the health of the system and doing it also in a way that that is not the only thing you're doing right so that is one technical aspect second thing is you can participate in design reviews to again understand whether people are building in the right direction are there any everybody has blind spots right like even the senior engineer so you can your input if you are technical enough can make a difference to see if people are actually having those blind spot and are they not considering or not thinking about something right so in that case uh providing your put and making sure that things are built in in the right direction is is really important uh third ask questions right it's you as a manager actually that that's another thing going back to the previous you ask like what people struggle with right like this reminds me of that like a lot of people think that manager needs to be like a know all person right like and I don't think that is true like you don't need to be the smartest individual in the team you need to surround yourself with smart people right so that is something that people struggle with and that is tying back to this question right use your team right like Leverage your team to like if you don't know a particular technology or tool or even a methodology right like you can leverage your team to understand why this and why not you can use your experience to assess what they're saying makes sense or not but you could gain a lot of knowledge just by talking to your team participating in design degrees Etc and then if you are onboarding a completely different language or tools and Etc sometimes it may help if you are also taking some classes on the side uh again depending on the expectation your expectation from yourself and your man management expectation from you right how much information you need to have uh but it is easier said than done especially the last part right because you are if let's say if your team is full stack right like you can't be an expert in front end and backend and like databases and everything like maybe some people are like I'm certainly not so in that case like balancing like okay how much in depth you need to know where do you need to focus what all things are okay to kind of not know the details off like that's that's a tricky balance that one need to have all right and I'll take one question from the comments as well like wherein they're asking um a lot of organizations are now focusing on Dei and as a manager how is it how much important it is to be you know compassionate towards a diverse Workforce how especially you want to create an environment which is inclusive so what are the things that you do in this case it's a very sensitive and and touchy topic my my personal opinion on di is the concept is sound in that the diversity helps but not at the expense of compromising on quality right like one should not say that oh I need diverse candidate means that I'm going to lower my bar that is not going to work out but I'm also not a believer that there is no talent in the diverse pool of candidates right so I think the effort needs to be on how do you identify the the talent which are from the diverse backgrounds without compromising on quality right that that is the ideal view in my opinion do everybody does every company follow that I don't know it it it should right but I I'm personally a believer of otherwise we could be an echo chamber right like if everybody is exactly like if things in the exact same way like we might be missing something and having these different people have different strengths from different backgrounds so uh that and what do I do for that so when I when I hire right now like interestingly since literally since last three years I haven't I don't have any opening on my team so I haven't hi but when I was in Amazon when I was working with recruiters uh we would try to basically find like such things like if there are any particular groups which are historically considered as underprivileged or are from diverse background and like if there are any coding workshops that we can spot the talent and not compromise on the interview bar right like that did lead into some findings which were which were very good so you can do you can have some influence on the hiring process again depending on what what process your company follows and what not but I I do believe that compromising on quality is is just to kind of it it shouldn't be a check box okay I check this box I hired somebody to kind of just make make make it look good right that's that's my view on that yeah even if you're hiring from a specific talent pool you are also hiring the the best out of that pool right essentially that's that's the kind of bar that needs to be Crossing from the team's perspective as well both things best from that pool and whatever bar your company has set right because it is in theory it is possible that the best out of that is still not meeting your bar right in that case also I would not say that just because that is the best candidate hire them don't compromise on your company's hiring criteria but then try to Source the candidates from these different backgrounds or or whatever diversity criteria that that you're using uh because I do believe that like there are smart people in in every kind of group and environment right so with the right effort I think it should be should be possible yeah even I feel that hiring a diverse set of talent is also useful in terms of building a better product so I'll give you personally from the example of geek week when we were actually working on building the system and creating a user profile that I personally worked on so I got scolded from a Greger actually so he was trying to enter his details and in the user profile and because I thought like graduation could be just beyond the 1980s and he said hey I had to cut down my educational background just because I could not enter these details in the profile so I got to know a lot more about you know why having someone who was this senior could have been useful because that would have been not going into the life environment so this really helps building a better product as well because you have the kind of you know talent pool which goes through a system and you know probably your users the product is also available for everyone to use right so that is a use case that you have if you have that in the dev team or any team that is working on the product they are able to pinpoint these things which may in the future in product when it covering the aspect is also making the product useful for the people that's why a lot of companies are looking to in terms of a diverse background and people who are really talented and just under represented um coming to about the shift from from the developer or an individual contributor Point manager yeah am I sorry you you were cutting off I I didn't get the question can you please repeat yeah yeah I I'll go ahead and repeat the question so what what are the skills that you actually had to relearn or probably something which you never knew as a developer what are the skills that you worked on to become a better manager or so yeah it's probably going to sound similar to what I what I said earlier specifically around people management uh how do you empathize with people right empathy is very different from sympathy right so understanding people's perspective why a particular thing whatever they're saying why they're saying that what is is their point of view you don't necessarily need to agree with that right but even understanding that like that people have different perspectives and you need to get to the bottom of that right that leads to the the the second part of the active listening right a lot of time when we are we are talking we already have something some process going on in a to kind of say okay this is how I'm going to reply right so you're not even listening to what that person is saying so how do you attentively listen to the others point of view and also understand that sometimes like yeah people may have actually better point of views than than yours and kind of incorporate that understanding the motivation part right like what motivates like different people are basically motivated by different things so how do you kind of align the work with their motivation as far as or as long as possible uh how do you kind of do that right like basically because you have it's not just that oh I need to get this person promoted then that's why I need to give this work to this person it needs to align with the goals right which is very it's and I don't think anybody can teach that right like just with the experience you kind of know that okay these are the higher level priorities that we need to do how do you kind of distribute the work in a way that you are being fair to everybody and not not kind of promote favoritism uh conflicts right like conflict resolution like there could be conflict within the team there could be conflicts outside the team like some people on your team may not get along with either people on the same team or all other teams like how do you kind of navigate uh that uh Performance Management never gets easier right it's it's always uh I mean in in some cases if if the person is clearly not doing what they're supposed to do that is fine but otherwise there are sometimes bound to align cases where it it those conversion gets very very challenging prioritization right like just because a PM is saying that hey this I really want this uh does this mean that you have to do that like how do you assess what needs to be prioritized you have you'll always have more work than people right so how do you kind of effectively handle that effectively talk to the or convince the either your team that why we need to do this or the product manager or why we need should not do this or why we should do something that the product manager is not thinking of but your team wants to do right so challeng these kind of conversations are uh basically I don't think that you do as as a developer like so we need to learn that and it's not it's not at least it wasn't super easy for me also managing when you're a developer you are just you have to probably manage expectations with your manager right but as a manager you have to manage expectations from below from up from and sideways right so how do you kind of do that effectively so you also have to learn that as you as you progress in your career we lost Shar again thing I want to know is regarding hello I'm audible you are now but if you if you said anything like for last 15 seconds I didn't catch that just listening to you on how different this is and touching on this topic itself like how do you define success as a manager like because these are two different ways of working on how things you do in the company so how do you define success and how is it different from a manager's perspective to a developers perspective like how do you find success or what do you call a successful manager yeah so sometimes companies have this defined for you like what is expected from the manager so as long as you are meeting that like you can you can call your or exceeding that you can call it successful but to give some idea about my interpretation or what I feel that what would you consider a successful manager is going back to those my three pillars like people project processes so in the people Department like how is your team growing growing means not just in terms of like number of peoples on your team but are the individuals growing how is the team morale like uh is the team motivated to actually work on the projects like are there any conflicts if if yes how have you handled those conflicts like are is the team actually now functioning as a team uh then from the project perspective like did you prioritize the right projects that had like high impact on the or goals uh how did your team deliver like did they have a lot of friction with the other teams or product the stakeholders like product managers ux designers or was it like kind of smooth what was the quality and timeliness of work like did you while delivering you had lot of bugs or even after delivering you have you still have lot of bugs or are your projects always late or are they always on time or ahead of schedule ahead yeah expected time frame uh what kind of processes have you instituted that helped in addressing these things right like Tech debt how have you addressed Tech debt like did you nobody is going to completely get rid of tech debt unless they are Charing from slack right but then is there have you seen an improvement like are there are the you the team members kind of complaining about that or is your is your Tech stack now more like lean or with with less Tech debt that it can be more flexible to incorporate different changes how do you handle like do you have processes to handle bugs or are people whenever they submit any request are they waiting for like months and months right so all all these things like I think contribute to success as as a manager and then from the strategy one aspect like what is the long-term vision of your team like do you understand where you are right now where is the or trying to go and how do you kind of brid that Gap right and how do you then collaborate with others including your team members and potentially other teams to kind of bridge that Gap and get to that level of whatever Readiness that you that you want to be in that process if you don't have appropriate team like how do you kind of make the case for Staffing the team and do you grow the team now in terms of like numbers if needed right just to expand your Empire is not really something that people should do but uh all these things I think in my opinion kind of contribute to like success as a manager all right and you talked about uh earlier about how you need to have that kind of skills or mindset to have that kind of so what are generally the things that you can to build that trust uh sorry you are breaking again like are you saying what do you do to build trust with your team yourself like how they can connect with you and how they can really talk to you about it your team right or stakeholders I I missed the earlier part team team team yeah I think uh communication plays a big big role right I think in general communication plays a big role in my opinion in any kind of work environment but as a manager it is it is even more important so uh having regular one-on ones like you start with that and don't limmit the one-on ones or the discussions in one-on-one just for project updates like which happens most of the time understandably like I'm not saying don't discuss projects at all but that should not be the sole discussion in the one-on-one you could have your retrospectives or daily standups or other meetings to discuss that you can get into more details in in the one-on once but also ask them about any challenges they are facing right or about their career aspiration or explain how you are thinking about their career growth right and and not everybody wants to grow but people who are who in that mindset who want to grow like having those conversation kind of builds that t a little bit uh going back to the active listening part that I said like if they feel that you are at least listening to them like when having a one-on-one you're not s on the side chatting with with with somebody right like that that that creates that barrier but if they if they feel that yes you're listening to them you may not agree with everything that they're saying but at least like you are being heard that that goes a long way right in the one-on ones also you can be like probing on a particular challenge that you have observed like if you see that your the teammate is going too much time like back and forth with with some other uh team member and they're having some uh some problem some some challenge like just showing your support like making sure they're they're doing okay are they overwhelmed is there anything we could do to kind of lessen the burden on them like so showing support is also a really good thing of course not compromising on the the main things but being mindful of what could be done not not everything needs to be delivered exactly on same time or or ahead of time depending on certain circumstances right so assess what is important or what should be given more importance uh then going back to the career growth aspect like creating opportunities right like and then showing them that how how you plan to give what kind of project to them that aligns with their career aspiration or or promotion Etc everything like not everybody can do that all the time because again there are certain projects that just need to be done like it it doesn't they don't directly contribute to their career goal but as long as you showing that you're doing some effort and there are some other projects that you are thinking about that align that are aligned with their with their goals people understand right and then they are more uh like kind of okay with kind of working on things that don't directly contribute to their promotions uh favoritism I think already kind of mentioned that like making sure that you actively give everybody equal attention or at least like Equitable attention if not equal uh and you're not playing favorites in that team if you promise your team something then delivering on that if you said that yes I will do this and if you never followed upon that then they're not you're not going to gain lot of trust right uh being transparent uh up to the level that you can right as a manager you have information about something that you should not tell others but at least be transparent about that right like I can't tell you this because of these things but here is what I can tell you and here is why we we should do this like so explaining the why behind the certain reasons up to whatever thing that that you can like you don't have to kind of Trade Secrets company secrets with them but at least being trans as much transparent as as you can I think you in the earlier discussion you mentioned expectation right so setting clear expectation tell them exactly what you expect from them so that then you can give the feedback that whether they met the expectations if not why not what was the Gap what do they need to do differently if you just say oh yeah everything is good that doesn't tell me anything right or if you if you just say that hey you need to improve your performance like that doesn't tell me anything like what do you mean by that like is my coding bad is my speed not enough am I not participating enough disc design discussions what exactly am I not doing right right so not just the timely feedback but also clear and detailed feedback about what needs to change right and also from the positive side right like even just a plain sincere thank you goes a long way right if that people feel heard and you don't need to say thank you for every single thing otherwise that devalues you thank you but if you feel something then calling that out and being sincere about your uh your intentions I think that's important oh another important thing is advocating for your team upward right like if if the management is asking something highlighting the contributions of your team or even individual members how they did create uh that also helps the team with saying that okay the manager is looking out for us like they is actually advocating for not just for me but also for my team that helps build trust and uh uh what else lastly the feedback goes both ways right like you need to give feedback to the people but you should also be open to feedback if you're doing something that the team is not expecting you to do again within limits uh you can kind of correct that right but unless you seek feedback you won't know that like what whether you are doing something that the team does not want or or the or or the other way around so and then tying back to that if you if you just seeking feedback but not doing anything on that is is also not useful right so if you agree to that okay this needs to change then do that and then show them that yes I actually worked on the feedback so that also kind of helps with the trust because then the team feels that my things is is actually valued right they are doing something with it not just that uh coming from this year and going from that year so it's it's uh these are the some of the things that I try to do again like things look very good on paper like I'm not the master of all of these things but at least I tried to be mindful of doing most of these things to to best off my abilities true trust is always like a two-way street you can't really expect uh one way communication over there so true true yeah and when you talk about I mean building Trust of course how is it that you manage the other aspect of it where your company expects some things from you and how do you build trust with these upper management and how you make sure that the communication is cool and comfortable there as well yeah that's uh that's a ever challenging situation right but I think communication helps there also uh maybe not exactly what I described with the team but but similar patterns right like having clear and timely communication meaning that giving your boss regular updates but not every single day what you did otherwise it's they're not going to listen to that or they're going to read all of that right so finding that balance on uh the details of what details you need to surface providing as much data as possible so if you measure velocity of your certain task then showing the Improvement in that or showing what all things you have already done explaining certain things like again showing that you're not always going to the team for every single decision or clarification but managing your expectations your superiors expectation in terms of what is possible what is not possible why is it not possible what we need to do to make it possible all these things help kind of then gain their trust if they feel that okay you are you understand what you're saying you have already delivered this thing and then because of these circumstances that are kind of be on your control it's not possible to do that then they trust you more and I think nothing beats delivery right like if you have delivered on whatever that is expected from you most of the time then that that helps automatically gain trust that okay like this person knows what they're talking about they have a good track record so even though it does not feel natural like maybe I should trust their judgment at this time and then closing the loop like following upon that and whether that was the right decision or not possibly most of the time Based on data right like as much you can as much data you can use to back up your decisions uh why you are taking the decision and then how it turned out I think that that helps tremendously but uh again like frequent communication like running with bad news not being over optimistic about things that oh no yeah nothing is done but yes we still get it done in in in a month right like that that if you do that then you're you're going to lose trust on both sides right so running with bad news uh but not with just the bad news like you need to have a plan to address the bad news right if you go to the boss and say say hey we're not going to deliver this like what do you mean like what are you going to do about that right so not focusing just on problems but also on solution like what is your plan for that like whether it works out or not something different right but at least you you need to show that you're thinking from that angle and perspective and you have some plan to address that situation so these are some things that I feel help kind of build trust with the upper management as well all right and one question I'll pick up from the chat itself so people want to know like how do you make sure that people in the team are technically trained and skilled and they're improving upon those things well first of all well it it depends on again the company needs and the processes like a lot of time people hire people with at like the interview process makes sure of at least some part of that right like are you proficient on that language or not but interviews could only do certain things and many times companies say okay we don't care about language we know that you will pick up but then that's the part that we know that you will pick up that you need to show that you're picking it up uh but that doesn't mean that everything they need to do on their own uh depending on the size of your company and your budget and whatnot you can have you can either give them money to take courses or you can have inhouse courses or find some way to make sure that they are well equipped because and that's that's an important point right if your expectation is them doing well but you know that okay they lack this skill and you still expect them to still do well that is not fair right so you need to have a plan to kind of bridge that Gap or at least if you don't want to do it you need to be super clear that I we don't have resources to upskill you on this you need to figure out how and but then be realistic about time frame right you can't expect them to be super productive next week so uh but that goes back to the the one-on the questions in or sorry the the topics in the one-on ones right like you need to understand the challenges and if they are facing some of the the skill issues if you need team to up level or that it could be not just a person but the whole team right if your company is changing direction now let's say we are all Native right now and now we need to shift to cloud and nobody in the team is now familiar with any of the cloud Technologies right so in that case the strategy should be different like in that case you need to Advocate that to the management why we need to have this how this is going to align with the your goals and either get budget for that or find ways to to train your team for that but uh that is a part of Team development so it is it is and I think thanks for calling it out I did not mention that specifically in like ging the trust with the team or just handling how do you handle team but I think training and making sure that your team has the skills and the resources required to do the job effectively is is super important great and one last question I'll try to cover this up here is what is it that one advice that you'd want to give uh a developer who's looking to shift to a managerial position anyone who's an individual contributor right now working in the team how can they really put themselves up to be a manager of yeah the first thing is you need to be clear on why you want to be a manager right like lot of time like including me like that was my only way for promotion in in Bloomberg like they didn't have different levels like you join as a junior developer and then automatically if you're still around after three years to become senior developer beyond that there is nothing so this was one way of validating growth for myself right but this is not the only or should not be the the only and the right motivation like it's it's okay to have that but you need to also so understand it is a completely different responsibilities and it's a completely different mind mindset right and expectations Etc so you need to know your why and then you need to understand what is expected from the job and and not set yourself up for failure because again everybody just the way everybody's motivations are different everybody's strengths are different right like some people prefer and are better at working by themselves as an indiv contributor so just because oh this feels like a shiny position I need to pursue that is not the right way to go you need to clarify your why and don't look at it just as a promotion because lot of time it is not even a promotion like the same level of IC and manager like sometimes make same money so it depends on what org you are in so it's not necessarily you don't have to look at it from from that angle and uh other thing is like again lot of these things are not taught in colleges right so seek mentorship seek external resources or internal resources to kind of understand what skills are needed for the management position before you jump into that uh and then see whether that is the right thing you still want to pursue that right and uh of course stay technically relevant like you don't manage at least in on the on the tech side like management is just not just about managing people like for the reasons I descri earlier like you need still need to be technical so make sure that you're not kind of completely Rusty on that part and don't underestimate trust right like lot of times people feel that like I just need to have and then get things done and I'll be promoted yes it works out many in many cases but I personally don't think it is sustainable so get getting Trust of your team and also your your superiors is I think very important and then people is the is the most important part of people management right so make sure that you focus on people and not just on uh delivering projects by hooker cook right I guess being a leader or the leadership skills that you talked about is also something which is very relevant when you're looking to transition from a individual contributor to a manager because your team's performance also depends on how you convey and how you manage the team essentially yep definitely thank you thank you for this session I would say that we have a lot of things to cover and we covered most of those things and if you talked about how you can go through different resources and external and internal resources where people can learn through this so I as someone who's also been following you on Twitter and LinkedIn as well so I'll suggest V is one of the people who can actually be someone who's very Mindful and you know very good in terms of following and that's how you can also learn about management from him as well so he's quite active I follow him I reached out to him as well so that's how we team connected with him and found that okay this is how we are going to arrange our session on and thank you B for joining for this session uh people who have joined in and who are looking probably at the recording we'll cover the core skill that we really discussed touched upon on this in this session and we'll cover the things that are really important in terms of skills to be a better manager what is it that you need to work on what is it that how are the different challenges coming up so do join in tomorrow as well it will be around 6:30 to 7:30 at the Indian Standard time I'll have to check uh the other time I believe it's 8 a half an hourly yeah yeah half an hour earlier than today and and today I will be I will connect 10 minutes earlier like again sorry for being late I'll try to fix my internet yeah great thank you thank you yeah thanks thanks again for the opportunity and wish everybody all the best byebye thanks bye