Dear managers, your people need power

I’m writing this a few days after giving a talk at JSNation about the struggles of maintaining code. A lot of people approached me after the talk to discuss resilience and technical debt. I talked with a variety of people: employees and contractors, people in product and service companies, big and small teams.

One recurring theme came up. While we’re all on the same page when it comes to how things should be done, not everyone has the power to make changes.

A lot of people were saying something in the lines of: “I agree with you on practice X or Y, but someone else decided we follow this instead. I see it is not ideal, but I have no power to change that”.

Not only is this blocking good ideas from surfacing, but it also demotivates people, creating a culture of complacency.

Power is either held formally (by managers) or informally (by established or loud employees). So the problem appears when instead of empowering others, these people will hold on to that power.

But here’s the thing: good ideas are everywhere, not just with people with 10+ years of experience. Good ideas can come from juniors, from people without a CS background, and from newcomers in the organization.

In the past 6 years I had the privilege to work in organizations where my ideas were sought out, appreciated and implemented. I was never the most experienced person in the room, nor the loudest. And I held no formal role that gave me a stronger voice.

What I personally found useful is to run a track in parallel to all product work. With a certain cadence, the engineering team meets to discuss engineering practices. They tackle anything but the roadmap, tasks and milestones. The more people contribute in these meetings, the better the sense of ownership and empowerment the team has.

Building a culture around empowerment requires effort, it doesn’t happen naturally. It’s just not how are brains are wired. It’s very easy to mixup authority with responsibility.

Here is where managers can step in. A good manager will understand team dynamics and make sure everyone’s voice is heard. In the absence of a formal manager role, experienced team members can fill it up.

Whoever does this ends up being the person distributing power inside the team. They can encourage open discussions around practices and they can involve everyone in decision making. From there on it’s a team effort of building trust and making collective decisions.

Unlocking this enables teams to progress faster. It builds a stronger engineering foundation and ensures everyone is empowered to contribute.