ISSUE #10 - OCTOBER 4, 2022
Keeping your product team engaged and motivated
People argue that when you try to push a development team or keep them accountable, they are going to just start looking for their next employer. I disagree. People are leaving when they lose their engagement and motivation. Here's how you will avoid that as a product leader.
When I started this newsletter, I created a form where people (anonymously) recommended what they wanted me to write about. One of the suggestions was "how to lead a development team effectively." The respondent claimed that one of the hardest things is to motivate a product team as a servant leader. Furthermore, they expressed concern that keeping the team accountable is hard without pressuring them too much. Finally, that would lead people to look for another job because the demand (especially for developers) is soaring.
I have encountered the above argument in many discussions with fellow product leaders. In principle, I disagree. People are not leaving jobs only because of pressure, let alone accountability. Yes, software engineers have options, but they choose to join your company for a reason. So, once people lose their motivation and decide to leave for another company, this happens because of other causes.
In the next part of this post, I am sharing things that, in my experience, will help you keep your team motivated, engaged, and ultimately with your company.
Give them a clear vision.
While working in a product team, believing in a vision expressing the broader change you want to bring is vital. What is the problem you are solving, who are you solving it for, and why is it essential to solving it now? When asking someone to work hard, under pressure, or even do the "ugly" work, doing that for a vision they believe in makes a huge difference.
Moreover, it is not only necessary to have such a vision. You must also ensure that every team member is aware of that. We often take it for granted, but not all people are aware of that vision or believe in it. Therefore, it is our job as product leaders to constantly advocate this vision.
Share as much information as possible.
Don't treat your team simply as executioners. Your relationship with them should not end with the presentation of a roadmap or the delivery of some requirements. Instead, your team needs clarity on why they are working on specific items and how this aligns with the broader company goals. This could also be commonly expressed with the question, "why work on this and not on that?"
In this case, we need to understand that, most probably, not all team members have access to the same information as you. Explaining the reasoning behind certain decisions will help them buy into those decisions.
Give them the space to chip in.
Talking about information sharing, this is a two-way street. You must give space to your team to contribute. It is arrogant of us to believe that only our ideas are the best. Or even more, we have every piece of the necessary information to make the right decisions.
Allowing the rest of the team to speak their minds, give you recommendations or even challenge you in a meaningful way is one more step toward keeping them motivated and engaged.
Show trust - in practice.
Many people think that just telling people they trust them is enough. Then, we forget to show it in practice. The true sign of trust is giving people the freedom to do what they think they do by themselves. That means just providing them with an objective, a timeline, and the space to work.
The mistake many people make is, on the one hand, telling people they trust them and then start micromanaging everything. It is hard to let go of control, but you must realize that you can't do everything. People will not stay with you if you constantly tell them what to do every single step of the way. Let alone feel that they have your trust.
Be truthful.
This might sound a bit weird, but I have sometimes come across it. People often try to sweeten bad situations. I cannot understand why, but your team is there every day. They know things are good or bad, so you must call everything as you see them. Presenting them with a skewed picture of reality will make them think that you are lying or that you don't have a good perception of the circumstances.
Furthermore, I have seen that happening in the opposite direction. Underselling a good situation under the fear that the team will get complacent or that doing that will make people work harder. But, once again, this is not helping anybody. If things are good, share it with the team, reward them and celebrate it. If you don't want them to get complacent, as mentioned in this post's previous points, explain why it is crucial to keep pushing.
Embrace accountability.
Provided that you are fair as a leader, it is also vital that you embrace accountability within your team. This can be expressed in two ways. The first is that you hold your team accountable. For instance, if you have missed a goal or a deadline over something agreed upon, bring it up. Make clear that you failed as a team on that item, try to avoid any easy excuses, and understand what went wrong so that you can fix it.
However, accountability is a two-way street. In the same way, you hold the team accountable; you must let the team keep you honest. And while they keep you honest, you should listen to your team's feedback with an open mind. Suppose your team believes you are fair and everybody plays by the same rules. Why should they then feel pressured that you hold them accountable to their word?
Avoid creating a sense of false urgency.
This is something that can really kill the motivation of a team. Obviously, everything that your team is working on is important. It probably wouldn't make it to your roadmap if it wasn't. However, this doesn't mean that everything is urgent. Furthermore, pushing your team to work harder by claiming that everything has the same degree of urgency will not help you achieve your goal. On the contrary, it will let people believe that you don't have a clear understanding of what's urgent and will ultimately discredit you.
But say you manage to sell that to the team, and they work harder or longer. So again, you can't have a team that will be performing at 110% constantly. After a short time, people will simply be overworked and drained. And then, they will probably start looking for a new employer or thinking about taking a break. So, in this case, you need to pick your battles. Indeed, sometimes the team will need to step up and work at 110%. To do that, you need to be reasonable when working at this level is unnecessary.
Concluding.
Keeping a team motivated and engaged is not a simple task. It requires constant effort from you as a leader, and you will not be successful with everyone. However, people are not leaving companies because of pressure, accountability, or simply because they have options. People abandon environments that do not inspire them enough, don't make them feel trusted or treated fairly, or create unjustified pressure.
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The Product Notebook by Manos Kyr.
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