Treating your tech team right will boost your business

Here is a mistake that a lot of companies make. They fail to understand how to treat their tech team right and it causes churn, low quality code and constant firefighting. And that can kill a business.

Wouldn’t it be nice to have a team of programmers who are motivated, proactive and you can trust to have your back?

The failure usually comes from misunderstanding of basic needs. Programmers are not some mythical beasts that you need to feed a high sugar diet, unlimited amounts of free soda and provide with plenty of entertainment in exchange for the magic source code that they write late at night.

What you actually need to do is provide them with purpose, trust and autonomy.

But how does that work?

First, transparency goes a long way. If they understand the objective of the company and they identify with the mission, they will be more likely to pull the cart in the same direction.

Have regular briefings to let them know what the priorities are and why they are like that.

Then you want to build a culture of autonomy. If your tech team know what the objective is, instead of giving them granular tasks, give them autonomy to address the issue in the best way they can come up with.

To do that you need trust going both ways. You need to trust that the tech team will deliver on your objective and they need to trust you that you know what you are doing with the business.

And that trust is built a bit at a time.

So should you go and throw your existing processes out the window?

No.

I’m saying to ask your tech team how well they understand the direction of the company and the mission. Make it specific. Focus on the next quarter.

If you get any uncertainty, sit down and explain. Even if they say they understand. You need to make their eyes glow, that’s the key.

And next, besides the regularly scheduled time, give them some time to come up with their own solutions.

Let me know how it went. What kind of improvement did you see by implementing this in your company?

Yours,

Taj

Crafted in Berlin with <3