Thanks for sharing your perspective. I remember you describing your experience in a little more depth some time ago and it makes me doubt my experience. Perhaps I’ve been in less healthy orgs. But more likely there are knobs/patterns I can’t see, so org change work like this feels out of reach for me. I’ve got some thinking to do.
It’s definitely the case that I’ve gotten lucky with the orgs I’ve worked in, because I’ve found the levers for change more often than I’ve missed them (well, more often than I’ve found none; I still miss a lot). You may have gotten unlucky and the levers just don’t exist for you. But also, it matters a LOT what changes you’re looking to make. It’s hard-mode to start with performance reviews or other non-technical topics; only look at those after you’ve had some success in other areas and built up a lot of credibility. Be willing to try different domains where you can improve things AND exercise the influence muscles.
Look for things like code-review practices or deployment/change management behaviors where you can add or improve structure that makes both employee and customer lives a bit better. These topics are both easier to convince people, AND usually easier for you to know what is important about the changes, and what’s OK to bend on as you discuss and convince people.
Thanks for sharing your perspective. I remember you describing your experience in a little more depth some time ago and it makes me doubt my experience. Perhaps I’ve been in less healthy orgs. But more likely there are knobs/patterns I can’t see, so org change work like this feels out of reach for me. I’ve got some thinking to do.
It’s definitely the case that I’ve gotten lucky with the orgs I’ve worked in, because I’ve found the levers for change more often than I’ve missed them (well, more often than I’ve found none; I still miss a lot). You may have gotten unlucky and the levers just don’t exist for you. But also, it matters a LOT what changes you’re looking to make. It’s hard-mode to start with performance reviews or other non-technical topics; only look at those after you’ve had some success in other areas and built up a lot of credibility. Be willing to try different domains where you can improve things AND exercise the influence muscles.
Look for things like code-review practices or deployment/change management behaviors where you can add or improve structure that makes both employee and customer lives a bit better. These topics are both easier to convince people, AND usually easier for you to know what is important about the changes, and what’s OK to bend on as you discuss and convince people.