Saturday 7 September 2013

On Being Replaceable, Role Traps and Adding Value

I said to one of my managers several years ago that one my main goals towards the team and organisation was to make myself replaceable.

He nearly fell off his chair....

As I was a leader within the organisation - if I become replaceable what does it mean for the position I have or the value of the work I'm doing? Oh, I say this to most managers (partly as a test :) )

It is important to distinguish how people are viewed within teams, projects and organisations. In this context there are two main views:
  1. What they bring in terms of personal skill, knowledge and capability.
  2. What they bring in terms of operational responsibility or ability.
Traps
Where teams and organisations have roles or specialized people (e.g. testers) then there is a risk of attaching someone's behaviour to that of the role.
Or the other way around, 
The skill of a role is often thought of in terms of a person/s that perform it.
(or have performed it). 
Or:
Experience is implicitly labelled as an exemplar. 
Example
In the past I have sat in a coordination meeting with a team and asked an incisive question such as, "Customer X have feature Y adapted/changed in their network and so your development of feature Z should also look into interactions between features Y & Z". This means that a potential risk is reduced - or at least some investigation is started to reduce a potential risk.

Now, if I miss a similar meeting with another team, there might be such a question not asked that might mean such a risk is not caught or it is thought about later, meaning some additional work. (Note: These coordination meetings might be some form of reference/project or expert aid to the teams.)
Question: Who was the target audience for my question? 
Many people would think it was the team doing development of feature Z. My target audience is everyone though - it's not just about the question, it's also why it is asked (some might call that the context) - in this case to help all realize something they hadn't seen beforehand.

I don't ever see myself as the person who asks questions others don't - but more as someone who might help others ask better/different questions next time. If I haven't passed on some of that capability then I've failed.

Adding Value
There are two main ways I add to the team, project or organisation.

  • I point out the differences between what I am bringing as me, and what I am bringing as "performing role X". They might overlap at times, and not at others - and it's important to help others with that difference.
  • I ask "why?" a lot. Not to be a pain (even if that's how it might sometimes be seen), but to help understanding.
But, how is this "adding value"? It's highlighting behaviours that others can adopt that are not "owned" by a role.


The "Why?" Question
One of the most common questions I ask is "why?". It's a sign of wanting to learn what someone else is thinking. It's a sign of wanting to flush out, and clarify, assumptions. The "why" question is one of the cogs of dialogue and understanding.

So, if I am the only one who is looking out for dialogue and understanding then there might be a problem in the organisation. However, in my experience, someone has attached the "why" question or "the types of question that I ask" to the role I had - so it becomes "role ABC asks those type of questions".

That's where I need to remind people around me that these are not my questions, I don't get territorial about such questions, and that if I'm not around and the question pops into your head, go ahead and ask it.

Learning Organisations
Organisations, teams or projects that want to grow and learn must be very careful about roles -> sure, if someone is the designated decision maker let them make it. Until that point, there's usually plenty that can be done without the decision-maker - including asking questions.

Sometimes people (teams) need to be given permission to think for themselves - strange as that may sound.

Lessons
  • It's not what skills you bring to the table, it's what you leave behind for others after you've gone.
  • It's not what attitude you bring to the party, it's the positive change in attitude you leave behind that's important. (Sometimes, that means more people are prepared to ask, "why?") 
Doubt
A typical question I get about achieving replaceability is: don't you do yourself out of a job, or no one needs you after you've improved others?

In a team, or organisation, that has a constant ambition of improvement that is never a problem - there is always a new problem to work on. As Weinberg said (I think), when the most important problem gets solved, problem #2 gets a promotion. Sure, it's a different problem and may take you out of your comfort zone, but ultimately, that's how you improve.

Some people treat knowledge as power and hold onto it. Unfortunately, those are the folks that can become one-trick ponies or get bypassed by progress...

And finally...
So, to me, being replaceable is positive - it means I've added value - it means I've given others a tool for thinking more clearly - it means I can carry on improving, learning and adding value.


Are you adding value? 
Are you leaving something on the table for others when you move on?

8 comments:

  1. "I said to one of my managers several years ago that one my main goals towards the team and organisation was to make myself replaceable."

    I don't think that is a goal. I think you might want to achieve it over a bunch of goals, but I would not say it's your goal. Obviously, you are free to choose your goals and you can define them as you please. If I would use anything similar as a goal, I would say I don't *want* to be irreplaceable.

    "Abstractation levels are difficult and I want to say "my goal is to be a human", but I know there is something there I am not understanding well. I mean (heuristic, when a sentence begins like that, write the previous again) I am quite confident I am understanding something wrong here; I just can't figure it out at this time!"


    It is important to distinguish how people are viewed within teams, projects and organisations. In this context there are two main views:
    What they bring in terms of personal skill, knowledge and capability.
    What they bring in terms of operational responsibility or ability.


    I think you are forgetting the people who might sponsor the project or for example control the strategy of it. I know you said "teams", but in my point of view, teams include all stakeholders of the project. This is one of the places where I think we make a differentation on words rather than substance.

    "There are two main ways I add to the team, project or organisation.

    I point out the differences between what I am bringing as me, and what I am bringing as "performing role X". They might overlap at times, and not at others - and it's important to help others with that difference.
    I ask "why?" a lot. Not to be a pain (even if that's how it might sometimes be seen), but to help understanding."

    I think you meant three instead of two, you just didn't mention you talk a lot with people and learn from their ideas. It's not directly a way how you add to a team, but I think this would have been a place where to note it. As a side note, I can say it's not three, it's more, like 20 or 30 or a lot more. Let me list a few: talk with people, understand what is expected, work efficiently, teach, learn, coatch... My point is that you are doing much more than "the two main ways".

    "So, to me, being replaceable is positive - it means I've added value - it means I've given others a tool for thinking more clearly - it means I can carry on improving, learning and adding value."

    It's not positive, it's reality; and it doesn't mean you added value or the other stuff. It's great what you do, keep doing it! Just don't confuse it with replacements.

    Thanks for a great amount of thoughts - that are still coming in!

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    Replies
    1. Jari, Thanks for these comments!

      On the first point - goals - I disagree - in the context of this post it is a valid goal. It's not a goal of my work, but how I want to be able to relate to the team (or organization) - that I have improved / added something to them. So, what I meant by goal within this context was a little different to how you interpreted it.

      Yes, if you take this completely literally it can be difficult to interpret. The achievement I am looking for is that it's not specific "Simon-skills" that hold the team together - because those parts are definitely harder to replace.

      This post is about distinguishing "Simon-specific" skills from a "role that I might perform" skills, and for me to be replaceable -> so the team doesn't depend on me in that role. It doesn't mean I'm replaceable in the organization, but in the role. This gets mixed up, and when people can't distinguish between "skills of a specific person" and "skills within a specific role", then it's likely they can't identify systems of people and roles (systems thinking) or might have trouble distinguishing symptoms from root causes (framing issues).

      On your second comment - the project sponsor - the context of my statement is in relation to looking at "people-specific skills" and "role-specific skills" - again with the aim of analyzing how these can get confused. So, it's not really about taking (or ignoring) the stakeholder view, because it's not "generally" about being replaceable - it's about being replaceable "within a role", but not necessarily with a team, project or organization.

      On your third point: "There are two main ways I add…" - I think I listed 2 items. Yes, this list could be extended but the point was not for it to be exhaustive - the first bullet is a container for me highlighting ways I am different (but the details of those ways was not the point for this post), and the second bullet was an intro into ways I change the approach of others.

      On your last point - if I say it like this: Being replaceable within a specific role is a good goal - for that implies you have outgrown that role AND made it accessible for others (i.e. given something back for others to be able to do) - this allows you to progress to more difficult problems within the team, project or organization. Note, this doesn't necessarily mean you become replaceable within the team or organisation.

      I hope the thoughts still come, and if there are more I'd like to hear them.

      Thanks!

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    2. Thanks a lot for the reply!

      Since I know you are a clever guy, I was thinking I am reading the post somehow wrong. Your comments explain it well.

      Now I'm thinking how close this is to what I keep telling to my team. I tell them it's important to avoid becoming irreplaceable because once that happens, they become a risk to the company and the team(s) they work with.


      Best regards,
      Jari

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    3. Jari,

      There is also another side to this - that I didn't really want to go into in the post (to not confuse my point :) ) - but you touch on it here. Making yourself irreplaceable /may/ lead to other problems:

      1. A team/organization relies on /you/ and so sees. So, if you end up doing the work of 1 1/2 - 2 people, certain organizations might not /see/ that because you're so valuable. That means you don't get the support / help you might need unless you actively call for it - and you might not realize this until it is too late (or you're very stressed).

      1b. Of course, the other side of this is that a good team/organization should help you not get into that position - but people who say that usually say it after they've seen it happen - and, depending on the circumstances, your irreplaceability may mean that the team listens to you too much - and so lets you get overloaded (although not maliciously).

      2. There is a risk that you do not have (or lose) some breathing space to be able to think ahead or take a step back and analyze how you want things to work.

      Tom DeMarco wrote about some of these problems in "Slack".

      3. You start to believe that you are irreplaceable - or that becomes a goal - and this /may/ lead to you wanting to protect that position - adopting the knowledge is power principle and making sure that you don't pass on more information than is necessary.

      4. If you end up in the vicious circle of #3 then it's harder to learn new ideas (IMO) - as you're not, by nature/habit, sharing or risking information so much. Those types of people are not innovators or entrepreneurs or leaders or people who experiment and learn…

      All of these are potentially unhealthy.

      So, thanks for the comment - you allowed me to give another side of the problem.

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  2. This is so congruent with my own experience, but I've never succeeded at putting it into words this well!

    On my current team, we are three testers with a bunch of devs (16 or 18?), a couple designers, and it's a distributed team just to make it more interesting. Our company culture is focused on quality and testing, but still, I think the devs have a tendency to rely on us. They recently got a bit nervous when they realized all three testers were going to a 2 day conference together.

    But we make sure to collaborate with everyone else on the team constantly. Unfortunately we have lots of manual regression to do each release (in spite of many automated regression suites), and the devs always pitch in with that. We testers also do customer support, and the devs pitch in with that daily as well. I think we are not only trying to be replaceable as testers, but reminding the team that they could survive without us if they needed to, because they can do much of what we do if they have to.

    That said, we've shown how we contribute value enough that the team knows it wants testers on board. But while each of us testers focuses in different areas (this is a busy, multi-track team), also each one of us can step in and do what the others normally do.

    See, I'm rambling, you did such a concise job of explaining this! Thanks!

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  3. Great post.

    As a test manager, I get nervous about people-silos of information and skills and I look to deliberately generate replaceability (or perhaps redundancy) across the team by e.g. documentation (of process, checklists etc), automation (to encode the knowledge another way), pairing, rotation of responsibilities, presentations (to share information) etc etc.

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  4. Great read Simon, I have always done what you say but never really formalized into a concept. I really like your second lesson learned:

    "It's not what attitude you bring to the party, it's the positive change in attitude you leave behind that's important"

    Inspiring

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  5. What Lisa said! Very well articulated.

    If I may twist it - I'm always prepared for eg. review meetings. I might not have read the decimal details, but I can still contribute asking questions.

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