Out Into the World

At work I've worn a bunch of different hats. Besides the jester's cap, which I can't seem to shed, I am often wearing the "team leader" hat a lot. This generally means that I train and lead other people to do what I do, but better.

So far all of the people I have trained or led have since left either our team or the company. They're continuing to develop and I do get to talk to them regularly. Really I couldn't be happier for them.

I started wondering what it was that these people keep moving away. I'm starting to think there's something about me that makes that happen. In most cases it boils down to a lack of opportunities to grow on our team.

Some people train to keep the individuals within the team. We train with the idea that this person will eventually replace me. I'm beginning to realize that I may actually take a different approach. I care more about helping the individual grow as their own individual than I do about keeping that person within the team.

This means I'll have to train a whole lot more people at the same time. If I want to keep a successful team going then I need to be continually brining up new people to fill spots that keep opening up as we send people out into the world.

Right now I'm thinking that successful teams may actually e those which are constantly in flux. People are constantly growing and changing so the team needs to set them free or change accordingly.

The more I think about this the more problems I can see from this idea:

• Keeping institutional knowledge is difficult
• Getting a cohesive group of people that trust each-other is hard when the people keep changing
• The amount of energy needed to get new people up to speed is difficult since we do it for so many people
• Keeping the group focused on one goal instead of the goal of whoever the "new blood" is
• I guess I'm going to just have to keep growing and learning myself.

Maybe I'll find people who don't like to keep trying new things, and then I'll just plug them in and be done with it. Knowing me it probably means I won't get along so well with them.

Can you tell that I'm a fan of change?

Peace,
+Tom/Bob

posted by Tom at 3:18 PM