How I Build Strong AWS Teams
Posted by Chris McKinnel - 3 March 20226 minute read
Nothing in this post is going to be revolutionary, but I’m going to outline some of the things I do and look for when building teams, because apparently, I’ve managed to build a few good teams over the years. I’ve never really thought about how I do it, it just sort of happens.
So, here we go…
I’m told that high performing teams are built primarily on trust.
I’ve heard this from a few places, and surprisingly (to me) the first time I heard it, or maybe the first time I listened to it, was a couple of years back when Richard Dryden ran a leadership day for us at Leaven.
The idea has been bouncing around my head ever since and it came up again when I recently read Simon Sinek’s book The Infinite Game.
I think I agree with it fundamentally, but that’s kind of answering the question without showing your working (which I got in trouble for at school).
So, I wrote this list of things that I do, or try to do, and I’ll see if they stack up to the “high performing teams are based on trust” idea.
Hiring
Hire people that are much better than you at things
I’ve always done this, probably because I’m an imposter and most people are better than me at things... but also because I want to be able to rely on my team to deliver without me.
Do I feel threatened that my team can run rings around me and might be going for my job? A little bit, but not enough to really worry about it. If anything, I feel comfortable taking holidays and handing responsibilities over.
I think you get some good benefits:
- Your team teaches you things all the time
- Your team members feel like they’re contributing because they’re the SME, and you’re constantly asking for their help
- If you decide to leave, you’ve got people that can easily slot into your role
Trust rating: true. I trust them to be the experts, they trust me to let them be the experts.
Ask the market what it thinks about your job ads
It’s tough to find good people at the best of times, but it’s even tougher when they read your job ad and mentally chuck it in the bin because it doesn’t speak to them.
If you write job ads that are word-soup and cast the requirements net so wide that only CV-driven-development candidates tick all the boxes, you’re not going to get good applicants.
I asked the market (via a few Slack channels I frequent) what they thought of the job ads we were putting up and got some feedback that was both gold and quite savage.
Get people that truly understand the job you’re hiring for to draft the job ad. Don’t let HR word-soup it and turn it into “Junior Engineer wanted, must have 10+ years’ management experience”.
Trust rating: true. Bullshit job ads are like building a relationship on a lie.
Be harsh in the interview process
This is a hard one to adhere to in 2022 because our labour market is so tight. It’s tempting to just find someone that has the right words on their CV and throw money at them.
However, in my experience, if you hire someone that you had labelled as 50:50 during the interview process, they won’t work out more than 50% of the time. I got 51% in my maths class at university, so I’m no expert, but I’m pretty sure more than 50% is better than less than 50%.
If you’re not sure this person would be a great fit, or would be great at the job, take a pass and wish them luck on their job search – there will be somewhere else out there that is a better fit for them.
Trust rating: sort of, but it’s a bit of a stretch.
Doing the job
Make sure people understand that you want them to grow and be successful
There’s a good chance the person that you hired doesn’t want to be doing that job forever, and they’ve got aspirations and goals they’d like to work towards in the coming years.
Take the time to figure out what these are for each of your people and help them work towards it. It might be via training, online courses or work experience (everyone loves a good baptism by fire) - every little bit helps.
It’s also worth noting that you’ll have people that are totally happy to continue what they’re doing for the foreseeable future, too. Feed and water them to make sure they’re happy in their work, and double check they’re not appearing happy in their current role because the opportunity to expand never came along in the past.
Trust rating: true. Getting to know your people builds trust.
Talk about money
I try to make sure my teams are getting paid both what they’re worth and what they think they’re worth (and yes, these are sometimes different).
Explain to them what a reasonable annual salary raise is, how salary banding works, how role changes can impact salary, how to write business justification for salary increases, etc.
If you’re a team leader and you don’t know what your people are earning, find out today. If it’s a low number, go to battle to make it a better number.
Trust rating: true. If you got me a pay rise, I’d trust you.
Don’t just talk about work
You’re dealing with other humans who have a litany of their own problems, and they’re just trying to get by.
Take the time to get to know your people a little better – take them out for a coffee or beer and chew the fat. People have a lot to say if you’re willing to listen.
Trust rating: true. Getting to know your people builds trust.
Let people know you’ve got their back
When the chips are down your team needs to know you won’t chuck them under the bus, as tempting as it might be.
Sure, you can tell them you won’t chuck them under the bus but it’s more effective to show them you won’t. When things go wrong, and they will, you should look to take the heat.
Once things calm down, have a retro and figure out how you can avoid the same situation again. That might involve a few wrist slaps, but this should be in private.
Trust rating: true. Actions speak louder than words.
Figure out what people are good at, and what they want to do
I go old-school and write out a massive list of skills that might be useful for the team, then I ask each team member to rate themselves based on actual production experience (not on how good they think they are), and how interested they are in each thing.
I also get them to contribute to the list if there’s stuff not on there that’s relevant that they’re either experienced or interested in.
Trust rating: sort of. Kind of related to getting to know your people.
Get a critical mass of good people
OK, this one is hard. It takes ages unless you’ve got a massive war chest of money.
But the more top-shelf people you hire, the more people will want to work on your team, and the easier it’ll be to keep people. And then you get a nice positive feedback loop.
Trust rating: not applicable, but still important.
Try and keep people challenged
Challenged in a good way, that is. You want them to be walking the line between stuff they know and stuff they don’t know, so they’re constantly learning new things and not feeling totally lost and in over their heads.
Sometimes this isn’t easy in professional services because some work is just boring, so you’ve got to make sure you spread the boring work out – or at least try and give it to people that don’t find it boring (maybe they haven’t done it before).
Trust rating: not applicable, but still important.
Keeping humans
I’m not sure how I feel about writing this stuff out because it’s turning into do as I say, not as I do. I try to do this stuff but am likely failing miserably in some areas.
If you’re currently working with me and I’m not doing this stuff... yeah, my bad – you should remind me to do it, so you don’t quit!
Make sure people are doing what they enjoy doing
This one seems obvious. If your team is doing work they don’t enjoy, there’s a good chance they’ll be looking around the market for stuff they will enjoy doing.
Pro tip: You can figure out if they’re enjoying what they’re currently doing by asking them!
Trust rating: probably true. Caring about people builds trust.
Try and talk with everyone on your team regularly
Easier said than done as your team grows, but even a 5- or 10-minute check-in can be valuable to your team. Plus, you might just learn something from them in that time.
If you can’t talk with everyone, you should have others do it for you. I recently elevated a few of the team into team lead positions because I ended up a professional 1:1 meeting attendee.
Trust rating: true. It’s much easier to build trust with a human than just a name and email address.
Push people to achieve more
Pushing your people to achieve more makes them more attractive to competitors and recruiters, but this is a good thing. You want the industry to be looking at your team wondering what they can do to replicate your successes.
Shout your teams’ successes from the rooftops – get their names known in the industry.
It also shows your team that you’re not afraid of them shining brightly. Explain that their success is your success.
Trust rating: true. I like people that push me to achieve.
Be honest with the feedback you give your team
This can be a difficult conversation, but honest and direct feedback on where your team can improve will help them more than it will hurt them.
As an example, I had a situation with a person that had senior in their job title a while back – they were being led by a customer (usually a good thing if you’re customer focused, but not this time) down the garden path of not implementing best practices to save time and money.
It turns out cutting corners doesn’t save time and money. I’ve learned this lesson about 29374293874294 times in my career – I’m a very slow learner, but I think I’ve finally learned.
I told him as a senior person it was his DUTY to stand up for best practices and to go to battle to have them adopted – that’s why we charge so much coin for his opinion.
As a result, I saw a huge improvement in his attitude, assertiveness, and quality of work (then he quit, but that wasn’t my fault!).
Trust rating: hopefully true. Done right, this can help build trust that you’re being honest and direct for your team members benefit, not for your own.
When people eventually leave
Don’t be an egg about it – people are going to leave; it’s their life and they’re doing what’s best for them. If anything, it’s an opportunity – you’ve now got a larger pool of people you can poach from in your next job, or in 12 months’ time when they realise they’ve made a huge mistake leaving such an awesome team.
Keep in touch with your previous team members – NZ is a small place, and you never know what might happen down the track.
Summary
OK, I think I’ve shown my working – and it’s good to see that a decent amount of the stuff I’m doing, or trying to do, helps to build trust in my teams.
It looks like the “high performing teams are based on trust” idea checks out.