Good morning.
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(Picture: stephan mintert ,
Stefan Mintert works with his clients to improve corporate culture in software development. He currently sees the greatest potential in leadership; Regardless of hierarchy level. He set himself the task of taking advantage of this ability with some career changes. Originally coming from a computer science background with many years of consulting experience, he initially founded his own software development company. He found that leadership has to be learned and good role models are rare. It became clear that their customers’ greatest need for support in software development was not in producing code, but in leadership. So it was clear to him where his company Kutura was going: Improve leadership so that the people developing products can grow and develop themselves. Stefan has been writing for Heise as a longtime freelancer for iX since 1994.
There are countless examples of nonverbal communication in sports. Body language plays an important role, for example during weigh-ins and face-offs before a boxing match. or mythological New Zealand All Blacks HakaTo scare the opponent. we know it in football Goalkeeper dance during penaltyEven football psychologists deal with this.
Sam Walker considers such physical communication as one of the leadership qualities of a team leader and writes captain class About this. Sure, you can say, because ultimately it’s always about winning against an opponent. But in software development? Nonverbal cues don’t play a role, do they?
I think they play a role and we should use this type of communication consciously. Here are some examples from our own experience:
A software team is sitting in a meeting room and listening to the boss’s comments, without ado, as he explains in detail why once again the missed deadline is a problem. When he does this, he moves freely around the room. Everyone else is sitting. Because of his position he talks to the (sitting) team members from top to bottom (standing). Because of his movement, he always finds himself behind some people, as if he is “breathing on their neck.” Does anyone really believe that this choreography has no effect? The individual developers who object to his presentation speak from a bottom-up, weak position – and it shows. When the boss has finished his contributions, he sits down and looks at the team seriously. The exercise did not fail to have an effect.
Unless one of the developers speaks up. But he doesn’t just speak. No, he gets up and walks around the room too. In his speech he refuted some of the boss’s criticisms. Whenever he needs help with this, he stands behind a team member who can better assess the issue in question and asks him to take a stand. He literally supports the other person. The meeting turns from blaming and finger-pointing conversations to factual exchanges about the causes of the problem. A key point is that the missed appointments were determined by the boss alone and were never confirmed by the team. I think the meeting went the way it did because of the team member’s body language. Without this physical communication it would have remained just an accusation.
Another example: When teams’ work becomes dependent on each other and the dependencies threaten to block their own team, I sometimes ask team members to go to the other team individually. . It doesn’t matter whether I send an email or a chat message, make a phone call or be at the door in person. This is not a threatening gesture to me in any way. On the contrary. The expression “to accommodate someone” sums it up. Accommodation indicates a willingness to engage in negotiation and compromise if necessary.
So if you and your team are in conflict, everything seems stuck and no one wants to move forward, make the first move!
body thing, like it Peter Modeler in one of his books It is an important means of communication.
By the way, our language is full of expressions that refer to physical signs and have acquired a figurative meaning. In this post alone I have used the following formulation:
To breathe down someone’s neck. To support someone. To accommodate someone. Everything is stuck. Nobody moves. Take the first step.
Just pay attention to your words. Maybe they will tell you what to do. For this it is not necessary to have a haka with your team.
read first, then listen
on podcast Escape the Feature Factory I take selected topics from the blog and discuss them with the guest. Through exchange I discover another perspective. If you’re also interested, you can find the podcast here spotify, Deezer, amazon music, apple podcasts and up kutura.digitalThere you will find, among other things, workshopsWhich address the topics of the blog.
(rme)
