Coping or Thriving

I’m not the first (and won’t be the last) to draw parallels between parenting and managing people in the workforce. Many parents do survive the years of raising children; many engineering VP’s do guide their team to success. However, all phases of parenting or managing a team are not created equal and individual parents/VP’s are better suited to certain portions of the overall experience.

Some adults are more comfortable (or better suited) to dealing with infants vs gradeschoolers vs teenagers. Likewise, a specific VP will have the skill-set and personality which is optimal for some but not all situations faced by the engineering team. I am not saying that the same person will not cope sufficiently during these times just that more effort is required.

In a family it’s generally not an option to change parents just because the children’s ages advance. It also doesn’t make sense to arbitrarily replace the person wearing the VP hat as long as reasonable success is being achieved. At times when it is necessary to hire a VP it’s best to bring in someone who will thrive and not just cope with the current engineering challenges.

The charter of a newly hired VP varies widely. A VP may face any of the following:

- Build a team from scratch (it’s hard, it’s fun!)
- Keep a team motivated and together during hard times (layoffs and/or no new development work)
- Keep a team motivated and together during so-so times (no layoffs but no new projects)
- Grow an existing team (AKA keep the team motivated and together during the good times… if times are good and money is flowing then usually the team is growing, which in itself is invigorating)
- Turnaround a troubled team (sometimes it’s hard to determine the root cause of the lack of productivity; it can be more complicated than layoffs or lack of new projects)

Most competent engineering VP’s will adequately cope with the challenges related to each of these situations. Recruitment of a VP will ideally factor in which of the above scenarios most closely describes the current group and charter. A successful recruiting process will bring on-board as VP an engineering leader well-suited for the current challenges. From the get-go both the VP and the organization not only cope but thrive. After that “success breeds success.”