Coaching for Leaders - Talent Management | Leaders
Getting Better at Accountability, with Patrick Peralta
[MUSIC] Hi, Dave Stahoviak here, host of Coaching for Leaders. Accountability, it's one of those words. We all recognize this so important in leadership, but it's never fun to hold people accountable for things. And again and again, what I hear from leaders is that accountability becomes so much harder when expectations aren't clear. That's why I'm bringing you a conversation today with Patrick Peralta. Before Patrick attended the academy, he concluded that he needed to get better at accountability. Here's my chat with him on what he did. I'm talking today with Patrick Peralta. He is one of our graduates of the Coaching for Leaders Academy and also a member of our community, Patrick, so good to see you. >> Hey, Dave, thank you so much for inviting me. This is great. >> I am so looking forward to this conversation and talking a bit about your experience. Maybe to start, would you share just a bit about your work and what keeps you busy professionally? >> Absolutely, yeah. So I'm a software engineering manager. I work at a large technology company. And the software that my team works on is for managing large IT infrastructure. So we have a variety of different developers, some back end developers, some front end developers. And we have a whole range of different things that we work on. Creating the code, helping customers when they encounter problems. And just planning future versions and just that kind of thing. >> Yeah, you are in the middle of technology and also the people side of it every single day, aren't you? >> Absolutely, definitely. The technology side is an important piece and the people piece for me is just as important, if not more so. >> Yeah, well, and at some point you came across the podcast. Do you recall how you came across the podcast? >> Yeah, I came across the podcast many years ago. I think I started listening in 2018. >> Wow, that's right. >> Or 2019, possibly, definitely 2019. Because I was looking back at some of my old notes from many years ago. And there's a reference to coaching for leaders in a journal entry that I made in 2019. So definitely it's been a while. And this was at a time when I was interested in pursuing management. I had different opportunities in the past for leadership roles within software engineering teams. Usually they call that a tech lead or a team lead, where it's somebody who is an individual contributor, but they're taking more of a leadership role. And you're still contributing your own work, but you're also spending time helping your team, helping to review their code, helping with best practices and planning and so on. So I discovered the podcast. I don't remember how I found it exactly since it was such a long time ago. But yeah, it's been a while. >> You moved into a management role and decided to apply to the academy. What did you hope to get from the academy? >> Yeah, so when I applied to the academy, I was new at the role. And as I said, I've been listening to the podcast for many years. I had read multiple books on management. Some of the authors have been on the podcast. Russ Laraway comes to mind, I think, as well as excellent. The reason that I applied is that I knew enough that it was going to be a different type of job than what I had ever done before. And I just wanted to really prepare myself the best way that I could. It's kind of my view on things is when I take up something new, I really, really study it and really try to prepare for it. And I thought the academy would be a great opportunity if I got accepted. Because one of the preconceptions that I had about the academy was, I had assumed that it would only be applicable to people with years, if not decades of management experience. I had imagined that it would be maybe at the director level or above that would qualify for it. I remember you and I had this conversation. And you were very encouraging and definitely made it clear that it's for leadership of all levels from beginners such as myself to all the way up to the CEO role. In fact, I remember one of our cohort members actually made it to the CEO level during our cohort, which is really, really cool to witness. Yeah, it's so interesting to hear you say that because I've had other folks who have said the exact opposite to me, like, oh, I thought I was too experienced to be able to do this. And I've always been really intentional about bringing people together into a cohort that are at all different levels because we don't do a lot of that. A lot of us in our careers, not only if we look sort of horizontally across different industries, but also vertically of like thinking at different levels. And there's so much we can learn from each other. And as you said, preparation is a big key for you when going into something new. And as you know, so much of when we start in the academy is about preparing and we spend a bunch of time writing out and clarifying what's a vision for the future look like, and we try to surface it down to two or three key focus areas. What did you decide to focus on on one of those focus areas, Patrick, that you thought would be helpful during that season? The first focus area that I chose was clarity as in being very clear in my communication and talking about my expectations. Believe it or not, that was in part due to fear. I'll explain. So the reason is that one of the uncomfortable parts of management and leadership generally for me is holding people accountable. And if you go through the different podcast episodes of coaching for leaders, like there's plenty of or plenty of episodes that talk about holding people accountable. And what would make it more comfortable for me to be able to hold people accountable is if I can tell them in the first place, this is what I'm expecting. And if the expectations are vague or not clear, then for me, it becomes a much harder conversation because I've been on the other side of that where if I didn't meet an expectation that I didn't know was there, then that can be very hard. So creating clarity was my very first goal. And that was what I worked through to start with. And as we establish a commitment in the academy, we usually set aside 60 days and say, all right, 60 days, we're going to work on this. In your case, clarity, right, taking that on as an identity. Where did you decide to start? I mean, we get down to taking some daily actions, just five minutes, keeping it really simple. What did you decide to do? Yeah, for the clarity, I would, I would take five minutes just to write something down for myself of like, what is my intention for today? What is it that I'm really trying to do? And just really, I've always had the habit of writing. And this was really just really, really committing to that. As I write, then that causes me to do more thinking. And it sort of turns into a cycle where as you start writing, then you start coming up with more questions and then you start thinking about that. So that was one piece of it. Another piece of it was thinking about three different aspects of if I, if I give an instruction to somebody, then it would be who is doing it? What are they doing and by when? So kind of combining those three different things or something that I really wanted to incorporate into the habit. And how cool that you utilized writing, like something you already have a natural skill for and enjoy to do and to pair that with this new commitment. And I think you probably remember this happening, Patrick, like during our cohort that I'd often be trying to get people to like make it easier on themselves and find joy in the new things we're trying to do. Like sometimes we think we have to do something entirely different. And I find that for most things, if we kind of tap into our existing strengths and pair it with something we're already good at doing and just add it, we're adding on something. A lot of times it's much more successful and you did that so well. Absolutely. Yeah. And that was something that I really appreciated about how you set up the academy and how you set up these commitments, because you made it really clear that this was supposed to be a very small action. I think the maximum limit was five minutes on taking the action every day. So it wasn't going to be a large thing and there was supposed to be a hook. There was supposed to be something that either you're already doing or as you say, something that you're already good at, something that you already enjoy and just kind of tacking it on. And that was a concept that I had not seen prior to the academy. And I think that's one of the things that really helped to make it stick. You started working on that daily commitment, five minutes a day, being clear in your communications, the who, the what, right? As you did that, what happened? Yeah. So I can think of one specific story of something that happened. So I had an employee who wasn't quite doing the work the way that I was hoping, the way that I was expecting. So prior to talking to my direct report, I sat down and did some writing. I wrote, I think it was about a page and a half or so of my expectations for the role or at least the part of the job that she was doing. So when I wrote this up, that's when I set up the meeting with her. And naturally, I was feeling nervous because it's always kind of a difficult conversation when you talk to somebody and they're not doing exactly what you had hoped that they would. So when I had this meeting, the meeting with this person, I shared my screen. Well, I sent the link to the document. I shared my screen and walked through the different pieces. And what I saw on that person's face was a sense of relief. And after we were done with the conversation, she said, thank you. This is clear. And when I heard those words, that's when I knew that the five minutes a day in the techniques that we were using in the Academy to create new habits was definitely working. When the person uses the same vocabulary that you were already using for your commitment, I think that's great. And one of the things we watch for, and I remember you and we planned out the commitment writing down, what am I likely to see as I actually start doing this? And that was one of the things you had determined like, hey, when I hear people using that language coming back to me with clarity, then I know that I've made a real shift in that way and in a positive direction. Cool? Yes. And I think that this is very common that expectations so often are not spoken or written. And people really appreciate when you're able to spell it out in very clear language to them. So that document actually became the seed of a much larger document that I ended up writing over the next few months that the title of it was Engineering Expectations. And it went through pretty much the entirety of the job, just painting the big picture of what are we doing, why are we doing it, all the different pieces that fit together, the technologies that we expect you to know, the work process to work flow, how your code should be formatted, how the code should be structured, and even a section on what to do when you get stuck. Because that is something that is a very common thing, I think for any knowledge worker, but especially for software engineers, it's very easy to get into a situation where you think you're almost done with something and you go on for days and days and days and you think you're almost there, but you're not quite there. So that one page, one and a half page document that I wrote just ended up creating something much bigger and more sustainable for the team and understanding what we expect. Years ago, I had James Clear on the podcast talking about his book, Atomic Habits, and one of the distinctions he makes in his research is rather than thinking about a new habit as just a goal, or just a task is thinking about it as an identity. And it's one of the things we talk about in the academy of not just taking on clarity, for example, as a goal, but actually taking on his identity so that when we embrace it, we're able to shift that way. We actually keep doing it. And I think what you just said is a great example of that. You had this great outcome with one individual and then because you were thinking about clarity and you changed your mindset on it, now you do it as a practice. And so many of your conversations and setting expectations that sets the stage for it doesn't eliminate conflict, of course, but boy, it makes things so much easier. It really does. And when it's something that's ingrained because of practicing the habit over and over again, then yeah, absolutely, it becomes part of your identity and part of your brand. You know, I ask people all the time what they've changed their minds on on the podcast of going through the academy. What did you change your mind on during the academy? So even longer ago, I read the first edition of David Allen's book, Getting Things Done. This would have been in the mid 2000s or late 2000s or so. And I remember trying to adapt the system that he had in place and feeling like a failure because I couldn't do it, because there are a lot of moving pieces to it. So I tried to adopt small pieces of it, but I really thought that I needed to do the whole thing in order to really succeed. And what we know now and the academy has really enforced this, the atomic habits book that you point out, has reinforced this, that it's just small changes. That's really the key, small, sustainable changes. And I'm able to apply this for everything. You know, there are some days that you just don't really have time to work out or to do various things. It's like, I can just go for a walk. I can go for a 10 minute run. Even if it's something small, just maintaining the habit and maintaining the identity and the huge difference that just practicing for a few minutes a day really makes. And that was a big shift for me. Again, like, I kind of knew about it intellectually, but going through the academy and actually living it and actually going through it made a big difference. Patrick, thank you so much for your time and sharing your story with us. I so appreciate it. Absolutely, Dave. Thank you so much for having me. You heard Patrick and I talk about identity and mindset in this conversation. It's one thing to set a goal to be more clear. It's entirely a different thing to say. I am a leader who creates clarity. It starts changing how you think. And as you heard Patrick say, when done consistently, others notice it and even start repeating back that identity. And once you take on an identity, you can do a lot more. Maybe like him, you're seeing the need to get better at accountability. Perhaps it's being more clear or coming back with feedback sooner. We're doing more check-ins. That's why the identities we take on during the academy always come back to a daily action five minutes or less that will help us get better consistently. If that kind of structure might be helpful to you right now, I hope you'll consider applying to the Coaching for Leaders Academy. You can find details at coachingforleaders.com/academy and applications are open now until Friday, September 13th. Lots more on that page and a reminder that we've updated a few qualifications in the recent past. So if you checked out the Academy a while ago and it didn't seem like it fit for you at the time, you might want to take a new look. Grateful to support you. Have a great rest of the day. And thanks for listening in with us. [BLANK_AUDIO]