Basically, I can sum up what I want to talk about in a few words: How do you deal with the asshole?
You know the one ... who really has no respect for you or what you do and treats you like crap as a result. Who never gives you the opportunity to say, much less prove, your value or the value of what you are doing. He tells you that testing should never take 1/2 the time that development took and anyone who says it should is full of shit (it should take less, says this guy). He tells you that Agile doesn't work, because in his command-and-control experience, he can scare the crap out of his employees to get them to constantly pull long hours and "get stuff done". he makes snarky, underhanded comments to anyone who will listen.
This guy really doesn't care about continuously improving or about improving at all. He cares about "getting stuff done", just shoving items through the meat processor so it looks like his team is doing stuff. Who cares how much time is spent when the customer comes back and says it's wrong? It got done on time ...
I've seen *several* instances of this guy in my career, and they tend to be fairly high up, at least in smaller organizations — Manager, VP, Director, etc. This guy doesn't listen to what anyone says, even if his whole team *wants* to do things different, or better, or right. So, I'd love to talk about ways to deal with that person ... ways to either help them see that things can be better, or allow the team to begin to steer how they do things.
For me, I tend to just piss these guys off, and then after a huge thunderstorm of conflict, either I leave or they do. I'd like to change this pattern, but need help with some of the "soft skills". I believe that coaching basics may help me, but will count on more experienced coaches to help me.
You know the one ... who really has no respect for you or what you do and treats you like crap as a result. Who never gives you the opportunity to say, much less prove, your value or the value of what you are doing. He tells you that testing should never take 1/2 the time that development took and anyone who says it should is full of shit (it should take less, says this guy). He tells you that Agile doesn't work, because in his command-and-control experience, he can scare the crap out of his employees to get them to constantly pull long hours and "get stuff done". he makes snarky, underhanded comments to anyone who will listen.
This guy really doesn't care about continuously improving or about improving at all. He cares about "getting stuff done", just shoving items through the meat processor so it looks like his team is doing stuff. Who cares how much time is spent when the customer comes back and says it's wrong? It got done on time ...
I've seen *several* instances of this guy in my career, and they tend to be fairly high up, at least in smaller organizations — Manager, VP, Director, etc. This guy doesn't listen to what anyone says, even if his whole team *wants* to do things different, or better, or right. So, I'd love to talk about ways to deal with that person ... ways to either help them see that things can be better, or allow the team to begin to steer how they do things.
For me, I tend to just piss these guys off, and then after a huge thunderstorm of conflict, either I leave or they do. I'd like to change this pattern, but need help with some of the "soft skills". I believe that coaching basics may help me, but will count on more experienced coaches to help me.