Different folks, different strokes
Summary
When leading a diverse team, you can’t manage everyone the same way. Depending on their skills, experience and work styles, some people may need more managerial care for them to thrive at their jobs.
Photography is a seductive craft. If you use or own professional gear, such as a long telephoto lens and a mirrorless camera, you often get results that impress your friends. Don’t be surprised if one of these friends buys or rents professional gear after seeing the possibilities of such equipment. Oh, and if they don’t know what they’re signing up for, don’t let that surprise you either!
One of my friends owns the best smartphone cameras from the Apple and Android universes. There’s an elegant convenience to smartphone cameras. Indeed, the most incredible convenience is that the best camera is the one you have with you. A smartphone camera is almost always with you. It asks little of you. You can shoot, edit, and share everything from one screen. Indeed, that’s what I did when I was recently in Lisbon. Such cameras need little investment on your part. They’re low maintenance and do a decent enough job for most people, at most times.
I used my smartphone to photograph what I could, of Lisbon
Professional gear is a different kettle of fish, though, as my friend discovered when he rented a big lens and a mirrorless camera for his maiden African safari. You see, professional gear expects as much from you as it gives back. First, you must understand what all the buttons and dials on your camera and lens do. That’s a lot of homework before you take it into the field because you don’t want to fumble with controls while a cheetah is running at full tilt in front of you. The average smartphone user leaves many decisions to the phone. The average professional camera user balances focussing, technique, aperture, shutter speed, ISO and many other technicalities when making their images. And that’s not all. Well, after you’ve done the hard yards in the field, you must transfer your huge files to a computer and process them in specialised software before you can share them with your friends. When you do all of this well, you get results you can’t get using the ultra-portable smartphone, but I think you get the point that a professional camera needs significant personal investment from the user.
If you know how to use them, professional cameras outshine smartphones in certain conditions
My friend hadn’t bargained for this level of investment when he booked his rental. Almost a year has passed since he experienced the African sun and savannah, but his photos have yet to see the light of day.
The metaphor of cameras applies well to people. Some people are like trusty smartphones. They are low maintenance, always available, and they give you predictably decent results. However, like smartphones, these individuals have their limitations. At the other end of the spectrum, you have people who can give you phenomenal results, but much like it is with a professional camera, you won’t get those results if you don’t spend enough time figuring out the best way to work with them. These snowflakes have their limitations, too. Just as you won’t pull out a telephoto lens and a mirrorless camera, each time you need a quick run-and-gun shot, you probably need to figure out the right places to engage these individuals with unique skills.
Between the smartphone-like workhorses and the professional camera-like specialists, teams include all kinds of people. Indeed, people managers who know the best ways to engage each team member’s strengths while maintaining a sense of cohesion in the group drive the best results for their employers.
I’ve never worked in a diversity and inclusion role in my career, but it’s a topic that’s occupied the front and centre of my mind. It’s a shame that the D&I voices have almost gone silent in the tech industry, but I suspect they haven’t died out. Whenever D&I becomes fashionable again, I hope we can have a deeper conversation about the I over the D. It’s pointless building a diverse organisation and, by association, teams full of different people if we don’t individualise how we manage people.
Conformity pressure is the fastest way to kill diverse perspectives in teams. No one likes to stick out like a sore thumb. Only when leaders and managers understand that inclusion nurtures diversity will they appreciate how much effort it takes to include different people. So, if you’re a manager, look around at the people on your team. Can you manage them all the same way? How can you tailor your management style and your work style to nurture certain people differently? Should you shape up unique challenges for different individuals? When does consistency help, and when does it help to be different? These are among many important questions to ponder if you care about building high-performing, inclusive teams.