Aspiration, explained
Does the teammate keep their needs on your radar over time until they are given what they needed or told that you cannot meet their request? Until a request is given a yes or no, great teammates own their requests instead of offloading them to their managers. They ask weekly for what they need, taking pains to clearly explain why they need it and being thoughtful about the other things that might be on your plate. Thoughtful means they don‘t forget that you are one person working to serve more than just them—meaning sometimes things take more time than they might like, but they understand this and, instead of complaining about it, ask you how they can help you complete something they may want done.
Examples / Observations
Observation created over 5 years agoFeaturing:Tom C.We put learners firstWe have difficult conversationsWe share before we're readyWe ask clarifying questionsWe own our requestsWe are truthfulWe are coachableWe inspire others to do better workWe don't wait to be told what to do, we take initiativeWe put the team before ourselvesWe challenge ourselvesWe critique, we don't complainRubyCommunityInitiativeMentorshipDesign CollaborationBack-end engineerIn last week's Learn Squad weekly huddle, the topic of a bug (dubbed "a hole in the spacetime continuum") came up. This bug came to life as a result of a story I had recently done in the Accessibility epic, but Tom had taken the initiative to fix it shortly after it was noted as an issue in Slack. I greatly appreciated him taking this on, but found myself feeling even more appreciative in Monday's meeting during the conversation around what happened/why the bug occurred. He explained that he guided me down the wrong path when I consulted him on some Ruby syntax while working on the ticket, and explained the fix. Prior to this, I had never seen someone take so much ownership over an issue that occurred from assisting another engineer. In my past work, the responsibility would've fallen all on me, so this experience left me in awe. I am very thankful to work alongside someone like Tom, who a) understands we're all human, and b) takes ownership of his work (whether that's in the codebase, or offering help to others)!
Observation created over 5 years agoFeaturing:Conlin D.We put learners firstWe share before we're readyWe ask clarifying questionsWe highlight what's workingWe own our requestsWe recognize the opportunity in challengesWe inspire others to do better workWe don't wait to be told what to do, we take initiativeWe put the team before ourselvesWe challenge ourselvesWe critique, we don't complainCommunityInitiativeMentorshipProduct DiscoveryDiscovery engineerFront-end architectFront-end engineerLast week, I did a code review for Conlin. In the PR description, he did a phenomenal job at leaving detailed testing steps and notes around why the story was necessary. Beyond that, however, he also went out of his way to thoroughly talk through the issue on a deeper level. He explained the research he did on the problem, potential solutions (and why they wouldn't work), his decided solution (and why it does work), as well as the history and potential future of the problem. As both a reviewer and fellow engineer, I was really impressed by how much thought and effort went into this.
While I already find myself aiming to be as clear and informative as possible in my PR descriptions, seeing this inspired me to raise my standard going forward, and left me feeling grateful to work with Conlin.PR of Reference - https://github.com/lessonly/lessonly/pull/7482
Observation created over 5 years agoFeaturing:Alec R.We put learners firstWe highlight what's workingWe own our requestsWe are coachableWe recognize the opportunity in challengesWe inspire others to do better workWe challenge ourselvesWe represent Lessonly positively in the communityLaunch coordinatorAlec has been working on creating a presentation to demo the new Usernames functionality to the company - as a part of that, he iterated on what the presentation was going to consist of. There are many great aspects of the presentation that include: outlining the why behind the investment, shouting out the individual team members who were a big part of the success of that project, and lastly the CUSTOMER TESTIMONIAL!
It is one thing to acknowledge great work on delivering a feature into reality BUT it is another to understand and share what impact the feature is going to have on our customers. This shoutout is for Alec in seeking out and getting a customer to record a video about the value that the Usernames feature is going to provide to our customers. This gives energy to our internal team who built this, those who will support it, and those who will sell it!
Here is the presentation with the customer testimonial: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1lUMJ6CEe6hKN0Me056VGEZ7cf47pPxA9zLQnJ7lxfIQ/edit#slide=id.g58bf794290_0_61
Observation created over 5 years agohttps://lessonly.slack.com/archives/CKRCR3SSV/p1571080394002200
This lesson is simply excellent.
Clear... ✅
Concise... ✅
Purpose-driven... ✅
Fun... ✅I'm checking the "We own our requests" box because the Hammer has been unrelenting on getting us to a point where we can start making progress towards a world where we are better aligned and informed. I do think there are many hurdles yet to overcome, but I love the tenacity.
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