Focusing on people (1-1, Nailted), processes (improving Scrum, Metrics, user story mapping, speed), products (new launches will be released this year and current products.
(Drive, from Pink, Non-violent communication, How to make a friend… Carnegie), Career path.
I have made many mistakes in my career, I still do, but I believe I learned from most of them and I will continue learning.
In these past years, I realized I had to focus on learning technology but the most important is people.
I have been a fast learner regarding technology and book-related stuff (or also spent many hours on it), but I haven’t been aware of how important was to focus on improving how I interact with people, the most important skill and the most underestimated in technology IMHO.
We want to be great at Python, and deliver faster, code quality, but how about interacting with people? How to treat your teammates, how about solving arguments? How about dealing with complicated clients? Or conflicts between teammates?
I’ve failed hard on this many times, and I’ve been studying a lot about it, but the most important is practice. When you’re in a difficult situation is difficult to remember the rules you wanted to apply and you wanted to communicate them. Although with a little bit of practice you can improve and behave better in situations where you were failing miserably before.
Everything is about empathy and feeling the other person needs and the necessity for everybody to feel important.
I guess some of you would think this enters in the psychology field, I know nothing about psychology, but I know I want to make the best of my interactions with my kids, my family, my teammates, and all this is possible with an effort on our part. It’s trainable and I think we should (at least I am).
Conclusion
Psychology on startups and agencies, be emphatic and listening is one if not the most important skill we need to have as teammates and leaders to understand our environment.
Be more in other people shoes when we want something or were disappointed on someone’s behavior.