In my late teens I became a Sempai at my local Karate Dojo. I had been training in Go Shintai Kai for about ten years, and while not quite black belt was able to help the Sensei with instruction. The Sempai is a training assistant under the guidance of a Sensei.

I quickly let this go to my head, and thought that being a Sempai was authority. I was bossing the other students around and basically behaving like a bully. Not a good look. After class my Sensei took me aside for a quiet admonishment.

What he said was this. The Sensei is the servant of the student, not the boss. His role is to serve the student as teacher, not to exert authority. This was a radical change in point of view, as prior to this the Sensei was to be obeyed, he was the ultimate authority in the Dojo. Yet my Sensei knew the truth, he wasn't the master, he was the servant.

Needless to say I felt ashamed at my arrogance and poor behaviour. My perspective about what it meant to be Sempai and Sensei changed. This is not to say they don't have a job to do; the ritual and respect demanded by a Sensei is there to maintain good order and ensure that students remain safe. But at the end of the day they are there to serve the student.

Managing Software Teams the Sensei Way

In modern businesses the relationship between employee and manager has been one of conflict. The assumption seems to be that the manager is there to ensure the employee does the job, an overseer to whip the employee should they fail to perform. The manager is an authority, and there is a unambiguous chain of command. The employee is at the service of their manager. This is perhaps a little uncharitable as most managers I have worked with are hardly slave drivers, and want to take a more enlightened approach.

So what is the Sensei Way?

Facilitating Excellence

As team lead you do have a responsibility to serve the company by making the team perform to the pinnacle of their potential. In this way the mission is similar to training a student. You want to make sure your people are given the support and mentoring they need to become better, and aim for being more than just average.

But like in the Dojo we are not competing, not with each other in any case. As the team lead I promote cooperation, collaboration, supporting one another, and a sense of pride is what we do. The team become more than just the people who show up at the office at the same time.

Team building is an active process

Team building has gotten a bad reputation due to exercises that often end up in discomfort and humiliation. While there is a place for taking a day out to do something fun the real team development depends on the day to day interactions.

As a team lead you always give the credit for success to the team, praising them for work well done. When there is failure the team lead takes the responsibility, because they were after all responsible for managing the team to success.

Teach by example

There is no better way to teach people how to act than to be an example. That is the point of giving credit for success and taking responsibility for failure. You promote that kind of unselfish team spirit.

Always be quick to admit a mistake or failure, and to ask the rest of the team for help. Mistakes happen, and when they do it is important to ensure everyone understands the problem so they can be part of the solution. If team members are afraid to admit mistakes, or feel that they will be ridiculed, they will keep mistakes quiet. That only leads to a mistake becoming a real problem.

Don't just talk about best practices, live them. Make sure that whatever processes the team decide to follow that you follow it as well.

Level playing field

This is a little divergent from the Sensei pattern, as a Sensei certainly uses authority. In my experience leading teams I have very rarely pulled rank to make a decision. Ultimately the team lead or head engineer might need to make a decision if there is no consensus, but it is critical for everyone on the team to have equal weight in terms of being able to express their opinions and contribute.

Everyone has something to learn, everyone has something to teach. To be the best team you need to make sure people feel safe to be able to express what they think.

Ownership

In the Dojo people are encouraged to make themselves the project, and to take ownership in their own path. Accomplishment is measured by coloured belts. Except when you reach high rank you become aware it is your abilities which matter, not the belt you wear.

In software we need to feel ownership and pride in what we do. We invest ourselves into what we make. We need to give our people genuine ownership in terms of feeling they have a genuine stake in what they are doing.

We don't want people to feel they are just making cogs in the machine without any investment in the final product. We want our developers to care about quality and user experience at a fundamental level. So while the object of the perfection is different in the martial arts, there is still a sense of pride and accomplishment.

Be the teacher, not the boss.

Being the teacher rather than the boss gets better results. Encouragement, development, mentoring all play a critical role in building trust and cohesion within a team. By being the example of these things you grow others to become your Sempai, or assistants.

Leadership is not about being at the front of the charge in some kind of war, rather it is about building teams of people who have a deep trust in one another, who function together as a whole rather than individuals with their own private missions. It is about communicating the mission in such a way that they are invested emotionally in the mission. They need to feel that what they do really matters.

The Sensei metaphor is far from perfect obviously, but it was a critical insight into how to manage people in my experience. It allowed me to see that authority and respect are earned, not bestowed. That people will work beyond the call of duty if they are invested in what they are doing, and have pride in the outcome.