Growing a company is hard. Especially when your business has software at its core – as a differentiator or competitive advantage.
Strange things happen. Things that were running smoothly suddenly shift. The flow of information halts or gets distorted in strange ways.
It starts off small.
As the leader of a business you normally leave a meeting with your software team knowing that they totally “get it.”
You have another meeting and walk out knowing they “got it.” Weeks later they deliver and you realize that feeling was dead wrong.
But it’s a one time thing right?
Nope.
It happens again. And again.
Then you start walking out of a meeting wondering if they got it. Weeks later that though turns to “will they ever get it?”
But this process used to work.
What happened?
You grew. Your company. Your capabilities. And a whole lot more.
But what used to work doesn’t work now.
There’s a gap. And this gap hurts.
You think your software team is ignoring you, building up barriers to protect things, taking over, or worse – working against you. It seems like the software team have taken control and that you have lost influence. You refer to “the software team” instead of “my software team.” (That’s a signal!)
They think you’ve lost touch with what they do. They think they are doing an OK job but are putting up barriers to protect the product. They likely have the best of intentions in doing this.
The problem is that once this downward spiral starts it is hard to pull out of.
You’ve Identified the Gap With Your Software Team
The good news is that once you have identified this gap you are on your way to addressing it.
Here are a few questions to ask yourself:
- Did your software team grow with you?
- Did you learn how to handle the changes in the relationship with that team?
- Who is leading the software team and how well to they “get” your business?