I've also had the "pleasure" of working with some idiotic, incompetent and obnoxious (and in one case psychopathic) people. They were the minority, though. And not all the technical people were "good" and not all the management people were bad. I guess both categories contained about the same ratio of good/bad people.
A sane manager is interested in success. Success meaning (among others):
- the customer/user got what they needed, when they needed it, at a reasonable price. The customer would like to work again with the same company.
- the team members are proud of their work, have learned something, had fun. They want to work the same way, with the same people again.
- the company has made a profit, both in cash, reputation and in "human capital"
- you can't sell a solution, unless there's a problem
- you can't help people, unless they ask for your help
So how do you approach a manager?
You look for the problem. What is holding us back from success? What could make us more successful?
Then you can search for solutions to try.
Then you try the solution. If it works: great, you can look for another problem. If it doesn't, try something else.
You do all this together, with the whole team, which includes the manager.
In my eyes XP is A solution. To some problem(s). If you try to apply a solution to the wrong problem, you will make things worse.
In conclusion: you don't sell XP. You work together with your teammates, your manager, your organisation to find your problems and to solve them.
That requires humility, trust, communication, honesty, courage, feedback. (Hmmm... sounds familiar...). And it requires tenacity, because there's always one more problem :-)
And maybe you will be able to apply XP to the problem. IF it's a solution to a problem you have.
-- PascalVanCauwenberghe
YeYongqing added the requirement for humility
Related pages: SellingXpToManagers
