Everyone’s talking about it, but no one’s doing it.

For the past five years, I’ve been helping engineering managers become better leaders, one at a time.

Thus far, I’ve adopted mostly a B2C approach: I sell leadership development products and services to managers who want to improve their own work.

But lately, I’ve been asking Directors, VP’s of Engineering, and CTO’s how their company develops their new leaders and managers.

Unsurprisingly, about 90% say “Ummm… we don’t do too much.”

As one Director recently told me, “I have cobbled together some books, linked-in courses, and workshops (like yours) into something like a training plan for my leads. It’s not great, but it’s all I have.”

“It’s not great, but it’s all I have.”

I think this is quite sad, I don’t believe it has to be this way, so I want to change this situation.

When I moved from Sr. Programmer to Team Lead, I was lucky enough to receive excellent training.

I went through a year-long New Engineering Manager Training Course, delivered to a group of new Team Leads, by experienced managers in the engineering org.

The department started the course every six months for new managers and those who had been hired as Team Leads.

It taught me the fundamentals of managing and leading engineers and provided a foundation that my career (and later, my own company) was built on.

This wasn’t just “generic management training”, it was “engineering management training.” It addressed the unique challenges of leading the people and processes in your software teams.

Just as importantly, the relationships I built with the other engineering managers in my training group forged strong alliances which lasted for decades!

This engineering manager training created more than effective managers, it created an effective management team.

I want to help you develop engineering leaders

I dream about the day when every Lead Programmer, Tech Lead, Team Lead, Software Manager, Director, VPEng, and CTO tells me, “Our company has great training for new engineering managers, and the big transitions after that.”

We’re not there yet, but here’s how I think we can get there.

You can develop engineers into excellent managers and leaders by delivering in-house training that is led by your current managers.

I can help you do this. but first, you’ve got to become a true believer.

Tomorrow I’ll send you six things you’ve got to believe to begin this work.

These will help you think about it differently and help you get started.

See you tomorrow,

Marcus

P.S. – I’m working to develop these programs so companies can deliver engineering manager training for themselves. If you’re interested in starting a program, write me back and let’s chat about working together.

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