Hello again! I almost convinced myself not to write today. Between staring at the legal kerfuffles happening over at Hasbro’s under-monetized tabletop rulebook revenue extraction unit, and the unrelenting rain hammering away outside my residence, I had a strong urge to just stare at the ceiling instead of clickety-clacking away at this keyboard. It is important to me that I keep writing, so here I am!
Everyone is good at something. Some people, however, are really great at very specific things. I have been told that team building and recruiting pipeline management are among my superpowers. There are two specific superpowers I look for in team members. The first is the ability to create documentation. The second is the ability to iterate on documentation.
Creating documentation is hard. Not everyone can sit down in front of a blank page and successfully get from zero to one. This is also true for making presentations. I will probably save that for its own post sometime in the future. My best guess is that some people experience fear and anxiety around drafting a document:
- What if the format is unacceptable?
- What if there is information missing?
- What if it is wrong?
These are natural feelings. There are a few ways to mitigate some of this fear. One way is to have a reference document that enshrines the “gold standard” for the document you are writing. This may include some templates, as well as criteria for completeness. Another way to mitigate this is to have a trusted party who can give you feedback on the document. It is good to have peers and managers who you can trust to look at a document, and give you actionable feedback to make it a better product.
This leads us to the second superpower: being able to iterate on a document. Today, modern document sharing platforms make this very easy. Being able to leave comments to people for areas they should change, or using “Track Changes” functionality to put those edits in for someone to approve/reject, are really good tools. Every once in a while you will get feedback like “I do not like this” or “This is not correct.” Teaching people how to give actionable feedback is really important. Include examples or more details as much as possible when working on a document with someone.
I have observed that some people are really good at one of these two things, but not both. Some people can create new documentation really well, and some people can iterate on documentation really well.
This is one of those areas where I encourage people to get out of their comfort zone. If you are not great at creating new documentation, you should try to do it more often to get better at it. If you are not great at reading a document and iterating on it, then you should do that more often for the same reason.
As a leader, It is important to know what superpowers exist for members on your team. It is also important to leverage those people to help other people refine their own abilities, and perhaps turn them into superpowers over time.
You know who else has amazing superpowers? Green Lantern. Green Lantern was my favorite superhero growing up. He still is my favorite superhero today. In the time honored spirit of randomly linking Amazon Affiliate Merchandise that is clearly labeled as such, I give you a link to this awesome looking Green Lantern t-shirt.
As always, thank you for reading along and I hope to see you back here next week!
