Recently, we visited Skyeng and already told why their company has so many product managers . But the conversation was big and long, we discussed a lot of interesting things. For example, Denis Pushkin, Head of Product Marketing, talked about motivation in his team. How to make employees work as if for themselves? The system is super honest at the same time, and provocative on the other. Not everyone likes to combine the personal with the worker, but according to Denis, this is the key to tremendous productivity. Under the cat is his detailed story.
Denis Pushkin, Head of Product Marketing at Skyeng
We do not force people to work so much - they themselves. On the contrary, I am expelling everyone from work, but I myself am also leaving at eleven. Every day, ironically, at ten o'clock I have meetings, sometimes at nine, but before eight I definitely work. In my life there has been a professional burnout twice, and I roughly understand how it works. This is a state of severe physical and mental fatigue. You try to move and run into the wall, as if stuck in the textures of the game - as if you were going, running, jumping, but you weren’t moving. In order to overcome this hopelessness, it is important not to put walls and obstacles in front of people, but to give them freedom of action.
The culture of freedom allows you not to burn out, because when you get tired of doing one thing, you take up the other. For example, Gleb, our director of analytics - he is a horizontal leader. This is a kind of experience, you have no influence on people, but you have to manage. And Gleb simply hired a new horizontal leader in his place and became a product manager, took some parts of the product, began to manage them because he wanted to. He made a choice, decided to stay in the company and benefit her, and the company is happy about this. Even if a person is tired, - okay, take a rest, do smaller projects, take a lower level of responsibility.
People actually work for themselves, no matter what they say. All strive for their personal goals.
Therefore, in our company there is such a thing that allows us to manage it. It is called "personal development plans." It all starts with the fact that I learn from a person his personal goals, not related to Skyeng. For example, I have a developer in my team who set a goal to buy a light-engine aircraft. Awesome goal, it costs only two and a half million. My job as a leader is to offer him Skyeng as a tool for realizing my personal goal. Walking towards her, a person will not burn out. This is how the tool works - a person understands what he wants for himself, and I offer him a tool to achieve this goal. As a result, he will work ten times more simply because he works for himself.
I am often hated in the comments when I write - "come to the company and earn a billion." Why make a billion for Skyeng? Thinking people understand why. I don’t need to earn a billion for Skyeng - I need me to be able to write in my resume - “I’ve made a billion for Skyeng”, and with this resume I can do anything. I want to - go to Facebook. It is unlikely that I will not go through the screening of Facebook Facebook, if it is written in my resume, “I’ve earned a billion bucks.”
But there are features in this thing - not all people know what they want, and we also learn to work with it.
The first rule is "do not know what your long-term goal is, set a short-term goal, and then you will find out."
Why don't people know what they want? Because they don’t think about it. They just live like they live. Even if a person does not care about his personal goal, it is important for me that he has one so that I can control it with the help of this goal. I think the guys become happier if they understand what they want in life.
I use coaching mechanics to pull goals out of the guys, ask five questions “why”, build logical chains, and ask me to put on a scale from 1 to 10 where they see themselves - classic coaching. But there were a lot of guys, and the development plan that had been drawn up still needed to be accompanied. Therefore, from this quarter, all products in my team have a coach. He removes the initial stage from me - helps to draw up a development plan, and then helps to guide it. He paints these goals, starting from the upper levels, from five years, then to three years, then quarterly, monthly. But the coach does not know what opportunities exist in Skyeng to achieve the goal. Therefore, they come to me, and we hold a session for three.
The developer wants a plane - this is a clear example. So he wants a certain level of income. After three years, he needs to earn so much that 2.5 million free funds remain. We are recounting his salary and understand that so far it is not enough. I told him: “Kaif, I’m not sorry to pay a big salary. Show me a better result, take on more responsibility and get more money. "
The next step is an assessment of all skills. We look and say, “You are now at point X, you have such skills and they’ve been pumped like this. If you want to earn more, you have to deal with these projects. ” If the developer does not want to manage, but wants to develop technically, I say - “Well, learn a new Angular and make new projects on it. "Your programming and full skill skills will grow, and we will increase your salary for this."
And this is not just an increase for pumping skill. I understand the business value of this pumping. After all, if the developer says that he wants to learn Go, I will be happy for it, but nothing is written on Go. This is his personal goal. I can help find experts outside the company who will tell him how to grow in Go. A little help, which does not concern work at all, is also pleasant for a person, also helps not to fade. People feel caring for themselves, understand that we care.
But in terms of work and its purpose, I say, “You can teach Go, but I don’t know where it will lead you to Skyeng. I can make Skyeng an implementation tool in Angular 5. " And then I immediately give him a new project and a mentor who knows Angular. He is glad that he has new technologies that he learns in practice.
There are several approaches to people who cannot find a goal. Sometimes we write out all the processes that a person was engaged in his life, for example, a hundred pieces. He gives marks whether he liked or did not like to deal with them. Based on this, we look for common things, write out favorite processes. And I suggest projects where these processes can be implemented.
For example, I had a tester in my team. We wrote out what she was interested in, and now I already had a project manager.
Now she is a junior product in marketing. However, she does not have a super cool goal that she is going to - only the processes from which she enjoys. So far, this is enough for her, but gradually we clarify the big goal.
When I accompanied all the guys myself, I knew their development plans. And for example, the plan was to address the conference. And I constantly get a bunch of requests. And so I reply that I can’t, but I have a wonderful product - let him perform. At the same time, I help a person with his plan, and I help myself to grow an HR brand without spending personal time. Have you seen how many badges we have? The whole company stands.
Right now, I only have plans one level lower in the vertical. Products must lead development plans for team leads, QA leads, designers; devlids - their developers. Sometimes this is done by horizontal leaders. For example, the art director of commercial products leads the plans of all designers, he took over this responsibility.
Personal development plans appeared last year. Interns came to us, and we wondered what to do with them. We decided to ask what they want, prescribed a plan. Two interns left because they understood that the internship does not help their goals. Awesome result, saved a lot of time for them and our managers. The guys are grateful, we still communicate with them, have lunch, they consult, launch their startup.
The other two guys Skyeng coincided with the development plans, and they still work in the company, show cool results. One is engaged in research in marketing, the other works in b2g events.
When I saw how it works, I began to introduce it in my team. Last year, I personally led the guys' plans, and we completed them in six months. But there everything was simple and fast. Now we are doing this systemically.
This is a must for all my guys, because it allows you to not burn out. After all, with a personal goal, you essentially do not work. Skyeng is not work, it is part of your life that you enjoy. I work so hard just because I spend high time. Other activities are less interesting to me than work.
For example, to see school friends or work? Well, of course to work - that I did not hear from school friends there.
Sometimes they ask, what if the other half is against? Well, find the right soulmate, who do not mind. It seems to me that they are happy that you invest so much in the work, and they are proud that you do cool things. This approach is close to me. But if you chose the wrong half at 18, and now suffer, then I'm sorry. It's like if you hired the wrong employee and don’t want to fire him. In addition, the other half lives well, your work provides a family.
We have both salaries and bonuses. The bonuses depend on how many project obligations people have undertaken. Beginning products or middles usually guarantee that they will just do the project, but at the same time take no risk of not getting into the metrics. Their bonus will be a percentage of the salary. Fulfilled - received a bonus, did not fulfill - did not receive. Bonus in the region of 20 percent. You can overfulfill on projects and get more, you can not fulfill the plan and get zero.
I have periods when I’m too lazy to make a plan, because I’m not up to it. But if I do not agree on the plan in the first few days of the month or year, then the bonus will not be by default. Sometimes I just scored - I have to do projects, I have no time to deal with plans. Money doesn’t really motivate me, enough for food is okay, and you can sleep in the office.
If you fit into the monetary indicators, your bonus starts to depend on how much money you bring. Accordingly, the more you bring, the more you get. But this is a rather rare scheme, few people are ready for it.
The coolest level is when you say, “I will bring one hundred million. If it is less, I will be left without a bonus. If I bring more, I will have a percentage. ”
Such a bonus is usually planned for a quarter, and you can work a whole quarter without bonuses. We do not have the highest salaries in the market, and the bonus part is important. This is a risk, made a big bet in order to get a great result. But only top-level products work this way.
We have an option program, but it is still in an unstructured form. It is possible to receive the option privately. The guys are thinking how to make optional pools for a wider range, but there is no common system yet. Until the end of the year, she may appear in order to motivate guys who show high results from the next.
But again, to avoid burnout, you just need to kick people out of work in the evening, send them on vacation by force, because they themselves do not control themselves. My leaders kick me out. I once worked on vacation once a day. I even came up with a system - in 24 hours, I have to sleep 8 to get enough sleep. I slept 4, 8 worked, 4 slept, 8 worked. A total of 8 hours of sleep, but iterations work much easier and closes 24 hours. Very productive. But you know what a thrill to work from vacation - you do not have to answer anyone, do your projects what you want, answer who you want.
But I left after such a vacation, worked for a week and died. I was told that this would not be considered a vacation, and sent again to normal.
People on vacation must be expelled from Slaka. Not just do not go into Slack and turn off notifications, but delete it from the computer and from the phone. People must be watched. I control my guys so that they do not burn out, do not feel sad and do not die.