Yes, it is a “funny” word play on the legendary sci-fi novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? The title of this article is something I have had in the back of my mind since very early on in my career and it has stuck with me. Note! If you are offended by swearing, bad language and grammar you will have a blast reading this article as it contains a lot of it 😂

Disclaimer: All my “On..” posts are things I write from beginning to end without any editing or thinking about structure (so it’s like all other posts?). They are just dumps of thoughts I’ve had which I deem that maybe they’re useful for something or someone, so I’ll just dump it here where nobody actually sees them. A friend of mine told me his friends reaction when he said he was starting to learn how to play the flute.

Now, there are naturally harder things than what I’m going to talk about in this post. However, given the context of software development and leading teams this is the hardest. Especially if you’ve gone from being fairly good at the decipline of the people of your team. I have spent a few years being in a position where I lead teams, but recently I stepped down to become a team member.

The last five years I have had the privilege of having jobs with awesome titles like “Front end architect” and I was even at one point a CTO. Being in such positions enables you to have the impact to see ideas materialize. You also have impact on how others do their job. About two years ago I became the leader of the front-end core team at Finn.no after having been the front-end architect (the company decided to remove the architect role).

This is not about aerospace or getting people on Mars (that stuff is easy). It is about how to create an environment where people help each other out. If you maximize utilization. Set absolute deadlines. You set up your team to be self centered, stressed out and in a mode of self preservation. If you are in an organization were teams are expected to collaborate and share extensively, you shouldn’t do any of the things above.

I I’m have interviewed for higher management positions during my career. One question which pops up in all of them is this: “do you have experience in leading through middle managers” A fair question one would think given that as a higher position manager you’ll have some other managers below you. However, there is one thing I’ve seen many places which too many higher level managers miss. That’s the ability to keep in touch with what’s happening on the lowest level.

Yesterday I tweeted that “I’d rather choose someone with experience from kindergarden than some one from the armed forces as a leader”. It might seem like good old fashioned trolling, but I am serious. I speak from a Norwegian perspective and things might be different in other countries. When working in kindergarden you acquire some skills which I think are essential for leaders in general, but especially in knowledge companies. In Norway the law says that children shall always be included in decisions [1].