Some human behavior patterns work in exactly the same way regardless of conditions, individuals' age, experience, etc. Humans are just humans afterall. I had a great example of that just few days ago ...
My daughter is 2.5 yrs old. Still a very young person, but it seems like a high time to start thinking seriously about sending her to nursery school. As it would be a completely new experience for her, we've decided to make a try & pay a short visit to a place like that in a neighborhood (during a so called "open day"). She was a bit nervous in a beginning, but in the end it didn't stop her from having some fun. But as I've seen, there were some other children that have reacted far worse - they were very nervous & they've cried all the time, looking for comfort in parents' arms. I wouldn't count that as "problems with acommodation" yet, but I've used the opportunity to ask few of the teachers set of the same questions:
How frequently do children react like that?
How much time does it usually take them to get used to nursery school?
Is there any way parents could aid their child in that process of acommodation?
All of them have responded in a pretty much the same way:
Children are different & they may behave a different way - some things like that can't be predicted. But usually the cause of the problem itself lies within ... parents. They are so worried, nervous, reluctant, afraid of how things will look alike that child can feel that perfectly & it adapts the same behavior unquestioningly & subconsciously.
But why is it important? What is the point of putting this story in a blog post for software crafts(wo)men?
Because it works in a exactly the same way within software development teams or any other kind of teams with a leader / manager / director. Subordinates observe their superior & they don't just hear his / her words, they see his / her body language, they feel his / her emotions expressed by gestures, mimics, energy level. These are very spacious sources of information:
- how is his / her motivation
- how are his / her relations with the rest of the organization
- is he / she even sure where we're all heading right now
- is he / she convinced that it's a beneficial / sucessful / promising direction
If verbal or written message is not coherent with what team members can observe, leaders' credibility vanishes in no time & any productivity evaporates. No form of motivation will work then. Just another example of "the fish stinks from the head first" case.
