Engineering team managers and directors are tasked with coaching talented groups of dynamic individual contributors to solve big, complex problems and deliver remarkable results as quickly as possible without getting bogged down by budget restraints, intrapersonal conflict and unforeseen challenges.
Performance and results matter, as do well-being and mental health. Effective leaders like Lokesh Bindal of Evolve know how to strike the right balance. How does Bindal ensure he protects the needs of those on his team as they introduce new features and functionality to their company’s vacation rental platform? The answer lies in clarity and communication. He also focuses on another “c” word: Celebration. Bindal recognizes achievements, highlights milestones, pairs engineers with mentors and then showcases what they do together.
Putting employees on a path to success not only addresses retention but also improves both productivity and results. Read on to see what other best practices you can import.
Evolve is redefining the vacation rental experience by bringing dependable support, trusted expertise and proven marketing strategies for owners and turning every trip booked into lasting memories for guests.
What does psychological safety look like on your engineering team?
Psychological safety in our team is rooted in open communication and fostering productive habits. Our engineers know that they and their peers are some of the smartest people in the industry, which creates a culture where they feel empowered to share because they know their voice is valued. We make it a priority to understand each engineer's strengths and weaknesses, ensuring they are positioned in roles where they can truly thrive.
We make it a priority to understand each engineer's strengths and weaknesses, ensuring they are positioned in roles where they can truly thrive.”
What are actionable ways you cultivate psychological safety for your engineers? What impact does this have on your team's and/or the business' success?
We prioritize coaching tailored specifically to an engineer's growth areas, ensuring they not only improve but also feel supported in their professional journey. Additionally, we've established a well-defined roadmap coupled with regular brainstorming sessions. This clarity not only ensures everyone is aligned but also provides a clear path for professional growth and long-term success. As a result, our team has fostered a performance-based culture, which has led to consistent innovation and top-tier results aligned with industry best practices.
What is a challenge to cultivating psychological safety on your engineering team? How do you overcome it?
A significant challenge is ensuring that while we push for performance and uphold industry best practices, we don't compromise on individual well-being. We address this by being proactive: recognizing achievements, celebrating milestones and ensuring that every engineer has access to resources and mentorship that align with their specific needs — ultimately setting them on a path to success.
Prove’s phone-centric identity tokenization and passive cryptographic authentication solutions reduce friction, enhance security and privacy across all digital channels and accelerate revenues while reducing operating expenses and fraud losses for over 1,000 enterprise customers.
What does psychological safety look like on your engineering team?
I strive to make sure everyone on the team is comfortable with making mistakes and learning from them. Having a safe environment where there is open discussion across the team enhances the conversations. The team can rally around and debate ideas because they know no idea is a bad idea.
What are actionable ways you cultivate psychological safety for your engineers? What impact does this have on your team's and/or the business' success?
It is something that is built into how the team operates. On both the engineering and the product side, we want to be able to iterate quickly. As a result, we have to be willing to build the minimum product first. This sets the tone for the team to become comfortable with the idea that it may not be perfect. We will go in and improve it. If we all know and acknowledge that things may not be perfect but will face incremental improvements, then the tone is set.
We also have processes in place to demonstrate that it is okay to make mistakes; that is how you grow.
For example, our practices in driving the design of new features are opened up to discussion where people can agree and disagree, debate and come up with a better solution. Across the group, junior engineers see more seasoned engineers making mistakes. They also see them take feedback and improve. Junior engineers can then have the confidence to bring ideas even if they are less than perfect.
We have processes in place to demonstrate that it is okay to make mistakes; that is how you grow.”
What is one challenge to cultivating psychological safety on your engineering team? How do you overcome it?
When you are open to collaborating with different personalities, each person may vary on how they bring their opinions forward. Part of the process is to have best practices on how to conduct discussions and how to be effective when debating.
We overcome this by going back to the idea of reinforcing and repeating the process over and over to show the effective way so we can get to a steady state.
