Imagine a game that starts as a side-scroller. It could be a game like Super Mario Brothers or Sonic the Hedgehog. Movement is constricted along a 2D plane. The game has a rhythm to it and the levels, while increasing in difficulty, share a lot with the previous levels. The game is fun exactly because it uses just enough of the learnings from the earlier levels in the game, but add just enough challenges to make the game increasingly fun & enjoyable.

In The Theory of Fun, Raph Koster defines fun as “the act of mastering a problem mentally,” or the feedback the brain gives us when we are absorbing patterns and learning in the process.

Being an engineer (or any other job requiring technical skills to be mastered) is a lot like a side scroller game. There are some fairly well known “game mechanics” in the life of an engineer. Learning how to write software is a game that has many levels. Beating the more advanced levels builds on the mastery the beginning levels. And just like a well-defined game, the game must be designed with the right amount of increasing difficulties.

Let’s take a typical engineer. She starts on her journey learning how to master a language, say, JavaScript. New levels include JavaScript frameworks. Another level may be writing core parts of new web application. Still further along she begins to see commonality and crafts a new framework for use by her and the team. But the game is kind of the same. It is a game about writing customer products with software. As her career progresses, she may take on new languages and maybe even write native mobile apps. But there is a lot more in common between all this than there is different. She is playing the “engineering” side-scroller game and doing quite well at it.

But then the day comes that she is asked to become a manager. Suddenly, instead of a side-scroller game, the game has switched in midstream to a Massively Multiplayer Online (MMO) game — with virtual reality googles! Ok, so if you were playing a side-scroller and happily beating one level after another, and having fun doing it, and then suddenly the game flips into an MMO VR game it would be rather jarring and probably highly frustrating. I wouldn’t call this fun.

Well this is exactly the game we often place our people in when we take a craftsperson and then suddenly turn them into a manager without preparing them for the change. The game rules are different, the game play is different. It requires a completely different set of tools and mindset to master this game.

Rarely, and I mean rarely, are engineers or makers prepared for the jarring change that happens when their job switches from making things to managing people. Many want to go back to the comfort of their side-scroller “maker” game and abandon the scary world of the Manager MMO game.

As a leader, your first job is to explain that there is a big change coming. Make them aware of this poorly designed game! You must show them that the  feedback loop is really different in the engineering levels vs the manager levels. You must guide them to understand that there is less and less immediate gratification, and that almost all success is measured longer term. They must realize that people problems are much more challenging than software problems. They have to be given the tools for coaching, mentoring, guiding, and leading people to become more effective at their work. They have moved from indirect and delayed feedback to the long game of investing in people and seeing the fruit slowly grow. Unless our people are aware of the game change, they cannot be successful.

The next time you have a new manager, just tell them that there is a big bait and switch coming and the game rules have all changed. The side scroller becomes the MMO. But tell them to hang in there, you will help them master this new game.

Amazon links are affiliate links. I make a small amount when you shop through these links.