When leaders disagree with their developers

So I was talking to a CTO this week who recently started using DX. While he is finding useful insights from both the quantitative and qualitative datasets, he remarked to me that some of the open-text comments from his developers have been bothering him.

This CTO has been leading an organizational shift toward a “you build it, you run it” culture. But in their recent survey, several developers had written complaints about this approach, instead advocating for more operational support around management and maintenance.

“They’re wrong,” this CTO said to me.

My advice for this leader

Silencing or ignoring feedback isn’t the answer. Developers’ minds are like powerful computers—without their feedback, it would be near-impossible to surface or fix the problems that are inhibiting us from shipping software as fast as we could.

In a perfect world, developers would stick to pointing out problems, and their suggestions would align with your point of view as CTO. But of course, this doesn’t always happen. Sometimes, developers suggest things we disagree with or that we know our flat out wrong.

Don’t blame your survey, or try to shove feedback under the rug. The sentiment you’re seeing exists regardless of your survey or feedback channels. So be thankful that it’s been brought to your attention rather than quietly afflicting your organization without you knowing.

How to respond

When developers resist change or suggest solutions that aren’t aligned with your vision, treat it as an opportunity, not a burden. Your job as a leader is to get everyone aligned around your vision and rowing in the same direction. Disagreeable feedback gives you the opportunity to quickly course correct.

Start with acknowledgement, for example, “I noticed several comments about teams facing challenges with operating their systems, with suggestions to bring back dedicated operations teams. I really appreciate folks highlighting their concerns, because this is a critical thing for us to get right.”

The next part is the most important—it’s your opportunity to explain the why behind your strategy to get your people realigned: “I want to reiterate our current strategy and the reasoning behind it. In order to scale our organization, we need every team to be able to operate and quickly iterate on their products…”

You can’t always do this over one email. Change management often requires repeated communications and face time. But this example captures the rough idea. Much of leadership is about setting strategy and getting others’ to buy in. So don’t shy away from developer feedback. It’s one of the best signals you have for ensuring alignment and knowing when you need to course correct or clarify.