How We Handle Pressure Says a Lot About Us

This blog post is for those not fresher and not too senior kind of folks. Say 3-6 yrs of exp. Are you building a team, I would suggest this is a must read.

The Past

In the past, I’ve faced impossible challenges and deadlines. Just 6 months into my career, I was in a team project where close to production 3 other team members left the company. Pulling all night-ers, burning the mid night oil, call it whatever you want, I managed to successfully complete the project and take it to production and won the accolades around.

Until today, what I am amazed was that I was calm and I knew I would be able to handle it. These were days where books were your source of knowledge.

But, not all fingers are the same.

Over the last two decades, I’ve noticed something interesting:

Everyone reacts to pressure differently.

And guess what?? how we express that pressure shapes the culture around us more than we realize. Not many are aware of this.

The Personas

Here are few personas I’ve seen:

1. Some folks put their heads down and get things done. 0% noise, 100% delivery.

2. Some say, Oh this week’s crazy!” or “So many things to close! 30% noise, 100% delivery.

3. Some don’t care until you ask. 0% noise, 50% delivery.

4. And the last one and no one likes to work with them - 100% noise, 50% delivery.

   The last two are the folks who have a “complain” first (and not a solve first) mindset.

People I love to work with

Here are traits of people whom I love to work with.

1. Accountability

2. Ownership

3. Plan and Communicate

4. Curious

5. Solution Oriented

6. Transparent

If you are a junior and building a tech team, regularly ask this question to yourself.

1. Is this person expressing, containing, or balancing pressure ?

2. How can I support that better?

3. Am I a good role model for the team I am building?

Let’s Connect

Hi, I’m Sandeep Gokhale, and I'm passionate about building high-performing teams at my company, Techvito and I write about Technology, People, Processes and some more stuff.

In case you're looking out for a technology partner to:

1. Help you with zero-downtime cloud migrations,

2. Accelerate your business goals with clarity, speed, and quality & security,

3. Who values reliability, security, and transparency,

Me and my team are here and more than ready to help you make it happen.

…then me and my team are here, ready to help you make it happen.

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Until Next time!