What if your best developer quit tomorrow?

What if your best programmer quit tomorrow?

She stops by and says: “I need to talk to you.”

It’s exactly what you fear.  She’s quitting, leaving for a more meaningful job with less politics.

When this other offer came along, she jumped at it.

Blindsided, you have no idea how you’ll get everything done.

Finding another developer is going to take forever, and the ramp-up time on the projects is going to take months.

Now you need to break the news to your boss.  She’ll ask, “What did you do to prevent this? Why were you blindsided?”  As if your job wasn’t tough enough, now you’re worried they have lost confidence in you.

It doesn’t have to be this way.

What if developers shared their frustrations so you could fix the problem?

What if they give you honest feedback so you could create the awesome environment they need?

What if you proactively help them achieve their goals?

What if they never consider leaving because they love working for you?

Learn how to have amazing 1:1 meetings!

The Grow Happy Developers Course

This video course will teach you how to…

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Video Lessons

Sample Lesson: The Truth about Correction and Feedback

Work at your pace, get help in Slack

This is a three-hour video workshop, which includes a three-month membership to my private Slack room.

When you sign-up, you will also receive…

What people say about working with me…

I require every new manager that reports to me to sign up for Marcus’s newsletter and often discuss it in staff meetings. Leadership with a capital “L” is a real part of the discipline I now bring to the coaching experience with my team.

I continue to work one-on-one with Marcus to this day, and I hope I will always be able to lean on him and dialog about challenges.

He is worth way more than you can ever pay him.”

Andrew Coven, Director of Content Acquisition Engineering of Netflix

Oddly, I felt like I would be unable to put this new information and ideas into action, and would, therefore, feel worse about myself than before.

I found the opposite. Working with Marcus has been the best form of support I could ask for. He helps me question bad assumptions, brainstorm better solutions, and he’s taught me how to manage people without screwing up.

I like the small group focus. I find that the focused attention helps dig deeper into troubling issues.”

Jonathan Wold, CMO of XWP.com

Regular Price: $749

Introductory Price: $399

The “You gotta be happy!” Guarantee

If you decide this isn’t for you, for any reason, I’ll immediately give 100% of your money back, no questions asked.  I want you to be happy with your decision to take this training.  No questions asked.

Seems interesting, but…

I’m too busy to put something new into practice.

It might seem like you’re too busy to take another class, another training, or implement another practice, but that’s short-sighted.  It’s not difficult to imagine how busy you will be if your team can’t deliver on time. If you’re already “too busy”, building a high-performance environment is one of your most important initiatives.

I’m not a good enough manager to inspire people to be loyal.

Nah!  If you can learn to code (a completely foreign thing to humans!) you can learn to relate to another human being.  This isn’t rocket science, and like any skill, it can be learned with a bit of practice.

I’ll be unable to put these ideas into practice where I work.

I have never found an organization where these practices could not be implemented, from agencies, to start-ups, to enterprises.  Like anything worth doing, it will require effort on your part, but you will not be alone.

How do I know you are qualified to teach this?

I’ve been hiring and leading software teams for 16 years at global enterprises, start-ups and my own software company.  I’ve helped hundreds of managers retain their most valuable employees and become the leaders their team deserves.

I don’t have the authority to make changes needed to keep my developers happy.

Your boss doesn’t want to see turnover either, so he’s also motivated to keep your best people.  We’ll explore how you can work with upper management to create the kind of environment your people need to be happy and productive.

The best developers know what they are worth, and are always looking for their next job.

This isn’t true.  Everyone finds changing jobs stressful, and developers only do it when they don’t believe their current job will meet their career and emotional goals.  They might tell you it’s about money, but it rarely is. 

If they are leaving, it’s because they want a more productive environment.  This is what motivates them.

Why should you trust me?

My mission is to elevate the art of managing your development team.

For too long, we’ve made hero’s of brilliant developers (e.g. Linus Torvalds, John Carmack), and mocked the idea of “brilliant managers”.

I know great development managers who are doing the job because they agreed to “take one for the team”.  They left the development work they loved to do a job no one wanted.

Let’s face it, the social icon most associated with technical management is the anti-role model named “The Pointy Haired Boss” from the cartoon Dilbert.

It’s time for technical management to stop being a dirty word.  It’s time to stop believing that you need to just get out of the way of your brilliant developers.

It’s time to create the next generation of great development managers.  I hope you will join me.

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PS: IF THIS TRAINING ISN’T A GOOD FIT FOR YOU RIGHT NOW, YOU CAN ALWAYS READ MY NEWSLETTER FOR FREE, OR JOIN MY #SOFTWAREMANAGERS SLACK ROOM, WHERE I PROVIDE A LOT OF HELPFUL ADVICE FOR MANAGING TEAMS.