Talent pipeline is important for an organisation. Imagine the software industry. Junior engineers learn their craft through the mentorship they receive from seniors. Today’s juniors are tomorrow’s seniors.
This is what we call the talent pipeline. It is one of those things where everyone has to do their small part. If they don’t, it may not seem to matter in the short term, but as a whole it can be an industry killer.
Obviously, software industry is too big to fail. So, such tendencies will get corrected before it is too late.
We want to think about how exactly that is going to happen though.
The Problem
So what is the problem we are faced with now? With AI, senior ICs no more “have to” rely on juniors to scale their work. So, there is always a temptation to reclaim the work and do it much faster and with much higher quality by oneself.
Assume this is happening in an organisation. What happens? Everyone adapts to the new reality. In fact, it is even possible that everyone feels happy too - managers see faster results, seniors cherish higher productivity and more time doing what they love, juniors feel more independent. In fact, the smart juniors are going to get a chance to shine and deliver their projects faster.
But as an industry where will this leave us? This clearly is the land of predictions, so we need to tread carefully.
However, my best prediction is that, it will leave us in a poorer state overall. Let me explain.
What Seniors Have That Juniors Don’t
First of all, we have to assume that seniors have something important that juniors don’t. And that this is not a gap that tools can bridge. There are different names for what this could be called - taste, judgement, system thinking, deep understanding, intuition etc.
Actually, it is also very reasonable to assume that juniors have something important to give seniors, which tools could not provide either. Fresh energy, curiosity, out of the box thinking, openness to new patterns and ways of doing things, calling out biases etc.
However, to keep our thinking focused, we frame the relationship as a top down one, rather than merely collaborative. Because, that reflects the reality more accurately.
Long Term Implications
Ok, so given this assumption that seniors have something valuable and important to transfer, what are the long term implications? Even though the short term effects may actually seem like making everyone happier.
Juniors don’t really grow, as they receive no real external nourishment. Yes, they have access to the best machine wisdom, but, they don’t really change/grow without meaningful human contact. A case in point is the internet and children. While the internet put a lot of information at our fingertips, we don’t see any marked improvement in the wisdom or judgement of children who had it at their disposal while growing up. If anything, the average child is wasting away time using the internet than making use of it.
Now, if the software industry is to shrink and fewer people are needed, this may not be a problem. Because the top of the cohort, who take advantage of the new technology, will amplify their learning. But, clearly that is betting against the industry’s future to begin with. So we don’t want to go that route. We want to think about a world where the industry keeps growing, not just in dollars, but in terms of the human capital in it too.
How the Talent Pipeline Worked
So, how do we ensure the talent pipeline stays strong? To understand that, we need to understand how the talent pipeline had worked.
The talent pipeline existed in parallel with the delivery pipeline. Seniors need juniors to scale their output. So the seniors find ways to offload work to juniors. They do so by extracting parts of the work that fit the skill level of the junior, while at the same time ensuring that the contribution has a meaningful net positive impact on overall delivery. In other words, mentorship happens as an investment, with a clear expectation of an ROI. Juniors understand this and are motivated to make good on that investment in them.
But today, with AI tools, the talent and delivery pipelines have become decoupled. The pitfall here is that this is true only in the short term. Pretty soon, the senior is going to need all the help he can get - to maintain the much larger portfolio he has created, to take on more ambitious and bigger projects etc. In other words, to conclude that the investment is no more necessary, is extremely myopic. And I would claim that whoever is thinking that way is basically trying to short sell - take advantage of the short term benefits and cash out. That is a strategy, but clearly not a sustainable one.
Keeping the Talent Pipeline Healthy
So the question then becomes, how do we keep the talent pipeline healthy, given that the usual pragmatic argument for it no longer holds? I don’t think there is an easy solution - at least not one as “automatic” as the old system. By and large, everyone has to take a longer term view. Perhaps management can reward seniors who actually invest in juniors. Perhaps make it a clearly expected part of the job description, rather than merely an optional side task. Bring in team rituals that make mentoring explicit. I think there are a lot of practical ideas that can be implemented here, and those can be adapted to suit the character and taste of teams.
But, what I want to delve more into are the attitudes that will be needed to make such practical measures successful. Because, we all know that, if you pour new wine into old skins it is going to end in disaster.
Mentoring as Parenting
I think a good attitude to have is to think in terms of parenting. Yes, parenting - applied to the workplace! Because at home, parents recognise (or so is hoped) that their children need to be placed in a talent pipeline, so that they grow in all the various aspects of being human. At the same time, little is expected of children in terms of delivery. Parents don’t expect their children to bring in income; they expect children to be disciplined and invest in their own futures. While we could delve more into this analogy of thinking of mentoring as parenting, I hope the point has been made. A parenting-like mindset can be really effective in equipping seniors to take the long term view necessary to invest in juniors.
An interesting offshoot of thinking in terms of parenting is that it helps us predict what mindset will make juniors effective at taking advantage of that mentoring. For example, rebellious children don’t end up getting the advantage of their parents’ wisdom. Similarly, juniors who want to totally go it alone will miss out on valuable wisdom. Or, children who think their parents are archaic and out of touch are more likely to ignore warnings and make mistakes they didn’t anticipate.
What Should Seniors Hand Down?
Before I close, I want to touch upon one final aspect, something that I am much less sure about in this whole matter. That is about finding clarity on what exactly we want seniors to hand down to juniors. In parenting, we tend to call this “values”. What would be the equivalent of that in the software industry? I alluded to this above and said seniors have taste, judgement etc. that they can teach. But what exactly are those things? Understanding this more clearly is vital, because if the mentoring ends up forcing juniors to use outdated techniques, we are not going to get the long term benefits we hope for. In fact, we are going to be worse off. I would love to hear what you think about this.
Thanks to my dear friend Anish Tamse for the conversations that helped shape these thoughts.