Blackmill: not just leadership skills
You might think our mission is to teach leadership skills.
Yes, we coach executives and other senior leaders. And, yes, we offer multiple different workshops where leadership is the core theme. But those are not why we're here. They are the means, not the end.
Our purpose is to improve the day-to-day work environment of every software engineer we can reach, by improving the team's culture, communications, and work processes while helping both the organisation and its individuals to achieve their goals.
We know the human element of helping tech teams collaborate better. We help your teams provide value on a regular cadence. We help everyone to communicate better. We help you get shit done.
So why all the leadership stuff?
Because a lot of what is needed starts with leadership. And that's what technologists and technologist-led companies most often need help with. Technologists are awesome at solving technology problems. And that's usually better done in-house anyway.
Our industry has often poorly equipped technologists to address the kinds of problems that can't be solved with technology. We tell coders to code and designers to design. The focus is for individual contributors to contribute individually. Makes sense. Then we make them team leads and managers (which is a whole new skillset they need to learn) and wonder why they don't have any of the team-focused skills we need.
As companies grow, they run into more problems that can't be solved solely with technology. We know; we’ve been there.
Effective leadership is the cornerstone for smooth operations. We concentrate much of our work on leadership and communication as the means of getting to the end: shipping.