Management pattern: fix two team problems in only one move

I’ve been running BearStudio for over a decade. One thing I do a lot is mix problems together. Instead of solving them one by one like a good student, I combine them. I make them solve each other.

This is not a one-off trick. It’s a management pattern I use when time is tight and outcomes matter.

I’ve learned a lot the hard way, in a previous article I wrote the lessons I wish I had known sooner, and the following lines will detail one of those.

Marianne and the dead weight

I had two separate problems sitting on my desk.

First one: Marianne (name changed), a junior developer, maybe 1-2 years of experience. Technically, still developing consistency, but not because she lacks skill. Because she lacks confidence. She’d get into stressful situations and lose her footing. Freeze. Doubt everything. But I could see what others missed: she’s capable, organized, responsible, and able to handle complexity simply. She’s willing. And willing matters more than people think.

Second problem: an intern who was not at the level. Team fit was poor, execution was weak, and it was dragging everyone down.

Most managers would treat these as two separate files. Coach Marianne on confidence, then handle the intern separately. Two plans, double the time. When you run a company, you don’t always have that luxury.

So I put the intern under her responsibility.

Setting it up (with guardrails)

Before you think I just tossed them together and hoped for the best, no. I set this up carefully.

I put her on a very structured project. Very framed, very controlled. I gave her cross-company responsibilities, little by little. First she’d coordinate the annual article writing from the team (one article per person per year). That kind of transversal task that gives you legitimate authority without throwing you off a cliff.

Then, progressively, more responsibility. More scope. Each step being only a bit bigger than the last one.

And then I assigned the intern to work under her.

On the surface, it can look harsh. A junior who already doubts herself, and you give her a difficult person to manage. But that was the point. She needed to confront her fear of handling complex situations, in a controlled setup, with me watching the edge cases.

What actually happened

It didn’t take long.

The intern was supposed to participate in daily meetings. He didn’t want to because it would cut into his lunch break. Classic. Then she asked for status updates. He responded with attitude. Straight up insolence.

She came back to me one day and said something important: “It feels bizarre to be on the other side of the barrier. To be the person who has to manage someone.”

She told me that before, when she was stressed, she’d lose her means and doubt everything about herself. But now, facing someone who was genuinely being a slacker, someone objectively not doing his job, she found herself getting annoyed instead of insecure.

And that’s the thing. When you’re annoyed at someone for being lazy and disrespectful, you don’t question yourself. You step up. You handle it.

She learned to manage conflict because she had no choice. Her confidence grew because she actually used it, not because someone told her she was great in a one-on-one meeting.

The bonus nobody expected

There was another effect I was hoping for but wasn’t sure would happen.

Because the criticism was now coming from a peer, not management, the intern couldn’t play his usual card. You know the type. Always rejecting the blame on others: “The bosses are being unfair”; “management doesn’t understand me” That whole routine.

But when your colleague, someone at your level, tells you that you’re not pulling your weight? You can’t deflect that so easily. It proved to him (and to everyone else) that he simply didn’t know how to work in a team. That was valuable information for everyone involved.

He left, by the way. No surprise.

The old story: teaching empathy by accident

This wasn’t my first time using this pattern.

Years ago, I had two interns who kept coming into my office to ask questions. Constantly. And look, I understand. Juniors need help getting unblocked, that’s normal. But the timing was the problem.

Sometimes they’d show up when I was deep in a completely different context, or in the middle of something urgent, and I just didn’t have the bandwidth. They’d leave frustrated. I could tell they thought I was being dismissive.

But how do you explain that interruption has a real cost? That context-switching isn’t free? There is a real cognitive load each time you drop one mental model and rebuild another. Even developers are starting to feel it again with vibe coding. You can tell people. They’ll nod. They won’t fully get it.

Context switching is expensive because every interruption forces you to rebuild the full mental model before making reliable decisions.

So I gave my employees responsibility for managing those interns. Suddenly, the same people who used to knock on my door all the time were the ones getting interrupted while trying to focus on their own work.

They came back to me and said: “Man, it’s actually hard to do your own work and manage people at the same time.”

Exactly.

That experience put them in my shoes. And the next time they needed something from me, they were more thoughtful about when and how they asked. They didn’t get frustrated when I said “not right now”, because they’d lived it from the other side.

The risk (yes, there is one)

This does not work every time. You need to know exactly who you’re putting in these situations.

She could handle it because, despite her lack of confidence, she was fundamentally capable and responsible. If I’d picked someone who genuinely wasn’t ready, it could have crumbled. The situation could have spiraled.

And I wasn’t absent. I put her on a structured project, gave responsibility progressively, and kept an eye on things. I was available if she needed help, but I didn’t jump in early. If you intervene too soon, you kill the learning.

Two problems, one solution

Most managers try to solve problems one at a time, in order, as they come up. That’s exhausting. And when you have a company to run, it’s often not realistic.

Sometimes the smartest move is to let your problems solve each other. Put people in positions where they’re forced to grow. Let natural consequences teach lessons you’d otherwise repeat ten times.

Marianne is more confident now. My team from years ago learned to respect my time. The intern figured out he didn’t belong (or rather, everyone else figured it out for him).

Rule of thumb: structured setup, progressive responsibility, manager oversight. Then let reality do part of the teaching.

The best management decisions I’ve made weren’t the ones with a perfect plan. They were the ones where I combined messy situations and trusted the right people to come out stronger on the other side.