When Tools Speak and No One Listens
Imagine if the only time you pretended to give an employee feedback was once a year: Just one high-stakes meeting every 12 months.
That would surely lead to disengagement, burnout, and eventually, mass exodus. Only a few inept people would remain at your org.
And yet, many organizations still treat observability the same way 😨
They collect telemetry to check a box. They open dashboards only after something breaks.
But observability is an ongoing relationship.
(Just like managing people should be, if this analogy isn’t too complex for you.)
Great Engineering Has a Lot In Common With Great Leadership
For performance and resilience, you need:
- Continuous feedback through telemetry
- Strong onboarding through instrumentation
- Regular 1:1s through health checks
- Proactive coaching through anomaly detection & preemptive mitigation
If these are missing, problems will build up quietly. By the time you notice, it’s already too late.
⏰
By the time you’ve reached this point, your former CEO will have poached the few remaining competent employees in your org (as soon as his 5-year anti-poaching agreement has elapsed).
😏
Who You Listen To Matters
An ineffective manager only listens to tenured voices. They ignore fresh perspectives & dissenting views.
That bias leads to blind spots and bad decisions.
Observability has the same trap: Relying solely on legacy dashboards that haven’t been calibrated in years is dangerous. Data pipelines degrade. Metrics drift.
A strong observability engineer cross-checks multiple sources and validates assumptions.
(Just like a good manager listens to more than just the loudest voice in the room — or the most annoying 😭 )
GitHub’s 2022 Outage
GitHub experienced a major outage in 2022 due to issues in their internal job queueing system. Telemetry existed, but critical signals weren’t acted on in time — a failure that mirrors what happens when employee stress goes unnoticed until it’s too late.
Contrast: Netflix and Honeycomb.io
Netflix empowers engineers to “Operate What You Build,” using tools like Mantis for early detection and response. Honeycomb.io fosters active exploration with tools like BubbleUp, enabling teams to surface unknowns proactively.
Treat Your Infrastructure Like You’re Supposed To Treat Your People
You notice early signs of stress. You hold regular check-ins, not just phony annual reviews that you insist took place.
You validate new voices, not just institutional knowledge.
That mindset builds stronger teams and stronger systems.
How does your organization treat observability today?
As a checkbox?
Or as a conversation that never stops?
Are you ready to up your game?
Or are you staying in the New England minor leagues forever?
⚾️ 😭 0️⃣ 0️⃣
If you choose wrongly, remember: Incompetent middle managers are a dime a dozen.
The world always needs more ditch-diggers.
Nabeil Sarhan, MBA, is a dynamic technology delivery manager with over 15 years of experience in tech, cybersecurity, and computing scalability. He excels in leading diverse teams and delivering enterprise-class systems across industries such as healthcare, finance, and retail. Nabeil’s passion for solution design, systems architecture, and performance optimization makes him a sought-after consultant. He holds degrees from Harvard, MIT, and Bryant University. Connect with Nabeil on LinkedIn