5 ms·
I've always read "getting my work done" as similar to "pulling my own weight" or "doing my fair share." They're not supposed to be read literally, only to conve
by curun1r 10y ago
I've always read "getting my work done" as similar to "pulling my own weight" or "doing my fair share." They're not supposed to be read literally, only to convey an overall sentiment.
When I managed my team, work was never assigned to an individual. It was assigned to the team and the team took responsibility for it. Individuals accepted responsibility for pieces of work as they completed prior work. If an individual wasn't contributing enough, either the team's productivity would suffer or other members of the team would step up to fill in the gap. If that that lack of contribution became consistent, I'd notice, either through poor team performance or conversations with disgruntled team members who were covering.
A lot of it was handled by feel and when a member of my team felt like he was accomplishing enough to keep the team performing well, s/he absolutely had the discretion to leave early. The key is that when the team is responsible, people are motivated very differently from when an individual is responsible. Your team members are often your friends whereas you might have a more combative relationship with your manager. No one wants to be the one that lets the team down. And, similarly, if a team is being pushed too hard, everyone will feel it and everyone can push back together. This makes it really easy to see, as a manager, when you're asking too much of people.
I'd say if you're looking for a healthy work environment, look for ones that emphasize team accountability over individual accountability and then try to find a team where everyone respects each other. That team is, more often than not, going to do well and you'll share in that success. If you have a slump, someone will cover for you. If someone else does and you feel up to it, you can go above and beyond for a bit. It's a lot easier to give that extra effort when you're doing well than it is when you're struggling.
- nixos 10y agoThen if the team works hard (say, they're superhuman and can work 24 hours a day 7 days a week straight) and do what other teams do in 3 months in one, will they get the other two off? If not, you're just pushing responsibility up.
- curun1r 10y agoNot exactly, but a similar situation happened with my team. There was a period where we simply accomplished a lot more than other teams. It wasn't superhuman effort, which isn't sustainable. Instead, it was better tool selection and streamlined processes (automation and continuous delivery, which shed a lot of the baggage that comes with large releases) that accounted for most of the increase in productivity. In fact, my team worked less hours and had fewer production issues than other teams. The organization (eventually) reacted the way that healthy organizations should...they promoted most of the team into leadership roles in other teams that weren't performing as well. The reward for our success was more money and responsibility and the entire organization benefited from what we'd learned. I say eventually, because I had to fight a pretty big PR battle before management above me saw the virtue of the way that my team operated. Before that, there was a tendency to give star performer awards and kudos to people putting in long hours to make release deadlines or putting in heroic efforts to keep error-prone production environments up an running. Management saw my team leaving at a normal time every day and didn't think that was worth rewarding. It took a mountain of data for me to show that a boring, predictable production environment that allowed us to push out more features was better serving customers.
- vacri 10y agoHow does someone in hospitality or retail "get their work done and go home early"? How do you staff a cash register so assiduously that you get to knock off early?