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Sure, I'm with you there. But does "the right people" == "workaholics?". I think not. I'm always brought back to my army days with this one... I tried out for

Sure, I'm with you there. But does "the right people" == "workaholics?". I think not. I'm always brought back to my army days with this one... I tried out for JTF 2, which is Canada's special forces, basically. Special Forces are like the start-ups of military life... Small teams, high-performers, massive flexibility... One of their #1 knocks on me at the time was that I wasn't married. Marriage showed stability, it showed you were multi-dimensional, that you had a built in support group, and that you weren't too much of a risk taker. When you relate that back to the situation at hand, I think you want people who have something to lose, but at the same time have an understanding that there are other important things in life that need to be appreciated and respected. Workaholics tend not to have this, and because of that they often make one-dimensional decisions, get burnt out, and over exert themselves in the wrong direction.

thaumaturgy 19y ago
I think that your response -- and the one at 37Signals -- both point to problems with workaholics in an unstructured environment. An effective manager has, among their skillset, the ability to recognize the workaholics, and recognize the early signs of burn-out. That sort of manager knows how to massage people so that the workaholics can get their fix -- and do so in a way that really helps the company! -- without making other employees feel guilty, and without letting the situation evolve into a burn-out scenario. Workaholics will also tend to develop the workaholic streak only so long as they perceive that there is that much extra work to be done. If you have a company full of workaholics, and they're all working around the clock for an extended period of time, then you're understaffed or horribly mismanaging your projects. I'm a workaholic. That doesn't mean that I want to spend all of my time working in the same chair, and if I were to find myself (again...) in the situation where I'm putting that much effort into a company that didn't appreciate it, then I'd leave. However, I think I'm a pretty useful asset if suddenly the company finds itself staring down the cold barrel of a deadline that's gonna require a quick burst of 14 hour days. I've also in the past stayed late to implement new features, or just push things a little bit further ahead. Now, let's say you don't have any workaholics in your company. What happens if something does require the big push? Now you're forced either to demand overtime, which can generate some pretty serious resentment, or you're forced to figure out some other way out of your problem, which'll probably involve missing the deadline. I would think of workaholics as the 10,000RPM part of the engine that is your company. You can't run the engine that hard for very long, but when you need that power, there's just no substitute.

thaumaturgy 19y ago

I think that your response -- and the one at 37Signals -- both point to problems with workaholics in an unstructured environment. An effective manager has, among their skillset, the ability to recognize the workaholics, and recognize the early signs of burn-out. That sort of manager knows how to massage people so that the workaholics can get their fix -- and do so in a way that really helps the company! -- without making other employees feel guilty, and without letting the situation evolve into a burn-out scenario. Workaholics will also tend to develop the workaholic streak only so long as they perceive that there is that much extra work to be done. If you have a company full of workaholics, and they're all working around the clock for an extended period of time, then you're understaffed or horribly mismanaging your projects. I'm a workaholic. That doesn't mean that I want to spend all of my time working in the same chair, and if I were to find myself (again...) in the situation where I'm putting that much effort into a company that didn't appreciate it, then I'd leave. However, I think I'm a pretty useful asset if suddenly the company finds itself staring down the cold barrel of a deadline that's gonna require a quick burst of 14 hour days. I've also in the past stayed late to implement new features, or just push things a little bit further ahead. Now, let's say you don't have any workaholics in your company. What happens if something does require the big push? Now you're forced either to demand overtime, which can generate some pretty serious resentment, or you're forced to figure out some other way out of your problem, which'll probably involve missing the deadline. I would think of workaholics as the 10,000RPM part of the engine that is your company. You can't run the engine that hard for very long, but when you need that power, there's just no substitute.