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There is a bigger war, though. Other teams, other companies. You want to keep what works, change what doesn't work. If your team doesn't do it, another team el

There is a bigger war, though. Other teams, other companies. You want to keep what works, change what doesn't work. If your team doesn't do it, another team elsewhere will. Then, people never stay in the same job forever. If you use your power/team to stay mediocre, you are just acting against your own self interest.

snowwrestler 8y ago
When things aren't working their best, the #1 thing that has to change is the team, not the technology. Change the team and the technology change will happen automatically. Try to change the technology while alienating the team, and the tech changes won't get done or won't stick. One way to change a team is firing/hiring, and I bet many readers' minds probably went there first. But firing and hiring are very expensive, especially in a time-constrained business, because time has a cost. And only a few people have the power to do that. Another way to change a team is to alter or improve the people on the team. The value of influence--the ability to change the minds of people around you--is underrated by a lot of people, especially engineers who spend most of their time in a headspace where things are quantifiable, black and white. A new person coming into a team that builds technology, who wants to change the technology, needs to focus first on changing the team via influence. This is a skill that anyone can learn, but it has to first be a skill they recognize and value. The lowest person on the totem pole can't fire anyone, but they can certainly influence people. In fact, the ability to positively influence the people around you is a key skill for anyone who wants to grow into a leader in their profession.
- partycoder 8y ago
  It's not about technology. It's about consensus building processes, which are necessary to collaboratively work around an idea. It is fine to spend time discussing and building consensus. And it is fine if your idea doesn't prevail. But the most important thing is how an idea prevails in a conversation. If an idea prevails for reasons other than it being the most reasonable idea, like someone pulling rank, or having a higher speech rate, or louder voice, or just being more aesthetically pleasing, you've got a pretty flawed process and this frustrates objective people. When a person consistently requires a lot of hours of "influencing", usually because their motivations are not aligned with the best interest of the company, you start looking for alternatives. e.g: having someone else to do it, deprioritizing, doing the job yourself, escalating. When you have a team full of those people, best thing you can do is to make a better use of your time and work on another team or for another company.
- xvilka 8y ago
  If you think in terms of pure performance - social interactions, adoption just take too much brainpower, energy and time. If the management is smart, hiring the people who lack (and do not spend the time to that) those social interaction skills can improve the team performance to new heights. What is tricky in that case - the synchronization of the tasks and progress in the team, but this can be done externally by the manager and software.

snowwrestler 8y ago

When things aren't working their best, the #1 thing that has to change is the team, not the technology. Change the team and the technology change will happen automatically. Try to change the technology while alienating the team, and the tech changes won't get done or won't stick. One way to change a team is firing/hiring, and I bet many readers' minds probably went there first. But firing and hiring are very expensive, especially in a time-constrained business, because time has a cost. And only a few people have the power to do that. Another way to change a team is to alter or improve the people on the team. The value of influence--the ability to change the minds of people around you--is underrated by a lot of people, especially engineers who spend most of their time in a headspace where things are quantifiable, black and white. A new person coming into a team that builds technology, who wants to change the technology, needs to focus first on changing the team via influence. This is a skill that anyone can learn, but it has to first be a skill they recognize and value. The lowest person on the totem pole can't fire anyone, but they can certainly influence people. In fact, the ability to positively influence the people around you is a key skill for anyone who wants to grow into a leader in their profession.

partycoder 8y ago
It's not about technology. It's about consensus building processes, which are necessary to collaboratively work around an idea. It is fine to spend time discussing and building consensus. And it is fine if your idea doesn't prevail. But the most important thing is how an idea prevails in a conversation. If an idea prevails for reasons other than it being the most reasonable idea, like someone pulling rank, or having a higher speech rate, or louder voice, or just being more aesthetically pleasing, you've got a pretty flawed process and this frustrates objective people. When a person consistently requires a lot of hours of "influencing", usually because their motivations are not aligned with the best interest of the company, you start looking for alternatives. e.g: having someone else to do it, deprioritizing, doing the job yourself, escalating. When you have a team full of those people, best thing you can do is to make a better use of your time and work on another team or for another company.
xvilka 8y ago
If you think in terms of pure performance - social interactions, adoption just take too much brainpower, energy and time. If the management is smart, hiring the people who lack (and do not spend the time to that) those social interaction skills can improve the team performance to new heights. What is tricky in that case - the synchronization of the tasks and progress in the team, but this can be done externally by the manager and software.