Yes, there are many dimensions to "productivity" and this needs to be discussed more. Twitter has a thing going around lately where people lampoon the notion o

Yes, there are many dimensions to "productivity" and this needs to be discussed more. Twitter has a thing going around lately where people lampoon the notion of "10x engineers". I applaud this, but there's something really fundamental in the belief that there exists someone, "a hero", that can solve all your problems. Many organizations try to find these people, but they don't exist, at least not in the form that they're expecting. I don't think that folks who would use the term "10x engineer" un-ironically would understand that if you want to cultivate super-productive people this requires that all parts of the organization have to "work right" and not put up obstacles, meaningless KPI's and bullshit goals. If, occasionally, someone is miraculously able to navigate the dysfunction of an organization and get something great done-- it's not magic, it's not "a hero". Instead of mythologizing them, it would be better to truly understand how they were able to accomplish what they did. My expectation is that behind every true 10x-er accomplishment is a strong team environment, a healthy skepticism of project management and a psychologically safe environment that can tolerate learning, questions, mistakes and trying new things. Even more important is an acceptance that there are different roles in a work-team and if some people are able to make "slam-dunks" it's typically because others have diligently performed the countless, unglamorous little jobs that made the "slam-dunk" possible. These little roles _also_ need to be recognized. In fact, if you do find someone who has been called "a 10x" they will, invariably, reject that term and instead generously give credit to the people they work with.