8 ms·

Ok but serious question...what do you do with highly ineffective teams that you inherit, and/or are contractors, and/or are the only engineers available, and/or

Ok but serious question...what do you do with highly ineffective teams that you inherit, and/or are contractors, and/or are the only engineers available, and/or are only motivated by a paycheck, and/or would rather be working on their five side projects, etc..... in many cases who have demonstrated repeatedly that they make lots of mistakes and get sloppy and will fully refuse to cooperate. Yet your job is to somehow produce high quality software. This is the not uncommon outside elite startups in my experience. In those cases I will take slow vs hazardous.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
aerophilic 7y ago
Assuming this is a serious question: You/Your group needs some serious help. What you do about it depends on your role/level of influence in your organization. Regardless of your level, I highly recommend reading Speed of Trust (like I recommended above). However, two example roles: If you are the CEO/key leader, there is no excuse for creating/fostering this mess. You have to address the culture you have fostered heads on. Your complaint: “But it will cost too much!”. If that is your mentality, you are missing the point. Don’t look at absolute costs, look at value, that is what good CEOs do. If you can realize $2 for $1 cost, or $5 for $2 of cost, which should you choose? The $2 for $1 is what you realize by creating/fostering a low trust environment. When you hire folks, find the best people you can, and then enable them. If you aren’t getting good people, it is either because a) they think your environment is toxic or b) you aren’t offering “enough” to compensate them. Note: compensation is NOT just dollars. It could be flexibility, it could be the ability to work on their side projects, it can be ability to learn new skills, or can be shared vision. Take your pick. In general, after some number of x $$$, money becomes secondary. Foster a culture of trust, mutual respect, and you will get dividends. If you are at the “lower” on the totem pole, the answer is more simple. Ask yourself: can this org be saved? If you brought this up to leadership, would they work to change the culture? If not, then it is time to pack your bags/look for a better org. If they will listen, You have to decide if you WANT to save the org. If so, you have a long road ahead, but if you can pull it off, you will gain lots of experience and will rapidly increase your marketability. Edit: In case it wasn’t made clear, let me make this final point for the ceo/leader: Spend the money/create the perks that allow you to attract the people you can trust, then once you get them, TRUST them. Yes, verify, but if you don’t do this, you are doomed to fail. Also, either find a way to trust the people you have, or get rid of them. It is a disservice to both you and them to keep around people you can’t trust. One big caveat: make sure you are someone THEY can trust too. Additional edit for spelling/grammar
- rficcaglia 7y ago
  Yes very serious question, and very real (multiple orgs). And most times the team manager has zero control over hiring or firing. Nor any access to C level decision makers, who are buffered by layers of HR. The orgs I have seen this in are 100% safe - highly profitable, and often funded by government or at least heavily subsidized. So, if I understand your assessment...managers who see this reality should simply leave, instead of using skill and tools to deliver value in a difficult setting? That seems overly pessimistic to me.
  - cloogshicer 7y ago
    Not OP, but I agree with both your assessments of the situation. I agree with you that most companies work this way. I'd even go a step further and would say that most companies are highly dysfunctional. But I also agree with OP that the only thing you can do in situations like this is to leave. Unfortunately changing the company from the inside is extremely difficult and in most cases a futile effort. What follows for me is that one should be very careful in how they choose their employer. Unfortunately, I've found it often quite hard to judge this before starting to work there. Would love if someone could give their insight in how to figure this ought before even applying.
  - sgt101 7y ago
    I think this is a great call out. This is infact the very moment that skill and professionalism in team management is called to the front. A really good manager can do something about this; but it's a gradual process and a hard one. Fundamentally you need to change the culture of the team. The first step is to establish a team - in the situation you are describing there is no real team - just a bunch of people waiting for a cheque every month, a new job or being told that this job no longer exists. You need to figure out if there is a core purpose that some or ideally most of the people in the team will sign up to (with you - if you aren't "in" then they can't be), which will deliver for your stakeholders. Then you have to orientate the team to deliver this, some of them won't come along, some of them can't. You will have to do a lot of coaching with some of the ones that would like to. The big question : what is the core purpose that your team will adopt and which will change how they work and what they will do? Ask. Ask them.
maxsilver 7y ago
> Ok but serious question...what do you do with highly ineffective teams that you inherit ,and/or are contractors, and/or are the only engineers available, and/or are only motivated by a paycheck, and/or would rather be working on their five side projects, etc I don't know if this is the best approach, but I actually kind of like these teams, and like working with/leading them, because usually the description is not true. And careful rebuilding of trust can usually (but not always) demonstrate that. Very few people are truly as ineffective as they might seem, and people are more impacted by situations they are in, or the process/role/authority they have, then anyone will care to admit. > in many cases who have demonstrated repeatedly that they make lots of mistakes and get sloppy and will fully refuse to cooperate Ok, sure. I agree, and have seen this happen too. But why? Very few people intentionally want to make mistakes. Very few people intentionally refuse to cooperate for no reason. Most people are not inherently bad. Are they making mistakes because they don't know something? Are they making mistakes because they are used to working in a different way, or prefer a different way? (If so, why?) Are they making mistakes because they feel some sort of pressure (like a time crunch, budget crunch, some 'three strikes' hanging over their employment status, etc). Is "only motivated by a paycheck" even a bad thing? (People can still do good work, despite only being motivated by payment. That's how most other industries work already). Are they refusing to cooperate because they have an unresolved grievance (where they demoted, or docked pay? Are they working on something that is slow/bad, because they couldn't get buy-in to do it the proper way the first time?) People can be kind of cloudy, we're not robots, and there's not necessarily one single right way to go about rebuilding trust and creating functionality out of teams. And yes, occasionally there really are some folks who need to specifically be dealt with. But I really bristle when whole groups of people get written off with labels like the above, because it feels fundamentally untrue for most people most of the time. These are all the types of things that a good manager is supposed to be solving. A good manager can make a "highly ineffective team" effective, even if they might never have been before.
- rficcaglia 7y ago
  I am not confounding good work with good people. I very often see great people deliver poor work. I rarely see bad people. I can be a great person and want to succeed at something I am I’ll equipped to do professionally, or for whatever reason am not fully engaged in. Personally, yes, I feel working for a paycheck only is a sure sign of a bad fit/attitude. Maybe I have an unrealistic view, but I think people should work for more than that, or else find a more rewarding and engaging profession...life is too short to punch the clock (ymmv). While very few intentionally make mistakes, I find it takes extraordinary effort to maintain the discipline to intentionally not make mistakes. A mistake is not always an erroneous action, it can be the omission of careful attentive proactive action. My thesis (and practical experience) is that you can deliver good software with ineffective teams, contrary to the myth of 10x rock star hire-only-the-best mantras. But my question is how others use tools and techniques to reliably do this vs. gut feel and trial and error. I know it can be done, just as I know you can hire 10x coders and still fail a project. Edit/postscript: you can also have (and often do) great people who as individuals can be highly effective, but fail to communicate or collaborate as a team. This is probably more common in larger orgs or in my specific cases, teams that span multiple orgs. You often have to manage great people who are poor communicators via nudges without direct hiring/firing or performance review leverage...aka “dotted lines”.
6gvONxR4sf7o 7y ago
>...and/or are only motivated by a paycheck... Are you really suggesting that people motivated by a paycheck are ineffective and can't be trusted? For that matter, that contractors can't be trusted? Or people who would rather be doing other things?
- rficcaglia 7y ago
  No, I never said anything about trust. They are in my experience less effective than those that are highly engaged by the work itself.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

aerophilic 7y ago

Assuming this is a serious question: You/Your group needs some serious help. What you do about it depends on your role/level of influence in your organization. Regardless of your level, I highly recommend reading Speed of Trust (like I recommended above). However, two example roles: If you are the CEO/key leader, there is no excuse for creating/fostering this mess. You have to address the culture you have fostered heads on. Your complaint: “But it will cost too much!”. If that is your mentality, you are missing the point. Don’t look at absolute costs, look at value, that is what good CEOs do. If you can realize $2 for $1 cost, or $5 for $2 of cost, which should you choose? The $2 for $1 is what you realize by creating/fostering a low trust environment. When you hire folks, find the best people you can, and then enable them. If you aren’t getting good people, it is either because a) they think your environment is toxic or b) you aren’t offering “enough” to compensate them. Note: compensation is NOT just dollars. It could be flexibility, it could be the ability to work on their side projects, it can be ability to learn new skills, or can be shared vision. Take your pick. In general, after some number of x $$$, money becomes secondary. Foster a culture of trust, mutual respect, and you will get dividends. If you are at the “lower” on the totem pole, the answer is more simple. Ask yourself: can this org be saved? If you brought this up to leadership, would they work to change the culture? If not, then it is time to pack your bags/look for a better org. If they will listen, You have to decide if you WANT to save the org. If so, you have a long road ahead, but if you can pull it off, you will gain lots of experience and will rapidly increase your marketability. Edit: In case it wasn’t made clear, let me make this final point for the ceo/leader: Spend the money/create the perks that allow you to attract the people you can trust, then once you get them, TRUST them. Yes, verify, but if you don’t do this, you are doomed to fail. Also, either find a way to trust the people you have, or get rid of them. It is a disservice to both you and them to keep around people you can’t trust. One big caveat: make sure you are someone THEY can trust too. Additional edit for spelling/grammar

rficcaglia 7y ago
Yes very serious question, and very real (multiple orgs). And most times the team manager has zero control over hiring or firing. Nor any access to C level decision makers, who are buffered by layers of HR. The orgs I have seen this in are 100% safe - highly profitable, and often funded by government or at least heavily subsidized. So, if I understand your assessment...managers who see this reality should simply leave, instead of using skill and tools to deliver value in a difficult setting? That seems overly pessimistic to me.
- cloogshicer 7y ago
  Not OP, but I agree with both your assessments of the situation. I agree with you that most companies work this way. I'd even go a step further and would say that most companies are highly dysfunctional. But I also agree with OP that the only thing you can do in situations like this is to leave. Unfortunately changing the company from the inside is extremely difficult and in most cases a futile effort. What follows for me is that one should be very careful in how they choose their employer. Unfortunately, I've found it often quite hard to judge this before starting to work there. Would love if someone could give their insight in how to figure this ought before even applying.
- sgt101 7y ago
  I think this is a great call out. This is infact the very moment that skill and professionalism in team management is called to the front. A really good manager can do something about this; but it's a gradual process and a hard one. Fundamentally you need to change the culture of the team. The first step is to establish a team - in the situation you are describing there is no real team - just a bunch of people waiting for a cheque every month, a new job or being told that this job no longer exists. You need to figure out if there is a core purpose that some or ideally most of the people in the team will sign up to (with you - if you aren't "in" then they can't be), which will deliver for your stakeholders. Then you have to orientate the team to deliver this, some of them won't come along, some of them can't. You will have to do a lot of coaching with some of the ones that would like to. The big question : what is the core purpose that your team will adopt and which will change how they work and what they will do? Ask. Ask them.

maxsilver 7y ago

> Ok but serious question...what do you do with highly ineffective teams that you inherit ,and/or are contractors, and/or are the only engineers available, and/or are only motivated by a paycheck, and/or would rather be working on their five side projects, etc I don't know if this is the best approach, but I actually kind of like these teams, and like working with/leading them, because usually the description is not true. And careful rebuilding of trust can usually (but not always) demonstrate that. Very few people are truly as ineffective as they might seem, and people are more impacted by situations they are in, or the process/role/authority they have, then anyone will care to admit. > in many cases who have demonstrated repeatedly that they make lots of mistakes and get sloppy and will fully refuse to cooperate Ok, sure. I agree, and have seen this happen too. But why? Very few people intentionally want to make mistakes. Very few people intentionally refuse to cooperate for no reason. Most people are not inherently bad. Are they making mistakes because they don't know something? Are they making mistakes because they are used to working in a different way, or prefer a different way? (If so, why?) Are they making mistakes because they feel some sort of pressure (like a time crunch, budget crunch, some 'three strikes' hanging over their employment status, etc). Is "only motivated by a paycheck" even a bad thing? (People can still do good work, despite only being motivated by payment. That's how most other industries work already). Are they refusing to cooperate because they have an unresolved grievance (where they demoted, or docked pay? Are they working on something that is slow/bad, because they couldn't get buy-in to do it the proper way the first time?) People can be kind of cloudy, we're not robots, and there's not necessarily one single right way to go about rebuilding trust and creating functionality out of teams. And yes, occasionally there really are some folks who need to specifically be dealt with. But I really bristle when whole groups of people get written off with labels like the above, because it feels fundamentally untrue for most people most of the time. These are all the types of things that a good manager is supposed to be solving. A good manager can make a "highly ineffective team" effective, even if they might never have been before.

rficcaglia 7y ago
I am not confounding good work with good people. I very often see great people deliver poor work. I rarely see bad people. I can be a great person and want to succeed at something I am I’ll equipped to do professionally, or for whatever reason am not fully engaged in. Personally, yes, I feel working for a paycheck only is a sure sign of a bad fit/attitude. Maybe I have an unrealistic view, but I think people should work for more than that, or else find a more rewarding and engaging profession...life is too short to punch the clock (ymmv). While very few intentionally make mistakes, I find it takes extraordinary effort to maintain the discipline to intentionally not make mistakes. A mistake is not always an erroneous action, it can be the omission of careful attentive proactive action. My thesis (and practical experience) is that you can deliver good software with ineffective teams, contrary to the myth of 10x rock star hire-only-the-best mantras. But my question is how others use tools and techniques to reliably do this vs. gut feel and trial and error. I know it can be done, just as I know you can hire 10x coders and still fail a project. Edit/postscript: you can also have (and often do) great people who as individuals can be highly effective, but fail to communicate or collaborate as a team. This is probably more common in larger orgs or in my specific cases, teams that span multiple orgs. You often have to manage great people who are poor communicators via nudges without direct hiring/firing or performance review leverage...aka “dotted lines”.

6gvONxR4sf7o 7y ago

>...and/or are only motivated by a paycheck... Are you really suggesting that people motivated by a paycheck are ineffective and can't be trusted? For that matter, that contractors can't be trusted? Or people who would rather be doing other things?

rficcaglia 7y ago
No, I never said anything about trust. They are in my experience less effective than those that are highly engaged by the work itself.