4 ms·

Setting people up for a win is what I value the most with managing. Clearing the path and making sure they can taste meaningful victory. Work is inherently de

Setting people up for a win is what I value the most with managing. Clearing the path and making sure they can taste meaningful victory. Work is inherently demotivating. Value is its antidote and its certainly not as intrinsic as the exhaustion and apathy from labor. It's always a social construct but must not be manufactured. Instead be a protector and guarantor of the most possible reality based on available evidence

3maj 5y ago
mmmmmmm victory salivates
trhway 5y ago
>Work is inherently demotivating. some parts of our work are demotivating. From my experience building houses, software, mechanical tools are intrinsically very motivating. Dealing with slow JIRA is demotivating, and many other stuff coming from, and especially through, managers is demotivating. >apathy from labor sure. The starting point though is all the stuff which converts work into labor. "Habits maketh the man" and thus i guess "micro-habit maketh the micro-manager"
- xf1cf 5y ago
  The corporate nonsense is demotivating but also the lack of ownership. No, ISOs are not ownership. The vast majority of ISOs are _more_ worthless than the paper they're written on and to be honest they seem like a scam to justify lower wages in many startups. It's one thing to have your own project where every unit effort you put potentially has an outsized effect in your market. A market doesn't have to be financial here, but it could be academic, open source, whatever. This is powerfully motivating. You matter fundamentally. It's an entire 'nother thing to be pushing hard on a project for work. You're working on someone else's dream with limited downside for you and limited upside subsequently. You can be fired at any time and the only thing your job will say about you (legally) is "yes they worked here". All of your efforts gone in an instant and not a single thing to show for it. You're back in the candidate pool competing with fresh grads on grade school CS problems you haven't touched in years. Maybe you did well enough a couple of your ex-coworkers will throw you a bone at their friend's company or something. It's entirely demotivating. This is the definition of all work-for-wage effort. The scientific term is "the rat race". I suppose if you're compensated well enough you can ignore this feeling. But it's still present. You're cashing in almost 60% of your life. For what? To me, there's no amount of "micro-habits" or "good management" that will correct this. At the end of the day the C-levels and management have a concerted interest in keeping the worker bees happy for some obscure, probably driven by an MBA spreadsheet, definition of happy. All work, aside from work on your own dreams, is inherently demotivating. If it already hasn't, it will eventually suck every last bit of the bright eyed programmer you have left in you. Unless of course you _enjoy_ slaving away on someone else's dream. Then by all means - keep on keepin' on.
- gryfft 5y ago
  >slow JIRA is demotivating "What's wrong?" Asks the doctor as the man continues to weep. "Doctor," the man says, "I am the JIRA administrator."
kwdc 5y ago
There is a LOT to unpack when you assert work is demotivating. I've generally found when mentoring that bad management is common and terrible managers are also common. This is a real cause of demotivation for plenty of workers. Turning up every day to some mini hellscape created by nasty people and money / need for money then becomes the only reward. Those are the biggest causes of demotivation right there. Prime example: deliberate hiring to fire. No one should be advocating that. Its incompetance. A real ethical organisation would be investigating who hired the person and who managed the person. Then seriously consider firing them as well. Minimum action is to reduce rewards, eg bonuses, as penalty. Hiring done well is expensive. Hiring poorly implies something bad in the hiring process. Why tolerate that?

3maj 5y ago

mmmmmmm victory salivates

trhway 5y ago

>Work is inherently demotivating. some parts of our work are demotivating. From my experience building houses, software, mechanical tools are intrinsically very motivating. Dealing with slow JIRA is demotivating, and many other stuff coming from, and especially through, managers is demotivating. >apathy from labor sure. The starting point though is all the stuff which converts work into labor. "Habits maketh the man" and thus i guess "micro-habit maketh the micro-manager"

xf1cf 5y ago
The corporate nonsense is demotivating but also the lack of ownership. No, ISOs are not ownership. The vast majority of ISOs are _more_ worthless than the paper they're written on and to be honest they seem like a scam to justify lower wages in many startups. It's one thing to have your own project where every unit effort you put potentially has an outsized effect in your market. A market doesn't have to be financial here, but it could be academic, open source, whatever. This is powerfully motivating. You matter fundamentally. It's an entire 'nother thing to be pushing hard on a project for work. You're working on someone else's dream with limited downside for you and limited upside subsequently. You can be fired at any time and the only thing your job will say about you (legally) is "yes they worked here". All of your efforts gone in an instant and not a single thing to show for it. You're back in the candidate pool competing with fresh grads on grade school CS problems you haven't touched in years. Maybe you did well enough a couple of your ex-coworkers will throw you a bone at their friend's company or something. It's entirely demotivating. This is the definition of all work-for-wage effort. The scientific term is "the rat race". I suppose if you're compensated well enough you can ignore this feeling. But it's still present. You're cashing in almost 60% of your life. For what? To me, there's no amount of "micro-habits" or "good management" that will correct this. At the end of the day the C-levels and management have a concerted interest in keeping the worker bees happy for some obscure, probably driven by an MBA spreadsheet, definition of happy. All work, aside from work on your own dreams, is inherently demotivating. If it already hasn't, it will eventually suck every last bit of the bright eyed programmer you have left in you. Unless of course you _enjoy_ slaving away on someone else's dream. Then by all means - keep on keepin' on.
gryfft 5y ago
>slow JIRA is demotivating "What's wrong?" Asks the doctor as the man continues to weep. "Doctor," the man says, "I am the JIRA administrator."

kwdc 5y ago

There is a LOT to unpack when you assert work is demotivating. I've generally found when mentoring that bad management is common and terrible managers are also common. This is a real cause of demotivation for plenty of workers. Turning up every day to some mini hellscape created by nasty people and money / need for money then becomes the only reward. Those are the biggest causes of demotivation right there. Prime example: deliberate hiring to fire. No one should be advocating that. Its incompetance. A real ethical organisation would be investigating who hired the person and who managed the person. Then seriously consider firing them as well. Minimum action is to reduce rewards, eg bonuses, as penalty. Hiring done well is expensive. Hiring poorly implies something bad in the hiring process. Why tolerate that?