4 ms·

The Value of Screwing Around at Work

4 points by mad_ned 5y ago

rektide 5y ago
I'd love so much for more companies to recognize & deliberately guard their worker's ability to screw around & try shit. 20% time remains one of the only examples I can think of, where the individual is empowered to do what they think is right or interesting. business & product management organizations usually has a very distinct chain of command, but to workers, things are much more flat & egalitarian; a land of ideas & capabilities. and while the business has big overarching goals & objectives, it lacks the savvy to understand the complexity & on the ground truth of what it has & the tactical potentials that it encounters minute-by-minute; it rarely tries to set itself up to capitalize on the insight & intuition & beliefs of it's (knowledge and other) workers. trying to inform the business of one's value, to convince them of your purpose, is a huge colossal tax. that drift, that distance, that business's unknowability of what it's workers know (knowledge workers in particular), is a huge source of tension & dissonance for workers everywhere. since the business can't know our particular work, can't join us slogging through & wrestingling mightily with systems, the least they can do to show respect is make a gesture to give us some autonomy, to let us demonstrate our mastery of these complex environments we've worked on, to seek our own purposes that we think can aid our environment and perhaps our business. making tech debt tickets & adding them to the backlog is one way to get opportunity done. but i have huge respect for the flash of inutition & drive, as a core way that shits get done, and trying to unleash & tap that most raw human power is something that is deeply interesting to me, and something i see almost all businesses everywhere as deeply deeply deeply misaligned to, & often structured harshly against. this article was a bit slow, neandering, but a fun & refreshing read for me, that ponders situations outside of what we've ended up at, the point we all seem to now inhabit together. thanks.

4 points by mad_ned 5y ago

I'd love so much for more companies to recognize & deliberately guard their worker's ability to screw around & try shit. 20% time remains one of the only examples I can think of, where the individual is empowered to do what they think is right or interesting. business & product management organizations usually has a very distinct chain of command, but to workers, things are much more flat & egalitarian; a land of ideas & capabilities. and while the business has big overarching goals & objectives, it lacks the savvy to understand the complexity & on the ground truth of what it has & the tactical potentials that it encounters minute-by-minute; it rarely tries to set itself up to capitalize on the insight & intuition & beliefs of it's (knowledge and other) workers. trying to inform the business of one's value, to convince them of your purpose, is a huge colossal tax. that drift, that distance, that business's unknowability of what it's workers know (knowledge workers in particular), is a huge source of tension & dissonance for workers everywhere. since the business can't know our particular work, can't join us slogging through & wrestingling mightily with systems, the least they can do to show respect is make a gesture to give us some autonomy, to let us demonstrate our mastery of these complex environments we've worked on, to seek our own purposes that we think can aid our environment and perhaps our business. making tech debt tickets & adding them to the backlog is one way to get opportunity done. but i have huge respect for the flash of inutition & drive, as a core way that shits get done, and trying to unleash & tap that most raw human power is something that is deeply interesting to me, and something i see almost all businesses everywhere as deeply deeply deeply misaligned to, & often structured harshly against. this article was a bit slow, neandering, but a fun & refreshing read for me, that ponders situations outside of what we've ended up at, the point we all seem to now inhabit together. thanks.