Kathy Sierra's "Creating Passionate Users" blog really launched that idea that people want to be the hero of their story, at least for product design. The idea

Kathy Sierra's "Creating Passionate Users" blog really launched that idea that people want to be the hero of their story, at least for product design. The idea that users want to feel good about themselves, and the job of your software is to get them from "oh no, a problem -- I suck!" to "wow, I am kicking ass!" as quickly as possible. Much of management is creating environments where this happens: commit code on your first day, instant feedback for your commits, supporting people to create success themselves rather than rely on you to save the day, etc.