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I think burn out has a lot to do with incentives. When I'm working on a project in which I have a direct interest (intrinsic or financial), or from which I deri

by eszed 3y ago

I think burn out has a lot to do with incentives. When I'm working on a project in which I have a direct interest (intrinsic or financial), or from which I derive a direct benefit (personal, financial, or even intangible), I can work long, long hours without burning out. I'll get tired, and sometimes have to take a break to re-kindle my enthusiasm, but that feels different than burn out. When, by contrast, I'm working (perhaps against my recommendation) on something (perhaps useless) assigned to me (perhaps sub-optimally) for the (perhaps hypothetical) benefit of (perhaps faceless) others, where my motivation is entirely negative - do this, or maybe lose my job - well... Then I feel burnt out before I even start.

sanderjd 3y ago
Yep, self-determination is a really really big deal. But figuring out how to incentivize people to self-determine their way into doing 100% of the things an organization needs to do is a real trick! Some work that still needs to be done just isn't great. The typical approach is to use a combination of money and "skin in the game" (ownership) to cover those cases. And I think that's essentially the right approach, but this simply won't work for everyone. And the thing is that it's super tough to separate out less fulfilling work into a distinct job role that can be more highly compensated and done by people who find that more motivating. I think the best I've seen it work is for managers, who people already expect to be more financially compensated, to fill in these kinds of cracks. If there's something their team needs to do that just isn't getting done without them directing one of their reports to do it, can they do it themselves instead? (And maybe while they're doing it, they can be thinking about whether there is a way someone could build a tool to make it trivial to do the next time it comes up, and then they can probably get their team more excited about building that tool.)
- eszed 3y ago
  I agree with everything you say. Implied, but not directly stated: managers should be technically-capable. I also agree, but how do we incentivize that, against all of the headwinds of our industry?

by eszed 3y ago

sanderjd 3y ago

Yep, self-determination is a really really big deal. But figuring out how to incentivize people to self-determine their way into doing 100% of the things an organization needs to do is a real trick! Some work that still needs to be done just isn't great. The typical approach is to use a combination of money and "skin in the game" (ownership) to cover those cases. And I think that's essentially the right approach, but this simply won't work for everyone. And the thing is that it's super tough to separate out less fulfilling work into a distinct job role that can be more highly compensated and done by people who find that more motivating. I think the best I've seen it work is for managers, who people already expect to be more financially compensated, to fill in these kinds of cracks. If there's something their team needs to do that just isn't getting done without them directing one of their reports to do it, can they do it themselves instead? (And maybe while they're doing it, they can be thinking about whether there is a way someone could build a tool to make it trivial to do the next time it comes up, and then they can probably get their team more excited about building that tool.)

eszed 3y ago
I agree with everything you say. Implied, but not directly stated: managers should be technically-capable. I also agree, but how do we incentivize that, against all of the headwinds of our industry?