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The part about intentional team values is very good: • Digs ditches. Nobody is too good for any task. • Returns shopping carts (even if nobody's watching). We

The part about intentional team values is very good: • Digs ditches. Nobody is too good for any task. • Returns shopping carts (even if nobody's watching). We leave things better than we found them. It's amazing how most teams don't set norms/values at all!

nox101 2y ago
Western society (or at least USA society) seems to me to foster the idea of "not my responsibility". My example would be, going to a fast food place and not cleaning your table even though there are trashcans and places to put your tray. Spilling something and not even attempting to clean up after yourself. Unions have this in spades. "My job is X, I don't do Y, in fact I'm not allowed to do Y as that takes a job away from whoever is supposed to do Y"
- xyzzy4747 2y ago
  Incidentally I noticed in India most fast food shops have enough spare workers to clean tables for you. So you don't have to clean your own table.
- _DeadFred_ 2y ago
  Huh? US society doesn't foster that. Sounds like you just live in a crappy area or a rich super entitled one. I've never lived in an area where people just left their fast food mess or just left spills. It's never been an attitude fostered anywhere I've lived. To be fair I mainly had experience with the midwest/western USA, maybe the east coast is different.
  - fragmede 2y ago
    there's definitely a "it's not my job to _____, why would I do someone else's job for them" attitude I've noticed from some people, though I couldn't say what traits they share so as to identify a subgroup.
  - seadan83 2y ago
    Maybe some things feel more prevalent. I'd say this is largely confirmation and/or sampling bias. Nobody knows without actually doing the sociology that there are these tendencies. To the extent that we have anecdata, we don't know how much more prevalent such tendencies are. The USA is a big AF place, 400 some million people.
- 01HNNWZ0MV43FF 2y ago
  If there's a country that doesn't speed and litter please get me a visa so I can go home
  - mc3301 2y ago
    Japan (only 80% serious here)
    - Aeolun 2y ago
      Go to the countryside and be amazed. Exactly why people litter to that extend 20km from civilization escapes me. But yeah, most people just bring their trash home. For those interested, Visas are really easy to obtain as long as someone is willing to hire you.
      - rglynn 2y ago
        How is the work culture in Japan these days? Is it possible to find a company that doesn't have their peculiar (read "awful") work culture?
        Aeolun 2y ago
        If they’re willing to hire you when you’re overseas they are generally reasonable. Or trying to exploit cheap labor, but then it’ll be abundantly clear and you can just say no.
  - rglynn 2y ago
    Japan, although both of these are taken to the opposite extreme.
- boruto 2y ago
  I am from an eastern society, So my first day in western society I saw a blue collar worker clean up his food crumbs on a REWE deli table. This might seem normal to do for you, but I swear I never seen anything like that in my life in the eastern society. I was 27 this had profound impact on me than reading any book, I still remember it after a decade.
harry8 2y ago
This works both ways or it doesn't at all. You want selfless devotion to the goal then you damn well better not be wasting my time and cutting costs at the expense of my productivity. Managers who don't know what they're talking about and insist they do and insist they are right causing massive lost time, then want to hold meeting after meeting about how it is everyone else's fault. You've seen it. Why am I working long hours doing work, some of which is shovelling sand that need shovelling because I'm not too good for it when if that idiot had been restrained to their level of competence we'd already have delivered and I'd see more of my family. Selfless devotion? To what? In the old days when SSDs were 'expensive' and companies economised and didn't immediately buy them for the team because my time isn't worth saving but they want me to stay back to get more done for a deadline? Selfless devotion to a goal you're showing clearly you don't care about. This stuff is really normal. You have stories, everyone does. And so we take the path that is best for ourselves and those we like. Any other choice isn't "egoless" it's insane. Managing a team is hard. Keeping idiots from having idiotic influence is hard. Spotting who is managing up is hard. Noticing, supporting and retaining who is good is hard. Having someone with a massive ego who you might cross the road to avoid having to socially interact with other than they do a decent job of that hard managing might work out better than "Egoless."
neolefty 2y ago
I've encountered people who sincerely dislike talk of "values", and I think it's because they have seen them used as a flog rather than an inspiration. My guess is that there was a leader in their past who set values but didn't actually follow them. "We dig ditches" means "everybody but me digs ditches". It's hard to be both technically and morally capable, but I think that's what leadership requires. So an approach might be to set only the values you can actually follow through on, and be clear when a value is aspirational. If you really do dig ditches (perhaps metaphorically, maybe by fixing deployment script bugs or something), then you can use it as a value. To be clear: I'm definitely in favor of team values. Is there a way to make them achievable, but also grow them over time as you get better at them?
- seadan83 2y ago
  I'm sincerely skeptical of values. "Customers first", except when we are making money off of them. It's in part observing the actual action, and not just the talk. It's funny how guidelines becomes the rubric for a performance review, yet you are promoted or fired for completely different reasons. Too often the values are whatever the hell the management wants to interpret them to be, whenever. It's perhaps a difference of "We dig ditches", vs "the manager dug a ditch last week, the prior week, and this week we are digging these ditches together." All that can change, but the tract record and the habits speak more than just a motto on the wall.

nox101 2y ago

Western society (or at least USA society) seems to me to foster the idea of "not my responsibility". My example would be, going to a fast food place and not cleaning your table even though there are trashcans and places to put your tray. Spilling something and not even attempting to clean up after yourself. Unions have this in spades. "My job is X, I don't do Y, in fact I'm not allowed to do Y as that takes a job away from whoever is supposed to do Y"

xyzzy4747 2y ago
Incidentally I noticed in India most fast food shops have enough spare workers to clean tables for you. So you don't have to clean your own table.
_DeadFred_ 2y ago
Huh? US society doesn't foster that. Sounds like you just live in a crappy area or a rich super entitled one. I've never lived in an area where people just left their fast food mess or just left spills. It's never been an attitude fostered anywhere I've lived. To be fair I mainly had experience with the midwest/western USA, maybe the east coast is different.
- fragmede 2y ago
  there's definitely a "it's not my job to _____, why would I do someone else's job for them" attitude I've noticed from some people, though I couldn't say what traits they share so as to identify a subgroup.
- seadan83 2y ago
  Maybe some things feel more prevalent. I'd say this is largely confirmation and/or sampling bias. Nobody knows without actually doing the sociology that there are these tendencies. To the extent that we have anecdata, we don't know how much more prevalent such tendencies are. The USA is a big AF place, 400 some million people.
01HNNWZ0MV43FF 2y ago
If there's a country that doesn't speed and litter please get me a visa so I can go home
- mc3301 2y ago
  Japan (only 80% serious here)
  - Aeolun 2y ago
    Go to the countryside and be amazed. Exactly why people litter to that extend 20km from civilization escapes me. But yeah, most people just bring their trash home. For those interested, Visas are really easy to obtain as long as someone is willing to hire you.
    - rglynn 2y ago
      How is the work culture in Japan these days? Is it possible to find a company that doesn't have their peculiar (read "awful") work culture?
      - Aeolun 2y ago
        If they’re willing to hire you when you’re overseas they are generally reasonable. Or trying to exploit cheap labor, but then it’ll be abundantly clear and you can just say no.
- rglynn 2y ago
  Japan, although both of these are taken to the opposite extreme.
boruto 2y ago
I am from an eastern society, So my first day in western society I saw a blue collar worker clean up his food crumbs on a REWE deli table. This might seem normal to do for you, but I swear I never seen anything like that in my life in the eastern society. I was 27 this had profound impact on me than reading any book, I still remember it after a decade.

harry8 2y ago

This works both ways or it doesn't at all. You want selfless devotion to the goal then you damn well better not be wasting my time and cutting costs at the expense of my productivity. Managers who don't know what they're talking about and insist they do and insist they are right causing massive lost time, then want to hold meeting after meeting about how it is everyone else's fault. You've seen it. Why am I working long hours doing work, some of which is shovelling sand that need shovelling because I'm not too good for it when if that idiot had been restrained to their level of competence we'd already have delivered and I'd see more of my family. Selfless devotion? To what? In the old days when SSDs were 'expensive' and companies economised and didn't immediately buy them for the team because my time isn't worth saving but they want me to stay back to get more done for a deadline? Selfless devotion to a goal you're showing clearly you don't care about. This stuff is really normal. You have stories, everyone does. And so we take the path that is best for ourselves and those we like. Any other choice isn't "egoless" it's insane. Managing a team is hard. Keeping idiots from having idiotic influence is hard. Spotting who is managing up is hard. Noticing, supporting and retaining who is good is hard. Having someone with a massive ego who you might cross the road to avoid having to socially interact with other than they do a decent job of that hard managing might work out better than "Egoless."

neolefty 2y ago

I've encountered people who sincerely dislike talk of "values", and I think it's because they have seen them used as a flog rather than an inspiration. My guess is that there was a leader in their past who set values but didn't actually follow them. "We dig ditches" means "everybody but me digs ditches". It's hard to be both technically and morally capable, but I think that's what leadership requires. So an approach might be to set only the values you can actually follow through on, and be clear when a value is aspirational. If you really do dig ditches (perhaps metaphorically, maybe by fixing deployment script bugs or something), then you can use it as a value. To be clear: I'm definitely in favor of team values. Is there a way to make them achievable, but also grow them over time as you get better at them?

seadan83 2y ago
I'm sincerely skeptical of values. "Customers first", except when we are making money off of them. It's in part observing the actual action, and not just the talk. It's funny how guidelines becomes the rubric for a performance review, yet you are promoted or fired for completely different reasons. Too often the values are whatever the hell the management wants to interpret them to be, whenever. It's perhaps a difference of "We dig ditches", vs "the manager dug a ditch last week, the prior week, and this week we are digging these ditches together." All that can change, but the tract record and the habits speak more than just a motto on the wall.