4 ms·

Caring about things

32 points by romymisra 13y ago

deleted 13y ago
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airtonix 13y ago
While this is a great thing, make sure you support these valuable team members by ensuring the rest of your team also care just as much. I've had the pleasure to be a part of a team where I was given pretty much free license to do as I saw fit simply because I cared as much about the product as the founders. But hiring just one or two champions and filling in the gaps with mere enthusiasm or brute force is going to put an enormous strain on your champions.
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akanet 13y ago
I agree with a lot of stuff said here - caring, or intrinsic motivation, is one of the most powerful attributes you can hire for. There are, however, a plethora of other attributes out there, and restricting your potential hires to the tiny subset of people that are as insanely motivated as yourself seems like a recipe for never hiring anyone and paradoxically never actually solving any problems. Specifically I don't think points 3 and 4 are quite on the money - how much you care is often based on how much you perceive people care about you, and equity can be a pretty big signal of that. Additionally, I think people who care can be quite contentious. Still, a good enough point to talk about. Apparent enthusiasm is one of the best things you can select for, when you see it, and it can make up for a lot of other things that might be lacking.
- nikatwork 13y ago
  > Additionally, I think people who care can be quite contentious. People who care will challenge the status quo. This is often deeply unpopular, especially in larger orgs. If you don't empower the people who care to make positive changes to the status quo, then those people will give up and stop caring. And then probably leave.
porker 13y ago
I'd like this to be true, but I think it's a very utopian ideal. If people care as much as the founders do about the company, they're going to get very disillusioned when the founders head in a different direction to the one they'd take the company and they get no say in it. Because although they're as invested in the company as the founders, they don't have the power. I also wonder why (apart from the charity sector) employees would be that invested. They don't get the financial rewards or the kudos that the founders do, so why invest their soul in someone else's problem?
- jared314 13y ago
  > why invest their soul in someone else's problem? Depending on their age, they might not know better. Young developers are sold the ideal of changing the world through passion, but still end up as just employees. I still remember the first time a company offered me options instead of an annual raise, and a more experienced coworker quietly informed me why they did that. My enthusiasm was quickly brought down to earth.
  - skyraider 13y ago
    Wait, why did they offer you options instead of a raise? I just want to hear why that reason tempered your enthusiasm. (I don't get excited about options since I have to buy them, but they can be more incentivizing, at least for me, than salary in the rare case that they are given on fair terms.)
- mcv 13y ago
  Make employees co-owners. Then they have more incentive to care, and their voice counts in the direction of the company. It's not just someone else's problem anymore.
  - hef19898 13y ago
    Only works in smaller companies, when companies grow to big the usual share programms used to achieve this are way to small to mean anything.
infinity0 13y ago
You can learn all the math in the 'verse, but you take a boat in the air that you don't love, she'll shake you off just as sure as the turning of the worlds. Love keeps her in the air when she oughta fall down, tells you she's hurtin' 'fore she keens. Makes her a home.
mathattack 13y ago
I used to hate campaigns that would just "Raise Awareness" because I thought that raising awareness never fixed anything. After a while I realized it was the first step to getting people to care. Presenting a solution before anyone cares doesn't fix anything either. I'd put "Do what it takes to solve the problem" instead of a blurb about IQ, but otherwise I agree.
legulere 13y ago
Please place spaces after , : and - and reduce the width of the text. It's very hard to read this way.
- jamesdelaneyie 13y ago
  Caring about typography :')
jamesdelaneyie 13y ago
This is well good. There is just one thing that can be an issue with people who care. Are they caring about the right things at the right time? Suppose that's the manager's role to help focus the team.

Caring about things

32 points by romymisra 13y ago

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

airtonix 13y ago

While this is a great thing, make sure you support these valuable team members by ensuring the rest of your team also care just as much. I've had the pleasure to be a part of a team where I was given pretty much free license to do as I saw fit simply because I cared as much about the product as the founders. But hiring just one or two champions and filling in the gaps with mere enthusiasm or brute force is going to put an enormous strain on your champions.

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

akanet 13y ago

I agree with a lot of stuff said here - caring, or intrinsic motivation, is one of the most powerful attributes you can hire for. There are, however, a plethora of other attributes out there, and restricting your potential hires to the tiny subset of people that are as insanely motivated as yourself seems like a recipe for never hiring anyone and paradoxically never actually solving any problems. Specifically I don't think points 3 and 4 are quite on the money - how much you care is often based on how much you perceive people care about you, and equity can be a pretty big signal of that. Additionally, I think people who care can be quite contentious. Still, a good enough point to talk about. Apparent enthusiasm is one of the best things you can select for, when you see it, and it can make up for a lot of other things that might be lacking.

nikatwork 13y ago
> Additionally, I think people who care can be quite contentious. People who care will challenge the status quo. This is often deeply unpopular, especially in larger orgs. If you don't empower the people who care to make positive changes to the status quo, then those people will give up and stop caring. And then probably leave.

porker 13y ago

I'd like this to be true, but I think it's a very utopian ideal. If people care as much as the founders do about the company, they're going to get very disillusioned when the founders head in a different direction to the one they'd take the company and they get no say in it. Because although they're as invested in the company as the founders, they don't have the power. I also wonder why (apart from the charity sector) employees would be that invested. They don't get the financial rewards or the kudos that the founders do, so why invest their soul in someone else's problem?

jared314 13y ago
> why invest their soul in someone else's problem? Depending on their age, they might not know better. Young developers are sold the ideal of changing the world through passion, but still end up as just employees. I still remember the first time a company offered me options instead of an annual raise, and a more experienced coworker quietly informed me why they did that. My enthusiasm was quickly brought down to earth.
- skyraider 13y ago
  Wait, why did they offer you options instead of a raise? I just want to hear why that reason tempered your enthusiasm. (I don't get excited about options since I have to buy them, but they can be more incentivizing, at least for me, than salary in the rare case that they are given on fair terms.)
mcv 13y ago
Make employees co-owners. Then they have more incentive to care, and their voice counts in the direction of the company. It's not just someone else's problem anymore.
- hef19898 13y ago
  Only works in smaller companies, when companies grow to big the usual share programms used to achieve this are way to small to mean anything.

infinity0 13y ago

You can learn all the math in the 'verse, but you take a boat in the air that you don't love, she'll shake you off just as sure as the turning of the worlds. Love keeps her in the air when she oughta fall down, tells you she's hurtin' 'fore she keens. Makes her a home.

mathattack 13y ago

I used to hate campaigns that would just "Raise Awareness" because I thought that raising awareness never fixed anything. After a while I realized it was the first step to getting people to care. Presenting a solution before anyone cares doesn't fix anything either. I'd put "Do what it takes to solve the problem" instead of a blurb about IQ, but otherwise I agree.

legulere 13y ago

Please place spaces after , : and - and reduce the width of the text. It's very hard to read this way.

jamesdelaneyie 13y ago
Caring about typography :')

jamesdelaneyie 13y ago

This is well good. There is just one thing that can be an issue with people who care. Are they caring about the right things at the right time? Suppose that's the manager's role to help focus the team.