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"It’s terribly difficult to manage unmotivated people. Make your job easier and don’t." I want to add to this by saying, it's terribly difficult to keep yourse

• ryandrake 11y ago
  I would imagine that people motivated mainly by money are among the easiest to manage. There's no guesswork there. Give them clear, measurable performance goals, with dollar signs attached to each one. Done. In my view, money also is a good fallback motivation, if you can't figure out exactly what it is that someone wants out of his job, or you can't provide it. Truly, I've probably had only one job in my life where I honestly thought "I wouldn't stay here NO MATTER WHAT they pay me!"
  • erikb 11y ago
    I'd say I'm not a money oriented person. E.g., looking at the income statistics of my city I think that my chances are >50% if I find any other job. But I think what you say would highly motivate me anyway. People like numbers and making numbers bigger. That's why people feel bad if they don't get enough Facebook likes. So if you give people clear numbers and a path to increase the numbers they will be motivated to do it, even if they don't care what the numbers stand for.
  • cosmolev 11y ago
    I've probably had only one job in my life where I honestly thought "I wouldn't stay here NO MATTER WHAT they pay me!" What was this job?
• proksoup 11y ago
  It's shocking to me every time I encounter this. How do those unmotivated people expect to keep their jobs? How do they expect to get the next job, and references for the next job? I'm less surprised by out of touch management once in a while and more surprised by individuals so confident in their demotivated lifestyle and their ability to maintain it long term with no consequences.
  • DanBC 11y ago
    It find it out that the entire blame is put on those people. One or two demotivated people? Well, okay, they're probably to blame. But when you have a company full of them it's a toxic company and poor management that caused it.
  • adventured 11y ago
    Those people become experts - they get incredibly attuned - at navigating risks when it comes to getting fired. It's like people that don't work hard consistently, and then cram as much in at the last second right before getting in trouble. They develop an almost sixth-sense like ability to know when they have to do something, and then they do just enough. A lot of times in my observation, persistently unmotivated people don't know what they want, either out of work or life in general; so it does them little good to quit and go find a job they want to do, because they have no idea what they want to do. It's the classic rhetorical: why not just work consistently, and not have to worry about cramming? Why do people behave that way (in either school or work)? In my personal experience, I've found the only time I cram, is when I'm stuck doing something I really don't care about (happened constantly in school).
  • UK-AL 11y ago
    Depends what you mean by motivation? I don't see anything wrong in working agreed work hours, and completing a reasonable expected work amout and that's it. I think that's just recognising you have family and other responsibilities. A lot of companies think your not motivated if your not doing 80+ hour weeks, for little added gain. Your not a founder, or have little or no equity and so have a limited upside. I don't why companies expect founder level commitment for non founder level upside. In this case your biggest duty is probably to your loved ones and family. And not sacrificing that over some misplaced sense of duty. I'm sure a lot companies would not do the same if the positions where reversed. They'd probably fire you pretty fast, if you had issues effecting work. Keep that in mind.
• rifung 11y ago
  Is there really anything wrong with the fact that some people don't care to achieve anything more than what's required of them at their job? I think it's unfortunate that you're in an environment you don't enjoy, and I hope you can find other people you relate with. I hope I don't offend you, but it feels a bit selfish to try to change them to be more motivated. For many people, a job is just something they have to get through to survive and there's nothing wrong with that. In a way you are lucky because these people will likely never enjoy their jobs as much as you do. Don't forget that they may very well have other things besides work that inspire them, but those things might not pay the bills.
  • 2chen 11y ago
    There's nothing inherently wrong with that kind of person. The problem arises when you mix the two types of people in a demanding environment where more than the status quo is expected (e.g., at a startup). If you want to coast, stick to defense.
    • ivanhoe 11y ago
      The problem arises when managers have unrealistic expectations. If you hire someone to do 9-5 job and you expect them to do more than that, it's your fault if that fails, not theirs. Different people have different priorities in life, some will be ready to work more to finish more tasks, others will be ready to work just 8h but will be more productive in that timeframe. Or will produce better quality of code during that time or solve harder problems. Not all tasks are the same, nor all programmers produce equal quality of code, so the number of closed tickets in a unit of time is not a very good metric and definitely shouldn't be the only one that matters for an IT company.
      • grrowl 11y ago
        > If you hire someone to do 9-5 job and you expect them to do more than that, it's your fault if that fails, not theirs. I think the biggest teller of an unmotivated person is a generally negative, problem-focussed attitude. No matter the hour of the day, "We can't do x, because..." will destroy nearby "We can do this, if...." people, eventually.
• nbm 11y ago
  This may sound weird, but you were probably the one with motivation problems in this scenario, not them. Don't believe me? They're comfortable and secure. They're happy with their output. They're apparently paid well. You were unhappy with your situation - you want things to be different than what they are, and it was grating on you (and may or may not have led to burnout from your description), until eventually you left. I've been in a very similar scenario: I joined a "corporate" that had been running an Internet site for a decade. They had not built a new system in years, and had a massive monolithic ancient app with hundreds of hardcoded rules for individual accounts, where every change required tons of effort and they maintained a QA team at least the size of the dev team. Very few of the dev team seemed interested in things like learning new technologies, trying out different development methodologies, finding ways to make the system better as opposed to the task list of feature and bug requests. (I'm not even sure it had revision control.) Short version - I get annoyed quickly at, for example, rules about arriving at 9:00am (my train schedule meant I tended to arrive at 9:10am, or at 8:30am, and I didn't want to hang out at work...). I'm told that even though I'm being productive, I'm setting a bad example, and they don't want others to start doing that. (I'm thinking: "Why don't you just deal with bad performance, whether the person arrives on time or not?", as well as "Yeah, and I leave the office at 6pm, so I'm at the office longer than them!") Slightly longer version - I work with my manager to get my team (also not happy with the status quo) together in a room somewhat separated from the dev team, and we pump out code for several months a lot happier, until ultimately we all got better offers. There's a much longer story, but the point is that _I_ was the one unhappy with the situation, and this affected my motivation to the point of the occasional debilitating day of non-productivity. The original employees were happy with their situation, and many probably still work there doing the same job they were doing nearly a decade ago now.
  • xxtjaxx 11y ago
    Sounds like we worked the same place, had abou the same issues as your guys only with a limited QA team and we were starting to build up a second product brand for ourselves with new blood that basically had the same people in charge as the old. Hiring talent was a nightmare and learning selfimprovement were set very low on the list. Me being just the admin but having written code in more languages at various degrees of difficulty, topic and necessity ended up making me more mad than the people directly affected by it. Holing myself up for a month and working towards a new job paid off and I'm now in a better place as a developer and person. "It gets better"
• adrianhoward 11y ago
  ""It’s terribly difficult to manage unmotivated people. Make your job easier and don’t." But it is your job to figure out why you got unmotivated people. * Is your hiring process borked? * Is there something wrong inside your organisation that's regularly breaking motivated people? … and so on …
  • dynamicdispatch 11y ago
    Hear, hear. Terrible management and/or micromanagement is one of the key reasons a dev can lose motivation. It also doesn't do anyone's morale/motivation any favors to see colleagues get fired. If a manager has had to fire people, and do so repeatedly, then the fault is not so much with those getting fired than the organization/management/hiring process. One of the key reasons why I've seen dev lose motivation after joining a company is lack of investment on the part of the manager in the employees future goals. I've been in situations during my entry-level days when my manager always made me draw the short straw - did wonders for my motivation.
  • aaggarwal 11y ago
    Exactly, I have seen this at a few companies where the management isn't clear about the responsibilities with the candidate at the time of hiring, only to find out later that the candidate and company has different priorities. I will also add that this is the job of the company to find out the whether the candidate is right fit and not the candidate. The hiring company should be completely transparent about the job responsibilities and work. Also some management people have completely unrealistic expectations from a hire whose job they hardly understand and with whom they never really talked openly.
  • lizavp 11y ago
    And what is this person's definition of unmotivated? Is only doing the work and not beyond what stated in your contract unmotivated? Is having a life outside of work considered unmotivated?
• ljk 11y ago
  if you don't mind me asking, how many hours do you work a week? Entry-level here, and I'd say i'm the 9-5 type, but don't consider myself "don't really care to achieve any more than mediocre" is it possible to be motivated but still work at a reasonable hours? If it's not, then I'm kind of discouraged
  • tensor 11y ago
    Yes, absolutely. Everyone should be paid for the time they put in. Being motivated means being great at what you do, not working for free.
    • deleted 11y ago
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  • adestefan 11y ago
    Almost 15 years here and I work 40 hours. Very rarly I'll put in 41 or 42 and that's mainly to help out the people that work under me put in only 40. The secret is to learn how to say "no." People think it's a dirty word, but as and industry we're terrible at estimation and "no" is your most powerful way of fixing that situation.
    • ljk 11y ago
      Thanks for the reply > we're terrible at estimation and "no" is your most powerful way of fixing that situation. This is also my problem half the time, and that's what made me wonder if I keep realizing my estimate was off, and it's taking me more time to complete my original estimated work, does that make me a "9-5, unmotivated worker"
  • mordrax 11y ago
    When I was entry level, back ten years ago, I used to do 8-10 hrs solid work being on the critical path alot and doing weekends sometimes. My manager was very supportive and gave me room to take responsibility of my work. It empowered me and brought out the best in me. I was paid peanuts but it was one of the best job I had. Now, I try to take that attitude wherever I go. When I say 9-5, too many people took it to literally mean 9am-5pm. I do a task until it's done, a 9-5 person would do it until 4:59pm. If I'm done, I'll leave early or late, a 9-5 person would be on Facebook and leave at 4:59pm. It's pretty depressing to be in the middle of some design, be interrupted and turn around to find my colleague gone because it just passed 5pm... happened a few times... I don't count the hours that I put in anymore. It's either getting a task done, doing something with the family or learning to improve myself or having some down time. I do take work home, wouldn't recommend it to everyone, I also take home to work. Somewhere between 20 and 30, I realised that spending 1/3 of my life just 'having a job' to survive isn't living so I seek out roles that align with my personal mission and go for it! It used to be about money. Why do you want this job? Because I need the money to start my life, family, etc. But I've since realised that if you're hard working, frugal and sensible, moneys the last of your worries, it is more of what have you accomplished in life. Sorry, getting a bit heavy here hehe, but having alot of key people die around me made me question what it was that I was doing. So to bring it all back to your question, don't be discouraged by my views of work. When you're motivated, do whatever it is that interest you, forget about 'reasonable hours', just enjoy what you do.
• kabouseng 11y ago
  I've been on both sides of the fence, and as you get older you'll also probably end up on both sides at times too (No idea what age you are). As everyone mentions sometimes there is other stuff going on in peoples lives, or they are just not that interested in building the same CRUD app for the umpteenth time that has you terribly exited because it is your first go at it and you want to prove yourself. That being said, when on the motivated side of the fence, I want to offer you some advice that was given to me by my manager some years ago: You can't keep a good man down. Eventually management will see you put in extra effort, don't drop the ball and is constantly pulling the project out of the fire, and that will result in rewards be that promotions or freedoms or whatever. It might not always be as quick as you want, but you can't keep a good man down... I hope that helps.
  • chris_wot 11y ago
    That's dangerous advise. I worked at a company for about 3 years and did some amazing things, was diligent, etc. but couldn't get ahead. In some companies you just can't: I'm not bitter, but jumping ship was a good move for me.
    • paulhauggis 11y ago
      The same thing happened to me. I worked for a mid-sized company with a small development team. We had 2 managers and after senior developer, that was pretty much the only place to go (and get a raise). I left 8+ years ago and last I heard, those 2 managers are in the same position.
      • mordrax 11y ago
        You can't keep a good man down but like the two replies, my boss chose to ignore my effort and results to keep costs low. He's a great guy but when it comes to recognition and pay negotiation, he's a real bastard hehe.
  • sopooneo 11y ago
    Perhaps if we add that a "good (wo)man" will leave if that's what it takes to rise up.
• odiroot 11y ago
  Well, good money and job security is also a strong motivator.
• romanovcode 11y ago
  Why would someone put more than 9-5 if they are not paid overtime and they don't have shares at the company? I don't get it. Also, working 9-5 absolutely doesn't mean that person is unmotivated. Maybe it's an American thing but here in EU most people won't work for free.
  • paulhauggis 11y ago
    Exactly. When I work a 9-5, I am motivated by money. When an employer or manager says I should be motivated by something else, it's usually because they want me to work overtime/weekends/crazy hours for no extra pay. I actually did this in my early years and the outcome was never positive for me: I worked nights, weekends, many more hours to help the team, get this great product or project done. In the end? We were let go and upper management got a nice payout and moved onto their next company. This has happened so many times to my friends in the tech industry, it's crazy. As a result of this behavior, I started my own company and never looked back.
• aswanson 11y ago
  This true of any group of people you find yourself around for very long periods of times. Humans are social animals and have built-in mimetics. That's why its important to be around people with aspirations and goals; who believe in possibilities. I didn't believe this until much later in life, but I agree now that it's important to select for high-performance colleges for this reason alone.
• jt2190 11y ago
  "Unmotivated people" come in all shapes and sizes. A few examples: Your coworker who is just like you, except she's now two or three or five years into her job at your company. She used to be super motivated, and wanted to do all of the same things that you do, but that's all been beaten out of her as the company and the team ignored her efforts are rewarded other behavior. Your coworker who is super motivated by something that the company values. Assuming you're a programmer, perhaps you're motivated by building features fast, and not worrying about technical debt, whereas your coworker is motivated by going slower and making sure technical debt is kept to a minimum. The company rewards stable easy to fix code, and doesn't care about moving out features quickly, so your coworker looks like a hero to them. You coworker who really doesn't care too much about doing more than the minimum required to keep their job. They've got lots of other things in their life that keeps things interesting, and if work is a nice steady routine that's a good thing. etc. There's a reason that the team is the way it is: The company values what they're providing enough to keep rewarding their current behavior. Don't project your values onto management and assume that they agree that your team's behavior is sub-optimal. If you can't figure out how to either (a) provide the same value that your coworkers do or (b) deliver your value in a way that the company recognizes and appreciates, you should consider changing companies.
• bane 11y ago
  This is a really big problem in startup-land when a company starts hiring lots of staff before the business has actually grown. You get lots of people sitting around not doing much, and a few core people driving all the work forward. If the business never picks up, then it can turn into a caustic environment.