Spend the Time to Sell Your Programmers on Your Product | Hacker News Reader

Spend the Time to Sell Your Programmers on Your Product

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25 pointsjswinghammer5 comments

All companies, not just start-ups, need to look at this and not just sell their programmers, but all their staff, and more importantly explain to all their staff exactly what it is the company does.

I do contract development and it has never ceased to amaze me how many staff at companies really have no idea what the company does, I've worked at pharmaceutical companies where you'd swear people have never even seen a pill, and media and advertising companies where people must never seen an ad.

All companies should develop an introduction pack, whether that is a video, powerpoint or brochure, for new staff. It should explain what the company does, how it does it and why it is good at it. The payback would be immense.

Dear Microsoft employee,

This pamphlet is to bring you up to speed on our corporate strategy to keep users locked into the new versions of Office we're churning out and to apprise you of our ongoing efforts to stifle web innovation...

A positive side-effect of this is that it would force leaders to articulate in their minds for themselves, exactly what it is they're trying to accomplish. I've seen the described phenomenon a lot and it has been very demoralizing, but I think the root cause is that a lot of leaders seem to be unaware of what their company is trying to be and do.

It's a basic function of leadership to communicate a sense of purpose and to convince a team to buy in. It amazes me how often supposed leaders neglect this.

Founders, managers, and executives will say "sure this is obvious".

But if it's not obvious to the guys writing the code on the weekend, or late at night with a burrito by their desk then it needs to be.

Everything you do matters more if you believe in it. Pseudo religious, but also psychological. Better to prune doubt when work needs to be done.

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