The Right Kind of Ambition | Hacker News Reader

The Right Kind of Ambition

bhorowitz.com

47 pointsdwynings21 comments

I'm still a little skeptical, simply because what people say and what they do often aren't in complete agreement. There are some people out there that will cynically talk in terms of personal advancement all the time, but when it comes to actions, they tend to do the right thing even though they grumble about how it's not to their advantage. And then there are people who say all the right things, give all the credit to their team, and yet when it comes to actions, they'll do what advances their career over what advances the team.

I think you're right- I'm in the first group you mentioned.

I think to myself that I'm willing to do anything to get ahead...but when it comes time to act, I can't bring myself to screw others over.

As I've learned, the best way to succeed is actually to enable other to reach their goals- who will in turn help you reach yours.

And of course, it's usually the case that the people who say "all the right things" are usually the ones who tend to do what advances their own career at the expense of the team :)

A more cynical view is here:

http://www.ribbonfarm.com/2009/10/07/the-gervais-principle-o...

The "psychopath" executives need "clueless" middle managers who believe in the team in order to manage the "losers" (regular employees).

(I'm not advocating this... just pointing out that the "right kind of (team-oriented) ambition" could also be viewed in this way...)

IMHO whole title is kind of psychopatic - Right Kind of Ambition. Why in the hell anybody would tell me which ambition is right or wrong?

I didn't take it as ethically right or wrong, but right or wrong for the company. Right or wrong in the context of hiring.

"For a complete explanation of the dangers of managers with the wrong kind of ambition, I strongly recommend Dr. Suess’s management masterpiece Yertle the Turtle."

For those who like me want to fill in this hole in their education: http://www.archive.org/details/jessyertletheturtlepodcast

This is essentially the main idea described in Jim Collins' Good to Great[1]. It's pretty boring (to my taste, anyway), but it's also short.

The idea makes sense if you think about it. You're liable to get less accomplished if you spend most of your time covering yourself and positioning for your own advancement. The same applies to everyone else. The hard part, then, is identifying and removing people who waste a lot of time covering themselves and positioning to the detriment of what they're nominally being compensated to do.

[1]http://www.amazon.com/Good-Great-Companies-Leap-Others/dp/00...

This "team" ambition depends equally on the environment as the candidate. I agreed strongly with this article until I realized that I was assuming an equity-for-all startup, rather than the much maligned office job.

There is definitely a personal component too. I've seen people co-found a company only to wreck it for personal convenience, and others who will work well beyond their contract with seemingly no incentive.

"On the other hand, people who view the world purely through the team prism will very seldom use the words “I” or “me” even when answering questions about their accomplishments"

In various interview training sessions I've been told to use statements with "I" rather than "We". The purpose being to clearly articulate your direct contribution to the team or goal.

In fact, I've been rejected from a few roles in the past with the feedback that I was not specific enough about my own accomplishments [1].

Therefore, I'm not convinced about this specific aspect of Ben's screening process. People who use I/me rather then we may simply have been conditioned by other interview processes or might really not have contributed much to their teams.

Since this is only one aspect of the screening, I'd probably give it less weight than other factors.

[1] There may also have been other reasons but I never heard about them. :)

The post boils more fundamentally down to hiring managers who have well developed skills of empathy. When people can put themselves in the shoes of others and feel as they feel, its a lot easier for them to act in the collective good. Most average managers I've worked with have competence; the exceptional ones combine it with empathy.

As a hired-gun, this article is truly outside my depth. When I'm onsite with a client, I give everything for their success. But heck, I'm a rental. I'm conflicted on how such a strategy would work long-term.

I think the key question here, based on the anecdote provided, is: how was the sales lead treated? Ten times sales volume? 20 times market cap? In such a critical role was the guy well-rewarded for the difference he made? I assume so, but this should be spelled out. Because the whole thing reads differently if the guy got a much worse deal than he earned.

Oddly, this focus on what people can do for my organization is exactly the same kind of ambition that is derided in the article -- just the shoe is on the other foot. Of course, you can make the case that the organization is somehow a much greater and more worthy thing of devotion than some guy's family, but I'm skeptical. After all, you can bet the CEO or CFO is watching the numbers. One would think that any employee would be doing the same for his family finances. Respect is a two-way street.

I think the article is right on the money, don't get me wrong. I just think it could have been written better. There are lots of little holes in the reasoning. Perhaps this idea of understanding that you do better yourself when you help others succeed is difficult to pin down in the context provided. After all, there are lots of companies. And there are lots of people looking for "team players" who will not look after you. While the slogan is easy, the actual implications and implementation of this belief system is not easy at all.

What a disgusting propaganda of corporate communism. A person, that is completely lacking sense of his/her own achievements is either liar or stupid or some kind of manipulator. It does not mean that narcissists are the best people, but the other extreme is not good either.

Thank you. It is about time people like him realised that nobody cares about his business like he does and that people get a job to make money and have fun not to make some other guy rich.

I thought that that was his point, really. If you hire a manager who cares more about his career than the company, then the employees under him will think "Why should I work hard to make my boss rich?" If you hire someone who cares about the company's goals, then there's at least a chance of them thinking "We're here to accomplish something great, and my manager is my partner in achieving that, someone who can help remove obstacles in my way."

For this to work, it has to extend all the way up to the CEO, otherwise somewhere along the chain, someone is going to think "Why should I work for the company just to make some other guy filthy rich?" That's the basis for building a company culture, though.

This is something Google's done particularly well, at least so far. I never see Larry or Sergey crowing about their billions or talking about how they built the company - they're always talking about how much more we (= everyone) could be building. By and large, that extends to all the senior executives.

When you don't have that, you end up with a culture more like Enron, which had employees that were probably as smart as Googlers yet was famous for its dog-eat-dog individuality. We know how that turned out.

I would argue (as a person who dislike hierarchies), that healthy, grown up person should care only about his very own goals, when working for a company. I am not saying that the goals should not be aligned with corporate ones, yet to care too much about goals of something amorphous, necessarily unstable system like a corp - well it may hurt one's identity, bring a false sense of excessive importance of corporate issues and, brutalize the person by making him/her overcommited to corp and ignoring of needs of people below.

Corporation is a fiction, only individual matters.

The whole reason we have corporations is so that people can accomplish goals that are too big for any one individual to tackle.

If you care only about your own goals, why not work for yourself and bypass the corporate system entirely? It's sorta implicit that someone who's working for a corporation is doing so because they share the goals of that organization yet can't achieve them on their own. (Yeah, I know that's not always the case because some people lack money and don't have the imagination to get it without a paycheck, but you were talking about "healthy, grown up" people here...)

Why work in corporation? Well, because 1) it is easier to find a job this way; 2) it is a good place to get experience.

I work for a corporation - for me it is easier, for now. I do not share any goals with the corporation at all. My goal is simple - to collect money (to drain the corporate cash), it is kind of opposite to the corporation's. Yet, my other goal is to maintain my integrity, so I am going to contribute as much as I think is justified.

You can work for yourself, even if you in somebody else's building.

I think you are missing the point of this article.

He's saying that there are people who view the world differently from you, and that their type of ambition (shared with the company and/or team) is more useful to a corporation.

You are making a judgement that your world view is correct. I don't think he's judging the correctness of either view, only the usefulness of each kind.

Could you define this "corporate communism" term you're using, and how this post is linked to it?

I think little imagination can help you.

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