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Comment by NAHWheatCracker | Hacker News Reader

This is great.

I've been thinking a lot lately about how important it is to have someone who makes other people important on a team. I've seen a lot of pseudo-teams where everyone is trying to slay their own dragons.

It's hard to be the guide, though. Some people don't think they need help. Selfishness can be the norm, so people don't learn to accept help. Fake sincerity makes it hard to make genuine connections.

The most difficult part of trying to focus on others, for me, is that people still heap things onto my plate. No one makes time for being a guide or a leader for ICs. Managers seem to be too busy in meetings to focus on people.

Is it feasible to find jobs where this sort of attitude is taken seriously?

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The team I worked with at the NASA Autonomy Incubator was one of the most productive and happy environments I've ever worked in. Everyone helped eachother, was brilliant, and the leaders were always there when needed. One of the biggest factors I think was how the sprint meetings were held, and I've asked others I worked with at the time since and they agree.

We would have small team meetings every morning ~5 people, but a whole department meeting every two weeks to go over quad charts. It was the standard milestones, last two weeks and next two weeks. The difference was there was a very strong culture of thanking and complementing the work of everyone who helped on a task. People really went out of their way to help everyone, there was a lot of cross pollination, and productivity was incredibly high because everyone was so happy to be working together.

There were other factors too of course, but it was really magical. Danette Allen ran a tight and happy ship which I'm now trying to recreate at the company I co-founded.

I really wish you had just went into hard selling your startup at the end. All that wholesomeness and then bam!

Honestly I don't read it that way - it seemed more "I experienced a great way to run a team and now Inhave an opportunity I am going to try to recreate that"

I have not bothered to check his/her profile to see what startup they founded so it's not exactly a hard sell.

I agree, they didn’t actually do a hard sell. They just sort of mentioned it. I was saying I wish they had. It just seemed like it would have been funny. “And that’s why we’re revolutionizing whatever”

Ah. I must have misread you.

This is sadly the norm in many companies, especially in NA. Helping each other out is not seen as something worthwhile. It's everyone for themselves. You have metrics to hit!

I can't tell you how feasible it is to find companies that actually value working together and helping each other out. I can tell you that there exist some companies where at least parts of the company do actually value this. I happen to value this and my manager does and some of his other reports and their teams do. I doubt the company overall actually does value it.

But like you say, even if you find such a company, every new hire is a challenge because everyone is just so trained to think that everyone just cares for themselves and that everything must be a ruse. It's hard to break through this. From both sides. I know it was for me. I couldn't believe it and it's hard to let your guard down and just work with others like you're actually friends.

> It's hard to break through this. From both sides. I know it was for me

I wonder, what were some events that affected how you were thinking

I'm not sure if there was ever one specific event that made me 'convert' and stop doubting. I think it was just the amalgamation of everything that happened. I.e. seeing the existing team members interact with each other and myself and across the org. Of course not everything was/is rosy there either but overall it's just not a place where finger pointing happens on the developers level. We work together and help each other out. Nobody is going to say "sorry I don't have time to help you with your problem". You will most likely get multiple people offering to help you out.

The fact that there were no individual metrics to hit for each team member I think also contributed to this. Nobody is going to loose their raise because they spent time helping you onboard or debug with you instead of just making sure they hit their own metrics. Monthly birthday celebrations w/ cake and nobody blinked an eye that everyone was chatting and eating for an hour or two. A perpetually filled fridge and fresh fruit - I never had to bring lunch. Catered breakfast regularly (tho not every day). And the part that I couldn't believe was that this wasn't actually to make you stay at the office for 14 hours or something. Everyone still left at the regular times. This is the part I couldn't believe.

All of this will probably become harder here too as we grow more and more. And some of these perks are gone since Covid but I don't mind getting full remote working. I'll take that over free breakfast and lunch any day ;)

Thanks! This, minus the free food, reminds me of the previous few jobs I've had :-) -- in fact I haven't experienced the finger pointing look-after-oneself-only culture (and seems never will happen).

What you wrote gives/reinforces nice ideas about how to build an ok workplace, thanks :-)

Taken seriously - I’m not sure. That being said; in my experience taking the time to help others out ended up with those teammates and their/my manager(s) talking positively about me, which ended up working out well for me career-progression-wise. There may have been other factors at play but being seen as nice/friendly (and smart) and being liked really goes a long way.

seems to be the opposite of ' how to get promoted' https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27147125

- Take credit for your work (use pronouns I and Me when talking about your work, not We) and do not allow others to take credit for your work - If it's a teamwork situation with other people on your level, don't do most of the work, because the credit will end up being split 50/50 in the eyes of the bosses even if you did most of it

If you're helping nudge and whisper other people into success, you'll develop a reputation. Managers will want you on their teams and they'll make time for you to do your special magic.

Questions about what you're doing and how to have the effect you'd like are really better directed to a mentor than a web forum. Even if you don't have any "official" mentors, you probably have unofficial ones - people you know who advise you. If you're not sure if you have those, seek someone out, ask them, and get an explicit mentor.

No. People that want to be Yoda are the worst. Actual "Yodas" are amazing ICs and are also Yoda by accident. This is the lesson Yoda is trying to teach the brash young jedi when the charterer was invented.

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