How to kill team motivation in 10 simple steps
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If I leave the office stimulated and excited about what I'm working on, I will work until 2 or 3am in a frenzy, and get a lot of work done.
If I leave the office tired and exhausted from hours and hours of yak shaving, I go home and rest.
Everybody wins on the 20% days, especially if they're friday, because I will likely spend the weekend coding what I didn't finish friday night.
so if doing a 20% project reduces production elsewhere (and how could it not unless you work 20% more?), it would seem to be a negative
You should inform your manager. But that's just common sense.
Your 20% efforts explicitly go into your performance evaluation, so it won't be a negative.
I see it as an opportunity to learn and work with (and from) people, I don't normally deal with.
I think this shows just how significant the gap is between software engineering and everything else. I went into mechanical engineering; my brother did software engineering. I don't know the specifics, but he makes way more than I do. Not 20% more, but 200% more. Some of that is location - I live in the middle of the country, he lives in California. But even without leaving, I could increase my salary by at least 50% by being able to write software.
Assuming that this is for a generic employee/employer relations advice, then pay is absolutely a huge concern. It's simply one that has been mostly solved in Silicon Valley.
[0] I believe it's mistaken because, frankly, the vast majority of development work is for the very base purpose of commerce. Rarely, in cases where development is related to some scientific or artistic pursuit to advance human knowledge, it's important in any meaningful sense outside of commercial activity. On this basis, the commerce-related importance of a role necessarily implies that compensation ought to be a major factor if considered from a rational perspective.
Company A may be in a place where the relative value of their developers may be 2% more than what they currently pay them, but for company B is in a place where they would gladly pay 25% more and still get a big fat return on that investment. By the time company A catches up (as in, software has now become way more important to their business), half of their developers have moved on. They review their recruitment and retention strategy, and one year on they are the ones paying more than company B.
In my current position I wouldn't say I'm unhappy but would consider leaving for a 10% raise. Only because jumping ship tends to be the only way to get significant raises, over the normal 2-3%. Even if you use another offer to get a raise in your current position.
But that's my external perspective.
I'd heard otherwise, but am glad to be corrected - it's a model many other businesses (NB: Not all) could utilise.
(Perhaps 20% of your time is alive and easy to take; on the other hand, engineers who've been working on the same fast paced project for years and have built large bodies of domain knowledge often don't see it the same way. Not a single engineer I work with does 20% time, to my knowledge.)
And, as everywhere in any company, you can do whatever you can get away with. From a pure career point of view, you can make a choice here: put in the 20% time for another project of your choice, to keep your skills sharp, have some fun and get some additional visibility.
Or put the extra 20% time into your main project for some marginal improvements. I can see that social pressure (real or perceived) in lots of teams might be towards the latter. For a 20% project you have to find your own group of peers to get recognition for it.
But, you can start a 20% project, impress people with your prototype, and get a real team started on that.
Or maybe allow partial remote work. I think I have called in sick 1 time in the last 5 years because I couldn't get out of bed. Other than that work from home makes it much easier for employees to not have to take days off for things.
Some examples:
#1: an open rewards system might help if you have people paid flat salaries that are inadequate. But many companies already base people's compensation too much on individual metrics that don't reflect their real value. In that case, adding a reward system only compounds the problem. In general, the research I have read suggests that for creative jobs like programmers, it's best to pay people a good salary and not have rewards systems that might cause them to value metrics of visibility over doing good work.
#4: inefficient collaboration is obviously a problem. But in my experience it's just as often from too much open discussion (bike-shedding) as too little. In some cultures, asking more questions is helpful. In others, defining decision rights and removing room for outside stakeholders to comment is beneficial.
#5: negative people obviously aren't good. In some environments, caring more about individuals' happiness is helpful. In others, managers are already too cautious about not upsetting any one person's feelings, and that leads to keeping people around or not helping them improve when they are hurting the team as a whole.
#6: not every company is afraid of failure. Some are afraid of success, constantly giving up and trying something new when their current project gets difficult.
#7: clear goals seem like a great idea when you're at a company that doesn't know what it's doing. But some companies think they know what they're doing too well. I often see goals that are clear, focused, and absolutely unrelated to what the company really wants. If you know what you really want, report on that and let people find creative ways to achieve it even if they don't mean the "goals" that are supposed to get them there.
#8: micromanaging is bad, but non-managing is worse. At many tech companies, former programmers promoted to management are so hands-off they prevent their teams from getting better.
#10: don't ever do anything with the goal of making your team 'motivated' to work long hours.
> Inadequate rewards
In my experience it's very rare for someone to leave for a 5% uplift in compensation.
> Awful office space
Bang on the money. What is even worse is when engineers have a great space that gets changed. Always churn after that.
> No self development
Typically the people who say this are the people who are most likely not to get much from free time to learn new stuff. if you are the type of engineer to learn new stuff then formal training and free time is not going to change your ability to pick things up. If you come to me and say I could not learn X because I had no free time, I am generally sceptical.
> Inefficient collaboration
Generally means other teams / people do not recognise what an awesome thing I did. Generally implies your awesome thing was not massively awesome.
> Negative people
Totally true. The most devastating thing that can happen to teams is to have negative personalities.
> Fear of failure
Did not understand this.
> Lack of clear goals
bang on the money.
> Micromanaging bosses
it's different strokes for different folks. Whilst lots of engineers like the freedom to get to the goal by themselves there are some who actually really enjoy the directive style.
> Useless meetings
Is this still an issue in 2014?
> Wasting your team's time
I sort of get this but again it varies per engineer.
> Typically the people who say this are the people who are most likely not to get much from free time to learn new stuff. if you are the type of engineer to learn new stuff then formal training and free time is not going to change your ability to pick things up. If you come to me and say I could not learn X because I had no free time, I am generally sceptical.
I used to feel the same way -- I would spend practically all of my time after work reading about new technologies, best practices, and trying them out in some prototypes that I could then apply to my work. Then I got married. Then I had twins. My priorities have shifted so much that if I'm not given the chance to explore and learn _during_ work, then I'm probably not going to do it anymore. Many companies allow this without explicitly calling it 20% time; other companies will tell you that any time not spent working on a story is wasted time.
I really don't think this means what you think it means.
I'm often the guy that's tagged as the negative one in meetings because I point out the potential problems we'll have to address in the positive person's great idea.
I was once told by a manager to stop being so negative in a meeting that one of the owner's of the company was attending. The owner told him to shut up because I was only the person in the room not kissing his ass over his great ideas.
I'm paraphrasing there, he didn't actually say it like that.
1. Place the interests of the company and team above your own personal interests.
2. Communicate and keep people informed. (i.e. Don't treat people like mushrooms.)
3. Listen.
4. Be open and honest.
5. Know your shit.
6. Be prepared to say "I don't know."
7. Lead by example.
8. Be reliable.
9. Be fair.
10. Be patient.
11. Be prepared to admit that you were wrong.
12. Pay attention to detail.
13. Delegate (i.e. don't micro-manage)
14. Accept responsibility when things go wrong.
15. Share the credit when things go well.
Management is about money and favours, and about those things alone, and that's why work sucks. The only way to get ahead is with threats and horsetrading.
Its about how things feel and how things feel depends on how you feel about them already.
If you love the school and the whole experience of it but the gymnastics coach always finds an excuse to peek into the girls showers, you might let it slide.
1. INADEQUATE REWARDS - Everyone wants to be paid more, but how many of us have tolerated less pay to work on great stuff? I would jump to another job for a 5% pay increase only if I already hated my current job. I would never even think about leaving a job I loved for just a little bit more.
2. AWFUL OFFICE SPACE - Important, but not that important. Oddly, my most favorite assignments I've ever had were in the worst conditions. My favorite job ever: writing a custom ERP system with 3 great co-workers. We had 4 desks in the basement.
3. NO SELF-DEVELOPMENT - Not an issue. I take full responsibility for this. That where the "SELF" comes from.
4. INEFFICIENT COLLABORATION - This is everywhere to one extent or another. If the work is important enough, those of us who really care find a way to remedy this.
5. NEGATIVE PEOPLE - They are everywhere, too. Some of my best work has been in spite of assholes who I wish I had never met. But I never let them stop me. Sure, there are (sadly) some environments that are too toxic to fix, but these are the exception. Learn to deal with negative people or suffer. Your choice.
6. FEAR OF FAILURE - Not sure I understand what this means, but it can be a motivator as much as a roadblock. Sometimes we overachievers just have to drag the non-believers along, kicking and screaming the whole way.
7. LACK OF CLEAR GOALS - I see how this can be demotivating, but again, it can be a challenge. On the other hand, some of the most fun I've ever had was building stuff (without goals) and seeing where it would take us. Great places, quite often.
8. MICROMANAGING BOSSES - Again, they are everywhere. I have stock answers for every one of them: a) Where exactly on the project plan is your concern? b) Would you rather have me producing or on overhead?
9. USELESS MEETINGS - They suck, but again, there are many ways to deal with them. Many of my favorite jobs have been full of useless meetings, but I loved the work so much, I just accepted them (telling myself, "They pay me this much to sit through these?!?")
10. WASTING YOUR TEAM'S TIME - Not sure what this means, but once a developer learns how to handle other people as well as the ones and zeros, this isn't such a big deal. Just another issue to deal with.
To me, what's really most important?
Working on something important enough. Getting stuff done. Having fun. If I have these, not much else really matters. If I don't, I move on.
Self development is one thing and I buy into this wholeheartedly. However, having a company recognize this into your work schedule makes all the difference. If my only self development time is supposed to be that one hour a week where I'm not working, spending time with my family, or working on the house, then it's not gonna happen.
I am actively engaged in Self Development all the time. The difference is whether or not my employer gives two shakes about my self-development, and then whether or not they encourage it, followed by if they facilitate it by setting aside time for me _as an employee_ to develop myself. Telling me to go do "self-development" time outside of work is the same as telling me you really don't care about my development.
-- Not that this is inherently a bad way to treat employees, but telling an employee you value their development and telling them to develop on their own time is oxymoronic.
> Working on something important enough. Getting stuff done. Having fun. If I have these, not much else really matters. If I don't, I move on.
I agree with this. When it boils down to it, most people will stay where they're doing something important, getting stuff done, and having fun with it.
However, with the presence of most (and for some people, any) of these 10 things, you won't be having fun and you won't be getting stuff done.
It's not enough for a company to just aim for "having fun and getting stuff done" without figuring out the factors that add to and take away from having fun and getting stuff done.
The value comes from allowing employees to get a little elbow room, think out of the box, grow their skill-set and become more valuable to you. When you show employees that you want them to be better and you'll give them space to do that (and money), they want to stay there.
Why would I, as a husband and father, want to sacrifice very precious vacation time to attend a tech-conference instead of play at a water park with my kids, or invest in my relationship with my wife on a romantic getaway? I wouldn't. But what my company, and several others out there, says by their lack of support for personal development is, "hey, you wanna be a better programmer... great. We'd love that too. Go do it on your own time. That's what we give you vacation for! Not to wind down and unplug and be a great daddy, you kiddin' me?"
The company expresses value for you by letting you have a bit of room to do things you want to.
3. NO SELF-DEVELOPMENT - I do this myself gladly, but I want the time to do it and not eating up my holidays for it.
I'm pretty sure they got at this number by asking people if they would leave their job for ~$200 extra a month. That makes the choice far more immediate than 5% extra a year. Everybody can think of things they could do with a few extra hundred a month, and everybody's got things they don't like about their job enough to fantasize about moving over.
If you look back at what you wrote, there's a false dichotomy there. Very few people either love their job or hate it. Most people just don't have strong feelings one way or another about it. That's why 27% would leave over peanuts. One job's as good as another, so why not take the extra cash?
This also depends on the industry. Being a developer right now is like being in a gold rush. Supply and demand is what's driving salaries and contract rates. Need a Jevascript developer? Good luck finding one under 100K per year. When your industry is ripe for you writing your own ticket, then the leverage is with the employee, not the employer, it makes easy for people to leave one company and join another on a small raise since they know if things don;t work out, there's a dozen other companies in need of their services.
What about being a Carpenter? With the housing crash, and the slow recovery, most carpenters don't have the opportunity to be moving all the time. Considering right now the supply outstrips demand, their salaries are being driven down and the power then rests with the employers. The carpenter in this scenario is more likely to just stay put regardless of how much he hates his job or his boss because there is no certainty he'll find something better and get be paid more than he currently is.
This is not true except in Silicon Valley. And that's just simple supply and demand. They need way more devs per-capita so they have to really incentivize people to move.
Everywhere else dev is well-compensated relative to other professions and you get more leverage and autonomy but it's much harder to translate that into an inflated salary. There are paths to get there and it is possible to get $100K+ as a developer but it's really just an open career ladder, whereas most other careers the ladder is closed to all except the ridiculously productive and/or sociopathic. Not a gold rush.
Most of the things listed are specifically things which prevent you from getting stuff done. Like open office plans (or having an office at all for that matter) and the like.
distracted office spaces seem to have all the wrong people mixed together in too close a proximity.
oddly i recently had a great open desk office space experience ...but it was all because of the people around me being right ..i still hated the open desks because any old goofus felt like they could walk up and start yakking away.
I worked in places without any system, and it was awful, such as half finished issues that was never closed. No one knew the real state of the product. Requests where sent in via email, emails got lost, people backtracked without telling you, 3 different people pushing you on to different tasks to the exclusion of the other 2. Where as scrum sets a single direction for 2 weeks.
Nice fancy gantt charts stuff, but underneath it was like that. Where as Scrum more accurately described reality. Any late changes, any changes to the sprint, any over commitment, any delays where quite clearly shown on the board. As a result, they were reduced. The boss could not just come down, and ask to work on this task instead.
They had to create a user story, with mock ups etc and then the product owner decided if it should be included, scheduled it in for a sensible time. A lot nicer than before.
The nice thing about Scrum is that you are given up to a 3 week period, tasks, and you complete those tasks then re-evaluate. Creates a nice feedback cycle.
Plus if requirements change (as they ALWAYS do) you are more able to address that without going "backwards" in your Waterfall model or creating unnecessary steps.
That all being said, I'm sure you can make Scrum suck if done badly. But you can make anything suck via micro-management and political bullshit. If Scrum is done well it should limit micro-management to only the scrum meetings (which aren't daily or even bi-daily, so a weekly catchup meeting with a bi-weekly new sprint).
"26% of Engaged Employees would leave their jobs for just a 5% pay increase": 26% of what sample of employees? What industries? What does "Engaged" mean?
"On average, 39% of workers don't feel their input is appreciated": Again, what kind of sampling was used? How were their sentiments ascertained?
"Average professional wastes 3.8 hours per week on unproductive meetings": Mean, median, mode?
:(
Based on his own survey, he said that the most important factor to people is whether they get to use their skills and talents to make a meaningful impact.
If your people would leave their jobs for a 5% pay increase, you have hired the wrong people, or build the wrong kind of company!
I randomly chose one (2: Center for creative leadership) and it didn't seem to correspond to any particular slide.
For software and product work, the answer is obvious: open allocation. For radically different kinds of work (e.g. factory-floor manufacturing) I'm not so confident; it's not my expertise. But I don't think the OP knows either.
"20% Time" policies don't really work, because if your manager is supportive you don't need them, and if your manager's a jerk, they don't offer real protection.
I agree on open-plan offices, because open-back visibility causes useless, counterproductive stress. The noise is a small issue; being visible from behind fucks with people's fight-or-flight systems. But if you can't afford to have everyone in an office (and, in some jobs, you can't; it would be a disaster on a trading floor) you could probably achieve it with booth-style seating.
Also, no boss wakes up and decides to "micromanage" and few people intentionally schedule "useless meetings". Those things happen and they're really unpleasant, but you can't just say "Don't do that" and expect the behavior to stop.
You need constitutional guarantees, like an Employee Bill of Rights that requires an employee majority to amend it and guarantees certain protections (i.e. any criticism of an employee must be delivered to that person with as small an audience as possible, and he has the right to defend himself; any employee can transfer at any time unless there is an immediate business justification for not allowing him). The problem with "20% time" policies and the "No Asshole Rule" (point #5 about "Negative People") is that they rarely have any real teeth; they just become the new language used to justify business-as-usual.