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by spookthesunset
1546 days ago
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> We can’t be successful together if we’re aiming for different outcomes. If one of us feels our goals or motives aren’t aligned, we need to talk. That is actually not true. When building a team it is important to learn what each individual seeks out of the "project". For example your goal might be to use the project as a way to get promoted. I might not care at all about getting promoted and instead my goal is to learn new stuff. Our colleague might be using the project as a way to push some new technology into broader acceptance in the company. Our other colleagues goal might be to bail half way through because they never wanted to be on the project in the first place. All four of us have different motivations and personal goals for this project--and that is totally okay! It isn't a good idea to assume everybody has the same goal. It is a good idea to at least address this in the beginnings of team building. Knowing that you are trying to get a promo out of this would help me help you get that promo. |
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Oftentimes different incentives imply different outcomes, though. I've been in environments where product's incentives were not "enable dev to get to work" but instead "create documentation/slide decks for upper management". So they were busy as hell, creating artifacts that did not help dev identify what problem they were solving (let alone what solutions might look like), and were extremely successful based on what they cared about, but meant that the dev teams had very little time or direction to be successful with, leading to low morale and high rates of burnout.
In the example you provide, if that leads to one person going off to play with new stuff while the rest of the team is focused on the project, that's a problem. Likewise if the person wanting to get promoted insists on taking on all the high visibility work (or worse, just taking credit for it), that creates a problem. As long as the desired outcome is the same and you can create a path towards it that aligns with everyone's incentives (project succeeds, people get recognized for their contributions, we use some new stuff along the way) you can be successful.