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by quantadev
385 days ago
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Having a happy team is a sub-goal of the higher goal of 'accomplishing the task' (getting the work done), because sure it's nice for people to get along, and they're generally better performers when they're happy; but conversely if they get the job done while not getting along, then the higher objective is still attained, which is often the case. In other words, if a manager's choice comes down to 1) happy people v.s. 2) replacing whoever it takes to get the job done, with or without happiness, then #2 must be done. So 'getting the work done' is the top objective, and everything else is secondary and subordinate to that. An employer's job isn't to run a social club, it's to produce results. |
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In a pure capitalist system, sure. However, no country lives in a pure capitalist system. The US comes closest in this sense, I think. Where I'm from, the Netherlands, there are more layers to this.
> and they're generally better performers when they're happy
Agreed, including the "generally" part, definitely not always.
> but conversely if they get the job done while not getting along, then the higher objective is still attained, which is often the case.
They'll be outcompeted by people that are motivated. So I think on the short-term and medium term, yea this works. On the long-term, it depends on the industry, incentives and all those things. If the industry doesn't allow for competition, or has other odd incentive structures, then yea, I can see this happen. However, if competition does exist, then no, the companies that work like this will slowly lose market share, provided that being more: passionate, motivated and creative actually yields an edge.
I have a suspicion we're in agreement on it actually since you also mention "which is often the case". I'm not sure if it's often or not, I don't know well enough how different industries operate. But I do agree there are many industries where there's some odd incentive structure (e.g. little competition or a lot of it but passion, motivation and creativity don't matter).
I think happiness and good job performance are like 80% aligned. They're not aligned in the "let's chillout" aspect of happiness or "let's do nothing and relax" but they are aligned in the fiero sense or what game-designers also call "hard fun".
If you have workers that just do what they are told, you better be in an industry where someone isn't trying to disrupt you or is doing its best to work way more creatively and motivated than you.
> An employer's job isn't to run a social club, it's to produce results.
Not all companies look that strictly at it. Well, maybe they do in the US. I've worked for Dutch, Belgian and US companies. US companies are way more "it's to produce results" than the Belgian and Dutch companies I've worked for. Sure, they are also there to produce results. But the intensity was lower, more goodwill was given, more trust too. It didn't feel cutthroat.
Practically it means that I'm helping my company save time by programming AI workflows and we're already saving thousands of hours in my department because of it (tip: I semi-automate a lot, so a human has to have the final say and possibly intervene a bit at the end - the human touch is necessary).
If my manager was a "just get the job done" type then I wouldn't be doing that at all. My official role is being a data analyst but I was a software engineer in the past at other companies. It's precisely because of the more relaxed nature of the company culture I now work at that I'm at least as much of an LLM engineer as I am a data analyst. And I love the hybrid role.
Anyways that's my perspective. It mostly brings nuance, on broad strokes I agree, maybe even the finer strokes.