> The people that most of us have been impressed by in our careers...
Those people impress you because they're rare. But the author still took the time to explicitly talk about almost the same set of people you are, who buck the trend and sometimes manage to make real changes.
Anyway, it becomes clear by the end that he's giving advice to managers, less so to the managed, so it makes little sense to focus on what he might wish individual contributors did. From a management perspective, that's not actionable. You don't make plans based on rare impressive people, you make plans based on the common case. I mean, do you disagree that a manager should plan on their reports acting on their real incentives rather than what the manager says they want?
They're not, which I know because I wrote that and I know my own experience and I know what I meant.
Hopefully, you see your self -- or your future self -- as a person you would be impressed by. These people are all over the place, looking competent and confident, being appreciated, referred, and brought onto projects. They are legion, and it's not hard to be one.
But thinking in the way reinforced by this article and some of the replies to my comment traps your career and your mental health in a much less comfortable and sustainable place.
I feel that I have an interesting relationship to this mentality. Many of the most impressive people I've known and looked up to in my career have been far from rewarded for the competence and confidence they brought to my workplaces. Indeed, I've seen a few of them fired, and some of them sidelined for years despite being appreciated and referred. I'm even cautious about referring them because, while impressive, they were brash and bold in ways that put them quickly at odds with their organizations.
We don't always, or even mostly, or often ever, work at an organization that wants to be impressed by their engineers, no matter how much they say they do. The sorts of places that actually do foster that are rare and all but impossible to get hired at. I don't have the luxury of working at somewhere where I'm impressed by my coworkers and look up to them. My career and mental health isn't comfortable or sustainable.
I'd love to fix this, but in the meantime, I often literally don't get to pick my manager and how they interact with me or value my team's work and priorities. I can tell you that the engineers who most impressed me and were appreciated by me were often not by management, and not brought onto projects. It may not be hard to be one, but it's often hard to keep being one.
So true. It seems to me that many companies' actions do not align with their ostensible mission, and this is reflected in the way many of their management act. They're not that interested in competing in the market, they find a level and settle there.
It's the same for people - most don't want to work harder, and most don't want to work better, and those that do are disruptive to those that don't, and that includes managers. The reward, the real mission, is long term, stable income without risk, not grabbing more of the market by being faster or better.
Competition is the answer, but no one seems to like that.
> being appreciated, referred, and brought onto projects
The ones who specifically aggravate their bosses, the bosses responsible for promotion and project assignments? I'm no longer sure we're talking about the same people.
Anyway, yes, I try to be one of the crazy ones. I just also try not to have any illusions of what the consequences will be.
> You don't make plans based on rare impressive people, you make plans based on the common case.
I think this is such a great watershed for software organizations.
20 years ago I used to work for a bunch of Swedish companies that took this attitude to the extreme. They are now all basically wiped out by US companies. I think the root cause is that those US companies did organize around rare impressive people.
It’s very hard to do anything truly innovative and valuable in software unless you’re willing to let go of the “we are all small cogs in a big machine mentality” and let some people shine. Will the selection of those few people who get a chance to shine be perfectly fair? No. But at the end of the day (or decade) everyone will be better off for it.
Take it from an ex Sony Ericsson contract engineer.
I think that's a slightly different question. If you have exceptional engineering talent, yes, let them do awesome stuff. But that still doesn't free you from the responsibility of aligning their incentives properly. You still need an organization that rewards good engineering (and recognizes the cost). You need to aim that talent in the right direction. Engineering talent and willingness to buck incentives are probably correlated, but far from identical.
Those people impress you because they're rare. But the author still took the time to explicitly talk about almost the same set of people you are, who buck the trend and sometimes manage to make real changes.
Anyway, it becomes clear by the end that he's giving advice to managers, less so to the managed, so it makes little sense to focus on what he might wish individual contributors did. From a management perspective, that's not actionable. You don't make plans based on rare impressive people, you make plans based on the common case. I mean, do you disagree that a manager should plan on their reports acting on their real incentives rather than what the manager says they want?