Michele on Software

My opinions about software product development

Traits of great employees

Companies always talk about wanting to hire A players and great talent. But what does great talent mean? How can you tell whether somebody will be great at your company?

Companies employ people. In collaborative knowledge work, like software product development, employees are the most important asset for any company. So it’s only natural that companies try hard to secure the best talent. And yet many companies don’t ask themselves what great talent means.

Also, the typical underlying assumption is that people own their performance, that the extent somebody contributes to a company depends mostly or entirely on the employee. But is this really true? Can anyone claim that their impact and contribution does not depend on their containing system of work, like the company, the team, and the processes?

Everybody does what they think is best for themselves, no exceptions. So if the same person were to be part of 2 different companies which incentivize different behaviours, it’s pretty much guaranteed that that person would behave differently, according to what’s best for them in each context.

So what?

Well, what I’m trying to say is that people don’t have intrinsic qualities that stay constant regardless of your company culture, incentives, and processes.

Which is both good and bad news. If you structure the right incentives, design effective processes, and end up producing a great culture, then every employee you hire will shine. But conversely, if you have ineffective incentives, culture, and processes, even A players and great talent will adjust accordingly.

Should we just give up interviewing for personality then? Well, not really. While it’s true that the incentives and the system will deeply affect an employee’s behaviour and performance, people enjoy different things, so the key is to find employees that are happy and passionate about working in a company that values the behaviours you want to see.

What great talent looks like

What follows is a collection of traits, in no particular order, that a great employee should embody.

Your goal as a company is to structure incentives, ways of working, and processes to bring out these qualities in the people you staff. Remember that if you incentivize the opposite, nobody will exhibit these behaviours. When you interview candidates, you’re looking for people that are passionate and excited about working in an environment that promotes these traits.

Ownership

Ownership is the willingness to give it all and contribute to something all around. Taking responsibility for work, dealing with uncertainty, prototyping, asking for feedback, learning new things, and doing everything needed to move things forward.

It is NOT about working hard, commitments, meeting arbitrary deadlines, or caring as much as the founders about their business.

What happens when it’s missing
  • You cannot scale your business, because you constantly need to break down work, chase people, review progress, and check quality.
  • The more you hire the busier you get.
  • Problems arise from areas nobody takes care of.
What incentives affect it
  • How much freedom and responsibility you give to your employees. If you treat people like kids they’ll behave accordingly.
  • Anything that promotes a transactional culture destroys ownership. Individual bonuses are rewards are a very dangerous incentive in this sense.
  • Defining KPIs and performance dimensions, implicitly also stating that anything else doesn’t matter.

Outcome orientation

Being outcome oriented means starting from the desired outcomes, and walking back to the technologies, the design, the approaches, and the roadmap.

It is NOT about not caring about technical excellence or disregarding quality.

What happens when it’s missing
  • Employees choose what they’re familiar and comfortable with, which often might lead to undesired outcomes.
  • There’s a lot of effort and being busy, but very little progress, with 2 steps forward and 3 steps back.
What incentives endangers it
  • Social or career dangers when mistakes are made is a sure way to discourage people from thinking and trying things they’re not comfortable with.
  • Rewarding outputs e.g. story points, features, shipping, meeting arbitrary deadlines, finishing the tasks in a Sprint, etc.
  • Rigid roles and responsibilities.
  • Processes involving handovers, reviews, and multiple teams.

Long-term thinking

Long-term thinking is about considering the effects of decisions not only in terms of the near future, but along a longer time horizon. It’s thinking about the interdependence of people, technologies, processes, and divisions. It’s considering maintenance and evolution costs.

It is NOT about lack of action, ivory tower discussions, not shipping anything ever.

What happens when it’s missing
  • You might meet any arbitrary checkpoint on the way, and fail to reach your destination.
  • Scaling might prove fatal to your business.
  • Firefighting becomes prevalent, leaving very little capacity for anything else.
What incentives endangers it
  • Artificial deadlines.
  • Pushed-based work, where management assigns work to people or teams.
  • A culture of keeping busy and “get shit done”, as opposed to “think things through”.
  • Rewarding outputs and meeting quarterly goals.
  • Not distinguishing speed of action from speed of progress.

Team spirit

Team spirit is about being part of a collective effort, without the need to lead or get personal recognition in every situation.

It’s NOT about sacrificing your own goals and aspirations, being okay when your strengths are not recognized, or not wanting career advancement.

What happens when it’s missing
  • Your employees compete with each other for rewards, attention, and recognition. They can sabotage others’ efforts to come on top.
  • People don’t teach each other what they know.
  • Folks don’t help each other, so if somebody is struggling or behind with something, that something typically ends up failing.
What incentives endangers it
  • Individual tasks and performance reviews.
  • Individual bonuses and rewards.
  • Failing to recognize contributions to the way a team operates and efforts in helping others conveys the message that the only thing that matter is direct personal outputs.

Willingness to speak up and challenge ideas

People who are willing to speak up and challenge ideas take a personal risk - social or career - and warn others about problems they see or disagreements they have.

This is NOT being disrespectful of others, expecting for others to always listen, wanting to always get it your way.

What happens when it’s missing
  • Mediocrity reigns supreme, as many good ideas stay unheard and unconsidered.
  • Meetings see 1-2 people speaking and the vast majority of the rest being silent, becoming useless.
  • Employees can feel useless and leave.
What incentives endangers it
  • Making fun or punishing people when they propose something silly.
  • Separating the workforce in a group that’s supposed to think and another that’s supposed to do as they’re told.
  • A culture of efficiency and keeping busy.