Jul
25
In a conversation with a friend yesterday, she made the generalization that the engineers at her small startup don’t seem obligated to tackle the hard or tedious problems even though they need to be tackled for company to succeed.
I’ve heard that claim before. In fact, I’ve heard both sides of it. I’ve heard engineers complain that the non-engineering side of the house isn’t doing anything to help the business and I’ve heard the non-engineering side complain that none of the engineers are doing anything to help the business. I’ve never seen a situation where either of those assertions was correct. I told my friend that whenever I’ve been confronted with this problem it has always been a symptom of a larger organizational problem relating to a lack of clear strategy and goals. I know this because I’ve been responsible for creating problems like this (and hopefully fixing them).
If you believe that people on your team generally want to do a good job and be successful then hearing people groan about other people not working is a good indicator that your team is unclear on the objectives or aren’t working on the right things. These are both management problems, neither of which is the fault of the employees.
Fixing these kinds of problems aren’t easy, but they are doable. I’ll see what I can write-up about this in a later memo. But for now, remember that if you hear people grumbling about other people not working, it’s probably a much more serious problem. Of course, if you do have people on your team who aren’t working out you’ve got to let them go as soon as possible. But that’s a problem every manager learns the hard way very early on.
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2 Responses to “Memo #12 – Tackling the hard problems”
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I’ve seen that having worked on both marketing and development teams.
I agree this is a symptom of an unclear strategy (or one that hasn’t been articulated to everyone) and can only be resolved by providing everyone a clear vision of where the company is going and how everyone is going to help them get there.
Fundamentally, many marketers don’t understand how difficult it is to build a high quality product on time. They believe they can promise the world and the technology behind it is a secondary thought. On the other side, many developers feel marketing is fluffy and doesn’t impact the bottom line as much as a good product.
It’s a chicken and egg problem - you need a good product and good people to articulate its value. Without one of those sides, you end up with a good product no one knows about or a bad product you’re throwing at people.
Ed – I’m impressed (as usual) with your insights and perspectives.