Effective teams don’t keep secrets • Hacker News Board

Re: Effective teams don’t keep secrets

#21

Post by lowwave » Sat, Feb 26, 2022, 7:42 PM UTC

dasil003 wrote: post #8

This is a simplistic take. Of course trust is a pre-requisite to a healthy team, and people should feel comfortable speaking out, there's no debate about that. However, transparency is not a silver bullet. I've seen plenty of teams that trust each other but don't get very much done. And if what you are doing is large and involves more than a two-pizza team or challenging tradeoffs then effective communication becomes…

> Of course trust is a pre-requisite to a healthy team it is hard to rust someone on the team with technical tasks when that person is not technically capable for a developer.

Re: Effective teams don’t keep secrets

#22

Post by travisjungroth » Sat, Feb 26, 2022, 7:47 PM UTC

rubyn00bie wrote: post #15

bob1029 wrote: post #5

Sometimes letting someone know about a piece of information too early can cause problems. I have some very anxious team members who will get on edge when the development team starts to use key words like "refactor" and "iterate". Our organization has a historical track record of certain technical efforts being a complete dumpster fire and the PTSD of that has stuck around with many of us. In order to make everyone's…

> Our organization has a historical track record of certain technical efforts being a complete dumpster fire […] I think your urge to hide things until ready is clearly a symptom of other (root) problems within the organization. I have never seen what you describe in a healthy organization, and many seemingly “healthy” places are not. It sounds like the organization fears failure and refuses to learn from mistakes or…

“Sometimes I work on things for up to a week before showing people unless asked.”

“Your company isn’t healthy. Either get senior leadership to change or leave.”

Internet advice is weird.

Re: Effective teams don’t keep secrets

#23

Post by hughrr » Sat, Feb 26, 2022, 8:14 PM UTC

bob1029 wrote: post #5

Sometimes letting someone know about a piece of information too early can cause problems. I have some very anxious team members who will get on edge when the development team starts to use key words like "refactor" and "iterate". Our organization has a historical track record of certain technical efforts being a complete dumpster fire and the PTSD of that has stuck around with many of us. In order to make everyone's…

Completely agree with this. On numerous occasions I let an idea out while it wasn’t developed enough to go in the right direction on its own. It turned into a shit show.

Many many ideas I write down and develop. Many I throw away. But I learned never to throw information on the table without analysing the consequences of doing so.

This applies to teams as well.

Re: Effective teams don’t keep secrets

#24

Post by crispyambulance » Sat, Feb 26, 2022, 8:25 PM UTC

bob1029 wrote: post #5

Sometimes letting someone know about a piece of information too early can cause problems. I have some very anxious team members who will get on edge when the development team starts to use key words like "refactor" and "iterate". Our organization has a historical track record of certain technical efforts being a complete dumpster fire and the PTSD of that has stuck around with many of us. In order to make everyone's…

What you're talking about is sometimes referred to as "exercising covert agency" and IMHO it's absolutely essential for the well-being of creative folks in heavily project-managed corporate workplaces.

"Not keeping secrets" effectively ends up meaning that you need "permission" or at least consent for everything you work on. Depending on how tight things are this can be a recipe for misery because it's common in managerial ranks for people to be change-averse to the point of absurdity.

Re: Effective teams don’t keep secrets

#25

Post by davesque » Sat, Feb 26, 2022, 8:34 PM UTC

I remember working at an organization that essentially made the results of performance reviews open across the team. The rational was that it would help people make sense out of salary figures (which were also open). It did not improve team function and led to a lot of paranoia, fear, and resentment.

People keep secrets on some level because they need privacy. If a person is struggling, they often react by withdrawing and don't always appreciate their struggles being brought to attention. Especially when their livelihood is on the line. Everyone's different, but increased openness is not always going to help. Everyone should have the right to privacy in both personal and professional settings.

Update: Actually, I think the author of the article must understand all of this because they do call out privacy as necessary and try to distinguish it from what they're calling secrecy. And secrecy seems to basically mean willingly withholding information necessary to properly complete a job. They say this could happen if teams have an antagonistic working relationship. I think it's a useful distinction as I've also seen this happen at a company, more recently than the previous counter example that I gave.

Re: Effective teams don’t keep secrets

#26

Post by Silhouette » Sat, Feb 26, 2022, 9:01 PM UTC

jka wrote: post #18

Silhouette wrote: post #12

This kind of totally open, real-time flow of information is great until it's not. It can easily turn into an unstructured free-for-all on whichever channel everyone is on as a substitute for more effective communication, decision-making and documentation. It can also easily become a vehicle for one or more lurking manager types who simply have to know everything all the time, whether or not that brings any actual ben…

> It can also easily become a vehicle for one or more lurking manager types who simply have to know everything all the time, whether or not that brings any actual benefit to the team. Given that type of character within the working environment, I'd personally prefer that their communications were largely on-display to all the teams around them. Them knowing everything that is going on doesn't necessarily seem a probl…

Given that type of character within the working environment, I'd personally prefer that their communications were largely on-display to all the teams around them.

But their communications are often the last things to be shared, except when they are insisting that everyone else share everything. IME this is a bad idea for much the same reasons you don't want managers in code reviews. You don't promote honest feedback and constructive criticism when those giving and receiving the comments feel like management are snooping on everything all the time.

Them knowing everything that is going on doesn't necessarily seem a problem in itself, but if they're using that to cause disruption

Bingo. It's the disruption that causes the problem. But both micromanagement and chilling effects can be extremely disruptive.

Re: Effective teams don’t keep secrets

#27

Post by trynewideas » Sat, Feb 26, 2022, 9:11 PM UTC

Reminded of a discussion where I had to call out that the company culture of "transparency" was really only openness - everyone was willing to offer valuable help and information, but nobody was willing to publish it, even internally. During a rash of clumsily handled (and opaque) M&As that were making people feel redundant and competing for roles they already held, it became useful to act oppositionally against co-workers, especially new ones being hired in the middle of this infighting. The lack of deeply rooted internal transparency made this possible.

Everyone trusted each other _individually_ and could easily ask questions that they knew to ask, when they already knew who to ask. But to understand the shape of the company, or even who the internal stakeholders were in projects, or access to basics like repositories and documents, people faced a lack of trust coming from the organization itself.

Re: Effective teams don’t keep secrets

#28

Post by taeric » Sat, Feb 26, 2022, 9:49 PM UTC

The opposite of secrecy is not transparency, but safely trusting.

That is, some things are hidden, but not actively so. I don't need to know how hard my peers are working. Or what they are thinking. Or if they think the project will succeed. Or when they work, for that matter.

I trust that if they need or want help, they can ask. I also trust that if I offer help, it is in good faith and it can be turned down. I could be wrong that they need or want any help.

Not all interactions have to be interventions.

This is not that some things don't belong at work. It all depends on the trust in the group. I agree that more trust is generally better. But sometimes that is fostered by not forcing a spot light on everyone.

Re: Effective teams don’t keep secrets

#29

Post by jrapdx3 » Sat, Feb 26, 2022, 9:56 PM UTC

davesque wrote: post #25

I remember working at an organization that essentially made the results of performance reviews open across the team. The rational was that it would help people make sense out of salary figures (which were also open). It did not improve team function and led to a lot of paranoia, fear, and resentment. People keep secrets on some level because they need privacy. If a person is struggling, they often react by withdrawin…

> "...if teams have an antagonistic working relationship"

Yes of course a set of people constitute a team if and only if it meets the requirement for teamwork. That is, cooperate via info sharing, work load distribution and other support to get jobs done. Obviously merely assigning random workers to contiguous cubicles in no way constructs a team. That remains true even if a manager is loudly chanting holy corporate verse while pronouncing teamhood upon the hapless crew.

This is as it's always been, teamwork is essential for the survival of modern humans. Companies that foster teams, and teamwork among teams, are the ones likely to succeed in the marketplace.

Re: Effective teams don’t keep secrets

#30

Post by ChrisMarshallNY » Sat, Feb 26, 2022, 9:56 PM UTC

> Although many factors contribute to a secrecy culture, they all boil down to a lack of trust.

In my experience, there are two reasons for internal secrecy:

1) Security. There are things that only certain people need to know.

It may be trade secrets, or security. In any case, these can make life difficult, but are important and valid secrets.

2) Gatekeepers

These are individuals or organizations that are hoarding influence and information; trying to leverage it for their own gain.

In my opinion, #2 is much more common than #1, but they will often say that they are following the diktats of #1.