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Effective teams don’t keep secrets

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Re: Effective teams don’t keep secrets

#41

Post by davidgerard »

jka wrote: post #37
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…

I hear what you say, but I'd like to add that as an employee, I'd like the option to make my performance data, salary, etc public -- even if it that is not the organization-wide default. The reactions that people have to their own data being public are partly a result of the current hidden-by-default model. I'm not a great developer: I'm experienced, but I make the same mistakes that any junior would. I'd prefer to s…

It's literally the law in the US that you can always discuss your salary with your coworkers. Companies sometimes don't understand this, forbid it in writing, and get slapped down by the NLRB.

Re: Effective teams don’t keep secrets

#42

Post by ukraineally »

My last job, everything was a secret. Documentation was in people's minds. I was practically the only person who ever wrote public documentation for the team. Most people kept personal passworded one notes where they kept their own documentation.

Lets not even talk about beyond the necessities for a team. Salary? Oh boy was that ever secret. The one guy had an instant where he was oncall, major outage in the middle of the night and he didnt wake up to answer the alarms. Big client billionaire ceo demanded the guy be fired. Boss went around tell everyone that we were going to pretend he was fired, but he wasnt fired.

So naturally when this guy gets a new job, he tells everyone how much $ and benefits he's getting at the new job. He even tells people how much he used to be paid. People were freaking out. Minimu wage was $14 at the time and some senior sysadmins were only getting $22. LOL so many quit within a month or so.

Re: Effective teams don’t keep secrets

#43

Post by davesque »

jka wrote: post #37
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…

I hear what you say, but I'd like to add that as an employee, I'd like the option to make my performance data, salary, etc public -- even if it that is not the organization-wide default. The reactions that people have to their own data being public are partly a result of the current hidden-by-default model. I'm not a great developer: I'm experienced, but I make the same mistakes that any junior would. I'd prefer to s…

In a perfect world, I would agree. However, people are people and they often feel ashamed or embarrassed about not living up to expectations, whether those expectations are reasonable or not. Forcing someone to process those emotions publicly can be extremely humiliating and can seriously undermine trust building in a relationship.

I'm generally in favor of increased salary transparency since it will probably help to level the playing field. My point is that you have to draw the line somewhere.

Even making performance review details optional to disclose (as an official policy) might inadvertently create a culture where people look at you sideways as though you have something to hide if you appear as though you're not being forthcoming.

On the other hand, I don't think there's generally an expectation at most companies that you shouldn't discuss how things are going for you with your colleagues. That is, of course, as long as you don't seem to be doing an excessive amount of griping and finger pointing in the process.

Re: Effective teams don’t keep secrets

#44

Post by quadrifoliate »

> The cross-functional team confirms the plan for tackling their goals in the next quarter.

Your organization does not equally reward teams that do this in a transparent manner because it has a bias towards new and shiny projects. Teams that work on shiny new projects get way more leeway to propose unrealistic goals without actually achieving them.

> They then set up a meeting cadence to check in, and they make clear communication rules in a public channel so the rest of the team can keep up with each other when there are questions. Backchanneling is nonexistent, and there aren’t many questions because micromanagement is at a minimum.

Your organization does not equally reward teams that do this in a transparent manner because there is not enough cracking down on people that behave like assholes in public channels in the name of transparency. Team X's manager can be an asshole in Team Y's public channel, but Team Y's manager behaves quite nicely in Team X's public channel. Ironically, since you didn't fire Team X's manager, the organizational perception becomes that Team Y is the one with problems, since "there's always someone complaining about them".

> The group identifies problems as they come up, brings them to the attention of everyone on the team and discusses them publicly.

Your organization does not equally reward teams that do this in a transparent manner because teams that work on moonshots that fail miserably never have their problems discussed; but teams that do slow and steady work are often micromanaged to death about some 5% productivity drop this week.

See any commonalities here? Even if each team is managed perfectly by itself, organization-wide disparities can lead to these undesirable patterns appearing anyway. Your organizational leaders and management as a team need to work together to make things more equitable, and fight the natural emergence of these patterns.

Re: Effective teams don’t keep secrets

#45

Post by jka »

davesque wrote: post #43
jka wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hear what you say, but I'd like to add that as an employee, I'd like the option to make my performance data, salary, etc public -- even if it that is not the organization-wide default. The reactions that people have to their own data being public are partly a result of the current hidden-by-default model. I'm not a great developer: I'm experienced, but I make the same mistakes that any junior would. I'd prefer to s…

In a perfect world, I would agree. However, people are people and they often feel ashamed or embarrassed about not living up to expectations, whether those expectations are reasonable or not. Forcing someone to process those emotions publicly can be extremely humiliating and can seriously undermine trust building in a relationship. I'm generally in favor of increased salary transparency since it will probably help to…

> Forcing someone to process those emotions publicly can be extremely humiliating and can seriously undermine trust building in a relationship.

That's an important, accurate observation, thank you for voicing it - understood, I'll take that on board. Emotional support, companionship and other ways to indirectly process the situation (games?) seem like they could be helpful responses in that kind of situation?

> Even making performance review details optional to disclose (as an official policy) might inadvertently create a culture where people look at you sideways as though you have something to hide if you appear as though you're not being forthcoming.

That does sound very tricky to handle in a transparent environment too. I'm not sure whether I have great responses there other than to set a cultural expectation and understanding about the organization up-front (before applicants join).

To be honest, that makes me wonder whether a truly transparent organization should even offer the option for private feedback at all (note that that's a greenfield approach, as opposed to the question of how existing organizations could transition to a more transparent model).

Re: Effective teams don’t keep secrets

#46

Post by ysamjo »

darkerside wrote: post #32
crispyambulance wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 mana…

Google turns up nothing on that concept, but I agree that it is essential. You need a strong leader who can sense when stakeholders don't want to put up with that shit and when it's OK, and counterbalance that with how much of a dumpster fire the codebase is becoming.

You have to define who is in the team and who is not. Maybe Stakeholders are not. But inside the (cross-functional) team I would advise against "submarines" (german name for a secret project). If the team can't handle this, the problem is somewhere else.

Re: Effective teams don’t keep secrets

#47

Post by darkerside »

ysamjo wrote: post #46
darkerside wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google turns up nothing on that concept, but I agree that it is essential. You need a strong leader who can sense when stakeholders don't want to put up with that shit and when it's OK, and counterbalance that with how much of a dumpster fire the codebase is becoming.

You have to define who is in the team and who is not. Maybe Stakeholders are not. But inside the (cross-functional) team I would advise against "submarines" (german name for a secret project). If the team can't handle this, the problem is somewhere else.

There's a difference between things that are secret because of people find out they will care, and things that are secret because people should not weigh in due to lack of knowledge or interest. I'm not sure how complex the system you are thinking of is, but in a system of even moderate complexity, the concept of team becomes abstract very quickly.
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