Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

We need motivation (good managers)

ethanalter.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 74 posts

Re: We need motivation (good managers)

#61

Post by paulcole »

shermantanktop wrote: post #60
paulcole wrote: post #9

Nobody can make someone else motivated. You can put someone in a situation where they can motivate themselves, but you personally can’t make anyone motivated to do anything. If you disagree, think about this: Would you bet your life that if you offered me $1,000,000 to work at Burger King for a year that I’d be motivated to take the offer? What about paying me $1,000,000,000 to sit on a beach for a year? Or maybe jus…

That’s the problem with homo economicus, the rational choice agent that makes economists swoon but is not so easy to find in reality. People have many reasons why they do what they do and sometimes they don’t understand their own motivations.

> People have many reasons why they do what they do and sometimes they don’t understand their own motivations.

So we’re in agreement here right? That people are doing things themselves. Others are not forcing their actions. Regardless of whether people consciously understand the reasoning behind their actions, their actions are still their own.

Re: We need motivation (good managers)

#62

Post by shermantanktop »

paulcole wrote: post #61
shermantanktop wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s the problem with homo economicus, the rational choice agent that makes economists swoon but is not so easy to find in reality. People have many reasons why they do what they do and sometimes they don’t understand their own motivations.

> People have many reasons why they do what they do and sometimes they don’t understand their own motivations. So we’re in agreement here right? That people are doing things themselves. Others are not forcing their actions. Regardless of whether people consciously understand the reasoning behind their actions, their actions are still their own.

That’s where I think it gets complicated. At a physical level, yes, of course. But at the psychological or moral level, it’s murkier. People can be coerced, manipulated, or just plain drugged, and in a legal setting we would consider those to reduce culpability.

Re: We need motivation (good managers)

#63

Post by nextos »

uoaei wrote: post #36
nextos wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe the parent post is exaggerating a bit, but I think that at least it is fair to say that most good programmers began programming just for fun. And when managed well and presented with interesting problems, they will become highly productive and self-driven.

Again, inaccurate. There is a self-selection process at work here in certain roles and domains, maybe, but to boldly claim that your bubble is a representative sample of the entire industry is naive.

What the OP said is backed by large studies. For example, the HackerRank 2020 study (n=116,000) found that developers who code for fun tend to score higher on skill assessments.

The statement in my previous post, where I claimed most good programmers began coding for fun is also reasonable.

Having studied CS in a large state school, I did not find any student that did not begin programming for fun prior to enrolling at university.

I understand that this may not hold for every possible case, e.g. programmers without a CS degree that discovered programming later on, but it is still pretty reasonable.

Re: We need motivation (good managers)

#65

Post by giancarlostoro »

Etheryte wrote: post #6
Buttons840 wrote: post #2

Most programmers program for fun in th their free time. If you want to motivate us, then don't do things that demotivate us and you'll find us motivated. What demotivates me are meetings with outcomes I don't care about. I don't care about story points, and meetings focused on story points demotivate me. I'm demotivated by sprints followed by another sprint followed by another sprint; the problem is right there in th…

The problem is that once upon a time, someone wrote a management book that said that setting deadlines can push people to work harder — and to an extent that's true — but if you take that idea to the extreme and every week is an important deadline, eventually the magic runs out and you end up just burning everyone out. Good managers know this of course, and work hard to find some kind of a balance between their team,…

Very important to identify if some issues will take more than one sprint and still break it down as much as possible and figure out what needs to be stubbed out that first sprint. I am not huge on the process, but too many people dont take full advantage of what seem like obvious ways to keep yourself out of trouble, and if for some awful reason you miss the deadline regardless, document everything that has been finished, and create new follow up tasks for the next sprint. No need to freak out and continue a task over unless it was one of the last tasks assigned.

I prefer to just try and simplify the process and ensure people dont feel more stress than is healthy. Deadlines are always ideal, they are never truly sensible because you cannot foresee a problem down the road with the design until enough ground has been broken. I have seen managers ask near the end who approved an approach and yet they are the only ones in the room who do that, but nobody wants to tell the guy who can fire you that they in fact made the bad call.

Re: We need motivation (good managers)

#66

Post by pestaa »

a_bonobo wrote: post #52

Two things not mentioned that I believe destroyed 'business culture' and employee motivation: - Covid. Doesn't matter what you believe in how dangerous Covid is or is not, in Covid times companies happily required their employees to work in unsafe conditions (and now they're back at it again with requests to come into the office). A contract was broken in that time; why work for peanuts to risk long covid. - A profes…

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/dhtheriault_my-hot-take-googl...

Re: We need motivation (good managers)

#68

Post by paulcole »

shermantanktop wrote: post #62
paulcole wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> People have many reasons why they do what they do and sometimes they don’t understand their own motivations. So we’re in agreement here right? That people are doing things themselves. Others are not forcing their actions. Regardless of whether people consciously understand the reasoning behind their actions, their actions are still their own.

That’s where I think it gets complicated. At a physical level, yes, of course. But at the psychological or moral level, it’s murkier. People can be coerced, manipulated, or just plain drugged, and in a legal setting we would consider those to reduce culpability.

You do make a fair point that makes me reconsider this more.

However I think drugging someone is where you edge away from the concept of motivation into something else. But then it’s like is giving me a sulfonylurea motivating my pancreas to release a bit more insulin? Kind of, I think?

Maybe if you’re doing something that produces an involuntary and uncontrollable physical reaction, you can’t describe that as motivation? I’m not set on that though.

Re: We need motivation (good managers)

#69

Post by BobaFloutist »

paulcole wrote: post #54
BobaFloutist wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's like saying nobody can ever steal from anyone else because I wouldn't be willing to bet my life that I could steal your wallet from you. Just because things aren't 100% reliable, doesn't mean they're not possible.

OK then how much would you be willing to bet that you could demotivate or motivate me? The difference in the wallet theft vs. motivation idea is that you have 0 control over my motivation. I am in 100% control of my motivation. You may be able to try to increase or decrease my motivation but you can’t control it. Motivation’s not a thing you can pick up and take like a wallet. It’s not real and it’s mine.

I think if I were your direct supervisor I'd be about as confident in my ability to demotivate you as I would be in my ability to steal your wallet if I were a proficient pickpocket.

Re: We need motivation (good managers)

#70

Post by JohnFen »

phantomathkg wrote: post #40
JohnFen wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have no clue how large or small my professional circle is. Since you claim to have knowledge about what is the norm across the entire field of software engineering rather than just the people in your own bubble, I assume that you have a study that informs your belief?

Maybe it is fair to say, probably 50% people develop for fun outside work, and another 50% don't?

In the absence of data, saying this is just as speculative as saying any other ratio. There's no reason to think any particular ratio is the correct one.

That's why I was very careful to point out that I was talking about my personal experience, and wasn't generalizing it to the field as a whole. I have no data to support any speculation about the field as a whole.

Post reply on HN