Chris Ford, Head of Technology at Thoughworks Spain, had something profound to say on LinkedIn:
Engineers retreat into mastery when they lose connection with purpose.
If you don’t want your programmers chasing complexity and building things for their own amusement, give them ownership of problems, not just solutions.
This struck me like that time my child developed rocket-propelled legs and jumped straight into my chin.
Every time I’ve gone over “techie” on things it was because purpose was gone. Every time.
Every time I’ve left a company it was because purpose was gone. Every time.
Manuel Pais, co-author of Team Topologies, commented on that post that when intrinsic motivators are taken away people overcompensate in the things they can control
I’ve watched brilliant developers smashed by bad systems of work retreat into some specialization where they felt they could make an impact. I’m sure this doesn’t happen to just developers.
Have you ever seen good things happen when you take away someone’s sense of purpose? I haven’t yet.
There’s more to say on this next week.
