- Technical competence
- Passion
Pretty much in that order. If Bob has strong tech skills, it means he can solve complicated problems to a reasonable level of quality independently. But if he is lacking passion, it means he wont be looking for opportunities to improve, or to push the envelope on issues like code quality, cleanliness, productivity, etc.
If Bill has a lot of passion, it means he'll be on the lookout for ways to improve. Both in his own work, and his team's work. But if Bill doesn't have the technical competence to back it up it means he's simply unreliable. The impression will be that he pays lots of lip service to quality and improvement but never manages to actually deliver any.
Bennie, on the other hand, might have both of these qualities. This makes him reliable and constantly improving. And not just improving himself, but improving those around him. Bennie is the guy who's likely to not only complain about some "policy" his office has that he feels is hurting more than helping, but to actually work on getting that policy changed. Effectively, Bennie is a leader.
I think people with passion naturally end up leading, regardless of whether they are in "leadership" roles. You don't have to be the boss to influence how your company works. And you don't have to be the team lead to influence what technologies get used and how.
However it is this fact that makes passion a double edged sword.
Passionate people are more likely to challenge the status quo. Which is good. Unless they are challenging it in ways that actually hurt their team or hurt their company. This runs along the same lines as some issues I discussed in an earlier post called Engaged Employees. In a nut shell, if the priorities of the passionate people don't line up with the priorities of the business, you've got trouble ("With a capital T. And that rhymes with P and that stands for..." Passion?).
When the passionate people become dis-engaged, there are two likely outcomes. They might start "farting around" with "improvements" that don't actually help the team or the business accomplish any of its goals. It is probably still true that these "improvements" are "good" in their own context. But in the context of the business, they might actually be "bad," or possibly just unimportant (and therefore a waste of time). On the other hand, the passionate people might decide to simply checkout. They might decide to put in the minimal amount of effort possible, with an attitude of "screw those guys." If just one person was acting in either of these ways, it wouldn't be that big of a deal. But when it's your passionate people, it can lead to much more trouble. These are your leaders after all, and their attitude and behavior rubs off on everyone else.
A company plagued with dis-engaged passionate individuals (like Bennie) would probably like to trade them all for simply technically compete people (like Bob). The Bobs would stop causing so many problems and stop challenging everything and stop being in such a bad mood all the time and just get their work done.
But we have to ask, what has led the passionate people to be so removed from the goals of the business? I think there is always a simple one word answer to that question: Management. The book First Break All The Rules makes the case that a managers job is simply to bring out the best in his people. And not the best out of context. If you're an amazing yo-yo player but you program for a living it's not your manager's job to bring our your best yo-yoing. Obviously. It's his job to bring out your best in the context of the goals of the business (What a Programmer Wants in a Manager). If your passionate people don't know what the priorities of the business are, or if they can't figure out what they could do today to have the biggest impact on the company, then management has messed up somehow.
But just because management has messed up doesn't mean we get to blame them and call it a day. It doesn't mean we can just give up, stop trying, decide not to care, or adopt a bad attitude. That is the path to the dark side. As Bobbies, we have to do what we've always done: Fix it! This is going to be harder for us than, say, designing a better data layer. This is now a people problem. And as technical nerds, we are probably not the best suited individuals to address people problems. But sometimes we have to embrace the circumstances life throws at us, however uncomfortable they may be, and we have to grow up, step up, and fix it!
Agreed, whether it's programming, manufacturing, or medicine, the brightest and most productive people in the field usually share one common trait: passion. They are the ones who really enjoy what they do and rarely think of it as merely a paycheck. And having catalysts to challenge and push the skills of the rest of the team is a huge advantage to any company.
ReplyDeleteBut like you said, that passion needs to be balanced with a good work ethic. Not every project is going to be bleeding edge. We need to be willing to put just as much quality effort into knocking out the boring, mundane tasks as well.
Great post Kevin!