This article puts up some pretense but it’s all over the place and very inconsistent. Overall it’s a pretty bad article and pretty heavy on arrogance.
Often new leaders are hired because they are unique specialists in a needed technology or new capability area.
I’ve worked in companies that had to hire billing experts, SOX compliance experts, machine learning experts, embedded systems experts, and so on - to lead fairly big initiatives and drastically restructure an engineering organization.
You can’t have it both ways. You can’t hire them to pursue a program in their specialization (what they are uniquely good at) but then also turn around and act suspicious that they are “snacking” or “preening” or deliberately seeking high visibility projects for credit.
On top of this, how juvenile do you have to be to think of your colleagues this way and generalize complex motivations and difficult prioritization into little cartoon phrases like snacking or preening. That speaks to a lot of negativity and arrogance on part of the author or anyone who would adopt these views.
Maybe that other team needs to solve a low effort, low reward task because last year they were forced to lay off a trusted teammate and everyone’s morale is terrible, and they need a quick win.
Maybe that project you arrogantly believe is all about “visibility” is actually required for some compliance reasons you aren’t aware of.
Stop wasting time with these judgments and perhaps take an attitude of trusting your colleagues and believing they are sincere, and especially trusting their judgment in their project areas of specialization.
Often new leaders are hired because they are unique specialists in a needed technology or new capability area.
I’ve worked in companies that had to hire billing experts, SOX compliance experts, machine learning experts, embedded systems experts, and so on - to lead fairly big initiatives and drastically restructure an engineering organization.
You can’t have it both ways. You can’t hire them to pursue a program in their specialization (what they are uniquely good at) but then also turn around and act suspicious that they are “snacking” or “preening” or deliberately seeking high visibility projects for credit.
On top of this, how juvenile do you have to be to think of your colleagues this way and generalize complex motivations and difficult prioritization into little cartoon phrases like snacking or preening. That speaks to a lot of negativity and arrogance on part of the author or anyone who would adopt these views.
Maybe that other team needs to solve a low effort, low reward task because last year they were forced to lay off a trusted teammate and everyone’s morale is terrible, and they need a quick win.
Maybe that project you arrogantly believe is all about “visibility” is actually required for some compliance reasons you aren’t aware of.
Stop wasting time with these judgments and perhaps take an attitude of trusting your colleagues and believing they are sincere, and especially trusting their judgment in their project areas of specialization.