Posts tagged #Organizations

Leadership is fallible and imperfect. Soft roles emerge as they are needed to account for various team roles that are needed but not formally defined. Some of these roles help teams function, and some others act as crossbeams that hold an entire organization together.

While managers may be constrained in their communication, special individuals create unofficial channels where team members feel safe to share information. Acting as social hubs or "speakeasies," they foster trust and enable the free flow of timely, factual information, which helps colleagues make better decisions and navigate turmoil. Despite their critical function in preventing team collapse and reducing isolation, this "glue work" is typically not formally recognized or compensated.

For a team to succeed, it needs the flexibility to self-organize, which can lead to some members taking on more work. To avoid burnout, these extra contributions must be rewarded. Good managers are key, as they must recognize individual efforts and their team-wide impact. Well-designed incentives foster collaboration and reward those who strengthen the team, while poor incentives cause employees to stick rigidly to their roles and let the team fail.

In any team, the roles people play are not as rigid as they seem. Over time, people naturally settle into "soft roles" that are not explicitly defined but are crucial for a team's success. This is a look at the organic, and often unsung, ways that successful teams actually work.

More reflections from foureteen years at Google.

Working with a poorly thought-out, or overengineered technology stack, or an overly bureaucratic organization is also a form of proof-of-work.

If you don't know what a refridgerator is nor what an elephant is you are likely to think that opening the door, putting the elephant in, and closing the door is a viable strategy for putting an elephant in the refridgerator.

Asking if someone is "Asian" in a question of ethnicity or demographics or pretty much any context is bad. There is no reasonable conclusion you can arrive at about a person based on the fact that they are "Asian".

Some reflections from thirteen years at Google.