by jimnotgym | 2026-02-11 09:35:04+00:00
> In my personal experience, that behavior is atypical.

Absolutely it is. I am atypical. My atypical behaviour gets results. That is the point of wanting to write about it!

I think you got in a bit deep with the currency thing. People try to show they are doing what the boss wants, that is where we agreed. Unfortunately that is often behaviour that is negative for other people and the team, and I suggest the company as a whole.

Imagine I set a KPI that I want x lines of code per person. A manager will stop being impressed by the team member who refactors pages of nonsense into 1 line, he wants bulk. The best member of the team gets disheartened and leaves. I set a bad KPI, but I also set an expectation that the KPI mattered to me, and therefore meeting it at all costs was what the manager needed to do. This is the currency you described.

Remove the KPI and just take a 'measurement' of lines of code. Next time I meet with the manager he proudly states his team created x lines of code. I ask why. I ask what areas needed more code. I ask what improved. I ask if the code is more stable, needs what resources etc. I ask how the lines of code moved us towards our goals. Do these lines of code make us money? How?

Now the manager sees that I value them not as a stick-bearer, but someone I require to be intellectually engaged in the work their team is doing, and able to summarise that effort so I can run a bigger team. I made the currency based on positive factors. KPIs are a lazy attempt at management.

Others asked about scalability. It is perfectly scalable. If I was the CEO, the questions I ask the CTO are what shows them what I value, the currency if you will. If I am lazy at that, I will generate lazy behaviour.

Measuring anything is fine, but measurement has a cost and you need to be intellectually honest that it is only part of the picture, and your real interest should be what made the measure move, and what does that tell you. I could measure the number of features added, for instance, but I need to understand how hard each feature is and hours much value they add. Same when my PM suggests a new feature, I should interrogate them about why, talk about the cost of maintaining it. I should ask them to weigh that against the fact that our biggest customer is complaining about down time and speed, an incidentally they are not interested in that feature.

You see what we did? We made it clear that I value intellectual rigor in peoples decision making, and understanding of what it is we sell. I created a currency that is more positive than being cocky, good at PowerPoint and meeting KPIs.

You are correct that I'm not in the US, but I have twice worked for US headquartered firms, so I have some insight into how they work. I would say they have informed my view that they tend to fail at motivating people, and especially motivating them to do the right things.

I'm actually not good at traditional corporate climbing. My PowerPoints deliberately have few words on them, because I concentrate on speaking. I also have a bad habit of saying inconvenient truths outloud. I am deliberately exluded from lots of meetings where I might reveal how little they know. I get promoted because just sometimes they need someone to actually get the work done that the company sells. I'm contained and restricted though.