"One hand down, one hand up" - the ideal work environment
Tags: culture, teamwork, ideals
Published: 2022-05-24 21:07:51

---
title: "One hand down, one hand up" - the ideal work environment
published: true
description: If it's hard to articulate what makes a great developer, it's twice as hard to define what makes a great programming environment
tags: culture, teamwork, ideals
cover_image: https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/1ha382t2mfub64mbl7ph.jpg
---

In the last 20+ years, I've seen plenty of success and plenty of dysfunction across companies, teams, and projects. But the teams I wanted to be on - the companies that performed the best and had the most fun doing it - always had one very distinct similarity: from the top down, every person would have "one hand down and one hand up". 

This can be a personal mantra, or a company-wide philosophy, but in then end, the people and teams I want to work with are _explicitly asserting value_ to these concepts. 

## One hand down

**tldr; Be the kind of person that gives the next person a leg up.** 

A person who extends a hand down ensures that a portion of their workload is making sure the next person can follow. This can manifest as clean code that tells the story of the code as well as the implementation. It could mean adding documentation when you hit a snag and don't want someone else to hit the same one. It could mean deliberately carving out time out of your work schedule to ensure that other people have resources and guidance that you might not have had. Whatever it is, you have "one hand down" to lift someone else up. It's ready and available, and most importantly _you advertise it_. 

## One hand up

**tldr; Be the kind of person that looks for advice and direction.**

Not looking for advice or direction is a sure-fire way to lock everyone on a path that only you know how to navigate. 

It makes no difference what your position is within a team or a company - there is always something to learn for the truly curious. Even getting advice from someone who is not at your skill-level can be incredibly illuminating. It can show you better ways to have a "hand down" as well - and in ways that will always surprise you.

Most of all, a person with a hand up shows that they are listening and are _willing to be changed by what is said_. This isn't just something that benefits you, but is a model that extends to anyone who is inspired _by you_. 

## Why we need both

Below are my personal observations of what I've found to happen when both conditions are not met. These are not at all uncommon, and you've likely encountered at least one of these before, if not all of them.

### The "arms crossed" effect

Many of the bureaucratic companies and organizations I've worked at or had adjacent experiences with wind up ensnared in this model. Everyone is waiting for their pension, and everyone's top priority is simply to keep their job, so they keep their head down and only concentrate on the work that was assigned to them. This is the "arms crossed" effect. 

Nobody is looking for advice or direction because this will make them look stupid and incompetent.  

Nobody is trying to help anyone else up because, what if someone else learns how to do what _you_ do?

### The "one hand down only" effect

One very over-taxed person or team is handling everything. This one over-taxed person quickly becomes a single point of failure, and when they leave or retire, the whole company enters into...

### The "one hand up only" effect

At this point, everyone is looking for direction, but everyone is too busy getting their work done to help anyone else. This is where you have "write-only" code that nobody wants to wrangle. There is no attempt at documentation or training.

Ultimately, a re-write of the entire code-base is going to be suggested, because the archaeology of trying to figure out what the heck is going on would just take longer, and likely just perpetuate the cycle. Needless to say, this is costly. 

## In a perfect world...

From the get-go, apportion time in every person's workload for "putting a hand down" and "putting a hand up". It's never too late to stabilize the cycle. 

This is a much better model than just getting into trouble and hiring as many 10X developers you can to help you row the boat faster toward the rocks. 

## Final note: nomenclature persists

Hopefully you find this concept and phrasing useful. For me, an easily grokable concept that can be boiled down into simple phrasing gives me the most movement toward that idea. This idiom happens to represent my personal approach. I hope it has some merit for you as well. 

Thanks for reading!