Comment by eptcyka

Comment by eptcyka 17 hours ago

5 replies

I think most people feel like they’re performing well when given a high level of autonomy, which is not the same as performing well.

hansmayer 17 hours ago

Well, no. This was proven scientifically a long-time ago, so no, what you think does not disprove what was already proved by scientific experimentation of workplace psychologists back in the 70s...

  • eptcyka 17 hours ago

    Could you reference some of those works? I do not disagree that high performers need a high degree of autonomy, but I do not believe that anyone can be turned into a high performer by just adding more autonomy to their work life.

    • roenxi 17 hours ago

      People who aren't high performers, as a general rule, can't be transformed into them by any system (although there are some fascinating explorations of what a low performer can achieve with the right capital investments). A good strategy is one that either achieves the best possible results with a large number of average performers or turns medium-high performers into high performers and really enables the high performers to shine.

    • hansmayer 17 hours ago

      Not off the top of my head right now, but pick up any classic book on managing software teams and you will find heaps of such scientific references, for example "Peopleware" comes to mind.

ofwellkgi 17 hours ago

It shouldn't come as a suprise to anyone that happy people make way better workers than angry and sad ones. Autonomy makes people happy, and on top of that experts usually know what they're doing, some even like their field and actually enjoy taking on challenges.

I think organizations of any type or size have a habit of discounting the power of spite aswell. You can do way worse than lose productivity, revolutions happen because people are unhappy.