Try to work less to fit your culture
My first job in software development was C ++ programming for JD Edwards, which is now part of Oracle. I worked there from 1996 to 2000. It is so different from any job I’ve been to since that time from so different sides that I always refer it to the short “pre-Internet” phase of my career. But there is such a moment - the team in which I worked was the most diverse of those in which I worked. Or maybe even of those with whom you have only had to deal, within the framework of our entire industry.
Why? I think I have an answer.
JD Edwards culture and work space standards were borrowed directly from IBM. Jacket and tie are required for men. Everyday. You could leave the jacket on the back of a chair in a cubicle all week, go home and come back in a shirt, but if you did not take the jacket home for the weekend and did not change it every week, you would be pointed out. If you started to appear at work at 9 instead of 8:30, you would definitely indicate this. Nishtyak? Free soda. Fridays in a casual style were reluctantly introduced only under the pressure of the Internet boom, because otherwise it became harder to hire people. I loved my job and hated the dress code and mode.
My hipster friends hired online startups and wore jeans, sneakers and T-shirts with ironic drawings and inscriptions. Their offices were in the new hip-area in the center, with ping-pong and table football (free lunches are still only a matter of the future). They were friends with all their colleagues, appeared at work at 10:00 and usually went to the bar all together right after work. I was very jealous ... but for the difference in the dress code I did not see differences in diversity in the team.
')
I said earlier that until today my team at JD Edwards was the most diverse in which I worked. My first boss was an immigrant from Africa, the second boss was a woman "Mommy forty with something." In our team, the degree of diversity was high in all respects - gender, race, religion, age, presence of children, origin, sexual orientation, disability, veteran status. It was a very talented and hardworking group. At that time I did not know other teams, so it did not seem to me something out of the ordinary.
However, I hated that damned tie. There was an internet boom around, and I was stuck here, with a group of incredibly good and generous, but not hippie people. On Fridays, at 4:00, they could hide a bottle of Coors Light beer behind the monitor, leave an hour later, go to their suburban homes, to annoying teenagers and TVs.
I quit in 2000. Was frivolous. I found a job in a software hip company. The office was in the center. My new colleagues were cool. They wore T-shirts with ironic drawings and texts. Appeared at work at 10 or later, worked a crazy number of hours. On Fridays, and many other days, after work, they went all together to drink craft beer, then went home to cool lofts or headed straight for an indie rock show.
They were all white, young, they had no children, most of them were men. Women were in HR or in the quality department (QA), or they created content. The development managers were mostly white men a little older. Quality managers were white women, also slightly older.
Ugh.
My new company, roughly speaking, looked like our entire industry, with which we are so unhappy, and in which something is now beginning to change.
I was no longer working there at the moment when the collapse of the dot-coms threw us somewhere. My “real” career in the industry started already after, that is, JD Edwards and this other company always seemed to me a prelude to what I didn’t really realize. Yesterday everything changed.
I had a rather big discussion in Slack, with very good people who patiently allowed a privileged white man to touch on the dangerous topic of diversity and cultural identity several times. A conversation led me to write this post. I will thank them by not calling their names and promising that I will never raise this topic in their Slack chat again.
See what the matter is: there are many ways to build such an enclosing (inclusive) environment, and to enjoy the diversity that often results from this. One good way, which I think was missed, is to do everything professionally. When our office culture is more focused on business than on socialization, we reduce the number of ways in which we will come to be the same. When we do this, we allow diversity to flourish . If your corporate culture expects people to rework or work on weekends, the burden on people other than most will increase, and this reduces your ability to maintain diversity among employees.
I saw the benefits of the “strictly business” concept in the seven years that I was at Fog Creek Software and its subsidiary, Trello.
I moved to Fog Creek in 2008, from Google New York, where I worked for five years. Google NY had a mixed corporate culture: a sales and technical culture, you were expected to come to work at 10, work until 8, then fill up the bar with your colleagues. Work in such a company, which everyone is talking about, excited, I liked the feeling that we were part of something very big. Sometimes I worked a crazy amount of hours traveling around the world. That was great. I still have many good friends from that time. I am not saying that there was no diversity in Google NY, as in the Internet company mentioned above, but the lifestyle was all-consuming. First of all, we were google.
When I came to Fog Creek, there were only about a dozen of us. I had a culture shock. There was a certain amount of pair programming, but not a lot of talk "at the cooler". All developed were going to lunch at noon, then went back to their offices and closed the doors. At 5:00 each got up and left. I was in absolute confusion. I stayed in that all-absorbing environment for so long that I was a little disappointed by such a sudden restriction of the role of work in my life.
Also, I got used to another mode and was very inspired by my new job, so I stayed several times at night, just to pick up speed. After such a week, the most senior engineer in the team appeared behind me at the end of his work day.
“Do you know how we call people who work after 5 pm?” He asked.
"How?"
"Doodles."
I burst out laughing, but he spoke seriously. He did not want anyone to work during non-obligatory working hours, because all of a sudden, everyone can start to adhere to this. I understood everything, adjusted my schedule so that it was from 9 to 5 and adhered to it.
At the time, Fog Creek was small and did not have much variety. Over the years, we grew up and created products, launched individual companies, always adhering to a reasonable schedule, trying to do everything professionally.
Somewhere in 2011, it smelled of change. People in the industry were unhappy with the lack of diversity. A post on our company's blog, “Girls Go Geek, Again” , has become the most readable and most shared in our history (as far as I know, it remains in the top 3). We strongly wanted to build diversity through our hiring process: we started with our internship program, which we borrow so much from (it is the first step in hiring for a full day). No, we did not become more diverse without efforts, many people did a very hard job of expanding our hiring process and we had to become very creative in order to build diversity in our office.
That article, the link to which I just gave is a good example. When we wanted to become “more diverse” with the recruitment and training of graduates from the Flatiron School, we simply did it because we did not have to first become “more inclusive”.
This was because our culture was focused on developing business: how software is developed, sold and supported. If you are delighted with this, you automatically belong to her. You don’t need to stay up late, drink alcohol, play Rock Band, play board games, don’t have to pick up children, go to church, don’t go to church or do anything else, except to work from 9 to 5 and take care of releasing good software.
Social activities (beer, “hunt for dumplings”, board games, running) were naturally separated from work. Draw career did not depend on participation in them.
I do not agitate for the return of formalism in the style of IBM. But I think we missed something when we threw out ties from the industry and put on T-shirts.
I do not know how much this will be useful for someone else, but the lesson I learned for myself was this: if you want to build a “containing culture”, build a minimal culture. Build it around professionalism, framework, and a balance between work and life. Make sure your management staff proves this with deed and word.
I was reminded here of the idea behind “Getting to Yes” (Roger Fisher’s book “Negotiations without defeats”) - the classic work of negotiation. The idea is that in the negotiations, if you limit the number of points on which the parties concerned need to agree, you increase the chances of reaching an agreement. You cast aside your desires, in favor of coming to an agreement, simply by focusing on your needs. This looks obvious when you look back, but it really revolutionized the business world.
For twenty years of observations of the minimum, professional culture, I have not tied everything together. In fact, this is the same thing. We are all attracted to being part of something bigger, inspiring and all-encompassing. It is very comfortable and pleasant to lead such a common life when your colleagues are also your friends, and vice versa; when you're talking to a beer you solve the problems you are having at the keyboard.
But perhaps this has its price. If we discard such a desire and focus on what we really want to achieve - to make good software - maybe we will discover new opportunities. By limiting the number of points for which we need to come to an agreement and the number of hours we need to spend on this, we naturally discover a diverse world of talented people.
Why? I think I have an answer.
JD Edwards culture and work space standards were borrowed directly from IBM. Jacket and tie are required for men. Everyday. You could leave the jacket on the back of a chair in a cubicle all week, go home and come back in a shirt, but if you did not take the jacket home for the weekend and did not change it every week, you would be pointed out. If you started to appear at work at 9 instead of 8:30, you would definitely indicate this. Nishtyak? Free soda. Fridays in a casual style were reluctantly introduced only under the pressure of the Internet boom, because otherwise it became harder to hire people. I loved my job and hated the dress code and mode.
My hipster friends hired online startups and wore jeans, sneakers and T-shirts with ironic drawings and inscriptions. Their offices were in the new hip-area in the center, with ping-pong and table football (free lunches are still only a matter of the future). They were friends with all their colleagues, appeared at work at 10:00 and usually went to the bar all together right after work. I was very jealous ... but for the difference in the dress code I did not see differences in diversity in the team.
')
I said earlier that until today my team at JD Edwards was the most diverse in which I worked. My first boss was an immigrant from Africa, the second boss was a woman "Mommy forty with something." In our team, the degree of diversity was high in all respects - gender, race, religion, age, presence of children, origin, sexual orientation, disability, veteran status. It was a very talented and hardworking group. At that time I did not know other teams, so it did not seem to me something out of the ordinary.
However, I hated that damned tie. There was an internet boom around, and I was stuck here, with a group of incredibly good and generous, but not hippie people. On Fridays, at 4:00, they could hide a bottle of Coors Light beer behind the monitor, leave an hour later, go to their suburban homes, to annoying teenagers and TVs.
I quit in 2000. Was frivolous. I found a job in a software hip company. The office was in the center. My new colleagues were cool. They wore T-shirts with ironic drawings and texts. Appeared at work at 10 or later, worked a crazy number of hours. On Fridays, and many other days, after work, they went all together to drink craft beer, then went home to cool lofts or headed straight for an indie rock show.
They were all white, young, they had no children, most of them were men. Women were in HR or in the quality department (QA), or they created content. The development managers were mostly white men a little older. Quality managers were white women, also slightly older.
Ugh.
My new company, roughly speaking, looked like our entire industry, with which we are so unhappy, and in which something is now beginning to change.
I was no longer working there at the moment when the collapse of the dot-coms threw us somewhere. My “real” career in the industry started already after, that is, JD Edwards and this other company always seemed to me a prelude to what I didn’t really realize. Yesterday everything changed.
I had a rather big discussion in Slack, with very good people who patiently allowed a privileged white man to touch on the dangerous topic of diversity and cultural identity several times. A conversation led me to write this post. I will thank them by not calling their names and promising that I will never raise this topic in their Slack chat again.
See what the matter is: there are many ways to build such an enclosing (inclusive) environment, and to enjoy the diversity that often results from this. One good way, which I think was missed, is to do everything professionally. When our office culture is more focused on business than on socialization, we reduce the number of ways in which we will come to be the same. When we do this, we allow diversity to flourish . If your corporate culture expects people to rework or work on weekends, the burden on people other than most will increase, and this reduces your ability to maintain diversity among employees.
I saw the benefits of the “strictly business” concept in the seven years that I was at Fog Creek Software and its subsidiary, Trello.
I moved to Fog Creek in 2008, from Google New York, where I worked for five years. Google NY had a mixed corporate culture: a sales and technical culture, you were expected to come to work at 10, work until 8, then fill up the bar with your colleagues. Work in such a company, which everyone is talking about, excited, I liked the feeling that we were part of something very big. Sometimes I worked a crazy amount of hours traveling around the world. That was great. I still have many good friends from that time. I am not saying that there was no diversity in Google NY, as in the Internet company mentioned above, but the lifestyle was all-consuming. First of all, we were google.
When I came to Fog Creek, there were only about a dozen of us. I had a culture shock. There was a certain amount of pair programming, but not a lot of talk "at the cooler". All developed were going to lunch at noon, then went back to their offices and closed the doors. At 5:00 each got up and left. I was in absolute confusion. I stayed in that all-absorbing environment for so long that I was a little disappointed by such a sudden restriction of the role of work in my life.
Also, I got used to another mode and was very inspired by my new job, so I stayed several times at night, just to pick up speed. After such a week, the most senior engineer in the team appeared behind me at the end of his work day.
“Do you know how we call people who work after 5 pm?” He asked.
"How?"
"Doodles."
I burst out laughing, but he spoke seriously. He did not want anyone to work during non-obligatory working hours, because all of a sudden, everyone can start to adhere to this. I understood everything, adjusted my schedule so that it was from 9 to 5 and adhered to it.
At the time, Fog Creek was small and did not have much variety. Over the years, we grew up and created products, launched individual companies, always adhering to a reasonable schedule, trying to do everything professionally.
Somewhere in 2011, it smelled of change. People in the industry were unhappy with the lack of diversity. A post on our company's blog, “Girls Go Geek, Again” , has become the most readable and most shared in our history (as far as I know, it remains in the top 3). We strongly wanted to build diversity through our hiring process: we started with our internship program, which we borrow so much from (it is the first step in hiring for a full day). No, we did not become more diverse without efforts, many people did a very hard job of expanding our hiring process and we had to become very creative in order to build diversity in our office.
That article, the link to which I just gave is a good example. When we wanted to become “more diverse” with the recruitment and training of graduates from the Flatiron School, we simply did it because we did not have to first become “more inclusive”.
This was because our culture was focused on developing business: how software is developed, sold and supported. If you are delighted with this, you automatically belong to her. You don’t need to stay up late, drink alcohol, play Rock Band, play board games, don’t have to pick up children, go to church, don’t go to church or do anything else, except to work from 9 to 5 and take care of releasing good software.
Social activities (beer, “hunt for dumplings”, board games, running) were naturally separated from work. Draw career did not depend on participation in them.
I do not agitate for the return of formalism in the style of IBM. But I think we missed something when we threw out ties from the industry and put on T-shirts.
I do not know how much this will be useful for someone else, but the lesson I learned for myself was this: if you want to build a “containing culture”, build a minimal culture. Build it around professionalism, framework, and a balance between work and life. Make sure your management staff proves this with deed and word.
I was reminded here of the idea behind “Getting to Yes” (Roger Fisher’s book “Negotiations without defeats”) - the classic work of negotiation. The idea is that in the negotiations, if you limit the number of points on which the parties concerned need to agree, you increase the chances of reaching an agreement. You cast aside your desires, in favor of coming to an agreement, simply by focusing on your needs. This looks obvious when you look back, but it really revolutionized the business world.
For twenty years of observations of the minimum, professional culture, I have not tied everything together. In fact, this is the same thing. We are all attracted to being part of something bigger, inspiring and all-encompassing. It is very comfortable and pleasant to lead such a common life when your colleagues are also your friends, and vice versa; when you're talking to a beer you solve the problems you are having at the keyboard.
But perhaps this has its price. If we discard such a desire and focus on what we really want to achieve - to make good software - maybe we will discover new opportunities. By limiting the number of points for which we need to come to an agreement and the number of hours we need to spend on this, we naturally discover a diverse world of talented people.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/332478/
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