At Nixon McInnes they pride themselves on their company culture. Modelling themselves after Ricardo Semler and following blogs such as The Chief Happiness Officer. I'm certain Will, and especially Tom really believe that they're creating something special and I don't doubt their motives at all. But the reality falls short of the ideal.
The problem is that people have different priorities, and what makes one person happy means nothing to someone else. As an employee I don't really care very much about the financial details, or the brand image, or even who the client is. So long as they keep paying me, that's all the financial information I need. There are just two things I need to be happy at work, freedom and appreciation.
Programming can be a joy, if you have the freedom to explore and create. It's an intrinsically motivating activity. You don't need to bribe me with external incentives. If the people around me take some time to try and understand and appreciate what I do then I can be very happy indeed. One or two people at Nixon McInnes did, and I thank them for that. Unfortunately that's not the prevailing culture.
The culture at Nixon McInnes, in common with many many companies is a heirarchy, with sales at the top, followed by management, and then the developers at the bottom. A resource to be monitored and measured and controlled like components on an assembly line.
I can work in that kind of environment if it's presented as such. I'd put in my hours and go home and do some real programming, just like every other programmer. But the Happiness at Work rhetoric raised my expectations to believe that I should expect to enjoy my work. The clash between reality and expectation was a constant source of frustration and disappointment. Which in the end made it impossible for me to work there any more.
Tuesday, July 03, 2007
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3 comments:
Ultimately it's only you who can make yourself happy. We work hard to create an environment that supports this, and although we're far from cracking the perfect formula (has any company?) I think it's fair to say we do better than most. But no company can actually MAKE people happy - it has to come from the individual. I'm sorry it didn't work out for you, and I wish you the best of luck.
Tom
You sound hurt. That's not my intention. You do a lot of things right and some things wrong. I hope you will take my account as one more data point for refining the working environment.
The grass is always greener, but I would suggest Fog Creek and Thoughtworks as good starting points.
Alex,
Programmers are a weird breed (I'm one myself) and you're right, our needs and motivations often cannot easily be understood by a marketing or sales person.
But, surely none of the Nixon-McInnes external incentives are shoved down your throat, they are just bonuses available to you, that most employees don't get (financial transparency, flexible hours etc)? You don't need to know any more than your monthly take-home, but the info's there if you want it.
If your main gripe is that no-one at the company understood you, I think that's a pretty common complaint for programmers in most organisations.
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