Joel on Management

Last Updated on Thursday, 10 August 2006 08:40 Written by Steve Thursday, 10 August 2006 08:35

Well-known software developer Joel Spolsky is posting a series on management strategies:

If you want to lead a team, a company, an army, or a country, the primary problem you face is getting everyone moving in the same direction, which is really just a polite way of saying “getting people to do what you want.”

He proposes that there are three main methods for doing this:

• The Command and Control Method
• The Econ 101 Method
• The Identity Method

While the Command and Control method is pretty easy to dismiss on face value (just look at the Army’s recruiting numbers) there are parts of the strategy that have crept in to the methods of managers I’ve worked for. In some situations it’s appealing to have people stop asking questions and just do what you want. Of course, that’s not a sustainable path as it may bring about the short term goal while destroying the relationship between manager and employee that must be healthy for long-term success to be possible.

Joel’s Econ 101 method is simply an overemphasis on extrinsic rewards–mainly money. I’ve been really interested in extrinsic vs. intrinsic rewards since I read Alfie Kohn’s incredible book Unconditional Parenting. Turns out, if you pay kids to play with toys they like, they play with them less–the same results Joel sees when giving developers bonuses. Money replaces Fun as the motivation for doing something. My wife and I are staying away from rewards and punishment as methods for getting our kids to do what we want them to do, mostly because those methods just don’t work–in parenting or management.

The Identity method is much more along the lines of Kohn’s parenting principles. It’s the relationship that matters. Do what you need to do to make sure the relationship is strong. It’s not easy, and the other methods are tempting because they often work in the short term. But they are not sustainable.

I was very intrigued by his comments about his internship program:

…one the goals of our internship program is to make people identify as New Yorkers, so they’re more comfortable with the idea of moving here after college and working for us full-time. We do this through a pretty exhausting list of extra-curricular summer activities: two Broadway shows, a trip to the Top of the Rock, a boat ride around Manhattan, a Yankees game, an open house so they can meet more New Yorkers, and a trip to a museum; Michael and I host parties in our apartments, both as a way of welcoming the interns but also as a way for interns to visualize living in an apartment in New York, not just the dorm we stuck them in.

In addition to building a strong relationship with potential employees, they’re helping the employees make the right decision–should I move to New York? Better to help interns figure that out before they get hired–it’s a drag for both parties when employment doesn’t work out.