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Comment by kevindeasis | Hacker News Reader

I've seen this exact information before, multiple times actually.

It seems like it's just a rehash of the same generic advice

What I'd like to see, is if you enforce this in a dysfunctional team, would that team still be dysfunctional?

Are these habits things that come out organically from some high functioning team? Cause I bet if you enforce these kinds of habits to a dysfunctional team, that team would still be dysfunctional, but most likely better.

Highly functional teams, would always make things happen, and if you join highly functional teams, you will be part of their culture and reinforce habits

There are also, enjoyable teams. Teams that have an amazing culture. Those teams are great to be in, but have a different culture compared to highly functional teams

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I don’t know if enforcing these things on a dysfunctional team would fix anything. It probably depends on the team.

But stuff like redistribution of XP and active measures to create psychological safety are necessary components of a functional team. So, it stands to reason that if you want a dysfunctional team to become functional then the manager will have to make those two things happen. It may not be enough if there are more fundamental problems (like toxic team members, toxic upper management, or a toxic code base) so I’d say it’s a “necessary but not sufficient” sort of thing.

I also suspect that this lists and others like it are not exhaustive. Probably the best teams have emergent dynamics that even very smart people don’t know how to describe or reproduce.

Dysfunctional teams == 10X engineers: https://twitter.com/skirani/status/1149302828420067328?lang=...

> What I'd like to see, is if you enforce this in a dysfunctional team, would that team still be dysfunctional?

I was wondering the same. It seems that the 'good' team dynamics just happens, mostly due to a combination of factors. People, of course, are firstmost. Then the company organism is a big factor too. An isolated team might enjoy a feeling of superiority, yet at some side of it there's still a connection to the rest of the company, with all the 'inferor' luggage that there might be. You're lucky if a manager is the shield that keeps that external drag at bay to alow his team to perform at their best.

The psychological safety that the author mentions is analogous to the feeling of comfort. It can equally apply to healthy as well as to unhealthy teams, as long as the values are shared by the team members. We all have seen very stable yet underperforming teams, trying one or the other technique/practice to put another layer of make-up on a zombi face.

It may sound pessimistic, but it seems that once a team settles in its low energy state it's next to impossible to reenergize it by introducing techniques and practices. Borrowing the analogy... how does one deal with zombies...figuratively speaking? Then, what if by now you are one of them?

On the other hand, when team is still alive or new, then all this spirit must be nurtured. Techniques, experiments, practices. Most importantly, respect!

It’s been mentioned on Hacker News a few times, but the book “Turn The Ship Around” is essentially about this very question. It’s about a different kind of organisation (a military submarine), but I differently recognised a lot of the same dysfunctions and failed attempts at fixing things that I’ve seen whilst working in numerous tech companies.

The answer seems to be that, yes, you really can turn a dysfunctional team into a high performing one (literally worst to best in the case of the book), and in much less time than you’d have thought (most of the changes happen within 45 days of the author taking command). My main takeaway from the book has not been new ideas about what good looks or feels like, but tools about how to fix it if it’s broken. Highly recommended.

>> What I'd like to see, is if you enforce this in a dysfunctional team, would that team still be dysfunctional?

Yes. All these articles start with an average or better workforce in terms of talent and innate productivity/passion. If you have 80% crap for whatever reason, the only way out is replacing them. Or leaving.

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