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Colin Gautrey's avatar

Spot on, Adrian. This is how motivation really works. Give people pride, confidence, and influence – and they’ll move mountains. It’s incredible how quickly job satisfaction – and retention – improve when developers stop “doing tickets” and start owning outcomes. Strong piece.

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Adrian Stanek's avatar

Agree, but unfortunately, I see that rarely happens. The hurdle for the individual is high and I see how team leads, who are actually willing to struggle to find ways to start cultivating this culture. Fear of push back. What happens if it fails?

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Colin Gautrey's avatar

Yes I’ve seen that too. And it will fail, in the short term. Leaders need to carefully manage expectations from above, and to the sides. And clearly articulate the vision and benefits. Tall order without encouragement from above!

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Adrian Stanek's avatar

Yes, in a current journey, the CTO struggles most to get both the external stakeholders and the actual split team aligned again. It's a radical change:

- Self-Leadership: The individual needs to be able to take responsibility and ownership, based on developed skills and mindset.

- Change of process: Instead of working async in isolation with hand-overs, change to synchronous teamwork on just 1-3 signals per day.

- Change "outside-to-inside" relations with business: The development should leave the role of a department and become part of the business, and affect the roadmap strongly. If this isn't given, there can't be real ownership long-term; the why is missing.

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