<story><title>People prefer friendliness, trustworthiness in teammates over skill competency</title><url>https://www.binghamton.edu/news/story/3318/research-people-prefer-friendliness-trustworthiness-in-teammates-over-skill-competency</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>sbacic</author><text>Yes, but as I said, that&amp;#x27;s a slippery slope to walk on - you&amp;#x27;re not there to make friends or have fun - you&amp;#x27;re there to do work. The whole point of that arrangement is that you do something that something else values enough to pay money for, perhaps something that you don&amp;#x27;t particularly want to do or something that bores you.&lt;p&gt;If you start adjusting the workplace to fit the needs of the employee (gosh, how wrong that sentence sounds!) you end up in situations where it&amp;#x27;s suddenly justifiable to let developers use technologies unsuited for the situation because they&amp;#x27;re &amp;quot;fun&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;interesting&amp;quot; to use and keeping them happy means they&amp;#x27;re more &amp;quot;productive&amp;quot;. Or letting middle management play politics because it keeps &lt;i&gt;them&lt;/i&gt; happy and more productive. Or forcing people into open offices because some boss likes the feeling of lording over his subordinates and that makes him happy and productive.&lt;p&gt;I guess what I&amp;#x27;m trying to say is - some basic levels of courtesy and human empathy are needed for any group endeavor to work but beyond that, decisions should be made in the interest of the business rather than what makes individuals happy.</text></item><item><author>asdff</author><text>There&amp;#x27;s a pragmatic reason too for that. You work more efficiently when you work with your friends imo vs rigid or unagreeable personalities. You show up excited to work and contribute and share ideas vs wanting to get out of there and watching the clock tick slowly all day. I&amp;#x27;d say the friend effect is able to elevate people who have &amp;#x27;mediocre&amp;#x27; skills on paper to be efficient enough and start learning at a rate that sees them performing well above their qualifications. There is definitely a performance advantage towards feeling engaged and focused.</text></item><item><author>sbacic</author><text>&amp;gt; Except for marginal cases, it&amp;#x27;s not about how good you are at your job. You just have to be liked while being sufficiently good.&lt;p&gt;I think this is dangerous ground to thread. I don&amp;#x27;t like to work with assholes any more than the next guy and I&amp;#x27;d certainly prefer working with people I personally like but that kind of thinking opens doors to all kinds of abuse; from favoritism (I like him, therefore he gets a pass when somebody else might not), through promotions (what does giving a promotion to somebody likeable over somebody more competent do to morale?) to plain fuckarounditis (playing career games rather than what&amp;#x27;s good for the business, wasting company resources on petty political games).&lt;p&gt;I mean, I get it - it&amp;#x27;s human nature. But something feels off when we&amp;#x27;re justifying our simian prejudices in an environment where we&amp;#x27;re supposed to prioritize somebody else&amp;#x27;s satisfaction (whoever is paying us) but instead we do what we feel is best for us personally, using a fairly emotional and error prone system of judgment (I don&amp;#x27;t care if this guy sucks, I like him because he&amp;#x27;s my friend).</text></item><item><author>cletus</author><text>Roger Sterling of Mad Men said it best [1]:&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; I don&amp;#x27;t know if anyone&amp;#x27;s ever told you that half the time this business comes down to &amp;#x27;I don&amp;#x27;t like that guy.&amp;#x27;&lt;p&gt;In all my years of working, this is probably the most important thing you can learn. Except for marginal cases, it&amp;#x27;s not about how good you are at your job. You just have to be liked while being sufficiently good.&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s also why the perennial &amp;quot;hiring is broken&amp;quot; posts and threads miss the point completely: really they&amp;#x27;re just trying to find someone they like. It&amp;#x27;s what &amp;quot;culture fit&amp;quot; really means. And people like people like themselves. This is part of what can lead to unlawful discrimination.&lt;p&gt;Trustworthiness is an interesting one as it seems to be hard to define but some people just have it and some don&amp;#x27;t. This has been studied and can have a profound effect on, say, criminal sentencing [2].&lt;p&gt;[1]: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;twitter.com&amp;#x2F;madmenqts&amp;#x2F;status&amp;#x2F;783648743690231808?lang=en&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;twitter.com&amp;#x2F;madmenqts&amp;#x2F;status&amp;#x2F;783648743690231808?lang...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;[2]: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.npr.org&amp;#x2F;sections&amp;#x2F;health-shots&amp;#x2F;2015&amp;#x2F;07&amp;#x2F;17&amp;#x2F;423600926&amp;#x2F;in-court-your-face-could-determine-your-fate&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.npr.org&amp;#x2F;sections&amp;#x2F;health-shots&amp;#x2F;2015&amp;#x2F;07&amp;#x2F;17&amp;#x2F;4236009...&lt;/a&gt;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>lovich</author><text>Not all of my compensation is in cash. Giving me time to experiment, learn, or god forbid enjoy myself is part of the cost for employers of software developers.&lt;p&gt;You obviously can not want that as an employer but you’re either gonna have empty roles for a long time or pay out the ass for the lack of fringe benefits</text></comment>
<story><title>People prefer friendliness, trustworthiness in teammates over skill competency</title><url>https://www.binghamton.edu/news/story/3318/research-people-prefer-friendliness-trustworthiness-in-teammates-over-skill-competency</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>sbacic</author><text>Yes, but as I said, that&amp;#x27;s a slippery slope to walk on - you&amp;#x27;re not there to make friends or have fun - you&amp;#x27;re there to do work. The whole point of that arrangement is that you do something that something else values enough to pay money for, perhaps something that you don&amp;#x27;t particularly want to do or something that bores you.&lt;p&gt;If you start adjusting the workplace to fit the needs of the employee (gosh, how wrong that sentence sounds!) you end up in situations where it&amp;#x27;s suddenly justifiable to let developers use technologies unsuited for the situation because they&amp;#x27;re &amp;quot;fun&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;interesting&amp;quot; to use and keeping them happy means they&amp;#x27;re more &amp;quot;productive&amp;quot;. Or letting middle management play politics because it keeps &lt;i&gt;them&lt;/i&gt; happy and more productive. Or forcing people into open offices because some boss likes the feeling of lording over his subordinates and that makes him happy and productive.&lt;p&gt;I guess what I&amp;#x27;m trying to say is - some basic levels of courtesy and human empathy are needed for any group endeavor to work but beyond that, decisions should be made in the interest of the business rather than what makes individuals happy.</text></item><item><author>asdff</author><text>There&amp;#x27;s a pragmatic reason too for that. You work more efficiently when you work with your friends imo vs rigid or unagreeable personalities. You show up excited to work and contribute and share ideas vs wanting to get out of there and watching the clock tick slowly all day. I&amp;#x27;d say the friend effect is able to elevate people who have &amp;#x27;mediocre&amp;#x27; skills on paper to be efficient enough and start learning at a rate that sees them performing well above their qualifications. There is definitely a performance advantage towards feeling engaged and focused.</text></item><item><author>sbacic</author><text>&amp;gt; Except for marginal cases, it&amp;#x27;s not about how good you are at your job. You just have to be liked while being sufficiently good.&lt;p&gt;I think this is dangerous ground to thread. I don&amp;#x27;t like to work with assholes any more than the next guy and I&amp;#x27;d certainly prefer working with people I personally like but that kind of thinking opens doors to all kinds of abuse; from favoritism (I like him, therefore he gets a pass when somebody else might not), through promotions (what does giving a promotion to somebody likeable over somebody more competent do to morale?) to plain fuckarounditis (playing career games rather than what&amp;#x27;s good for the business, wasting company resources on petty political games).&lt;p&gt;I mean, I get it - it&amp;#x27;s human nature. But something feels off when we&amp;#x27;re justifying our simian prejudices in an environment where we&amp;#x27;re supposed to prioritize somebody else&amp;#x27;s satisfaction (whoever is paying us) but instead we do what we feel is best for us personally, using a fairly emotional and error prone system of judgment (I don&amp;#x27;t care if this guy sucks, I like him because he&amp;#x27;s my friend).</text></item><item><author>cletus</author><text>Roger Sterling of Mad Men said it best [1]:&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; I don&amp;#x27;t know if anyone&amp;#x27;s ever told you that half the time this business comes down to &amp;#x27;I don&amp;#x27;t like that guy.&amp;#x27;&lt;p&gt;In all my years of working, this is probably the most important thing you can learn. Except for marginal cases, it&amp;#x27;s not about how good you are at your job. You just have to be liked while being sufficiently good.&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s also why the perennial &amp;quot;hiring is broken&amp;quot; posts and threads miss the point completely: really they&amp;#x27;re just trying to find someone they like. It&amp;#x27;s what &amp;quot;culture fit&amp;quot; really means. And people like people like themselves. This is part of what can lead to unlawful discrimination.&lt;p&gt;Trustworthiness is an interesting one as it seems to be hard to define but some people just have it and some don&amp;#x27;t. This has been studied and can have a profound effect on, say, criminal sentencing [2].&lt;p&gt;[1]: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;twitter.com&amp;#x2F;madmenqts&amp;#x2F;status&amp;#x2F;783648743690231808?lang=en&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;twitter.com&amp;#x2F;madmenqts&amp;#x2F;status&amp;#x2F;783648743690231808?lang...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;[2]: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.npr.org&amp;#x2F;sections&amp;#x2F;health-shots&amp;#x2F;2015&amp;#x2F;07&amp;#x2F;17&amp;#x2F;423600926&amp;#x2F;in-court-your-face-could-determine-your-fate&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.npr.org&amp;#x2F;sections&amp;#x2F;health-shots&amp;#x2F;2015&amp;#x2F;07&amp;#x2F;17&amp;#x2F;4236009...&lt;/a&gt;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>alboy</author><text>&amp;gt;you end up in situations where it&amp;#x27;s suddenly justifiable to let developers use technologies unsuited for the situation because they&amp;#x27;re &amp;quot;fun&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;interesting&amp;quot; to use and keeping them happy means they&amp;#x27;re more &amp;quot;productive&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;Well, companies already do that and justify the practice as something that selects for more passionate developers and makes job postings seem more attractive. Exhibit A: YC&amp;#x27;s very own Paul Graham wrote &amp;quot;The Python Paradox&amp;quot; [1] back in 2004.&lt;p&gt;[1] &lt;a href=&quot;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;paulgraham.com&amp;#x2F;pypar.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;paulgraham.com&amp;#x2F;pypar.html&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>