… Recap
Some people thrive at Tech companies without doing any meaningful work. They cheat their way through. As part of the blog series, we discuss this phenomenon.
Such people use tricks to game the system. We refer to these tricks as cheatcodes.
We’ve talked about various forms of Cheatcodes and the reasons they thrive at software organizations. Now we discuss losses – to both to Organizations and Individuals.
Cheatcodes create many troubles. Some are immediate, while others are ripple effects. Ripple effects have bigger impacts on both Individuals and organizations. Let us see …
Overload
In the construction industry – Pillars ( or columns as they are called ) are designed to share the load of the structure. When well designed, pillars are able to do their work together. They keep the building standing.
Imagine one pillar NOT taking its share of load. The load would suddenly get unevenly distributed. Excess load would suddenly fall on other pillars. Other pillars might NOT have the strength for the added load. If the added load becomes too much, the overloaded pillar might fall, taking the building down with it.
Same way – Cheatcoders NOT doing their fair share of work add work to their peers and subordinates. The subordinates might NOT have the ability to manage the added work. Sometimes teams and projects fail.
But, the immediate failure is not the biggest problem. Ripple effect has a bigger impact. Lets understand:
Pillars – Invisible overload
Construction industry has an advantage. They can SEE any faults in the pillar immediately. A crack, a bend, water erosion, physical damage etc.
In the Tech domain, loss is NOT VISIBLE to the naked eye. Fact that other pillars take added load is often not known to management or leaders.
This means that many techies end up taking a more load than they are required to. Even so, without ever getting as little as a pat on the back.
Here is my experience:
I was a couple of years in the industry. Working for a postman manager, I was required to:
The task was too much for someone only a few years into the industry. But I realize this only now. Personally, I would never let a subordinate take such burden …
Nonetheless, two things happened:
No pat on the back, not even a nod of the head, but a slap on the wrist. This for a pillar that took MORE than its fair share of load.
Seems like a bad deal to me !
If this wasn’t enough. Not just the appreciation, my manager received all the bonuses and salary hikes. 💵💵💵💵. Also, he was promoted.
Meaning – the inefficient cog in the system was moved to a position of higher authority. He was allowed to have an even bigger impact.
Large organizations end up becoming more and more inefficient. If you’ve known a startup vs a large IT organization, then this should make sense.
Invisible load causes:
Training lethargy
I mentioned earlier that – my manager asked too much from me. Also that I realize this only now.
One reason is ( and this is important ):
I was part of the culture where “Managers” or “Leads” did NOT work hard. This made me believe that such behaviour was normal. I believed that Leads do not do much. All burden needs to be taken up by juniors like me.
I assumed that natural progression in an IT company is…
One day ! I imagined I would be a Manager and will enjoy my life to the fullest.
This is what I thought. Believe it or not !
This leads me to my next point.
My organization allowed the cheatcode culture to become pervasive. The Org trained its employees into believing that Managers and Leads are not required to work hard.
Keyword is Trained.
To prove that I wasn’t the only one with these delusions, here is an incident:
We worked in an offshore- onshore model. Some of our colleagues travelled to the client location. They helped us with business understanding and requirements. Working in this model we had daily calls with our onsite counterparts.
We were on call for hours. Sometimes we used to get tired of holding the phone. Then, we used to simply put the phone on speaker. On one such call a “Manager” on the other side said, and I paraphrase here …
“I am not taking the trouble of solving this problem. Someone junior needs to solve this problem …
I have been slogging for many years now, and now it’s my time to take it easy.”
Impression was that lethargy is OKAY for seniors. Organization allowed this impression to be established across rank and file. Such an impression was established by consistently paying/ promoting cheatcode Managers/ Leads.
Meaning …
Rocking Chair mode
I hope the above made sense. What should also be intuitive is that an overloaded pillar will be a struggling pillar. A struggling engineer will NOT deliver quality results.
Also, the higher the position of the pillar in the organization, the bigger the overload. Therefore bigger the impact to results. ! Meaning …
I’ve known teams whose work cycle was always – firefighting mode. During firefighting mode, since there is never time to “think” and implement …
1# Any new code is always half baked
2# Half backed code produces many issues. Fixes to those issues are once again half baked.
3# This becomes a vicious cycle with its own life.
True story …
An organization ended up building a website in 20, 000 hours !
For laymen, latest frontend technologies allow basic applications to be built within 1 hour. I want to allow a few mins for the numbers to sink in – 1 hour vs 20,000 hours.
This brings me to the point – the loss to individuals vs the organization.
Individuals within a cheatcode team are always in a hurry. They end up developing tunnel vision i.e. solving the only problem at hand and unable to look at any bigger picture.
Ever seen a rocking chair ? or a mouse on a treadmill ?
Imagine them for a second. What is the end result ?
Nothing !
Engineers working in cheatcode environments, make a lot of motion and no movement. They mistake being active for being productive.
If a software engineer is unable to think or produce quality technology, their career is doomed. This especially during current times. The engineer might survive, they will not thrive.
When such engineers go back to the marketplace looking for opportunities, they find themselves out of touch. Sometimes they quit the industry.
Here are some real examples:
During the years he worked in firefighting mode, his tech skills became obsolete. He woke up to being obsolete.
Why ? She worked in a cheatcoder env. The env didn’t prepare her for the real world.
Engineers become the half baked code they produced. Karma !
For the Organization, rocking chair mode produces software made of patches. Something always falls apart. Maintenance cost is always very high !
High maintenance cost does 2 things:
$$ is lost.
Infection
Environment is the invisible hand that shapes human behavior. We tend to believe our habits are a product of our motivation, talent, and effort. Certainly, these qualities matter. But the surprising thing is, especially over a long time period, your personal characteristics tend to get overpowered by your environment.
Good, smart, motivated individuals do join a Cheatcode team. But, one of two things happens:
Let’s take a few real life examples:
So, the team simply stopped sending him work. He was not invited to meetings anymore, he was not consulted on any designs/ architecture/ solutions.
Few months later, he quit. He joined a world famous IT giant.
After the first 3-4 months, he “understood” how the system worked. He moved on to become one of the best postman (type cheatcoder) in the team.
An infected environment exasperates well intended folks. They believe that things will remain as is. ( cheatcoding is the way of life ). Hence the often heard phrase – “Nothing can change here”
For the organization, losses are:
Like a Bitcoin – good techies have limited availability, and they cannot be mined limitlessly. Technology is first created in the minds of people. When teams lose the 20% cream talent, they lose the most precious resource; mind of the creative techie.
Sometimes doctors prescribe us antibiotics. They recommend completing the medicine course. This is because – the virus attempts to mutate, and become resistant to the antibiotic. Same way – longer a cheatcode infection survives, more resistant it becomes to mild doses of medication.
For the Individual – longer the bug survives, more harm it does to the techie’s career. A strong dose of medication is needed to get rid of the virus.
It takes a truly strong mind to reform oneself or an organization.
Toxicity
What does a toxic workplace look like ??
Cheatcodes hurt meritocracy. This in turn creates a toxic env. A toxic soil is fertile for weeds, but not for fruits.
For individuals toxicity might result in …
Individual toxicity accumulates at the Org level.
Working as a Team, individuals produce disproportionately more results. The same way, working against each other, individuals produce barely any results.
A building stays as strong as the combined strength of all its parts. When the parts themselves start getting rusty or worn out – the building starts losing its structural strength.
For organizations, this toxicity results in …
No sailings to new seas
True story …
A cheatcode team had been working for a hospitality industry client for over 15 years. They understood the system in and out. They also had a firm grip on the allocated IT funding.
Only problem – working with so many cheatcodes, they always had issues on their hands. They were always in“reactive” instead of being in “proactive” mode.
A new team came in, of 1/10th the size. First month they look at the infrastructure. They moved legacy servers to newer, cheaper and more agile servers.
First year savings – 100,000 $
Second year projected savings – 150,000 $
Next 3 years – Client shifted most business from the old team to the new one. Another 2 years – the older, more experienced team closed shop with the client.
Someone from the old team would’ve seen the old inefficient servers. I am sure of that. They would’ve brought some solution forward. But, cheatcode teams work in firefighting mode. They always have urgent issues.
During “urgent” times, suggestions are delayed. When “urgent” is the order of the day, then suggestions are never important.
Teams working in “perpetual panic” mode fail to see the most obvious opportunities ahead of themselves. This results in …
Same thing happens with individuals. In perpetual “rut” work:
Technologies change every few years. Stopping learning is the kiss of death for one’s career.
New technologies offer efficient solutions to existing problems. When people stop trying, solutions to existing problems are NOT sought.
They do not get jobs and complain about lack of opportunities.
Conclusion
James Clear in his book Atomic Habits mentions – He became a good athlete but wasn’t able to join professional sports. Even so, he fulfilled his potential.
“What a beautiful thing to say” … I thought.
We have discussed the specifics of what cheatcoding does to a team or individuals. Eventually what it does is – stops people and teams from fulfilling their potential !
I write this article during Covid times ( year 2020 ). I know techies and organizations that could not survive the crisis. I also know some people and organizations that made radical changes and are surviving ( enroute to thriving ).
Making IT organizations efficient is more important now than before. For this reason – surviving equals avoiding cheatcoding.
This brings me to my next point. What steps can be taken to prevent cheatcode issues from occurring in the first place. Let us see.
Write back, in case you have an opinion. Like what you read – do like, comment and share.