Being a Jerk Is Only the Beginning!

It occurred to me while I was writing yesterday's entry.  That there is a cute little play on words to be had.  I wrote this post then and couldn't resist posting it today when the word "jerk" is flying around like hail in a windstorm.

I'm a Big Jerk

In physics, jerk is the 3rd derivative of position over time.  That is, velocity is the derivative of position, acceleration the derivative of velocity, and jerk is the derivative of acceleration.

In business, if you allow yourself an analogy between value-delivered and position, then some interesting parallels become apparent.  Your product would be analogous to velocity, as it is what continuously delivers more value.  Developers would then be agents of acceleration - constantly working to improve the product and increase velocity of value-delivered.

It would follow that technical leaders who take an interest in developing the skills of those around them would be agents of jerk - working to improve the rate of acceleration.

So yes, I am a jerk.  For the last eight or so years, it's been my primary objective to be a big jerk.

At long last, I can wear the label with pride.  Who am I kidding.  I've always worn it with pride.

To Jerkdom and Beyond!

Sometimes, though, I'd like to think I'm more than a mere jerk.  The fourth derivative of position over time is called "jounce."

Lately, I've not been as interested in being a jerk.  I've wanted to grow beyond that role and jounce seems like just the ticket.  What exactly would parallel that in the software development world?

I think a good analogy is leader-making.

As I get older and wiser, I take more of an interest (and show more aptitude) in developing new technical leaders.  Not that I'm anywhere near the level of Al Shalloway or Scott Bain, both of whom I consider to be my mentors, but I am starting to gain some traction nonetheless.

So, every once in a little while, in addition to being a big jerk, I'm a little jounce but, over time, I'd like to get more jouncy and less jerky.

Orthogonal Kinds of Growth

Anyway, it occurred to me that this is the real ladder of skill to climb.  Sure, having a better product is good but having a sustainable way of making it better is better.  Sure, having a sustainable way of improving a product is good but having an accelerating way of improving it is better.  You get the idea.

Being an expert developer is good and important but it is not the end of the journey.  There are other kinds of learning that are very important.

Going from being an okay developer to being a good developer is mostly a matter of practice and study.  Going from being any kind of developer to any kind of leader is a qualitative change.

At least, for me, it was.  It required (requires?) a fundamental shift in how I think about and interact with people and in what kind of problems I consider.  Going from being a leader to helping develop leaders probably requires just as big a leap but I'm so new to it that I can't really say.

Here is a handy picture I composed illustrating the distinction between kinds of skill and level of skill within an organization.

Planning Ahead

So, if you're a young developer and setting goals for yourself, you might want to consider that there is more than one dimension to your growth.  You can (and will need to) make yourself a competent programmer but you can do the most good by going from being a good programmer, to a leader, to a leader-maker.

If you work hard, maybe one day you can become a big jerk like me.  I'll do my best to be a bigger jerk by the time you get there and, if I'm lucky, I'll be more than just a big jerk too.

Technical Leadership Is Leadership

Being a technical leader can involve a number of challenges.  Between outside forces, long- and short-term pressures, legacy systems, and complex problems an architect, lead developer, or development manager has a lot on his plate.

Many of the most skilled programmers are comfortable with those kinds of challenges.  For a lot of technical people that's the only kind of problem with which you are comfortable.  Whether, like me, you are arrogant and demanding or, like many others, you are shy and reserved, there is a decent chance that you don't count people skills among your strongest.

Yet the technical challenges only represent half of the problems facing a technical leader.  To be truly effective, you have to be a leader of people in addition to a setter of technical direction.  That is, unless you want to do everything yourself.

I'm not saying that every kind of management problem necessarily rests on the shoulders of a technical leader.  I do believe, however, that empowering the people you work with to make better technical decisions on their own will have an enormous impact on your effectiveness as a technical leader.

For instance, I recently wrote an article for InformIT that touches on the subject, entitled Five Ways to Optimize Encapsulation in Your Software Architecture.  In most scenarios, every single step requires someone to not just be a leader in the area of design and architecture but also a leader of men.

For me, this is the biggest kind of challenge available in the software world.  It's hard and rewarding.  Sure, there are things that are harder - like trying to maintain really terrible legacy code - but those things aren't as rewarding because so little is accomplished in exchange for so much energy.  There are areas where I have more success - like maintaining code that was written the modern way - but that's not as rewarding because so little energy was exchanged for the benefit obtained.

Building up people's skills, guiding them, helping them grow, and influencing their decision making meets all my challenge criteria.  At least, it does now that I've become interested in that level of challenge.  It requires patience, understanding, and a close approximation of empathy - things that don't come easily to me.  On the other hand, in exchange for the enormous effort involved, you get enormous value.

The worst likely case is that you fail and nothing happens.  In the software industry, that's actually a pretty good bad scenario.  Once you develop your mentoring and leadership skills, the most likely case is that you will permanently modify how effective someone is as a programmer, building up a portfolio of recurring dividends over time.  Sometimes, you will help someone else become a true technical leader, improving the rate at which dividends are increased.

The rate of return on this kind of effort is very, very high.  For most of us, there's nothing more rewarding than hard work with a high rate of return.  So, the next time you're considering your position as a technical leader, try to think about how much time you spend leading people not just products.

Robbery on the Road as a Sign of the Times

My father in aw bravely thwarted a robbery a while back.

It was taking place on the sidewalk.  A large man and a small man were struggling over a backpack.  My father in law got out of his car and asked them what was happening.

The large man said "I'm trying to take his stuff but he won't let me!"

My in law began calling the police at which time the large man trundled off into the city.

I think this is emblematic of the thinking in America.  Nobody is concerned with what is fair or right anymore.  Everybody is concerned with what they can get regardless of how they get it.

People like that large man have been robbing people like us for ever.  It's the kind of robbery we all know and it's what people imagine when you say "robbery."  But the thinking which underlies that behavior is flung a lot further and a lot wider than just hoodlums and ruffians.

You see this thinking in many welfare recipients, both individual and corporate.  I know more than a few people on "disability" who could easily work if they so desired.  Instead, because their easiest path is to steal from the taxpayer, they lounge around in their free apartment, watch their free cable, and eat their free food at my (and possibly your) expense.

Likewise, rather than earn a profit by offering a valuable product that people are willing to buy, corporations are becoming increasingly dependent on government contracts.  Why build something useful when you can just suckle at the teat of the U.S. government?  Why cover your risks when you know the government will just bail you out because you're too big to fail?  Why learn how to get people from point A to point B at a reasonable price when you know that the government will keep subsidizing your airline?

Another great example is the "false fee" industry.  In business schools, some have taught that adding fees onto an agreed-upon account is a "growth industry" and will represent some ridiculous amount of money (tens of billions per year) by the end of the decade.  Phone companies are notoriously bad about this.  They get you to agree to one price, then they tack on a bunch of extra fees and "taxes," some of which are legitimate and many of which are just plain old fashioned fraud.

I've also personally experienced a credit union stealing my money by charging me a fee for not using my account.  When I confronted them about this, they looked at me like I was crazy and said "We're just trying to fee down all the inactive accounts so we can close them."

In every one of these cases, the thief must justify his actions and his own existence; at least to him- or herself.  The welfare consumer must argue that they are "down on their luck" or otherwise unable to take care of themselves and that justifies, in their minds, the use of money taken at gunpoint.  The corporate welfare recipient is probably every bit as unenlightened in its thinking... it's probably something like "I've got a lot of jobs and shareholders to which I must answer so I've gotta do what I've gotta do."

People who perpetrate false fees also must justify their actions and probably say something like "I'm just trying to make a buck" to themselves and others who confront them about their nefarious acts.  Ten years ago, the credit union manager told me straight to my face, as though I was the one in the wrong, that they were just trying to take my money.

What's the big deal, right?

All of these people are about the same as our thug on the street.  They all want more than they have or could gain on their own by fair means.  They all want to take something from someone else; something that doesn't belong to them.  They all believe that they are in the right for "just trying to get ahead."

I've got no idea what to do about it.  It seems like the only corrective course of action is to radically change the makeup of the people who are deciding how the country I live in works.  There are lots of ways to do that.

You can increase the population of smart and thinking people, possibly by education and definitely by reproduction.  That takes time and a lot of energy.  Who wants to wait fifty years for a problem like this to get solved?

You can decrease the population of stupid or unthinking people but it's difficult and requires unethical activities.  A pogrom against the stupid and evil has one major roadblock: there are whole lot of stupid and evil people out there and none of them want to be pogrommed.

An increasingly viable impulse, for me, is exodus.  Instead of making more good people and instead of rounding up the bad ones,  just round up the few rational people left in this country and leave to make a new one.

That's probably very nearly as impractical as restoring freedom and reason to America but it seems unlikely that it would be any harder and it's probably at least a little bit easier.