I’m not talking about skill gaps — the issue seems structural. I do fine when incentives, authorship, and responsibility are clear, but disengage when those are diffuse. This has started to affect job stability, especially in the current market.
I’m curious whether others recognize this pattern, and if so: • Have you found ways to operate sustainably in team-heavy orgs? • Did you move toward contracting, smaller teams, or different roles? • Or did you accept this as a constraint and optimize around it?
I’m explicitly not looking for motivation advice — more for patterns and tradeoffs people have observed.
PaulHoule•1h ago
Paint a metal strip around the store? Yes.
Deep clean the whole floor? Yes.
Learn to work the meat slicer and fill in at the Deli? Yes.
Somebody from the bakery is out sick? I've got your back.
It's been a pet peeve for me working in startups that a lot of younger people haven't had that kind of experience so they are hung up on job titles and stuff and don't just think "it's a small team so I'm going to do what the team needs"
I've learned to see that the value of my work is the value it has to my organization delivered by the team I am working in so I adjust accordingly. I can't say there is one thing to do that works all the time but rather you improvise and see what works with the people you are working with. If there is somebody who reviews your PRs for instance it is going to go smooth if you meet their expectations as opposed to what you think their expectations ought to be. Decide what boundaries you want to enforce and what you can't compromise on but be flexible about everything you can be flexible about.
Understand the contradiction between "doing what people need" and "doing what people want" and not be afraid to rub people the wrong way if you really have to while not promoting any excess antagonism. (It isn't easy!)
One of the best managers I ever had integrated me into a team by tasking me with completing a late project on a nearly impossible schedule and giving us all the understanding that I was supposed to ask for and get all the support I needed. We pulled it off and it was better than any "team building" exercise I've been in. (e.g. there are great ideas in "team building" as much the execution is often cringe.)