NO PLACE FOR BOY SCOUTS

Carrying Altruism Too Far…



This blog is devoted to misplaced altruism; altruism is an unselfish regard or devotion to the welfare of others. Another definition is behavior by an animal that is not beneficial or may be harmful to itself but that benefits others of its species.

Misplaced altruism is helping someone that doesn’t deserve to be helped, or helping someone and damaging yourself in the process.

I coach and mentor managers and those that want to become managers; I see this kind of behavior all the time.

As a manager, if you’re a good manager, it’s part of your job to “be an enabler”. You need to help your staff excel and get promoted. You need to help your own management achieve their objectives and it’s a good idea to help your boss look good. At the very least, you can’t contribute to making your boss look bad. And you need to assist your fellow managers.

But how far is too far?

Too far is helping someone incompetent or just plain Evil look good. Too far is helping a peer competing for money/position that you’d like for yourself at your own expense. Too far is recommending or assisting someone to get a job for which they are unqualified.

Let’s look at the first issue, which is helping someone incompetent or just plain Evil look good. Let’s say you’re the QA/QC point person assigned to a major project. The PM, while a nice guy, is also a clueless weiner. All of you with experience have been through this. Good PMs are hard to find. You’ve got a team of 6 test analysts, a very aggressive schedule, and plenty of experience, which tells you this one is going to be tough – half the development team is new to this application.

What you end up doing is the PM’s job in addition to your own. The PM doesn’t know what to do, who to contact about what, how to keep on top of what is being produced, etc.

The project ends up going in on time; the users love it. You’re exhausted, but happy. You’ve worked twelve-hour days, holidays, and weekends to make it happen. You are justifiably proud of the work that has been done.

Then the PM, who was a consultant, gets hired on as an FTE. This is after he receives the board commendations, and congratulatory EMails from every key executive manager in the company. You suspect his pay is probably 40K above your own.

And you? What did you get out of the deal? Nothing. Oh, the PM thanked you and Really, Really wants you on all of their future projects. But you, personally, got zero recognition for all of the extra work you did from anyone else.

So what went wrong? Well, you did.

You generally cannot get recognition by doing someone else’s job. You need to do your own brilliantly. If you do someone else’s job, what you do is get THEM recognition. It’s the PM that reports up to Mr. Executive Manager, not you. You can pretty much bet the PM hasn’t told anyone that you’re doing all the work and they’re just coasting along. The perception of upper management is that the PM just did a FABULOUS job.

Furthermore, you’ve actually done both the PM and the company a disservice. The PM never learned to step up to the plate and do their job. And your company just hired someone incompetent.

So what do you do when faced with a similar situation? You do your own job. When asked to do something that is clearly NOT your job, you politely and cheerfully laugh and say “Hey – I’m not the PM!”. You do not volunteer for duties outside your role - especially if they are duties outside your area altogether. If you're even tempted, you should talk it over with your manager first. You do not step in and take over duties that the PM, BA, etc. are not handling. And this is really important – especially for women – you do not function as the Project Mother. You do not nag the PM and tell them what to do, and you do not nag the other team members and tell them what to do. Sure, you’ll be indispensable, just like Mom. But the regard and affection with which people regard their moms is very different from the type of professional respect that moves you ahead and increases your salary. Eventually you will find that team members are taking you for granted and tuning you out whenever convenient. They view what you're doing as "crabbing at them" and they've become accustomed to it.

This does not mean you never give any advice or function as a team member. This means you pay attention to what you’re doing and what you’re contributing and make sure you’re not over-contributing in the wrong ways. You need to allow that PM, who is probably making far more than you are, to do what they are being paid to do. If they succeed or fail, it needs to be on their own merits – not yours. I actually know of a case where the head of a PMO office took a QA/QC lead aside and told them it was their responsibility to train their new PMs. Say what? It is not the testing organization’s responsibility to train PMs. Trained PMs should be hired from the get-go, and incumbent, experienced PMs should train their newest members.

Here’s the toughest part of the whole situation – most people LIKE being in charge. So running everything is like a drug. Except no one outside the project team knows you’re running everything. You're the power behind the throne and not the throne. No one who could reward you for the extra work knows about it. Eventually, you’ll end up burnt out and bummed out; a jaded, exhausted shade of your former self that everyone expects to do everything for everybody. Oh yes – once you take a task on and do a good job, that task often becomes yours for life. And if you have a QA Manager, you’d better make sure that manager WANTS their area taking on that task. Because if YOU’RE doing it, the expectation will be that EVERYONE in your position will do the same. Often such a resource doesn’t tell their manager what they’re doing, because they know their manager will make them stop – and they like being in charge AT THAT TIME. But overwork, lack of recognition, and resentment eventually catches up with even the Best of the Best. It’s just not a sustainable situation. Often there's an expectation that doing all of that extra work will result in a promotion. Maybe so. But it usually won't be a promotion for you.

Now enabling someone who’s Evil is a different story. There are two types of situation here. One is that the Evil person is your boss. Just do your job and get yourself out of there ASAP. Do not try to torpedo a superior – it usually backfires. You need to do whatever you are asked to do (as long as it’s legal) until you can make good your escape. The other common type of situation is that the Evil person is a prima donna. A prima donna is usually exceptionally bright and holds some kind of position which gives them a level of power over others. It might be a PM. It might be a DBA. It might be the lead developer of a certain set of applications. Prima Donnas expect you to kowtow if you want their services. They can be extremely nasty, condescending, and vicious. Heaven help you if they decide they don’t like you. They often have anxious people hovering around them, practically begging for favors. Their managers are usually unwilling or unable to step in and correct their behavior.

You do not have to play those games. There’s nothing in any IT job description, anywhere, that says accepting abusive behavior is part of your job. Make your request professionally and courteously and then move on. If you are subjected to abuse or someone that will not do their job because you didn’t jump through their (imaginary) hoops, document the issue and pass it up to your manager. Document each case and pass it up the chain. Once the situation becomes untenable, make an appointment with your manager, gather up your documentation, discuss the situation, and make it clear that any continuing behavior of that type will force you – against your natural inclinations – to use their HR policies and move your complaint up the ladder. Do not lose your temper. Make it clear the behavior is keeping you from accomplishing your work goals. Do this calmly and without heat. If you get no relief, make good on your course of action and take it up the chain. I don’t really suggest going this route unless there is no other choice, but sometimes one obnoxious prima donna can make your life a living hell, and they’re probably doing the same to others. Someone has to have the cohones to do something about it – it might as well be you. On occasion, HR is actually relieved someone stepped up; if the person is really heinous, chances are there have been other complaints and maybe they needed one more to take action…

I have nothing against making a request with a bit of sugar, especially if I’m asking for something particularly quickly or something out of the ordinary. But I don’t kiss anyone’s butt or allow them to use me as a punching bag. If someone wants to get my respect, first they have to give it. Thereafter, we can both work on earning it.

Those of you with the internal viscera for a bit of confrontation can take the direct route. If someone puts you down or treats you badly in public, stop whatever you’re doing, look them straight in the eye, and tell them you don’t appreciate either their tone or their remarks. Often, this will totally flummox a prima donna and you’ll get a stammered apology.

Regardless, do not join in with the hangers-on, sycophants, and others feeding behavior that is unacceptable both professionally and socially. You need to keep in mind that a prima donna is ALWAYS on the short track out of town. Eventually they piss off the wrong person, fall out of favor, etc. You do NOT want to be One of Their Very Best Friends when that occurs.

So what about helping a peer to get what you really (maybe secretly) want for yourself? Geez - what are you doing? I think friendship is a great thing, but so is a friendly rivalry. Don’t give a rival a leg up and don’t confide your future goals to anyone outside your significant other and possibly a higher-level manager that can help you get what you want. If you were playing poker, you wouldn’t show everyone at the table your hand, would you? This is the same thing. If you have a rival, and remember you might not know who your rivals are, they will use whatever information you share with them to their own advantage. You’ve handed that to them – is that what you really wanted to do? Now if you are seriously friends, this doesn’t mean they are going to torpedo you and put you down, but if they know your strategy, it’s going to impact their own actions – whether consciously or unconsciously. And if you aren’t friends and you’re competing for position and/or money, you should pretty much expect to be torpedoed. It’s hard for someone with integrity to understand, but there are people out there that DON’T HAVE ANY. They will not play fair. If you expect that in the business world, you need to get over that. It’s naiive. So don’t help someone else get what you want and deserve. If you’ve got some integrity, you won’t hurt their career or stab them in the back either – but if they get chosen rather than you, it needs to be on their own merits. Otherwise, it will eat at you forever.

Finally, let’s talk about recommending or assisting someone to get a job who is unqualified for that job.

First of all, this is most common in family situations. You recommend your cousin, children, sister, brother, whatever, or you grease the skids with whomever they’re attempting to work with or get something from. You might do the same for friends. This applies to getting anything (professionally speaking) for someone through your influence, rather than that individual having to earn (whatever) on their own.

In some cases, there are legality issues, but in most cases, it’s merely smarmy.

First, if you recommend or help someone unqualified get work or opportunities, it is likely to reflect on your own reputation if they prove unable to do the work.

But to my mind, the worst part of this is that someone better qualified loses out. It means there is no level playing field and it’s “who you know” and not “what you know”.

Again, realistically, a lot of business works this way. But you do not have to choose to operate that way. I’d like to point out that many of us have listened to excessively bad presentations at conferences, read some really bad articles, and met some incredibly bad managers that obtained their opportunities just this way. All of it is bad for the field. I’ve had people ask me for work and various other favors and although I always hate to say “no” to someone who is a friend, I don’t hire unqualified people and I don’t “wishful think” myself into bad decisions or try to falsely justify what would be detrimental to my team, my company, or to the QA field in general. And my realm of influence doesn’t begin to touch that of several others, so you can imagine what type of pressures are brought to bear on those who yield enormous amounts of influence and/or money. And remember, we’re talking about recommendations for UNQUALIFIED people here. All of us know and probably have as friends people who are extremely qualified for a given opportunity or job and that we could recommend whole-heartedly.

Somewhat related to this is that the higher up the ladder you go, the more people there are below you willing to latch on to your coattails and kiss your butt in return for favors. In other words, they want to use you to improve either their financial situation or their position. You need to look at these people carefully and decide which actually deserve to be helped and would be a credit to you, to their employers, and to the field in general, and which ones are useless leeches. And it’s hard to tell sometimes. The higher up you go, the less likely it is people will actually tell you the truth. You get a lot of people telling you how wonderful you are, and not that you have toilet paper stuck on your shoe. The only advice I have for you is to beware of people that always agree with you. The ones who are really your friends will tell you about the toilet paper…

If you are by nature altruistic, generally that’s a very good thing. The point of this blog is just to suggest that kindness and/or a sense of responsibility can sometimes overwhelm someone’s good sense. On occasion it’s a good idea to think about who we help and why and question whether we’re doing the right thing.