The Apollo Syndrome(teamtechnology.co.uk)
teamtechnology.co.uk
The Apollo Syndrome
https://www.teamtechnology.co.uk/tt/t-articl/apollo.htm
115 comments
Yeah, this is something I had to learn when I was younger in my career.
One of the highest value devs I've worked with was nicknamed the "gold plated bulldozer." He's not a 10x dev. He's not a rockstar. But you know what he does do? He shows up every day and burns his way down the issue list. He doesn't complain. He doesn't try to only work on the exciting tickets. He doesn't cause drama arguing over this or that grand conceptual scheme or architecture. He just plugs away and gets things done. Sure, with a tough algorithmic or architectural problem he'd need to ask someone, but he'd just do that without any ego involved.
It didn't really click for me until I was looking at some long term stats for that team and realized in terms of pushing the ball forward, he was doing more than just about any of us.
I think it's disappointing people like that are not just overlooked, but almost held in contempt by the more startup end of the software industry.
One of the highest value devs I've worked with was nicknamed the "gold plated bulldozer." He's not a 10x dev. He's not a rockstar. But you know what he does do? He shows up every day and burns his way down the issue list. He doesn't complain. He doesn't try to only work on the exciting tickets. He doesn't cause drama arguing over this or that grand conceptual scheme or architecture. He just plugs away and gets things done. Sure, with a tough algorithmic or architectural problem he'd need to ask someone, but he'd just do that without any ego involved.
It didn't really click for me until I was looking at some long term stats for that team and realized in terms of pushing the ball forward, he was doing more than just about any of us.
I think it's disappointing people like that are not just overlooked, but almost held in contempt by the more startup end of the software industry.
This.
I’m currently working at a company with lots of smart people.
But everyone wants to work on the sexy stuff. The core parts of the business either don’t get done or they are half-assed. It’s like a dozen monkeys banging at a dozen typewriters. Lots of noise but little productive work.
As the saying goes “everyone wants to come to the party but no one wants to clean up”.
Quality employees know not everything is fun or exciting to work on. Hell, some of the most important stuff is viewed as “boring”.
But valuable employees recognize what’s important for the business not just their own careers or own interests.
I’m currently working at a company with lots of smart people.
But everyone wants to work on the sexy stuff. The core parts of the business either don’t get done or they are half-assed. It’s like a dozen monkeys banging at a dozen typewriters. Lots of noise but little productive work.
As the saying goes “everyone wants to come to the party but no one wants to clean up”.
Quality employees know not everything is fun or exciting to work on. Hell, some of the most important stuff is viewed as “boring”.
But valuable employees recognize what’s important for the business not just their own careers or own interests.
> But valuable employees recognize what’s important for the business not just their own careers or own interests.
That's valuable to the business. The problem is how to make it valuable to the employee.
When I started out in programming, I fell in with a set of people who attached a lot of importance to Delivering Business Value. It was what you did to earn respect within that group. Great for employers, but looking back, it seems a bit one-sided.
The usual answer is stock. But in any organisation larger than about five people, the relationship between your output and the stock value is too wobbly for that to work.
There's an arsenal of incentives like bonuses and promotions. But in practice, as many commentators have observed, those don't go to the people actually doing valuable work.
It's an open question, as far as I can tell.
That's valuable to the business. The problem is how to make it valuable to the employee.
When I started out in programming, I fell in with a set of people who attached a lot of importance to Delivering Business Value. It was what you did to earn respect within that group. Great for employers, but looking back, it seems a bit one-sided.
The usual answer is stock. But in any organisation larger than about five people, the relationship between your output and the stock value is too wobbly for that to work.
There's an arsenal of incentives like bonuses and promotions. But in practice, as many commentators have observed, those don't go to the people actually doing valuable work.
It's an open question, as far as I can tell.
He's not a 10x dev. … He shows up every day and burns his way down the issue list
I thought that’s what 10x’ers do. What else could anyone call them 10x for? Complaining all day and rewriting twice a month?
I thought that’s what 10x’ers do. What else could anyone call them 10x for? Complaining all day and rewriting twice a month?
I think there are two different kinds of 10x developer. Really they're probably better called 3x and infiniteX:
3x: I once knew a developer who could write code about as fast as they could type. It would generally work, be inefficient, and sometimes buggy, but it moved the ball forward relentlessly. If you had a basic task to get done, this person could do it and be done in 1/3rd, or even 1/5th, the time it might take someone else.
infiniteX: I also once knew a developer who could solve problems almost no one else could. If you needed something to scale perfectly to accomplish a large task in reasonable time, this person was the perfect candidate. They weren't fast, and spent a lot of time just thinking.
It sounds like the guy referenced above was the 3x type.
3x: I once knew a developer who could write code about as fast as they could type. It would generally work, be inefficient, and sometimes buggy, but it moved the ball forward relentlessly. If you had a basic task to get done, this person could do it and be done in 1/3rd, or even 1/5th, the time it might take someone else.
infiniteX: I also once knew a developer who could solve problems almost no one else could. If you needed something to scale perfectly to accomplish a large task in reasonable time, this person was the perfect candidate. They weren't fast, and spent a lot of time just thinking.
It sounds like the guy referenced above was the 3x type.
in the original experiment (sackman, erickson, and grant) they were able to successfully solve programming-contest-style problems in a tenth of the time that other people required. so maybe ten hours instead of 100 hours. this should not surprise anyone who's worked on a programming team or who has looked at code they wrote ten or twenty years previously. the actual ratios were from 5:1 to 28:1, but that was an understatement, because some of the programmers couldn't solve the problem at all in the allotted time, if I understand correctly in some cases because they decided to solve it in assembly language. sackman, erickson, and grant suggested firing the 1× performers:
> Validated techniques to detect and weed out these poor performers could result in vast savings in time, effort, and cost.
https://www.construx.com/blog/the-origins-of-10x-how-valid-i...
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/362851.362858
complaints and issue lists were not evaluated, but rewriting twice a month would have resulted in not completing the tasks they were being evaluated on
> Validated techniques to detect and weed out these poor performers could result in vast savings in time, effort, and cost.
https://www.construx.com/blog/the-origins-of-10x-how-valid-i...
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/362851.362858
complaints and issue lists were not evaluated, but rewriting twice a month would have resulted in not completing the tasks they were being evaluated on
> What else could anyone call them 10x for?
Developing truly innovative solutions to hard problems? Doing the hard stuff like documenting code and writing automated tests? Fixing bugs that no one else could? Proactively identifying and resolving software reliability and performance issues?
Developing truly innovative solutions to hard problems? Doing the hard stuff like documenting code and writing automated tests? Fixing bugs that no one else could? Proactively identifying and resolving software reliability and performance issues?
Consistency was never a part of 10x developer definition as I understood it. That label is more often than not applied to "talent", however nebulous it is defined. Consistency is very underrated and hard to develop a habit for.
A 10x dev can realize you're solving the wrong problem.
I call those types of people the Claude Makelele of programming, and for those not familiar with soccer I guess Dennis Rodman would be a close comparison.
Without the likes of Makelele and Rodman teams like early to mid-2000s Real Madrid and the 1990s Chicago Bulls would have had way less trophies and wins (the Real Madrid of that era was even nicknamed galacticos/galactics because of the amount of soccer stars they had among their ranks) .
Without the likes of Makelele and Rodman teams like early to mid-2000s Real Madrid and the 1990s Chicago Bulls would have had way less trophies and wins (the Real Madrid of that era was even nicknamed galacticos/galactics because of the amount of soccer stars they had among their ranks) .
>the Makelele of programming
Well I was not expecting to read this sentence today
Well I was not expecting to read this sentence today
This does actually remind me of how flight controllers were simultaneously selected and trained: the sim team designed scenarios that were specifically tailored to exercise some controller's weak point, over and over. They were very creative in how to exploit controllers' weaknesses.
Some controllers took their simulator failures as serious lessons and improved. Others didn't stomach the constant failures and dropped out of the programme. I don't know what proportion of alpha chicken they got, but from what I can tell, the flight controllers were really good at their jobs.
I've always wanted to explore adversarial simulation as a training and selection method but I have yet to find an occsassion that warrants it.
Some controllers took their simulator failures as serious lessons and improved. Others didn't stomach the constant failures and dropped out of the programme. I don't know what proportion of alpha chicken they got, but from what I can tell, the flight controllers were really good at their jobs.
I've always wanted to explore adversarial simulation as a training and selection method but I have yet to find an occsassion that warrants it.
Ideally in most jobs you want people who enjoy getting better, even if it means they don't get to shine.
Trying hard and fucking up sucks for everyone, but if I were to hire someone I'd rather have someone that can learn from their/our mistakes than someone who abandons ship once the grass is greener elsewhere.
Trying hard and fucking up sucks for everyone, but if I were to hire someone I'd rather have someone that can learn from their/our mistakes than someone who abandons ship once the grass is greener elsewhere.
> "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me ... You can't be fooled again"
I actually admire G. W. Bush's speed of thought here... most people wouldn't be able to stop before delivering, by their own words, a perfectly recorded media bite of "shame on me"... that would've been played non stop ever since.
Instead he was able to stop and deliver an iconic line that is quoted ever since to make fun of him.
Instead he was able to stop and deliver an iconic line that is quoted ever since to make fun of him.
> I actually admire G. W. Bush's speed of thought here...
That's a novel interpretation of the gaffe. So you're saying he repaired the expression mid utterance because it was better to sound like a bumbler who couldn't remember a common expression than to utter "shame on me" and have people play it out of context. Maybe? If this were the only instance of him mangling an expression, or all the other instances could be interpreted as rescuing him from a sound bite, this might be more convincing. Try these:
> I know how hard it is for you to put food on your family.
or
> Rarely is the question asked: Is our children learning?
There are more here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bushism
That's a novel interpretation of the gaffe. So you're saying he repaired the expression mid utterance because it was better to sound like a bumbler who couldn't remember a common expression than to utter "shame on me" and have people play it out of context. Maybe? If this were the only instance of him mangling an expression, or all the other instances could be interpreted as rescuing him from a sound bite, this might be more convincing. Try these:
> I know how hard it is for you to put food on your family.
or
> Rarely is the question asked: Is our children learning?
There are more here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bushism
Some of my favorites: https://youtu.be/JhmdEq3JhoY
> "Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking 'bout new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we."
> "It was not always a given that the United States and America would have a close relationship"
> "Who could have possibly considered an erection in Iraq at this point in history?"
> "I know the human being and fish can coexist peacefully."
> "Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking 'bout new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we."
> "It was not always a given that the United States and America would have a close relationship"
> "Who could have possibly considered an erection in Iraq at this point in history?"
> "I know the human being and fish can coexist peacefully."
Is any of them wrong through ?
If your theory is correct it would’ve been better to say “fool me twice… you know the rest” or something like that
I've heard this theory but it's always felt like desperate damage control for a simple but obvious error.
This clip[1] totally changed my perspective on George W. Bush. The man may misspeak a lot but he is cunning and quick on his feet. He knows how to play into his weaknesses.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2FTpxwBVl28
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2FTpxwBVl28
I just see someone who led us into the Iraq War on lies, who gave us Guantanamo Bay, waterboarding, Abu Ghraib and ISIS saying, "Aww, shucks. I don't pay them critics no mind."
Sure, whatever. I see those things too, but I see a whole lot more.
I used to think George W. Bush was stupid, but after watching this I don't think he is. I think that he played stupid because it lulled people into allowing him to get away with those terrible things that he did.
You should see that too. It's important because otherwise you'll be tricked by somebody like him again.
I used to think George W. Bush was stupid, but after watching this I don't think he is. I think that he played stupid because it lulled people into allowing him to get away with those terrible things that he did.
You should see that too. It's important because otherwise you'll be tricked by somebody like him again.
The Trump situation has forced me to re-evaluate. I was highly critical of GW, but to be fair I think he was genuinely trying to do the best for the US and its interests at the time. I don’t buy the idea that he was totally corrupt and only in it for himself and his cronies. We’ve actually seen what that really looks like now. He just had a distorted idea of what the national interests were, and too few scruples in pursuing those interests, as he saw them. He couldn’t see the negative effects, or discounted them too much.
I agree with your assessment of GWB.
He was however, surrounded by people who were manipulating his earnestness to the degree that it was only to in it for themselves and their cronies. Dick Cheney was by all accounts, one of the most powerful vice presidents of the modern age and pushed GWB along on many things and was a key player in convincing GWB (and alot of other people) about WMDs in Iraq, and Dick Cheney was allowed to get away with alot of abuse of power in the position of vice president.
I also agree he didn't have a timely re-assessment of the downsides of his actions.
He was however, surrounded by people who were manipulating his earnestness to the degree that it was only to in it for themselves and their cronies. Dick Cheney was by all accounts, one of the most powerful vice presidents of the modern age and pushed GWB along on many things and was a key player in convincing GWB (and alot of other people) about WMDs in Iraq, and Dick Cheney was allowed to get away with alot of abuse of power in the position of vice president.
I also agree he didn't have a timely re-assessment of the downsides of his actions.
Also remember, between Bush & Cheney only one of them shot a person and got the other person to apologize for being shot.
I see a man who wants to sound clever and charming by speaking fast and by using an heavy accent as if he's one of the people. The location also speaks 'This is where the American people live'.
I really don't understand how people fall for this 'I'm one of you guys' trick.
On the other hand, I might be biased, living in a democratic country.
I really don't understand how people fall for this 'I'm one of you guys' trick.
On the other hand, I might be biased, living in a democratic country.
[deleted]
That good ole folksy Tennessee/Texas/probably-Tennessee wisdom.
I have a friend who researches botany, and it's the same thing for plants. If you only grow the "best" corn, you end up selecting for corn that slurps all the nutrients away from the other corn in the corn field and getting lower total yield. He says that we humans should do what natural selection cannot, which is to use group selection to pick the corn that is best at playing well with others, not just getting ahead individually.
Nash Equilibrium?
The other problem with hiring 'only' 10x people - or having them call the shots without oversight for that matter - is that they pick or - worse - build overly complicated solutions that the non-10x people can't work with or don't understand.
10x is a misnomer in my comment though; 10x refers to productivity, not skill level / intelligence / complexity.
10x is a misnomer in my comment though; 10x refers to productivity, not skill level / intelligence / complexity.
> Apollo missions to the Moon, where scientists had to work all through the night on many occasions, battling against fatigue.
I have seen articles saying that the Apollo missions were absolutely not that. They were 9 to 5 jobs and managers made sure it stayed 9 to 5. The idea was that so many things could go wrong and they couldn't afford to have exhausted and overworked people screwing up.
I have seen articles saying that the Apollo missions were absolutely not that. They were 9 to 5 jobs and managers made sure it stayed 9 to 5. The idea was that so many things could go wrong and they couldn't afford to have exhausted and overworked people screwing up.
Which makes absolute sense.
It's interesting, because a few weeks ago there was an article here on HN about some engineer recalling how, because of a blunder, they almost fried a multi-million dollar rover 2 weeks before a time-critical launch. And although the author did casually mention in his introduction that he was already working his second 12 hour work shift of the day, without rest, not once was the thought articulated that, maybe, the root of the entire screw-up was that exhausted and overworked people were working double shifts, setting themselves up for failure.
My comments and thoughts on the article were exactly in line with what you read, which is also interesting. Why did NASA in the 60s and 70s think that they could not afford exhausted and overworked people because they would eventually screw up, while JPL (also NASA) in the 2000s thought it was perfectly OK? Some lessons were clearly unlearned through the years.
It's interesting, because a few weeks ago there was an article here on HN about some engineer recalling how, because of a blunder, they almost fried a multi-million dollar rover 2 weeks before a time-critical launch. And although the author did casually mention in his introduction that he was already working his second 12 hour work shift of the day, without rest, not once was the thought articulated that, maybe, the root of the entire screw-up was that exhausted and overworked people were working double shifts, setting themselves up for failure.
My comments and thoughts on the article were exactly in line with what you read, which is also interesting. Why did NASA in the 60s and 70s think that they could not afford exhausted and overworked people because they would eventually screw up, while JPL (also NASA) in the 2000s thought it was perfectly OK? Some lessons were clearly unlearned through the years.
Apollo historian here, it was sometimes round the clock but even then most stuck to shifts. Check out Apollo 13 at ApolloInRealtime.org. All Mission Control audio is in the app.
The book by Belbin is a management-theory book. The use of "Apollo" in the book is casual and not a rigorous comparison.
From the original book by Belbin:
"The welcome opportunity afforded to us [...] to form management teams much as we liked for the executive management exercise (EME) gave us the chance to draw up teams that differed from one another in measured mental ability. Teams of clever people were formed and compared with dullard and other teams. [...]
"In the past we had designated companies by letters of the alphabet – Company A would meet in the room normally occupied by Syndicate A in the usual Henley experiments, Company B in Syndicate B’s room, and so on. For a change, we decided to give our companies names instead of the more impersonal letters. The name said something about the company while still indicating the room in which it should convene.
"For what would hitherto have been our A company we chose the title Apollo (chosen out of respect for the American lunar triumph at the time) and into this alpha-type company we placed the members who were high scoring on the measures of mental ability. The individual scores were of course confidential but there was an immediate reaction from the bulk of course members. The Apollo company was immediately recognized for what it was and seen as a blatant attempt by the experimenters to form a company that was bound to win. When very clever people are put together in a group, there is no disguising the fact. [...] It seemed fairly obvious that a team of clever people should win in a game that placed an emphasis on cleverness.
"[...] The Apollo team generally finished last.
= = =
Ref: Management Teams - Why They Succeed or Fail, (Belbin, 1981), ISBN: 0-7506-0253-8
From the original book by Belbin:
"The welcome opportunity afforded to us [...] to form management teams much as we liked for the executive management exercise (EME) gave us the chance to draw up teams that differed from one another in measured mental ability. Teams of clever people were formed and compared with dullard and other teams. [...]
"In the past we had designated companies by letters of the alphabet – Company A would meet in the room normally occupied by Syndicate A in the usual Henley experiments, Company B in Syndicate B’s room, and so on. For a change, we decided to give our companies names instead of the more impersonal letters. The name said something about the company while still indicating the room in which it should convene.
"For what would hitherto have been our A company we chose the title Apollo (chosen out of respect for the American lunar triumph at the time) and into this alpha-type company we placed the members who were high scoring on the measures of mental ability. The individual scores were of course confidential but there was an immediate reaction from the bulk of course members. The Apollo company was immediately recognized for what it was and seen as a blatant attempt by the experimenters to form a company that was bound to win. When very clever people are put together in a group, there is no disguising the fact. [...] It seemed fairly obvious that a team of clever people should win in a game that placed an emphasis on cleverness.
"[...] The Apollo team generally finished last.
= = =
Ref: Management Teams - Why They Succeed or Fail, (Belbin, 1981), ISBN: 0-7506-0253-8
Also, very next sentence shows the claim is not even about astronauts, but ground personnel:
> It is based on the (supposed) claim of someone to have played a vital role in the success of NASA's Apollo missions to the Moon, where scientists had to work all through the night on many occasions, battling against fatigue. One person claimed a vital role to the whole programme - by making the coffee that kept them awake!
> It is based on the (supposed) claim of someone to have played a vital role in the success of NASA's Apollo missions to the Moon, where scientists had to work all through the night on many occasions, battling against fatigue. One person claimed a vital role to the whole programme - by making the coffee that kept them awake!
> One person claimed a vital role to the whole programme
The whole programme of 400,000 people. Really? I sort of gave up on TFA at that point. It reminds me of some pop-sci report of an experiment conducted on 'monkeys' that claimed to show some aspect of leadership, where an underling came up with a solution. If the monkeys were any sort of chimp, the underling would have got a bad beating if it seriously undermined an alpha.
The whole programme of 400,000 people. Really? I sort of gave up on TFA at that point. It reminds me of some pop-sci report of an experiment conducted on 'monkeys' that claimed to show some aspect of leadership, where an underling came up with a solution. If the monkeys were any sort of chimp, the underling would have got a bad beating if it seriously undermined an alpha.
Did you really read the TFA? Because that exact sentence is used as an example of a false boast where someone over-stated their importance, yet your comment appears to take it literally. The full paragraph for context:
> The term 'Apollo Syndrome' has also been used to describe the condition where someone has an overly important view of their role within a team. It is based on the (supposed) claim of someone to have played a vital role in the success of NASA's Apollo missions to the Moon, where scientists had to work all through the night on many occasions, battling against fatigue. One person claimed a vital role to the whole programme - by making the coffee that kept them awake!
> The term 'Apollo Syndrome' has also been used to describe the condition where someone has an overly important view of their role within a team. It is based on the (supposed) claim of someone to have played a vital role in the success of NASA's Apollo missions to the Moon, where scientists had to work all through the night on many occasions, battling against fatigue. One person claimed a vital role to the whole programme - by making the coffee that kept them awake!
apolloinrealtime is a fantastic resource.
However, it only details the MOCR and some SSRs -- it doesn't reveal much about the hundreds of engineers around the country that were called in for more confusing problems.
However, it only details the MOCR and some SSRs -- it doesn't reveal much about the hundreds of engineers around the country that were called in for more confusing problems.
In fact, the hard-working culture at SpaceX has me worried that they will slip and make a tragic mistake. (Disclosure: I have no first-hand knowledge of how the work culture there really is, only hearsay.)
The hubris coming with a too-big-to fail mentality is a dangerous thing, if human lives because just another boring parameter or financial trade-off to take into account. Maybe this applies to SpaceX, or maybe it doesn't, and I'm not really interested in filtering through the Musk-fan hysteria to understand what is really happening behind the scenes. But hubris brought us the Challenger disaster, and I hope not all lessons from the past went forgotten..
This opinion piece articulates your concern fairly well.. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/oct/16/challe...
This opinion piece articulates your concern fairly well.. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/oct/16/challe...
I mean it makes sense, they were in it for the long haul, building the US' space program, their work to be used and reused for decades to come. Rushing won't achieve anything on those timescales.
This seems like a good study. I wonder if the difficulty of the 'Apollo team' to coordinate can be boiled down to simply too much ego and status-seeking. I imagine that high performers would have bigger egos as they invested a lot of effort in getting to where they are and this makes them stand their ground more firmly.
I've noticed on some projects with poor leaders and many high-ego status-oriented people on the team, that sometimes people reach consensus over bad ideas because those ideas represent a kind of middle-ground between two large egos... But the middle-ground idea might actually be worse than both ideas from which it is derived.
I tried hard to avoid this when I was a team lead; the trick I used was that I would often raise half-baked ideas and then quickly admit if someone put up a counter-argument which showed how it was not ideal or just plain wrong.
I was trying to show everyone that coming up with a bad idea doesn't make you a fool and it's OK to play around with ideas and that what matters is not idea creation, but idea selection.
You need to be really knowledgeable in your field for this approach to work though because there will often be someone on your team who will try to use any opportunity to make you look bad and so you always have to be a few steps ahead.
So sometimes I might present a naive idea intentionally just to spark a discussion and get people thinking and forming their own ideas but, in fact, I have a much more developed idea in my mind about where I think it's going to go; so maybe 90% of the time, I look like I'm thinking many steps ahead.
Then maybe 10% of the time, it goes in a completely unexpected direction and I genuinely change my mind and people are pleased with themselves that they could convince me.
I've noticed on some projects with poor leaders and many high-ego status-oriented people on the team, that sometimes people reach consensus over bad ideas because those ideas represent a kind of middle-ground between two large egos... But the middle-ground idea might actually be worse than both ideas from which it is derived.
I tried hard to avoid this when I was a team lead; the trick I used was that I would often raise half-baked ideas and then quickly admit if someone put up a counter-argument which showed how it was not ideal or just plain wrong.
I was trying to show everyone that coming up with a bad idea doesn't make you a fool and it's OK to play around with ideas and that what matters is not idea creation, but idea selection.
You need to be really knowledgeable in your field for this approach to work though because there will often be someone on your team who will try to use any opportunity to make you look bad and so you always have to be a few steps ahead.
So sometimes I might present a naive idea intentionally just to spark a discussion and get people thinking and forming their own ideas but, in fact, I have a much more developed idea in my mind about where I think it's going to go; so maybe 90% of the time, I look like I'm thinking many steps ahead.
Then maybe 10% of the time, it goes in a completely unexpected direction and I genuinely change my mind and people are pleased with themselves that they could convince me.
Sounds kinda manipulative.
I do something a bit similar, I'm usually happy to ask the dumb questions to spark discussion so other people don't have to.
How exactly is it manipulative?
They are intentionally planting a false seed when they really intend to go in another direction. It reminds me of Agamemnon in book 2 of the Illiad: https://www.sparknotes.com/lit/iliad/section2/.
What I find insidious about this kind of behavior is that although they claim that it is to encourage the team to not be shy speculating on new ideas, it seems as though the true purpose is to make the team lead appear smarter that the other team members. It's a kind of reverse psychology. If everyone is throwing out spontaneous ideas, some (probably most) will be bad. Some ideas are very dumb and are easily dismissed. Sometimes however it takes time to work through the subtleties and see the problems. If the leader deliberately seeds a bad idea and then is able to quickly point out some very subtle problem, it makes them look like a genius relative to others who would need more time to see that issue. That is why it seems manipulative to some of us.
What I find insidious about this kind of behavior is that although they claim that it is to encourage the team to not be shy speculating on new ideas, it seems as though the true purpose is to make the team lead appear smarter that the other team members. It's a kind of reverse psychology. If everyone is throwing out spontaneous ideas, some (probably most) will be bad. Some ideas are very dumb and are easily dismissed. Sometimes however it takes time to work through the subtleties and see the problems. If the leader deliberately seeds a bad idea and then is able to quickly point out some very subtle problem, it makes them look like a genius relative to others who would need more time to see that issue. That is why it seems manipulative to some of us.
[deleted]
It relies on being dishonest about one's own intentions, which is manipulative by definition.
Destin Sandlin from “Smarter Every Day” recently called out this 1971 report. I just resubmitted it as it did not get attention it may deserve 2 weeks ago.
“What made Apollo a success?”
https://ntrs.nasa.gov/api/citations/19720005243/downloads/19...
“What made Apollo a success?”
https://ntrs.nasa.gov/api/citations/19720005243/downloads/19...
The executive summary of that report should have a number of dot points that should lead with. Almost unlimited money and a workforce of 400K people pulling in the same direction for one objective.
Work these days has less money, fewer people and less clear direction. Half of all projects are working out what the actual job is.
Work these days has less money, fewer people and less clear direction. Half of all projects are working out what the actual job is.
Given that a current task assigned to NASA is manned flight to the moon (which was accomplished decades ago) it's more likely there is no direction at all. No one really doubts it's possible.
It is as if I bought a controlling interest in Honda and told them my revolutionary idea for the North American market was to introduce a small car with 4 doors to appeal to budget conscious buyers.
It is as if I bought a controlling interest in Honda and told them my revolutionary idea for the North American market was to introduce a small car with 4 doors to appeal to budget conscious buyers.
And not just a little less money. Apollo was around 2.5% of the GDP for 10 years. That'd be about $200B a year today. For comparison, an SLS launch is about $2B
2.5% of the US GDP ($26 trillion in 2023) would be 600 billion. At its peak in 1967, the Apollo program budget was 3 billion, while the US GDP was about 850 billion. So 0.35 percent. US government spending in 1967 was about 112 billion, so closer to 2.5 percent of the federal budget, not the GDP. Converting to today’s 6,000 billion federal budget, about 150 billion today, or not quite 20% of the defense budget, the largest federal expenditure after Social Security (the defense budget is essentially tied with Medicare).
Wow, that's a third of the amount of money that goes to healthcare insurance administration.
Not to healthcare - to healthcare insurance administration.
Not to healthcare - to healthcare insurance administration.
That report was written in 1971, meaning it probably assumes sort of the same budget and goals as in the 1960s.
Had the report been written today, it would look very different.
Had the report been written today, it would look very different.
Plus NASA has become more risk averse, which makes project progress slower and likely ultimately more expensive, at least compared to private space companies. However, NASA is still far ahead of the other space agencies.
Another key factor: NASA has no control over its funding (and thus vision) it’s at the mercy of congress each year which makes planning and financing large projects hard. They have projects and designs imposed from above regardless of the scientific or engineering benefit.
Perhaps the tragic reason for NASA's success in the 60s was Kennedy's assassination. Kennedy set the goal and the deadline, and after his death, it could not be revised.
Perhaps his death was faked for precisely this purpose, by aliens wanting to make sure humans made this important step in space travel.
This doesn't really align with the fact that NASA has had far more manned spaceflight accidents after the Apollo missions. They are more risk averse, but also have more accidents?
Those can be in a deadly spiral.
Risk aversion doesn’t actually mean you’re good at addressing risk; in fact it may keep you from implementing changes (change is risky) that address real risks.
Risk aversion doesn’t actually mean you’re good at addressing risk; in fact it may keep you from implementing changes (change is risky) that address real risks.
"Risk aversion" here is more a synonym for "prefer planning ahead and trying to account for everything in advance instead of using an iterative trial and error approach". SpaceX is very trial and error focused, which means they learn more quickly. It doesn't mean that their end product, e.g. their Dragon capsule, ends up being more (or less) risky to use for humans than, e.g., NASAs Orion capsule.
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I'm good with NASA being risk averse when it comes to human lives. NASA is about exploration, and space isn't going anywhere. If it takes us 10 or 20 or 100 extra years it's all still space.
Last time NASA rushed it was because of a "war", and even then it was really just a vast international tantrum. Nobody really "won" the space race. Somebody got a trophy and someone got a participation certificate and the world went on as before.
I am glad for the research and I would far rather nations competed via engineering stunts than blowing each other up. Especially when those stunts manage to produce some spinoffs and some science... though any science is bound to produce both.
Last time NASA rushed it was because of a "war", and even then it was really just a vast international tantrum. Nobody really "won" the space race. Somebody got a trophy and someone got a participation certificate and the world went on as before.
I am glad for the research and I would far rather nations competed via engineering stunts than blowing each other up. Especially when those stunts manage to produce some spinoffs and some science... though any science is bound to produce both.
Sorry, I have to politely disagree.
Space exploration could save humanity in so many ways. Nevermind the big "what if" discoveries that would impact the trajectory of our entire species, we also discover valuable science along the way - things that help us in our every day life.
More importantly, the country with the most advanced space agency by default has the most advanced weapons. A hostile nation could pretty easily tow a small asteroid toward Earth and wipe our any country they wanted. Rocket technology, fuel technology, etc.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but the space race helped to collapse the Soviet Union to some degree, didn't it?
Regardless of whether my last point stands, I think space is incredibly important to humanity's future.
Space exploration could save humanity in so many ways. Nevermind the big "what if" discoveries that would impact the trajectory of our entire species, we also discover valuable science along the way - things that help us in our every day life.
More importantly, the country with the most advanced space agency by default has the most advanced weapons. A hostile nation could pretty easily tow a small asteroid toward Earth and wipe our any country they wanted. Rocket technology, fuel technology, etc.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but the space race helped to collapse the Soviet Union to some degree, didn't it?
Regardless of whether my last point stands, I think space is incredibly important to humanity's future.
You’re confusing science fiction with reality here. Attacking a country with an asteroid would be an absurdly slow process without engines which are already weapons on their own. It’s like declaring you’re going to launch a full scale nuclear strike in 6 years and not a moment sooner, you spend all these resources which don’t help you until after you’ve lost the war.
The space race had little to do with the collapse of the Soviet Union, for one thing the timing is off significantly. The Soviet union mostly failed due to internal issues that were only tangentially related to the US. Excess military spending was more a symptom than an underlying cause, you can just as easily blame poor manufacturing becoming an increasing issue as technology advances, a culture of mismanagement etc. Corruption, infighting, apathy, ethnic tensions, mismanagement, etc all kept compounding until you got societal collapse.
The space race had little to do with the collapse of the Soviet Union, for one thing the timing is off significantly. The Soviet union mostly failed due to internal issues that were only tangentially related to the US. Excess military spending was more a symptom than an underlying cause, you can just as easily blame poor manufacturing becoming an increasing issue as technology advances, a culture of mismanagement etc. Corruption, infighting, apathy, ethnic tensions, mismanagement, etc all kept compounding until you got societal collapse.
>he reported some unexpectedly poor results
The results are only unexpectedly poor if you assume individual ability directly composes into team ability. I think this was a common assumption in the 1980s, but I believe that managers nowadays will not be surprised by these results.
The results are only unexpectedly poor if you assume individual ability directly composes into team ability. I think this was a common assumption in the 1980s, but I believe that managers nowadays will not be surprised by these results.
Managers won't be surprised ... if they've read the 1981 book.
I think most people would be surprised to find negative correlation between individual ability and team ability, unless they've read this book or something like it. Weak correlation, perhaps, but outright negative correlation is truly surprising.
I think most people would be surprised to find negative correlation between individual ability and team ability, unless they've read this book or something like it. Weak correlation, perhaps, but outright negative correlation is truly surprising.
It's not clear to me that negative correlation was the finding. For example, the result does not show that teams of randomly selected high aptitude individuals perform worse than teams of randomly selected non-high aptitude individuals.
From what I can tell, the only finding here is that teams with individual aptitude as the sole selection criteria performed poorly in competition against teams that had more traditional selection process. This would be an expected result for me.
From what I can tell, the only finding here is that teams with individual aptitude as the sole selection criteria performed poorly in competition against teams that had more traditional selection process. This would be an expected result for me.
It's also obvious in sports that star players don't always work well together. If you're a fan, you see the storyline play out often.
Teamwork is important.
Teamwork is important.
I don't even manage, I just watch team sports, and I know that you can put together star players and the team just falls apart. Sometimes also, when you cut an underperforming player your star player also spontaneously crashes in performance.
The same thing happens with rock bands. Sometimes they tried to put together bands called "supergroups" with star musicians from other highly-successful bands, and the results were usually underwhelming. It's probably because many times, one of the "underperforming" musicians does various other important tasks that don't involve technical ability on their instrument. One example here is Nikki Sixx from Motley Crue: he's a competent bassist for that type of music, but definitely no virtuoso, but his big contribution to his band was in songwriting, not bass playing, and his songwriting is arguably one of the big things that made the band so popular and successful in its time.
Also, sometimes certain people just work really well together, and one of them may not seem all that great on their own.
Also, sometimes certain people just work really well together, and one of them may not seem all that great on their own.
Maybe although having worked in this type of environment relatively recently it seems the expectation persists in some places and might even be cultivated.
I had the opportunity to work with people like these.
The sad part is if you are highly disagreeable as well but also the only person in the debate that recognizes the importance of getting shit done over semantics or minute details, it will cause severe burnout.
Don't repeat my mistake and leave early if you see no levers to sway the team dynamics.
The sad part is if you are highly disagreeable as well but also the only person in the debate that recognizes the importance of getting shit done over semantics or minute details, it will cause severe burnout.
Don't repeat my mistake and leave early if you see no levers to sway the team dynamics.
"leave early if you see no levers to sway the team dynamics."
When is this not good advice? And how does ergodicity fit into the reasoning? (It is attractive advice, but...?)
When is this not good advice? And how does ergodicity fit into the reasoning? (It is attractive advice, but...?)
I worked at Meta in a dysfunctional department where this was the case. There was an IC8 who refused to engage, was "too important" and "too busy", and refused to concede any point, but was quick to insert FUD, bikeshed on edge-cases, and shutdown discussion if it distracted from them talking about their projects. Total asshat. There were also several other strong (asshole) personalities on my immediate team who refused to explain themselves, refused to listen to others, and refused to consider any one else's viewpoint. It was most a competition of who was advancing their particular service and their code, while slowing everyone else down by refusing to sign-off commits until round-after-round of trivial revisions and delay.
how long did it take you to leave that team?
Plot twist: OP was the IC8 and has now been promoted.
Reading this I once again realize that people management genre is astrology for suits.
Taking that perspective, some of these books on the subject get funnier - color / personality or Myers-Briggs for example, gotta put the INFJs with the ENFPs else their chakras won't align or... something like that.
I think one part of the trick is that you find high-functioning people but in less-overlapping domains.
In one of the more successful teams I was on back in the day, I was a JavaScript developer and was paired with some Flash developers on a project where we had a lot of back and forth calls crossing the boundary. I'd ask them to implement a way for me to call their logic and then they'd ask me for a way to call my logic. We were both super-responsive to the other because neither side had much interest in imposing our preferences in the other's very distinct domain.
On the flip side, we were both quite capable in our own right and thus able to agree on the overall architecture pretty quickly. With some people, you'd probe, "it seems like you should have a way to do X, right?" and they'd respond immediately, "that's definitely not possible, you'll have to work around that". So you'd push, "do you want to check?" but they'd decline so you'd take it upon yourself to dig in and point them to relevant documentation. With these guys, their response to the first question was, "Of course we can do that and you can do Y for us, right?".
In one of the more successful teams I was on back in the day, I was a JavaScript developer and was paired with some Flash developers on a project where we had a lot of back and forth calls crossing the boundary. I'd ask them to implement a way for me to call their logic and then they'd ask me for a way to call my logic. We were both super-responsive to the other because neither side had much interest in imposing our preferences in the other's very distinct domain.
On the flip side, we were both quite capable in our own right and thus able to agree on the overall architecture pretty quickly. With some people, you'd probe, "it seems like you should have a way to do X, right?" and they'd respond immediately, "that's definitely not possible, you'll have to work around that". So you'd push, "do you want to check?" but they'd decline so you'd take it upon yourself to dig in and point them to relevant documentation. With these guys, their response to the first question was, "Of course we can do that and you can do Y for us, right?".
Isn't this just another form of "Peter Principle"[1] being manifested?
i.e. its a case of "We're all very competent at an individual level, but having never worked in a group as individuals, and then being thrust into a group requiring us to discard individual control, makes us all pretty incompetent."
[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_principle
i.e. its a case of "We're all very competent at an individual level, but having never worked in a group as individuals, and then being thrust into a group requiring us to discard individual control, makes us all pretty incompetent."
[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_principle
The book "Dreaming in Code" is about a whole company doing this while trying to build Chandler[1]. Mitch Kapor (founder of Lotus) hired all the best people he could to build a better calendar/to-do-list/everything kinda software. It failed spectacularly.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chandler_(software)
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chandler_(software)
I don't know if we "failed spectacularly"; Mitch is a fun guy to work for but he didn't really know what he wanted to build, so when he decided it was time to pull the plug, off we went.
We certainly had lots of people who wanted to come in to work and write software, and didn't have a ton of ego wrapped up in which direction to march. We just weren't clear on which direction to march.
We certainly had lots of people who wanted to come in to work and write software, and didn't have a ton of ego wrapped up in which direction to march. We just weren't clear on which direction to march.
Sounds like you have way more knowledge than I do about what was happening, and what results they got. As best as I can say is that when you look at the people he pulled together, you’d expect the whole world to be on Chandler now, instead of Outlook and Google. Yet there was barely a production release, and it’s been abandoned for more than a decade.
I thank them for trying. But it seems like a great example of an “Apollo Team”.
I thank them for trying. But it seems like a great example of an “Apollo Team”.
Mitch was trying to do (at least) three things at once:
- make a hackable, open source tool
— create a new interaction model for PIM data
- be a livable Mail/Calendar client
The team assembled would probably have been quite competent at doing any one of those things!
It’s not clear to me there was a path to achieving a harmonious combination of all three given any staffing.
- make a hackable, open source tool
— create a new interaction model for PIM data
- be a livable Mail/Calendar client
The team assembled would probably have been quite competent at doing any one of those things!
It’s not clear to me there was a path to achieving a harmonious combination of all three given any staffing.
Double Apollo. It's so common in the tech world. It also feels like purgatory if you find yourself in one (a project, a team, a company).
In the finance and banking world a lot of the larger decisions are done in committees. These committees usually require a majority vote to get things approved. Most of the voting members of the committees are the Execs. You can imagine the political and bureaucratic intertwining of getting things done in these organizations with those types of personalities.
How new is this insight? The failure of teams of highly capable individuals is often due to egocentric silver-haired gorillas in the room:
>They spent excessive time in abortive or destructive debate, trying to persuade other team members to adopt their own view, and demonstrating a flair for spotting weaknesses in others' arguments. This led to the discussion equivalent of 'the deadly embrace'. They had difficulties in their decision making, with little coherence in the decisions reached (several pressing and necessary jobs were often omitted). Team members tended to act along their own favourite lines without taking account of what fellow members were doing, and the team proved difficult to manage. In some instances, teams recognised what was happening but over compensated - they avoided confrontation, which equally led to problems in decision making.
>They spent excessive time in abortive or destructive debate, trying to persuade other team members to adopt their own view, and demonstrating a flair for spotting weaknesses in others' arguments. This led to the discussion equivalent of 'the deadly embrace'. They had difficulties in their decision making, with little coherence in the decisions reached (several pressing and necessary jobs were often omitted). Team members tended to act along their own favourite lines without taking account of what fellow members were doing, and the team proved difficult to manage. In some instances, teams recognised what was happening but over compensated - they avoided confrontation, which equally led to problems in decision making.
> How new is this insight?
1981.
1981.
As a silver haired person I really appreciate the comment about us. It is always nice to generalize an entire group of people and stereotype them because of the way they look. Great idea.
I understood that to be a reference to actual gorillas:
> They tend to live in troops, with the leader being called a silverback.
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gorilla
> They tend to live in troops, with the leader being called a silverback.
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gorilla
Thanks! Of course, the silverbacks! No offense.
Oh no, even we old(er) people are catching 'offence'.
Mark Burnett once warned me about this, saying that it’s been the cause of a lot of his success. In the first Eco Challenge, a team with 4 Navy Seals was beaten by a family that included a 72-year-old grandmother, and he bet everything that he would be able to document this in a real-world setting.
There is a wrinkle in this, however, something he doesn’t talk about. The fifth member, though much better than average within the competition, was not a Navy Seal. Mark was a commando himself, and knew what would happen.
There is a wrinkle in this, however, something he doesn’t talk about. The fifth member, though much better than average within the competition, was not a Navy Seal. Mark was a commando himself, and knew what would happen.
A highly intelligent jerk is still a jerk. No surprise there.
Look at any Working Group and see that play out in reality. That's why our RFCs are so complex and of generally bad taste.
Sounds like Apollo Team type 1 had members with insufficiently "sharp, analytical minds" without high enough "mental ability", otherwise they would have recognized that organizational rules, behavior, and culture are very important to a team's success.
Redefining words to make vague insults doesn't actually progress discussion, and indeed can be a symptom of the very problem we're discussing - I'm better than everyone else and so their thoughts don't matter.
Intellectual and emotional skill development are very well recognised as two different spectrums these days.
Intellectual and emotional skill development are very well recognised as two different spectrums these days.
Who exactly am I insulting? Regarding redefining words, I assume you are referring to the ones in quotes. I am indeed criticizing a subset of people that take a very narrow and ill-defined measure of intellect and assume everyone fits on the same buckets and has the same sort of skills. It's a particular deficiency of the corpo-science class that incestuously defines their strengths as "intelligence". It's the sort of people that haven't matured beyond "book smart".
> The Apollo Syndrome
> This page describes 'The Apollo Syndrome', a phenomenon discovered by Dr Meredith Belbin where teams of highly capable individuals can, collectively, perform badly.
If I try to imagine the Apollo project then I always see a group of glasses wearing (of the sixties type), white coat scientists and rocket engineers.
In reality the Apollo team counted 400.000 people. (Yes, some just made the sandwiches, but still)
My feeling is that The Apollo Syndrome is feeding of the same nostalgia.
> This page describes 'The Apollo Syndrome', a phenomenon discovered by Dr Meredith Belbin where teams of highly capable individuals can, collectively, perform badly.
If I try to imagine the Apollo project then I always see a group of glasses wearing (of the sixties type), white coat scientists and rocket engineers.
In reality the Apollo team counted 400.000 people. (Yes, some just made the sandwiches, but still)
My feeling is that The Apollo Syndrome is feeding of the same nostalgia.
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I’ve always heard this referred to as incestuous amplification.
Politics can be a good example of where the Apollo Syndrome might manifest, but often won’t because there are enough dumb and unskilled politicians around.
I don’t think it’s advocating including “dumb and unskilled” people in your team, but rather speaking to the external dynamics that recognized leaders in a given field tend to carry with them—ie, an eagerness to showcase their prior successes while claiming to have been largely/solely responsible for them, while suppressing the roles played by the contributions of others.
There exists a cohort of otherwise very capable individuals (my intuition would be that it is comprised of a much larger and varied population that would be difficult to identify and select for) who are maybe not so driven by glory or personal ambition, or who tend to share credit for their accomplishments with the people and circumstances that meaningfully shaped the outcome, rather than taking victory laps and draw the attention to themselves.
There are certainly distinct traits of “leaders” that can be critically valuable to a team, whether it’s charisma and the ability to sell an idea, or organizational skills that facilitate the efficient application of resources. The point this article seems to be making is that an ideal team will be comprised of a relative few “leaders” with most of the members being more in line with the aforementioned cohort.
It’s essentially just an academic exploration of the old “too many cooks in the kitchen” idiom.
There exists a cohort of otherwise very capable individuals (my intuition would be that it is comprised of a much larger and varied population that would be difficult to identify and select for) who are maybe not so driven by glory or personal ambition, or who tend to share credit for their accomplishments with the people and circumstances that meaningfully shaped the outcome, rather than taking victory laps and draw the attention to themselves.
There are certainly distinct traits of “leaders” that can be critically valuable to a team, whether it’s charisma and the ability to sell an idea, or organizational skills that facilitate the efficient application of resources. The point this article seems to be making is that an ideal team will be comprised of a relative few “leaders” with most of the members being more in line with the aforementioned cohort.
It’s essentially just an academic exploration of the old “too many cooks in the kitchen” idiom.
This web page is well done. It is informative and concise. Good submission.
In the end, the overall output was lower because all the "alpha layers" spent more time fighting than laying.
As a software dev, I can't count the number of times HR/hiring managers go for the 10x people, exclusively, and end up with an org that just can't drive in any one direction.