Be on the Look Out for Workism

Even Elves need some rest.

The Christian holidays are close and it is easy to become caught up in the bustle of parties, shopping, and family gatherings.  The biggest challenge is weighing the exclusive demands of family and career.  Derek Thompson wrote an excellent article about the subject earlier this month.  As a member of the agile reformation, I want to remind my fellow professionals of the danger of workism.

Speaking for myself, I become a software developer for two reasons. The first reason was I was chasing the hype and wealth of the first internet boom.  It was a giddy and stupid time where Bill Clinton was president, and anyone with a “.com” at the end of their company name wasted millions of dollars.  I wanted to be one of those twentysomething or thirtysomething millionaires writing code instead of being told to smile more while casino patrons blew cigarette smoke into my face.  The other reason was I was good at it.  I became a wizard with Microsoft Office and was soon glancing at Visual Basic code like I was reading the morning news.  My dream of working afternoon drive at a classic rock radio station evolved into becoming a web developer.  The pay was better and it gave me a career that I did not enjoy in my twenties.

Looking back, I realized I joined the technology during a dramatic period of expansion.  I was one of the numerous anonymous workers who helped construct the contemporary internet we enjoy today.  I was an early consumer of social media with a MySpace page.  I was using a smartphone before the birth of Android.  I witnessed the evolution of Microsoft from an evil empire to an innovator in Cloud computing.

It was not an easy road to travel.  I failed numerous times, working for every type of business imaginable.  I became an entrepreneur and failed, and each setback and disappointment set the stage for more significant success.  These experiences helped me coach other professionals so that they avoid the mistakes I made in my career.

It is also a profession where less than one percent of the world population can do it successfully.  It often means cramming various amounts of work into a single workweek.  Developers and network engineers work long hours keeping the global economy working.  It is intellectually demanding and detail-oriented.  Imagine a world where checks do not manifest, or shopping on-line comes to a stop. It is a nightmare world I would not like to live in.

The lucrative work and the shortage of people who can do it successfully translate into long hours.  Thompson in his essay in the Atlantic talks about workism.  It is a career focus that puts family, friends, and community at arm’s length.  High skill workers benefit from long hours in ways that low skill workers do not.  If you work in technology, you are expected to work long hours because it is cost-prohibitive to find people who can do the work.  It is also the only way for a professional to advance in their career.  As Thompson says in his essay,

“At many firms, insanely long hours are the skeleton key to the C-suite and partner track.  Thus, overwork becomes a kind of arms race among similarly talented workers, exacerbated by the ability to never stop working, even at home.  It’s mutually assured exhaustion.”

Executives enjoy exploiting this arms race to get more out of their employees.  In the agile world, we need to push back against this exploitation.  Countless studies point out overwork is counter-productive.  Workism has severe consequences for employee health.  It hurts morale.  It also undermines the quality of the work.  Agile is about “Healthy Ownership,” a sustainable pace and delivering value to customers at a more reasonable pace.  Anything else is waste and exploitation. As an agile coach or scrum master, please be on the watch for workism.  It is a path that leads to poor quality and burnout.  The better way is Agile which is a more sustainable, satisfying and safe way to work.

I want to finish this blog by wishing all of my readers a Happy Hanukkah, Merry Christmas, and a joyous Kwanzaa.  I am sure I am missing some other holiday but I hope each of you enjoys time with your families and take some time for reflection.  I will back next week with my end of year predictions.

Until next time.