Conference 7.286::digital

I don't know how common it is, but I suspect not very.  Although
I've heard about it I've never experienced it directly, either at
DEC or anywhere else.  I've known organizations that act this
way, but never individuals.

I suggest that you bail out.  There are lots of better
environments to work in at DEC.  Let them sink.
    John Sauter

It certainly seems to be a similar situation to one I find myself in. My
timeframe is also 1 year. I am in the process of following the advice in .1 .
I entered the Marlboro career planning sessions and am now in the process of
filtering my resume out to other groups where I hope I can work in an
environment where I can be of use to the company which I respect on the whole. 
I feel empathy for others who get branded "troublemakers" because of
honesty or "striving for excellence". 
Good luck in your search if you choose to make it. I have given up on my
own group.

Charred if not burned out - Barry

	Thanks Barry;

	I'm looking to get some help from the JRC (see 60.0).  I've
	got to put this energy to use for the Company and not on
	frustration restraint.  THERE HAS GOT TO BE A PLACE IN THIS
	ORGANIZATION WHERE A PERSON CAN WORK HARD, ENJOY THERE WORK
	AND NOT GET BLACKLISTED!!

	  If anybody has a suggestion, it would be appreciated.

	  Dam% frustrated of in ZWO!

						<GWC>

This applies to all organizations:

Teamwork only works in groups where the members share common goals.  The
most common conflict comes from one team member having as a primary goal
something that can only achieved by trading off against some long-term goal
that some other team member has.

The essence of management is balancing these goals so that the organization
is sucessful.

When top management declares the corporate goal is, for example, customer
satisfaction, but _recognizes_ more easily quantified measurements as revenue
or margin, one has the classic management problem.
                              
Pat Sweeney

	RE: .4

	    I must confess in honesty Mr. Sweeny that I don't grasp the
	train of thought in your statements.

	    Ease of workload, mutual improvement, greater output, less 
	frustration, and better feeling in general, are my experiences
	and benefits of a department that has a team spirit.  Helping 
	someone gives me a good feeling and improved relations with my
	coworkers.  Open teamwork has a negative effect on insecurity 
	on the job, and a positive effect on productivity.  Remember, 
	that in the environment I am talking about all parties involved	
	are CLASSIFIED as equals with the goals of greater productivity
	and quality as the base objectives.  


	    Everyone from time to time needs a little help now and then.  The
	confidence in knowing that there are others out there willing to help
	if you stumble or fall, and not mock you, out of MUTUAL RESPECT,
	is most re-assuring.  It costs nothing!  In fact it takes less energy
	to trust someone then to keep up your guard all the time.  You can
	do your job at your present capacity with less effort or do more
	utilizing the energy you WASTED on fear, and animosity.  This
	teamwork concept is not utopianistic.  IT WORKS!!  But self confidence,
	trust, and communication are the key elements toward its' creation.
	These ingredients are not on any budget analysis, but DAM% there 
	cost effectiveness, IE: positive attitude toward ones' job, do show
	up when the totals are taken.  All I can say is try it. 


						<GWC>

re: .5--I think .4 was referring to a different problem. If the
people in an organization do not all have the same goals, or at
least mutually supporting goals, then you have conflict even when
you do have mutual respect.  For example, suppose my management
rates me on whether or not I meet my sales quota each month, and
my quota contains no software.  I will be motivated to learn
about the hardware products that I am expected to sell, and to
find ways to apply them to any customer's problem. 

You, let us suppose, are a consultant in my office, and you are
rated on numbers of sales that you help close.  You will be
motivated to find the least-cost, most-effective solution for the
customer's problems, provided that it includes DEC products.
Thus you will recommend software over hardware, when it is less
expensive, and in extreme cases you will recommend third party
hardware, when there is a risk that we will lose the sale
otherwise.                                         

There is obviously considerable potential for conflict here. The
more we respect each other the more afraid we will be that there
will be conflict.  Whenever we work together on a customer's
problem I will worry that you will find a solution that does not
involve the hardware I am supposed to sell, and you will worry
that I will find some way to decrease your credibility so that my
solution will be accepted instead of yours.  To a consultant,
loss of credibility is loss of everything.
    John Sauter

I've worked for DEC for two years, and it was obvious from the first weekly
meeting that I attended that our group had a strong team spirit.  I've heard
of other groups with even stronger team attitudes.  I'll admit that my 
examples are drawn from engineering.

A situation that promotes competition between team members can be detrimental
to the development of team spirit.  The example in .6 is a case of this:
the two people are judged by criteria that place them in direct competition
for sales.  The problem is the conflict between the criteria and the competition
it induces.  It seems that a re-evaluation of the criteria with aim to fitting
in with a corporate goal is the optimal plan, in terms of reducing strife
in the office and completing better sales.  (Ho, ho, ho: I know, 'In an ideal
world...': well, we *can* dream, can't we?)  This kind of competition, of
course, can exist in areas other than sales: for instance, if my responsibility
is in finding bugs in a software product that cause a 780 to crash, and my
system manager is judged by a low number of crashes on that 780 because the
other users don't like the machine falling out from under them, we're going
to be in conflict.

And outside of DEC, I've worked a variety of places, most of which had a
feeling of team spirit.  Sometimes we were competing with another group and
there would be that same sort of ridiculous information hiding as mentioned
in .0--yes, competition between groups (or even sometimes between a group
and its management!) can contribute to the development of team spirit, but
in some cases it's better to join forces and make one big team!  Sometimes 
the team spirit would break down because of personality
conflicts or grudges or even resentment about a new system of management
or software engineering.  Maybe too much Scouting too young has warped my
brain, but I've long had a feeling for the benefits of cooperation and
occasional forgoing of personal glory; some people don't have this same sense
and wouldn't know a team move if you beat them over the head with it--crud,
I rememer one character, what did he think I was doing, sticking up for him
because of his looks?

At any rate, a move to another group might be the right idea.  There are
groups that work on the team idea.  I don't know how to look for it when
you interview (I obviously just fell into it), but while you're talking to
the interviewers you should keep an eye out for what's going on despite the
interview--does everyone just sit in their cubicles and ignore everyone else
or if there is a lot of interaction, formal and informal.

There are teams, and there are teams.  During adolescence, the 'team' concept
is developing and needs a good deal of support - and small teams offer much
more directly sensible support than larger teams in which the relationships
may be considerably more abstract than right-there emotional.

With maturity, one hopes, comes the ability to derive sufficient support from
the concept of a 'team' that, if appropriate, said team can be far larger
than any one person can directly experience.

Individual maturity of this kind varies all over the map at DEC.  Some people
have a lot of difficulty expanding the concept of 'team' beyond their direct
contacts; when the person happens to be a manager, subordinates find themselves
influenced in this direction as well.

Internal competition can still exist within a team, and can be very healthy
as long as it remains supportive rather than divisive.  It's when the
competition is defined as external (or, equivalently, when the team fails to
include the group against which one feels one is competing) that it becomes
divisive, since no support paths exist (nor is developing them encouraged).

By this criterion, DEC would function best if everyone considered themselves
on the same team.  This does not imply complete unanimity of direction, just
mutual support across organizational boundaries.  Neither does it displace
the desirability of small-group spirit:  it just means that other means than
"we're THE team and the rest isn't" feelings should be used to create it.

For that matter, some of the boundaries of such teamness extend beyond DEC:
we do have to coexist with other producers as a fact of contemporary life,
and a certain amount of cooperation - sometimes in person, sometimes just in
product - is likely to be of benefit to everyone (IBM being the only producer
that might be an exception to this rule, since the degree to which they must
co-exist rather than force others to is questionable).

So I'd assert that, for DEC, the question is not whether a group has 'team
spirit', but whether the definition of the team is sufficiently global:  for
an individual, the simple existence of team spirit may make the job more
satisfying, for for the company that's not enough.
							- Bill

Even at the risk of beating this issue to death:

There is yet another issue in "team spirit" -- the effect of change.

The group I am in is definitely a team-oriented group, but the work we do has
been individual.  Each of us has had individual projects, and have enjoyed the
support and help of the others in the group while doing it. 

Now, our projects are getting larger, and more projects are involving two or
more people.  This represents change, change creates pressure, and pressure
stresses relationships, but as we're coming through it, we are settling into a
new form of teamwork and learning to do it better. 

Other changes have created stresses.  We are trying to bring more of a 
"software engineering" approach to our work than has been traditional in
this part of engineering (along the path from logic design to manufacturing).
Some have resented having to change work patterns that have been successful
for a number of years.  What to do in this situation?

New tools can be introduced, but the process must be tactful and patient.
You need to be willing to take the pain on yourself, in order to spare others.
Tools usually can't be introduced out of the blue, but only in response to a 
person saying "Gee, I wish there were a way I could...".  A little judicious
raving also helps. :-)  Over time, as people see that the tools are solving 
their needs, and not just some whiz-bang gadgets, they become more receptive 
to new tools, ideas, and techniques.

Four years ago, our group had a '20, a few 11's, an '8 and three '15's.  
We were isolated from the net.  All development was in FORTRAN either on RSX
or on the '20.  Debugging techniques consisted of judicious WRITE statements
in the code.  

Now we are now on the E-net, running several Vaxen, using Notes, CMS, LSE, and
DEBUG routinely, and about to stabilize on ADA as a development language.  We
are a lot more productive, and certainly able to enjoy our work a lot better, as
the tools have taken a lot of the drudgery out of it.  But the key thing it has
taken is time, time for everybody to "buy into" the idea.  Now that we have
taken the time, it is "paying off".

					Further up and further on,

					    Ralph