Daily Learnings: Wed, Jul 03, 2024
Wartime vs. Peacetime & Culture
I was reading more in The Software Engineer's Guidebook and came across a section about “Wartime vs. Peacetime” situations in tech companies. The book contained really interesting comparisons of business characteristics and leadership differences between the two.
Wartime vs. Peacetime: Differences in Business Characteristics
The following table comes from The Software Engineer’s Guidebook.
| Area | Wartime | Peacetime |
|---|---|---|
| Business Environment | Existential pressure | Little to no pressure |
| Focus on competition | Obsessed with rivals outcompeting or threatening the business | No need to be obsessed with competition |
| #1 priority for dev teams | Shipping quickly | Shipping thoroughly validated features |
| Deadlines | Meeting deadlines is a must | Meeting deadlines is a bonus |
| Meetings | Reduce meetings in favor of getting things done. “Done is better than perfect” | Normal to have lots of meetings to make sure everyone is aligned. “Alignment is more important than speed.” |
| Conflict | Okay if it helps get things done | Not okay and isn’t how things get done |
| Process | Break the process if it helps get stuff done | Follow the process, it exists for a reason |
| ”Nice to have” | No focus on “nice to have” work | Lots of focus on “nice to have” work |
| Workplace frustration | Expressing emotions like stress & frustration is OK. Rarely repercussions for doing so. | Not okay if it involves behaving unprofessionally. Potential repercussions |
| Work-life-balance (WLB) | Work-life-what? | A considerable focus, and common to have WLB-friendly policies |
Wartime vs. Peacetime: Differences in Leadership Behaviors
The following table comes from The Software Engineer’s Guidebook.
| Area | Wartime Leadership | Peacetime Leadership |
|---|---|---|
| Decision-making | Decisive | Seeks consensus |
| Prioritization | Ruthlessly prioritizes getting critical things done | Supports promising work streams |
| Conflicts | Tackles head-on | Avoids |
| Imposing pressure on employees | Common to “light a fire under people” | Avoids pressurizing employees |
| Unpopular decision | Frequent: leaders do what it takes to meet priorities | Rare: little to no need to make people unhappy, especially employees |
| Visibility of leadership | Visible and involved in the fine details | Less visible and not involved in most details |
| Style | Raw, sometimes to the point of seeming unprofessional | Measured and professional |
Does Wartime vs. Peacetime Define a Company’s Culture?
This isn’t the first time that I’ve been exposed to the notion of “wartime” vs. “peacetime”, or leadership strategies or descriptions of businesses operating in one of the two modes. However, in reviewing these tables, I thought of a question that was interesting to ponder on:
What constitutes a business’ culture vs. simply manifestations of operating in wartime vs. peacetime modes?
My initial thought was that there are temporary characteristics of a business, based on it’s mode (war vs. peace), that are different from its defined culture. For example, a business might usually have a culture of little-to-no pressure, but during wartime it jumps to existential pressure, and then back to little-or-no pressure.
However, thinking on this further, and drawing some concepts from the book What You Do is Who You Are, I started to think that this entire notion of wartime vs. peacetime is really more of a generalization of a company culture itself. More succinctly, I believe the following:
- A company’s culture is really defined by the thoughts and behaviors of its employees, and by the decisions of leaders
- If your company exhibits the behaviors or characteristics as described above in “operating in wartime”, then your company culture is that of directness, decisiveness, potentially conflict-heavy, and quick-to-ship
- Whether or not you believe your company is currently in a wartime environment, or has an existential threat that it’s facing, the behaviors of its employees and leaders dictate its culture
- Alternatively, if your company exhibits the characteristics of a company “operating in peacetime”, then your culture could be defined as one that is more passive, alignment-heavy, and slow-to-ship
- Again, it doesn’t matter if you have an existential threat present or not
What’s more desirous?
One last thought on this topic: I think that I had an initial assumption that a “peacetime mode” company is more desirous to work at from an employee’s perspective, and that bursting into “wartime” mode should be brief, effective, and then return to peacetime. In other words, my underlying assumption is that all companies are trying to get to a point where they can operate in peacetime. However, as I considered the places that I’ve worked, including large corporations that didn’t necessarily behave with wartime characteristics, I realized that I sort of prefer working for companies that are in a bit more of a “wartime mode”.
So really, I guess there’s no real “right vs. wrong” or “better vs. worse” here; instead it really boils down to what an employee is looking to gain from their employment.