I used to work at a startup where my job was to write reports for clients. Then I spent several years doing the same thing as a freelance side project in my free time. As soon as I went solo, my work quality got WAY better. Why? Permission.
-
-
Every time you require a permission-asking step, you deter people who don’t want to deal with the process. Now maybe you want that, or maybe it’s unavoidable. But you have to account for it.
Show this thread -
If you have to get a doctor’s permission to get pain medication, a lot of people are going to just do without, or self-medicate with alcohol (bad idea!) rather than let another human being judge whether they’re really disabled or just “drug-seeking.”
Show this thread -
Or think of Joel Spolsky’s criterion of “can you make a build in one step?” If you have to ask someone’s permission before you can check if your code works, you’ll check FAR too infrequently.
Show this thread -
I’ve heard horror stories about workplaces where you had to ask the boss’s permission, separately, for every purchase, even a 75-cent packet of nails. That did not result in smart budgeting.
Show this thread -
There are a lot of contexts where boundaries are important. But you can set boundaries in ways that require less, or more, permission-asking (i.e. communication). You can give a department a budget instead of making them beg for each nail individually.
Show this thread -
Self-enforcing rules, like user permissions on a filesystem, waste less time and create less psychic inhibition than expecting people to “check in” with a person.
Show this thread
End of conversation
New conversation -
Loading seems to be taking a while.
Twitter may be over capacity or experiencing a momentary hiccup. Try again or visit Twitter Status for more information.