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BTW since you obviously put considerable effort into this report, you should use it as a lead generator and at least capture someone'e email as the price of download. You might also consider repurposing it into a short, punchy book! I hear those are popular now.

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Both great ideas, thanks Jim.

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Will take some time to read through the report, but wanted to say well done and thanks for putting it together. The whole tech industry is really a kind of self-perpetuating monoculture, populated by a somewhat predictable pattern of neurodivergence and personality types that are drawn to a tech career. The most tight-knit, effective teams I've worked on had their own "tribal" identity and saw themselves as writing their own narrative and fulfilling their own destiny as an inner culture distinct but complimentary with the outer culture of the organization. "It's too niche for pure HR." -- love that you call this out. Except for situations that require the legal and (workplace) ethics perspective of HR, the best thing you can do is leave engineering managers alone with their team to learn how to swim on their own -- as long as that manager knows what they're doing and is accountable.

I'm very curious to know if there would be much divergence in findings between UK and US companies. I've only ever worked for US companies, and I'm definitely witnessing a gradual decline of what I might call "celebratory culture" -- where teams work collaboratively towards inspiring goals and cultivate camaraderie and affinity -- which is being replaced with "performance culture" -- somewhat driven by advances in AI: a game of ever-moving goalposts that promotes selfish and hyper-competitive behavior among workers and sets an expectation that everyone in the system should think and act like a machine, and should leverage machines in place of people for getting work done. Sounds depressing, and it is.

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Thanks for looking at this in depth and taking the time to respond Jim. Good point on the potential regional divergence; I have no doubt that there would be difference. I've worked in the UK for a US business, with a wider presence across Europe, and found that it worked best where and when those regional subcultures were allowed to flourish and express themselves.

I also see more of this "performance culture" as you put it. I suspect that it's related to increased uncertainty in the tech industry, coupled with the ongoing challenges in the wider world, creating a more negative-leaning scarcity mindset where things like ROI must be more actively and stringently monitored.

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Also, John, that library/music room is epic!

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