This is a good point, Rafal. It reminds me of an interesting story.
I joined a company as VP Eng a few years ago which I immediately found to be very sales-driven. I also noticed that the tech team hardly shipped anything for months. When I put 2+2 together, I realized that one thing was leading to the other. Essentially, the company adapted to the lack of product development by simply trying to sell the sh*t out of what they had.
We managed to find and address many of the bottlenecks in the tech team, and we started shipping updates regularly. And the company also adapted to that by, for example, developing its product marketing function (which became a new need.)
I guess the idea here is that the dominant culture a) has a reason for being that way and b) it's not set in stone.
Thanks for your post that made me reflect on this!
That's a great and very relevant story. Thanks for sharing!
That's true; if engineering practices were broken for years, sales often becomes the dominant power to help the company strive. Engineering may become dominant after strengthening their practices, behaviours, speed, communication and quality.
I also learned from my ex-bosses that the sales-and-marketing culture is okay for engineering teams as long as it is explicitly said. There was a time when I was getting pissed off because of poor engineering practices, but eventually I understood it. The founders were very explicit about it as they were aiming to meet business goals and finally do an exit. The sales-and-marketing culture worked best to achieve the goals at a given time. If the engineering would become stronger along the journey then it could take over the dominant position from sales, but it didn't happen before the successful exit.
It sounds like culture and strategy live close to each other.
This is a good point, Rafal. It reminds me of an interesting story.
I joined a company as VP Eng a few years ago which I immediately found to be very sales-driven. I also noticed that the tech team hardly shipped anything for months. When I put 2+2 together, I realized that one thing was leading to the other. Essentially, the company adapted to the lack of product development by simply trying to sell the sh*t out of what they had.
We managed to find and address many of the bottlenecks in the tech team, and we started shipping updates regularly. And the company also adapted to that by, for example, developing its product marketing function (which became a new need.)
I guess the idea here is that the dominant culture a) has a reason for being that way and b) it's not set in stone.
Thanks for your post that made me reflect on this!
That's a great and very relevant story. Thanks for sharing!
That's true; if engineering practices were broken for years, sales often becomes the dominant power to help the company strive. Engineering may become dominant after strengthening their practices, behaviours, speed, communication and quality.
I also learned from my ex-bosses that the sales-and-marketing culture is okay for engineering teams as long as it is explicitly said. There was a time when I was getting pissed off because of poor engineering practices, but eventually I understood it. The founders were very explicit about it as they were aiming to meet business goals and finally do an exit. The sales-and-marketing culture worked best to achieve the goals at a given time. If the engineering would become stronger along the journey then it could take over the dominant position from sales, but it didn't happen before the successful exit.
It sounds like culture and strategy live close to each other.