Holistic empowerment

King Cyrus the great once said “our differences make us stronger “ , it surely makes us stronger as we are like mirrors of one another , we see what the other is lacking , so it’s good for us but not necessarily for the individuals , a spaghetti code may achieve a level of singularity but it’s components become ragged/entropic and the programmer cannot use them well.

Holistic empowerment is a project management concept I had thought about for sometime . It’s basically empowering everyone but not in the same thing ,paradoxically this empowers the whole team symmetrically .

Kind of like a complicated highway system

Fig 1

Fig 2

Although not cognitively appealing , these road systems empower everybody to reach their destination asymmetrically lessening the possibility of cars from arriving on the account of one another.

This describes a team that has been managed but still haven't integrated smoothly , because it looks more like a spaghetti than locks of silky hair.

These ones are better because they manage the journeys while simultaneously keeping a symmetry :-

Fig 3

Fig 4

Fig 5 describes a nice looking maybe even smart junction , functional but non symmetric :-

Fig 5

Fig 6 also has a nice look but low functionality if you just want to go the the other side of the road , low functionality and non symmetric :-

Fig 6

Fig 7 the latest incarnation of the Magic roundabout in England , looks nice and symmetric but can be confusing to drivers , thus not very functional

Fig 7

These ones are ideal they combine symmetry , functionality and are more cognitively appealing , this is the ideal case

Fig 7

Fig 8

And of course neither symmetric nor functional is the worst case scenario like so :-

Fig 9

So the 6th case is the ideal , this is a graph describing the relationships:-

There are also other horizonal parameters that can be added which would then all have to be aligned for functionality as client requirements have to take precedence.

This of course applies in code as well , Symmetry would be modularity making the code look more like a newspaper with nested packages each class having a single layer of abstraction. (By the way here is my NestedPages app , its a simple notes app that describes well how I look to structure my data)

You can think of each of the images as made up of multiple puzzle pieces and each piece is an individual in the company , each has his own unique investment in the big picture yet still needs to integrate with the other pieces around him , if an image is not integrated with another then an interface puzzle piece in between can be placed to help them fit , over time both puzzles will start to adapt in order to fit with each other removing the need for the interface piece .

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Fig 10

Fig 10 describes a naturally congruent relationship between 2 entities/employees

Fig 11

Fig 11 describes a a relationship about 85% congruent , both entities/employees need some time to integrate with each other

Fig 12

Fig 12 describes a a relationship that is incongruent , both entities/employees will need an interface of communication until they can start integrating like so :-

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Fig 13

As the interface shrinks , the 2 pieces start adapting to one another like so :-

Fig 14

Basically I think that everyone is looking for a source of power ,whether it’s in the workplace or outside , whatever empowers the person motivates him or her to do more . It may not be work related , you traveled somewhere or just got a new partner and because you are happy with that partner it reflects on the work , basically anything that makes you feel more whole.

But now there there are 2 technical problems :-

1- what is considered empowering in the workplace ? .

2- how to manage somebody’s empowerment without it coming on the account of others ?.

What I felt to be the most empowering is that which takes least effort from my end to produce maximum results or resolves the most problems for me . Of course what may resolve a problem for me may create problems for others , thus my empowerment has to be managed in such a way so as not to disempower the others around me .

Thus a team leader can apply this concept by looking at the team as one body and thinking about how each person can be a useful organ then optimize these organs by minimizing their side effects. It’s like code modulation , you want to keep all classes separate yet connected through specific interfaces so as not to instantiate the whole class unnecessarily .

An example would be developer X is good at testing , developer Y is good at bug fixing . You can’t just make those developers responsible for supervising one another without constraints , as each one will mostly be interested in implementing their own aspect of the work which the other may not like to constantly work under , but in the same time you want to allow that very possibility by letting them do it within specific enquires of interest , as they need to interact on say pull requests but keeping that interaction within specific enquires of interest , so let’s say dev X is checking a PR of dev Y , his comments may only be on the scenarios of failure nothing more or less , dev Y may not like too much of these comments , thus if you add say (understanding of fix) as a starting comment so dev Y would see that dev X has tried to understand his code first (as mentioned in my supportive programming post) their relationship would be way smoother . But basically you want to regulate it in such a way that not one of them feels too disempowered by work iterations , if that isn’t possible then you’ll have to determine if that developer is going to say review his own code or maybe just terminate him as the team’s overall gain to loss ratio is in the balance .

You want to utilize every individual to their best potential but in the same time keep their interests from overlapping by specifying the interface through which they interact .Overtime a synchronicity among the team’s organs can start to occur , and naturally they will respond to each other efficiently while respecting each others space of influence , kind of like having a multipolar world .

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Holistic empowerment

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