One of the most frustrating things over my career has been working at companies where the workplace culture has become toxic.

Think of working with people who regularly tell each other what they want to hear, lie to cover their own mistakes, and put each other in a box of what they can and cannot do to help the software product succeed in its market.

This video kicks off a series called How Agile Teams Grow Toxic.

📺 Watch this video on YouTube

I'll share the dark side of human behavior on projects, and why the situation can seem almost impossible to improve.

Though many companies hire agile coaches to try and improve the way they deliver, in my experience it's leaders are the ones who most need "agile transformation".

In this episode, I discuss how the core value or motivation that founders had when starting the software company impacts culture and career opportunities for programmers and other hires.

Most software companies or projects are started for one of the following 3 reasons:

1. Money
2. Fame
3. Impact

It's preferable if you can find a company with founders (or leadership if the founder left) that are motivated by impact.

But this won't guarantee that the project will be successful!

You should also look at where the founders skills originated. Did they come from a business, or engineering background? This will give you some ideas as well about the founder values.

Ultimately, you want to find a software company or product where the leadership are looking to YOU for innovation and help. Not treating you like a pawn who can only crank out code and shouldn't think about the business or its products.

I discuss a simple way to research founders and other members of the management team at a company to get an idea of whether the culture there is healthy.

📺 Watch this video on YouTube

Or listen as a podcast:
🎧 Soundcloud