Leading Geeks is different from leading other employees for three reasons

1. Geeks are different from other people
2. Geekwork is different from other work
3. Power is useless with geeks

Myth #1: Leadership is universal. Good leaders treat everyone alike.

Truth: If you want to lead someone, start out by understanding them. Geeks are just simply different from other people.

• Geeks are more loyal to technology than they are to you
• Insatiable curiosity
• Geeks revere the rational

Myth #2: If you know a tree, you understand a forest.

Truth: Groups are not just a collection of individuals.

• Geeks ignore official hierarchy. Deliberately
• Ambivalence about groups

Myth #3: Good leaders can lead anyone to do anything.

• Truth: What you would lead people to do affects how you lead them.

Geekwork is different from other work

• Failure is normal (succeed 26%, challenged 46%, failed 28%)
• Subordinates know more than managers
  • Knowledge inverse violates almost every common assumption about management and leadership

Motivating Geeks

• Select Wisely
• Manage Meaning
• Communicate Significance
• Show Career Path
• Projectize
• Encourage Isolation
• Engender External Competition
• Design Interdependence
• Limit Group Size
• Control Resource Availability
• Offer Free Food…Intermittently

Geeks De-motivator

• Exclusion from Decision Making
• Inconsistency
• Excessive Monitoring
• Focus on Tasks not Goals
• Unqualified Evaluation
• Misaligned Extrinsic Motivators
• Artificial Deadlines
• Changing Deadlines
• Organizational Disinterest
• Teams Without Skills

by Paul Glen