Success Starts with Pride

Hemant Naidu
January 11, 2023

Having a sense of pride in something will greatly affect how you treat that thing. 

Let's take my house for instance. My wife and I bought it nine years ago. It was a new build with an unfinished basement that we wanted to finish pretty quickly. We designed the layout and then hired contractors to do the initial work like framing, electrical, and drywalling. We then took it upon ourselves to do all the finishing. It was a lot of work that occupied our evenings and weekends for many weeks. There were many days I'd get home from work pretty tired, but I was always able to motivate myself to work on the basement. I would just picture the end result in my mind and think about the joy it would bring the family. After hanging the last door one summer evening it was quite something to look back at the journey that got us there. I had a sense of pride in what I had accomplished. And it didn't end there. When people would come for a visit I would enjoy showing them around and talking about some of the unique features we had built. I was proud of the work we had done, and to this day I take extra care in keeping the basement in tip-top shape.

Everyone can probably relate to a similar experience in their personal life. There is something you are proud of that brings a smile to your face whenever you think about it. I also have a similar reaction when I think about the work I do as a professional. I take pride in the work I do. This doesn't just come for free. There are usually certain things that have to align for someone to feel pride in what they do.

For me, I feel pride in the work I do in general. I love the tech space and being part of an industry that is changing the world. I feel pride because of the team I work with. I am fortunate to work with smart and innovative people that I can learn from and who are all working toward a common goal. And last, but not least, I feel pride in the company I work for. The goal and missions of the organization aligns with my values and I can see how we are having a positive impact on our customers. Not feeling pride in any one of these areas could make it very difficult to feel pride in what I'm doing everyday.

When you have pride in what you do and what you're working on, it has many positive consequences across the board. When you are proud of the work you do there is almost an automatic increase in engagement. You have a connection with your work that just naturally results in you wanting to be involved with every aspect of it, whether it is solving an immediate problem in front of you and your team right now, or ideating on the long term vision of the project. You care about the project and it is important for you to be part of its evolution.

With higher engagement comes more innovation, something that is paramount in our world of software engineering. If you're not innovating then you risk becoming irrelevant. As a software engineer there is a desire to want to build cool things and to be aware of the latest trends. You have a sense of ownership in what you're building and there is a drive to make it cool (or even cooler than it already is) and experiment with integrating some new tech. There's probably no one telling your or your team to integrate some new technology, or use some cool new library, but you're thinking outside of the box because you are invested. This is what leads to innovation.

When you have a team that is highly engaged, feels a sense of ownership, and is hungry to innovate, it's going to translate into happier customers. If you're proud of something that you've built, and there is something that your customers don't like about it, you can pretty much guarantee that the team will be all in on trying to remedy the situation. They'll want to understand why the customers don't like something and work with them to figure out how they can fix it. It can be really tough to be proud of something if the intended users aren't as hyped about it as you are because it doesn't do what they want, or it is littered with bugs.

With all of this comes a happier team - people will be in better moods. It's a no-brainer that if a team is happy they are going to be more effective. People will enjoy coming to work, collaborating to solve problems, and just be more kind to each other. Just having one person on a team who is unhappy can completely destroy a team. That unhappiness can lead to a negative attitude which will run through the team like a virus. Negativity is highly contagious, but so are positive vibes.

In a study done by Great Place to Work they found that people who said they were proud of the organization they worked for were 6 times more likely to endorse their workplace to others and 2 times more likely to want to stay with the organization long term. It is clear that if you can foster pride within your organization you end up with happy, productive, and effective teams that want to be part of the long term plans of the organization. But pride doesn't just come for free. There are things that both the organization and individual need to pay attention to so they are in a position for pride to build.

As an individual, seeking out an organization whose values and goals align with yours puts you in a favourable position of finding pride in your work. For me I am passionate about supporting local businesses because I believe it leads to a more vibrant city and community. Vendasta is all about empowering local businesses so they can succeed in a global market. Nearly 25 years ago I started my career as a software engineer with a large insurance company. I enjoyed the work and spent six years there, but at the end of the day I was not passionate about insurance (is anyone?). Even though I consider that era of my career to be a success, I didn't have alignment with much of the vision and goals of the organization. Only because I had a passion for the technology and enjoyed the teams I worked with did I last so long. An organization should pay attention to this as well. Ideally they are able to hire people who are passionate about the industry and vision of the organization. By doing this they are going to probably find better engaged people who are going to go above and beyond in the work they do.

Ensuring you understand your purpose is another aspect in feeling pride in your work. You could be building a really cool thing alongside a great team, but if none of you understand why you're building it that initial passion could slowly fade. Pride without purpose is rare and if you don't understand the purpose behind your work, you should seek it out. Understanding the why is key. This somewhat ties into my last blog post about understanding what drives you to do the work you do. Again, it is important that the organization put the work in to ensure everyone has the context needed to understand the why. Not providing this is a guaranteed way to lose the engagement of your most brilliant and passionate people, putting you at risk of eventually losing customer satisfaction.

Keep in mind that pride can diminish over time. Sometimes it can help to take a step back and look at what you're doing. When you're in the weeds everyday and have a front row seat to all the warts it can be easy to lose sight of all the great stuff in there, too. If you're feeling your sense of pride is dwindling, just think about all the people you're probably making happy because of what you're doing. Maybe that laundry list of bugs or mounds of tech debt is getting you down, but I can guarantee there are people out their using your stuff and loving it. And many times you'll even find that you're having a positive impact closer to home with your colleagues or your company. Doing gut checks like this can be that shock to the system you occasionally need to get rejuvenated. 

Pride can be a powerful thing contributing to a strong organization with a fun and healthy culture. Blind pride can also be dangerous and that's not what I'm talking about here. I don't think it is healthy to just expect people to feel proud, as though it is something that can be mandated. What I am implying is that if both the individual and the organization pay attention and are able to find alignment in vision and purpose, an environment will be created that fosters proud teams and people.

As I think back to the renovation I did in my home's basement, and even though it hasn't really changed much in the last nine years, I still feel as proud of it as the day I finished it. I built some unique features that I was passionate about, built much of it with my wife, and ended up with a space that is regularly used that brings my family closer together. Much can similarly be said about software and teams that I've helped build over my career. I can say I have had varying levels of pride at every organization I've worked at, but the ones I've felt the most pride also happen to be the ones where I found the most success and enjoyment. Achieving this is a win for both the individual and the organization.