Post by Bhavana Hindupur

Don’t be a hero. Your team will thank you. There is an internal memo at Google called no-heroes which opened my eyes to a new point of view. What: When there is a system that takes too high a workload to be kept alive, let it fail. Don’t be a hero. Who is a hero: Someone who single-handedly keeps the system alive at any cost, no matter the hours required or the effects on their own health. Why is it bad: - Management doesn’t see the need to fix the root cause of the issue since the hero repeatedly keeps it from falling over. - The hero faces negative consequences on their own health and work-life balance. - This creates unrealistic expectations for the team members. How to deal with it instead: Let the system fail, then run a postmortem to determine how to fix the root cause. Fix the root cause with the whole team involved.