By Nishant Kothary CHAPTER 12I transferred the commandments from the whiteboard to my notepad
and left John’s office that day determined to save my job.
And now here we were.
As I watched Prakash — the key to many of our critical organizational
problems and, in fact, the true owner of the most critical milestones on the
project — hyperventilate, I couldn’t help but smirk. Success, even when
it comes in this deranged form, still releases the same happy hormones
into the blood stream. My amygdala (the most ancient part of our brains
that, among other things, is responsible for the fight or flight response)
slowly crossed its arms across its large pectorals with a smug grin on its
face, leaving my imminent response in the capable hands of my neocortex:
the newest part of our brain responsible for some of our most complex
decision-making.^2
“Dude. I’m just the messenger,” I shrugged with deliberately practiced
nonchalance. “You gave me these dates a few weeks ago. You didn’t hit
them. Now, if you’re telling me that we can still ship on time irrespective
of your items being late, then let’s talk!” He just stared at me with rage and
wonder for the next few seconds as his mind tried to work out how the
tables had been turned. Then, abruptly, his amygdala took over again. He
yelled some incoherent gibberish, swore at me one last time and stormed
out of the office.
The product eventually shipped three months later, a full nine months
behind schedule^3 , to lackluster reviews and angry customers. Reeling
from the epic death march, most of the team quit and left for other jobs. I
received a good performance review at the end of the project, and was then
assigned to one that was even more visible and important to the company.
I had, after all, done my job “well”.
I quit a few weeks later.
2 Bruce Schneier, “Risk and the Brain”, 2008, http://smashed.by/risk
3 Underestimating the time estimated needed to ship a product is a cliché as old as the software in-
dustry itself. Among the many factors, one that weighs heavily is known as optimism bias. Tali Sharot’s
TED 2012 talk is a great starting point to learn about it: http://smashed.by/ted-time