I don’t want to argue anymore since there’s nothing to argue about. I’ll just to point that quiestion “How would you act?” in my case is a way to start conversation. Employee can highlight problems he see in the environment, in managers, leads, supervisors etc. During same conversation you as manager can explain, why process is set up in the way it is, as well as discuss all the suggestions.

“Asking the question phrases it as the employee’s problem, while theory and experience both tell us that it’s far more often the management that is at primary fault (work environment, culture, all sorts of common cause variation.”

Companies are composed of individuals working in concert within the context of their working environment which is typically setup by a bunch of other people. As such it’s exceedingly unlikely that an individual failed in isolation.

I’m happy to be honest and direct with anyone. You can have a conversation with people about a process without having to have the other person practice their mind-reading skills to guess what you are asking them to say. It basically becomes a game to say the right thing to make the awkward conversation end. Which is what you’re asking them to do, “you and employee together can work out a proper way to solve these kind of problems. In fact, you can guide employee to find process you want on his own, with a very little help of you as supervisor”.

The reason for the word interrogate is it best describes the tenor the question you suggested sets up. It’s the employees fault alone, everything else is perfect and we’re going to fix/fire you. A better word to describe what I think should be happening is debrief. Let’s look at the situation dispassionately in the whole to really identify what went wrong and how we can avoid it in the future. That’s why the questions Rob suggests are on the whole better. They don’t automatically assume fault and treat the employee as an equal partner in diagnosing and at least suggesting treatment.

On the wages thing I’m saying you need to pay people enough so that money isn’t something they are worrying about. I absolutely agree that the best motivation is intrinsic to the work being done. Paying the absolute minimum is not very resilient in that context.

Another not 100% clear point here is: “After all it might be the process itself that was at fault!”. People do mistakes (both managers and developers), sometimes just because they are wrong, not the whole system. I may be wrong, but it seems like you try to say that employee just can’t fail on his own, while I fairly believe each person can.

As for being direct – have you tried to be direct on your own as manager? I had, and it seems like people tend to treat this way of expressing thoughts as direct orders with no option to argue or say anything. While asking a question is a way to see/hear what a person thinks about the situation.

As for paying and worring about the product – the best guys I’ve seen is the industry never been paid too much, while they are thinking about their products all the time. I doubt if it’s possible to make them think more about product by adding extra money since their motivation is laying in different plane. Though I would be happy to see higher salaries and world happiness everywhere possible.

To me at least asking leading questions rather than being direct about what you expect just looks manipulative and cowardly. If anything it seems more like a way for the manager to make themselves feel clever than to actually encourage any kind of open dialogue. After all it might be the process itself that was at fault!

You want to pay people well because you want people to be worrying about the product you are trying to make rather than worrying about how to increase their meager pay packet. Similar is true for other extrinsic rewards as they tend to have a deleterious effect on creative output.

As for replaceable employees – yes, they are replaceable. It’s not easy at all for both management and employees, but when people can’t be fired, at some point they start to perform really bad since there’s no difference between doing good and bad.

As for working for $10 – noone has promised yet, that working in gamedevelopment as a developer will make you rich and happy. Come on, we are having fun, doing what we like, making and playing games all the time. Why should we be paid for that more than minimal acceptable|possible? It’s not just in gamedev, it’s everywhere where amount of open positions is less than amount of those, who are trying to get one.

Btw, notifications about new comments don’t work. I’m subscribed, but have got no email on your comment. May be, it works only on post update?

Dmitry, isn’t that question just another form of “What did you learn?”

Robert: I think it’s safe to say “naive.” I once (2008?) got into an internet argument with a 3d artist who had just entered the industry. He said he would work for $10 an hour to get into the industry. He sent me an email a couple years later apologizing for the argument, saying I was right all along. He had lost his job shortly after our argument to someone younger and willing to work for less than he was, and he was still out of work. At least he learned a valuable lesson!

It’s sad, but number of times after getting the answer on this question, I had to make a decision to fire or to move employee to other departament.

I’m sure many people, especially managers will agree with this piece of common sense, and then do something totally different in practice. Introspection can hurt. Changing your process takes time, and effort. Firing the “incompatible” employee and replacing him with a conforming one is much easier. Nevermind that, as a company, you are BSing yourself about the efficiency of your processes, if operating like this becomes a norm for your business. Especially in games, where there’s a steady supply of eager (and sometimes naive) people, this seems to be the easy way out. Forced ranking support this even by putting the blame on the employees – a certain number of people are just considered low performers. When your whole evaluation system is based on this, you become blind to looking anywhere else for causes of failure. It’s the people. And they are replaceable. Welcome to the industry!