This is something that I thought about first in 2005. I saw my college friends compromising on our values with the help of this peculiar phrase ‘at least’.
At least I did something, at least we got this, at least we will get to here.
Something didn’t sound right here.
Over the last decade, I’ve heard this from various folks that I’ve worked with.
Every time I’ve ended up not liking these people.
What I’ve analyzed so far:
- At least sounds like you’re breaking down the problem and solving it part by part. Science, engineering, code. I love this approach
- But whenever someone says ‘at least’, this is not what they mean. My experience says, they mean I care only about this part. Which is mostly a short term goal.
At least theory:
Whenever someone says ‘at least’, they’re not motivated enough to solve the entire problem in the first place. They just want the team to take care of a small part of the problem that they care about the most.
Countering at least theorists:
The problem is that you cannot get the team to focus on the humongous task at hand because it just seems impossible. But that is what most of us try and do. Tell the team how important the larger goal is. But it doesn’t work.
Persona propagating ‘at least theory’, let’s call them ‘at least coward’, they will try and distract your team to smaller goals that they want to be solved.
One amazing way to counter this is: there are 4 smaller parts to this large problem that we can’t solve right now. Let’s take another part. The one that does not immediately benefit the ‘at least coward’.
Another way, of course, is to champion the larger cause and keep slogging for a while. But we’ve got to balance the long term with the short term.
Short term, choose something that makes you stronger. Most likely it is another piece of the puzzle. The team will split but those who join you will be those willing to work harder and will be focused on the larger problem.
Those who join the ‘at least coward’ will only go so far because without trust, which will be broken once they realize their words didn’t matter after their short-term goal is achieved.
So you have two pieces solved but their energy is done!
This blog is my way of sending signals into space looking for other weirdos. Comment here if this resonated with you. Or DM me on Twitter!