Comment by gen220

This is a core part of systemantics [0]! People are going to do what they’re going to do, as a manager the most you can do to help is to put people in the right teams and to get distractions out of their way.

It’s a difficult idea to accept but once you accept it, it’s kind of liberating. It follows that hiring and then work-assignments during roadmapping are the two points of highest leverage in making a mutually-successful employee-manager relationship.

The problem you’re solving there is a search problem. You’re trying to discover if the employee’s motivation landscape peaks in any dimensions that align with the roadmap. They can be the most skilled person in the world, but if the peaks don’t overlap, the project will never run smoothly. It also follows that in extreme cases where you have a tenured employee that you want to retain for future work, you should absolutely let them drive and shape the roadmap.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Systemantics