What really pays is to know their headaches, and do something that relieves them. It also helps to take darts for the team. I also made every effort to make my work transparent, with the idea that whatever I was doing, that made the team click, should belong to them so they could move on just as effectively without me.
Basically, I work for them, at their pleasure.
We made radical changes. Life got better. No risky shortcuts either. They stopped hiding mistakes, and I never did hide mine.
Building stuff is a constant evolution. There is always something new to overcome. Sometimes it’s doable other times not so easy.Someone has to be in charge or things all fall apart.