5 ms·

I wonder, has anyone ever tried berating the successes and praising the failures?

by brewdad 11y ago

alphydan 11y ago
That's a really dumb idea ;) </meta>
- Jtsummers 11y ago
  As written, I agree. But a more sensible way (well, kinda, still backwards): Praise the individuals even when they screw up (great job cleaning that kitchen, even though there's still dirt under all the tables) and berate them when they do well (nitpick even the tiniest speck of remaining dirt in an otherwise immaculate kitchen). Still seems like a bad idea. Destroyed morale for the ones that do well but get scolded anyways, and encouraged laziness for the ones that do poorly.
  - CPLX 11y ago
    I believe this is called "marriage"
nikanj 11y ago
The VC culture? If you define failure as "didn't make any money" and success as "made some money". Recently there was an article lamenting the "early exit syndrome" that startups have, where they prefer getting some money to potentially getting a lot more or nothing
- p4wnc6 11y ago
  I think you might be referring to the early exit syndrome of Midwestern startups [1]. The point of the article was not to say that exits are bad, only that to develop a cultural milieu of technology in a particular region, there is a need for at least some companies to stick it out and remain determined to become long-lived and predicated upon a chosen workplace culture. If companies never do that, then a given region can't generate enough inertia to remain a competitive place, and this has all sorts of bad effects on the employment market in that area. I thought Michael O. Church had a great extension of that article in his recent post [2]. He argues that the broader short-term goals of VCs in general are misaligned with the fundamental value creation premise that undergirds the idea of start-up culture (or at least what was start-up culture when the term was new). [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10579370 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10579370 [2] https://michaelochurch.wordpress.com/2015/11/17/its-not-early-exit-disease-just-exit-disease-thats-killing-innovation-outside-of-and-inside-silicon-valley/ https://michaelochurch.wordpress.com/2015/11/17/its-not-earl...
67726e 11y ago
Wasn't that one of the items in that CIA sabotage manual posted a few weeks ago?

I wonder, has anyone ever tried berating the successes and praising the failures?

by brewdad 11y ago

I wonder, has anyone ever tried berating the successes and praising the failures?

alphydan 11y ago

That's a really dumb idea ;) </meta>

Jtsummers 11y ago
As written, I agree. But a more sensible way (well, kinda, still backwards): Praise the individuals even when they screw up (great job cleaning that kitchen, even though there's still dirt under all the tables) and berate them when they do well (nitpick even the tiniest speck of remaining dirt in an otherwise immaculate kitchen). Still seems like a bad idea. Destroyed morale for the ones that do well but get scolded anyways, and encouraged laziness for the ones that do poorly.
- CPLX 11y ago
  I believe this is called "marriage"

nikanj 11y ago

The VC culture? If you define failure as "didn't make any money" and success as "made some money". Recently there was an article lamenting the "early exit syndrome" that startups have, where they prefer getting some money to potentially getting a lot more or nothing

p4wnc6 11y ago
I think you might be referring to the early exit syndrome of Midwestern startups [1]. The point of the article was not to say that exits are bad, only that to develop a cultural milieu of technology in a particular region, there is a need for at least some companies to stick it out and remain determined to become long-lived and predicated upon a chosen workplace culture. If companies never do that, then a given region can't generate enough inertia to remain a competitive place, and this has all sorts of bad effects on the employment market in that area. I thought Michael O. Church had a great extension of that article in his recent post [2]. He argues that the broader short-term goals of VCs in general are misaligned with the fundamental value creation premise that undergirds the idea of start-up culture (or at least what was start-up culture when the term was new). [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10579370 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10579370 [2] https://michaelochurch.wordpress.com/2015/11/17/its-not-early-exit-disease-just-exit-disease-thats-killing-innovation-outside-of-and-inside-silicon-valley/ https://michaelochurch.wordpress.com/2015/11/17/its-not-earl...

67726e 11y ago

Wasn't that one of the items in that CIA sabotage manual posted a few weeks ago?