11 ms·

For the record, I'm one of the co-authors of "The Alliance," which Dan Lyons refers to in his op ed. Dan refers to our book and quotes a single sentence fragme

For the record, I'm one of the co-authors of "The Alliance," which Dan Lyons refers to in his op ed. Dan refers to our book and quotes a single sentence fragment: "Your company is not your family." Everything else he writes in that section of the piece has nothing to do with the content of the book. 1) "You’re serving a “tour of duty” that might last a year or two" Actually, the book makes it clear that the duration of a tour of duty depends on the mission the employee has agreed to tackle--tours of duty can be 6 months long, but then can also last for a decade (think of NASA scientists working on a deep space probe). 2) "Companies burn you out and churn you out when someone better, or cheaper, becomes available." This is purely Dan Lyons; the point we make in the book is that few employees expect or want lifetime employment at a single company; what people really want is lifetime employability and career progress. We would consider companies that behaved like Lyons described as "breaking the Alliance," which would harm their reputation as an employer. 3) "In this new model of work, employees are expected to feel complete devotion and loyalty to their companies, even while the boss feels no such obligation in return." Once again, this is the exact opposite of what our book says. We believe that employers and employees need to recognize that employment is a voluntary, mutually beneficial alliance, and that managers should be explicit about how an employee's job assignment is going to help develop his or her career. Dan Lyons certainly has right to his opinions, but he shouldn't have a right to misrepresent our ideas.

eru 11y ago
Interesting. This sounds like a viable way to play Diplomacy. (Eg http://diplom.org/Zine/S1998R/Ohlman/TrueBlue.html http://diplom.org/Zine/S1998R/Ohlman/TrueBlue.html)
PhantomGremlin 11y ago
managers should be explicit about how an employee's job assignment is going to help develop his or her career That's interesting. I've had a number of managers in my career and never, not even once, has one of them espoused anything resembling such a position. It's always what can the employee do for the company, not what's mutually beneficial.
- nostrademons 11y ago
  I felt like most of my managers at Google tried pretty hard at this. We certainly did have conversations about what I wanted long-term within my career and how that might best be accomplished within the organization. Ultimately, I ended up deciding that what I wanted couldn't be achieved inside Google, but they certainly made the effort.
  - rgbrgb 11y ago
    I had a similar experience to this at amazon. I think the nature of programming work is so murky that it makes sense to do this even if you don't care about the employee (though my managers genuinely seemed to). What I mean by murky is that similar looking amounts of work can take 2 days or 2 weeks depending on how excited the engineer is about the project. Maybe it's more common with engineering managers for this reason?
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
  - anonymous5789 11y ago
    At five years there, I have yet to have that conversation. 1:1s are either what I'm working on or more promises about "this will make a really strong promotion case." Namely motivation for working on whatever shit work needs doing next.
    - chrisyeh 11y ago
      Might be time to find an organization that believes in a mutual relationship, I'm afraid.
    - kmonsen 11y ago
      Some Google managers are good, some are average and a few are not good at all. Try to work for the first ones. How to do that? That is the hard part, net work and move on when you work for a bad one.
  - alsetmusic 11y ago
jbapple 11y ago
> the point we make in the book is that few employees expect or want lifetime employment at a single company This might be a function of broken promotion processes. Perhaps, in a world in which employees believed that they could advance their careers by either staying at one company or moving around, we would see a significant fraction of workers who would want to have long tenures.
- morgante 11y ago
  In practice, it's highly inefficient to expect one company to handle all your promotions. Even if you're ready to take on a higher level of responsibility, there's absolutely no guarantee that they have a position open at that level. That's why the alliance model makes sense: you might be going elsewhere to find an open promotion, but that shouldn't imply "disloyalty."
- chrisyeh 11y ago
  Alas, I think you are correct. One of the people I talked with when writing the book was a young woman who worked for a financial services firm. She loved her job, loved the culture, but told me that she was going to have to leave because the only way to get a promotion was to go to another firm, then return later.
esbranson 11y ago
> Dan Lyons certainly has right to his opinions, but he shouldn't have a right to misrepresent our ideas. That's nonsense. A right to opinions that don't "misrepresent others' ideas" is essentially no right at all.
- vonklaus 11y ago
  i don't want to misrepresent the parent, but my take was: Don't cite my work in a narrow, out of contex way, that entirely misrepresents the body of thought I put together which ia almost entirely at odds with your message. sure, the people should be allowed to say whatever they want, but if you incorrectly attribute qoutes or ideology to someone, in my mind, you lose credibility. so sure you have a right to mistepresent others ideas but unless you have wholly original thought, if you do that, you call into question the validity of your process, all your sources, and ultimately all of your nessage that relies on non primary research/information
  - chrisyeh 11y ago
    vonklaus, this is precisely how I feel. It's fine if Dan Lyons disagrees with me, but he shouldn't tell people that I'm saying something that I'm not.
    - shawn-butler 11y ago
      You think you have a right to interpret your own words? It's kind of a basic tenet of poststructuralism that a text can have multiple meanings, one of which might be intended, but none of which uniquely are compelled. If you don't want to subject your words to interpretation then don't publish. It would be one thing if author was plagiarizing or misattributing, but that doesn't really seem to be the case.
      - chrisyeh 11y ago
        Actually, what's happening is subtler. He quotes 6 words, and then makes a series of statements that could be interpreted as reflecting the ideas of our book. If he had simply said something along the lines of, "I believe that The Alliance calls for employees to show loyalty to companies, but for companies not to show loyalty to employees" (completely not true, by the way) it would be clear that he was providing his interpretation of our work. As it is, those who don't read the book will take away an impression that is exactly the opposite of what was originally intended. While words are always subject to interpretation by their audience, I object to my words by misinterpreted by another in a major publication.
T2_t2 11y ago
I don't think Dan Lyons misrepresents your ideas, but rather I think more fundamentally he doesn't share your vocabulary, worldview nor expectations. The reverse is also true, and your arguments in return don't use worldview or definitions he would understand nor recognise. The modern world seems to be a constant case of vocabulary misunderstanding, where we all say "widget", and I mean thing and you mean "an element of a UX". "Job security" is a specific example that can mean different things based on worldview. It can mean "the business will employ you no matter what you do or how bad you are" - the classic 1970s Union paradigm. "Job security" can mean "the creation of skills that will continue to have value in the market", i.e. "a law degree means you will always have job security. Or "Job security" can even mean something beyond the individual, to mean "working for a company that will survive" i.e. "working for the government provides great job security - they can never go out of business". Dan Lyons' sacking from Newsweek and the dying of traditional media shows how industry viability is in some ways more fundamental than the individual's talents to "job security". Now, which of those definitions people understand - and which definition your worldview puts front and centre - will dictate how you view a new sort of life/work manifesto. Dan Lyons idealises a world in which people worked their whole career for one company, had a slow progression of minor promotions and pay rises & retired to a gold watch they took to Florida. That reality makes me personally want to buy a chair, some rope and to Google how to tie a noose, but my view is certainly NOT universal, and I need to accept and recognise that. I would hope people would go beyond seeing this as "misrepresent our ideas", and get to bottom of the misunderstanding - to the fundamental worldview misunderstanding at the core of the disagreement. Rather than defend against a perceived attack, I think a policy of agree and amplify makes sense. Dan Lyons is correct - the world has changed and in this new reality, 50 years of depressing work for one company is over. The new world may not have a gold watch at the end of the rainbow, but it should have a much brighter and happier journey, and the a world in which employment is for a specific period, the goal changes from work hard and hope, to maximise skill development. That is the heart of "The Alliance" - an acceptance the world has changed, and making it work for you.
- blazespin 11y ago
  Pretty simple.. Improved productivity from this new era of employment at will should lead to wealth which provides guaranteed basic incomes.
free2rhyme214 11y ago
Chris you're right Dan misconstrues your ideas and that's disappointing. The real issue with his article is that he was lying to himself before he even joined Hubspot. I'm really surprised how shocked people are when they join startups and aren't happy. What did you expect? Hubspot is not Salesforce. Uber is not Google. DoorDash is not Groupon. The maturity of companies at different stages varies significantly. I read articles on HN every month about people who are bamboozled about startups after they start working there. These same people delude themselves about how awesome startups are. Startups are the birth of companies.In the beginning and up until you reach a certain point of market dominance, it's always hard. It's been this way for years and yet people continue to write articles about this nonsense every month...I'm really tired of it.
- manigandham 11y ago
  > I'm really surprised how shocked people are when they join startups and aren't happy. What did you expect? The life-stage of a company rarely has much to do with the working conditions, cult/culture weirdness or how well the business is run. There are plenty of great startups that are very solid companies that anyone would be happy to work for. Blanket hate of "startups" doesn't make much sense. Also none of the companies you mentioned are "startups" anymore either, incorrectly applying that label to every company doesn't help.
- braythwayt 11y ago
  > he was lying to himself > delude themselves about how awesome startups are > people continue to write articles about this nonsense every month You seem to be unrelentingly "blaming the victims." Obviously, it is to people's benefit to have the most realistic expectations possible about companies they join. But does that in any way absolve employers of making realistic representations of what employees can expect? Does that absolve people in management positions from behaving with decency and fairness? When two cars collide, sometimes both parties are at fault, "blame" is often a positive-sum game. It would be fair to hand out as much opprobrium and vituperation for the employers in these situations as the employees.
  - 11y ago
incepted 11y ago
> the point we make in the book is that few employees expect or want lifetime employment at a single company Any citation about this claim? Because in my experience, it's completely incorrect. Outside of the US, lifetime employment is a heavily coveted goal, because economies outside of the US are in a terrible shape overall with unemployment rate routinely above 10%. Inside the US, except for white collar workers in major cities, long time employment remains the holy grail of most of the workforce, even though the US economy is in a pretty good shape overall. Interestingly, even though Dan Lyons technically belongs to the white collar community that is probably not interested in lifetime employment, it's pretty obvious to me that when he joined that semi-startup, his goal was a lot more to write a book about it than embracing the party line and planning a long career there. I mean... you're hiring Fake Steve Jobs and when he's out of the company, your executives try to illegally get a copy of the book with the futile hope that it won't get published... Seriously? What did you expect?
- swyman 11y ago
  I think it's pretty clear that we're talking about white-collar, US-based, urban workers and not about a rural Argentinian engine mechanic
  - chris_wot 11y ago
    That is a total misreading of the comments you are replying to. First of all, it's not at all clear that only white collar employees are what is being referred to in that book. Secondly, the book appears to be not just targeted to the U.S. market, but globally.
- openfuture 11y ago
  Have you ever left the US? There is no way not wanting lifetime employment is something unique to the US, it seems far more likely that it would be connected to status than nationality (and that has been my experience for what it's worth)
  - dang 11y ago
kenko 11y ago
"the point we make in the book is that few employees expect or want lifetime employment at a single company;" Expect? Of course not, anymore; you'd be a fool to expect that. Want? Well, more complicated: if it's a matter of wanting lifetime employment in the presently existing field of options, as employment and firms are presently constituted (and as firms presently look at employees), maybe not. If it's a matter of wanting to be working in the kind of regime in which lifetime employment really was more common, the answer might change. Your response to 3 is a non sequitur. And employment as a condition is certainly not a voluntary matter: think of what that would mean! (Hint: it would mean that anyone who wanted to could quit their job and not seek employment elsewhere and things would be fine. We don't live in that world.)
- chrisyeh 11y ago
  Two clarifications: When I say "lifetime employment at a single company," I refer to spending one's entire career at a single firm. When I say that employment is a voluntary relationship, I mean that the employer cannot compel an employee to accept a job offer, and that an employee cannot compel an employer to extend one.
  - chris_wot 11y ago
    You are basically saying that all employment is for contractors with fixed start and end dates and that must be extended! That's not how permanent employment works in many parts of the world, nor is it even desirable.
    - chrisyeh 11y ago
      I have to admit that I'm primarily familiar with the US economy, where nearly all workers are "at will" employees. This means that anyone can be terminated at any time, without a reason being given.
    - sokoloff 11y ago
      My experience suggests that those permanent employment policies serve to discourage employment. As a US-based employer, I'm often puzzled/confused by some of the practices around the world. (I'm sure the converse is probably true for EU-based employers considering expanding into the US.)
mathattack 11y ago
I read his story thinking, "How is this news or a surprise to a jaded journalist?" Then I started to think he might have planned the book before the job. At that point who cares about journalistic integrity?
mathattack 11y ago
I read his story thinking, "How is this news or a surprise to a jaded journalist?" Then I started to think he might have planned the book before the job. At that point who cares about journalistic integrity?
tikhonj 11y ago
Thanks for the measured response! I'll have to give your book a read because it reflects some vague ideas I've been having. It feels like having "more liquidity" in the job market could benefit both employees and employers: it would make it easier for me to find a job that's a good fit and to adjust my role as my circumstances change; similarly, it lets companies be more flexible. My theory is that this is the sort of thing that's only a problem relative to our expectations. If everybody expected people to move between jobs more often, it would have a significantly lower cost while conferring the benefits I mentioned above. Then again, I'm the sort of person who can't imagine spending 40 years climbing a hierarchy at a big corporation, so I might just be fundamentally different from the people who actively want that...
- chrisyeh 11y ago
  I do think that greater liquidity is beneficial to employers and employees. But one of the interesting things about The Alliance is that we believe that being open and honest about what each side is getting from the relationship should lead to longer job tenures, rather than shorter ones.
sgt101 11y ago
Fair enough to have ideas, but on 2 I'd love to know your evidence. Quite a lot of people I know fantasize about job security. Did you have any reason to believe 2 apart from personal perspectives?
coldtea 11y ago
>the point we make in the book is that few employees expect or want lifetime employment at a single company You'd be surprised.
gurkendoktor 11y ago
That sounds 100% like my job, but I'm a self-employed contractor. I see my clients as peers and we can speak openly about whether they even need me anymore. Sure as hell my clients are not my family (I hate office social dynamics). So is your book basically saying that regular employment will/should become more like self-employment?
chrisyeh 10y ago
My co-authors and I have written up a formal response, with quotes from our book to demonstrate how Dan Lyons' interpretation is 100% contradictory with the actual text of the book: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/un-disrupted-what-alliance-actually-says-employment-chris-yeh https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/un-disrupted-what-alliance-ac...

eru 11y ago

Interesting. This sounds like a viable way to play Diplomacy. (Eg http://diplom.org/Zine/S1998R/Ohlman/TrueBlue.html http://diplom.org/Zine/S1998R/Ohlman/TrueBlue.html)

PhantomGremlin 11y ago

managers should be explicit about how an employee's job assignment is going to help develop his or her career That's interesting. I've had a number of managers in my career and never, not even once, has one of them espoused anything resembling such a position. It's always what can the employee do for the company, not what's mutually beneficial.

nostrademons 11y ago
I felt like most of my managers at Google tried pretty hard at this. We certainly did have conversations about what I wanted long-term within my career and how that might best be accomplished within the organization. Ultimately, I ended up deciding that what I wanted couldn't be achieved inside Google, but they certainly made the effort.
- rgbrgb 11y ago
  I had a similar experience to this at amazon. I think the nature of programming work is so murky that it makes sense to do this even if you don't care about the employee (though my managers genuinely seemed to). What I mean by murky is that similar looking amounts of work can take 2 days or 2 weeks depending on how excited the engineer is about the project. Maybe it's more common with engineering managers for this reason?
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- anonymous5789 11y ago
  At five years there, I have yet to have that conversation. 1:1s are either what I'm working on or more promises about "this will make a really strong promotion case." Namely motivation for working on whatever shit work needs doing next.
  - chrisyeh 11y ago
    Might be time to find an organization that believes in a mutual relationship, I'm afraid.
  - kmonsen 11y ago
    Some Google managers are good, some are average and a few are not good at all. Try to work for the first ones. How to do that? That is the hard part, net work and move on when you work for a bad one.
- alsetmusic 11y ago

jbapple 11y ago

> the point we make in the book is that few employees expect or want lifetime employment at a single company This might be a function of broken promotion processes. Perhaps, in a world in which employees believed that they could advance their careers by either staying at one company or moving around, we would see a significant fraction of workers who would want to have long tenures.

morgante 11y ago
In practice, it's highly inefficient to expect one company to handle all your promotions. Even if you're ready to take on a higher level of responsibility, there's absolutely no guarantee that they have a position open at that level. That's why the alliance model makes sense: you might be going elsewhere to find an open promotion, but that shouldn't imply "disloyalty."
chrisyeh 11y ago
Alas, I think you are correct. One of the people I talked with when writing the book was a young woman who worked for a financial services firm. She loved her job, loved the culture, but told me that she was going to have to leave because the only way to get a promotion was to go to another firm, then return later.

esbranson 11y ago

> Dan Lyons certainly has right to his opinions, but he shouldn't have a right to misrepresent our ideas. That's nonsense. A right to opinions that don't "misrepresent others' ideas" is essentially no right at all.

vonklaus 11y ago
i don't want to misrepresent the parent, but my take was: Don't cite my work in a narrow, out of contex way, that entirely misrepresents the body of thought I put together which ia almost entirely at odds with your message. sure, the people should be allowed to say whatever they want, but if you incorrectly attribute qoutes or ideology to someone, in my mind, you lose credibility. so sure you have a right to mistepresent others ideas but unless you have wholly original thought, if you do that, you call into question the validity of your process, all your sources, and ultimately all of your nessage that relies on non primary research/information
- chrisyeh 11y ago
  vonklaus, this is precisely how I feel. It's fine if Dan Lyons disagrees with me, but he shouldn't tell people that I'm saying something that I'm not.
  - shawn-butler 11y ago
    You think you have a right to interpret your own words? It's kind of a basic tenet of poststructuralism that a text can have multiple meanings, one of which might be intended, but none of which uniquely are compelled. If you don't want to subject your words to interpretation then don't publish. It would be one thing if author was plagiarizing or misattributing, but that doesn't really seem to be the case.
    - chrisyeh 11y ago
      Actually, what's happening is subtler. He quotes 6 words, and then makes a series of statements that could be interpreted as reflecting the ideas of our book. If he had simply said something along the lines of, "I believe that The Alliance calls for employees to show loyalty to companies, but for companies not to show loyalty to employees" (completely not true, by the way) it would be clear that he was providing his interpretation of our work. As it is, those who don't read the book will take away an impression that is exactly the opposite of what was originally intended. While words are always subject to interpretation by their audience, I object to my words by misinterpreted by another in a major publication.

T2_t2 11y ago

I don't think Dan Lyons misrepresents your ideas, but rather I think more fundamentally he doesn't share your vocabulary, worldview nor expectations. The reverse is also true, and your arguments in return don't use worldview or definitions he would understand nor recognise. The modern world seems to be a constant case of vocabulary misunderstanding, where we all say "widget", and I mean thing and you mean "an element of a UX". "Job security" is a specific example that can mean different things based on worldview. It can mean "the business will employ you no matter what you do or how bad you are" - the classic 1970s Union paradigm. "Job security" can mean "the creation of skills that will continue to have value in the market", i.e. "a law degree means you will always have job security. Or "Job security" can even mean something beyond the individual, to mean "working for a company that will survive" i.e. "working for the government provides great job security - they can never go out of business". Dan Lyons' sacking from Newsweek and the dying of traditional media shows how industry viability is in some ways more fundamental than the individual's talents to "job security". Now, which of those definitions people understand - and which definition your worldview puts front and centre - will dictate how you view a new sort of life/work manifesto. Dan Lyons idealises a world in which people worked their whole career for one company, had a slow progression of minor promotions and pay rises & retired to a gold watch they took to Florida. That reality makes me personally want to buy a chair, some rope and to Google how to tie a noose, but my view is certainly NOT universal, and I need to accept and recognise that. I would hope people would go beyond seeing this as "misrepresent our ideas", and get to bottom of the misunderstanding - to the fundamental worldview misunderstanding at the core of the disagreement. Rather than defend against a perceived attack, I think a policy of agree and amplify makes sense. Dan Lyons is correct - the world has changed and in this new reality, 50 years of depressing work for one company is over. The new world may not have a gold watch at the end of the rainbow, but it should have a much brighter and happier journey, and the a world in which employment is for a specific period, the goal changes from work hard and hope, to maximise skill development. That is the heart of "The Alliance" - an acceptance the world has changed, and making it work for you.

blazespin 11y ago
Pretty simple.. Improved productivity from this new era of employment at will should lead to wealth which provides guaranteed basic incomes.

free2rhyme214 11y ago

Chris you're right Dan misconstrues your ideas and that's disappointing. The real issue with his article is that he was lying to himself before he even joined Hubspot. I'm really surprised how shocked people are when they join startups and aren't happy. What did you expect? Hubspot is not Salesforce. Uber is not Google. DoorDash is not Groupon. The maturity of companies at different stages varies significantly. I read articles on HN every month about people who are bamboozled about startups after they start working there. These same people delude themselves about how awesome startups are. Startups are the birth of companies.In the beginning and up until you reach a certain point of market dominance, it's always hard. It's been this way for years and yet people continue to write articles about this nonsense every month...I'm really tired of it.

manigandham 11y ago
> I'm really surprised how shocked people are when they join startups and aren't happy. What did you expect? The life-stage of a company rarely has much to do with the working conditions, cult/culture weirdness or how well the business is run. There are plenty of great startups that are very solid companies that anyone would be happy to work for. Blanket hate of "startups" doesn't make much sense. Also none of the companies you mentioned are "startups" anymore either, incorrectly applying that label to every company doesn't help.
braythwayt 11y ago
> he was lying to himself > delude themselves about how awesome startups are > people continue to write articles about this nonsense every month You seem to be unrelentingly "blaming the victims." Obviously, it is to people's benefit to have the most realistic expectations possible about companies they join. But does that in any way absolve employers of making realistic representations of what employees can expect? Does that absolve people in management positions from behaving with decency and fairness? When two cars collide, sometimes both parties are at fault, "blame" is often a positive-sum game. It would be fair to hand out as much opprobrium and vituperation for the employers in these situations as the employees.
- 11y ago

incepted 11y ago

> the point we make in the book is that few employees expect or want lifetime employment at a single company Any citation about this claim? Because in my experience, it's completely incorrect. Outside of the US, lifetime employment is a heavily coveted goal, because economies outside of the US are in a terrible shape overall with unemployment rate routinely above 10%. Inside the US, except for white collar workers in major cities, long time employment remains the holy grail of most of the workforce, even though the US economy is in a pretty good shape overall. Interestingly, even though Dan Lyons technically belongs to the white collar community that is probably not interested in lifetime employment, it's pretty obvious to me that when he joined that semi-startup, his goal was a lot more to write a book about it than embracing the party line and planning a long career there. I mean... you're hiring Fake Steve Jobs and when he's out of the company, your executives try to illegally get a copy of the book with the futile hope that it won't get published... Seriously? What did you expect?

swyman 11y ago
I think it's pretty clear that we're talking about white-collar, US-based, urban workers and not about a rural Argentinian engine mechanic
- chris_wot 11y ago
  That is a total misreading of the comments you are replying to. First of all, it's not at all clear that only white collar employees are what is being referred to in that book. Secondly, the book appears to be not just targeted to the U.S. market, but globally.
openfuture 11y ago
Have you ever left the US? There is no way not wanting lifetime employment is something unique to the US, it seems far more likely that it would be connected to status than nationality (and that has been my experience for what it's worth)
- dang 11y ago

kenko 11y ago

"the point we make in the book is that few employees expect or want lifetime employment at a single company;" Expect? Of course not, anymore; you'd be a fool to expect that. Want? Well, more complicated: if it's a matter of wanting lifetime employment in the presently existing field of options, as employment and firms are presently constituted (and as firms presently look at employees), maybe not. If it's a matter of wanting to be working in the kind of regime in which lifetime employment really was more common, the answer might change. Your response to 3 is a non sequitur. And employment as a condition is certainly not a voluntary matter: think of what that would mean! (Hint: it would mean that anyone who wanted to could quit their job and not seek employment elsewhere and things would be fine. We don't live in that world.)

chrisyeh 11y ago
Two clarifications: When I say "lifetime employment at a single company," I refer to spending one's entire career at a single firm. When I say that employment is a voluntary relationship, I mean that the employer cannot compel an employee to accept a job offer, and that an employee cannot compel an employer to extend one.
- chris_wot 11y ago
  You are basically saying that all employment is for contractors with fixed start and end dates and that must be extended! That's not how permanent employment works in many parts of the world, nor is it even desirable.
  - chrisyeh 11y ago
    I have to admit that I'm primarily familiar with the US economy, where nearly all workers are "at will" employees. This means that anyone can be terminated at any time, without a reason being given.
  - sokoloff 11y ago
    My experience suggests that those permanent employment policies serve to discourage employment. As a US-based employer, I'm often puzzled/confused by some of the practices around the world. (I'm sure the converse is probably true for EU-based employers considering expanding into the US.)

mathattack 11y ago

I read his story thinking, "How is this news or a surprise to a jaded journalist?" Then I started to think he might have planned the book before the job. At that point who cares about journalistic integrity?

mathattack 11y ago

tikhonj 11y ago

Thanks for the measured response! I'll have to give your book a read because it reflects some vague ideas I've been having. It feels like having "more liquidity" in the job market could benefit both employees and employers: it would make it easier for me to find a job that's a good fit and to adjust my role as my circumstances change; similarly, it lets companies be more flexible. My theory is that this is the sort of thing that's only a problem relative to our expectations. If everybody expected people to move between jobs more often, it would have a significantly lower cost while conferring the benefits I mentioned above. Then again, I'm the sort of person who can't imagine spending 40 years climbing a hierarchy at a big corporation, so I might just be fundamentally different from the people who actively want that...

chrisyeh 11y ago
I do think that greater liquidity is beneficial to employers and employees. But one of the interesting things about The Alliance is that we believe that being open and honest about what each side is getting from the relationship should lead to longer job tenures, rather than shorter ones.

sgt101 11y ago

Fair enough to have ideas, but on 2 I'd love to know your evidence. Quite a lot of people I know fantasize about job security. Did you have any reason to believe 2 apart from personal perspectives?

coldtea 11y ago

>the point we make in the book is that few employees expect or want lifetime employment at a single company You'd be surprised.

gurkendoktor 11y ago

That sounds 100% like my job, but I'm a self-employed contractor. I see my clients as peers and we can speak openly about whether they even need me anymore. Sure as hell my clients are not my family (I hate office social dynamics). So is your book basically saying that regular employment will/should become more like self-employment?

chrisyeh 10y ago

My co-authors and I have written up a formal response, with quotes from our book to demonstrate how Dan Lyons' interpretation is 100% contradictory with the actual text of the book: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/un-disrupted-what-alliance-actually-says-employment-chris-yeh https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/un-disrupted-what-alliance-ac...