4 ms·

It's interesting to note that despite the "toxic culture", Mari was protected because she was getting the job done, and done well. In her mind, she must have th

by whack 8y ago

It's interesting to note that despite the "toxic culture", Mari was protected because she was getting the job done, and done well. In her mind, she must have thought that her harsh methods were necessary in order to achieve the desired results. This almost seems analogous to the armed forces, where recruits are subjected to all forms of screaming, yelling and demeaning comments. I would never want to be in such an environment, but clearly, they are doing it because they believe that it works. Do we think that the Marines should be pressured into not yelling at recruits? If not, shouldn't other organizations be given the same latitude if they genuinely think it works best?

germinalphrase 8y ago
The Marines have a system and rules with specific intentions behind how they treat their recruits. It's not at all analogous.
afarrell 8y ago
1) I think that organizations whose normal mode of operations includes physically dominating others and violating their bodily autonomy are a different enough case that my intuition is that you'd probably not want to apply the same reasoning. If we were having a conversation about the cultures of police or prison guards, I think this would be a productive analogy to start working from. 2) "They're doing it because they believe that it works" implies a certain deliberateness and design. Having spoken with a few USMC recruiters back when I was a teenager, I'm very inclined to believe that they've put a lot of thought into this and that there is a fair amount written about how they use these harsh methods to solve the problems like "How do we give people from a wide range of social backgrounds the mental toughness to be able to do trigonometry in their heads while mortars are going off near them?" This is quite different from refusing to deal with one employee who has a habit of randomly screaming at people about accounts receivable issues.
- whack 8y ago
  1) This seems like a very arbitrary distinction. Is there any hard evidence that yelling is only effective in training people to "physically dominate others"? In the absence of such evidence, we should default towards consistency 2) Your point here is that it's ok to engage in yelling if the decision was made "deliberately" and "by design"? I don't think we as a society should be micromanaging the internal working of a private organisation to that extent. We should be regulating organizations by their behaviors and outcomes, not their thought processes. Lest anyone misunderstands me, I certainly do not advocate for yelling and belittling behavior. I don't think it makes for a productive workplace, and I would never want to work in one. But I do think there's an inconsistency wrt the wide latitude we give the armed forces. To the extent that such inconsistency is acceptable, I'm curious as to why. Edit: Another example that just came to my mind, was many athletic coaches in sports like soccer. Specifically, the "greatest football manager ever", Alex Ferguson. https://www.givemesport.com/1251440-sir-alex-ferguson-used-to-shout-at-rooney-when-he-really-wanted-to-shout-at-nani https://www.givemesport.com/1251440-sir-alex-ferguson-used-t... https://www.telegraph.co.uk/football/2016/01/29/how-cristiano-ronaldo-was-reduced-to-tears-by-sir-alex-ferguson/ https://www.telegraph.co.uk/football/2016/01/29/how-cristian...
  - wolco 8y ago
    The basic training that lasts a few weeks that involves yelling, breaking down a person only to rebuild them stronger by the end could be looked at as filtering and weeding out those who would not work well under those conditions. This is part of the interview process. Once basic training is over most move into positions without yelling. In this case yelling was used to belittle everyone and secure more power. If you break someone down but never build them back up you have crushed people. If we still want to turn people into killing machines than yelling is a tool to help that process.
    - xtian 8y ago
      > The basic training that lasts a few weeks “a few months” would be more accurate
  - xtian 8y ago
    > But I do think there's an inconsistency wrt the wide latitude we give the armed forces. To the extent that such inconsistency is acceptable, I'm curious as to why. The armed forces are specifically looking to replace any creative or independent thinking with responsiveness to the chain of command and willingness to commit acts of violence. Those are exceptional requirements which are generally in direct conflict with the productive functioning of any other organization. I do think it’s worth inquiring into why we’ve created a society which necessitates such broad-scale weaponization of human beings, however.
    - ModernMech 8y ago
      > responsiveness to the chain of command and willingness to commit acts of violence There is even a term for it: Followership. Something I had never even heard of until I looked into joining ROTC, and realized they weren't looking for future leaders, but robots they could program.
- xstartup 8y ago
  There is opportunity cost as well. What if you don't it then a new startup comes, starts doing it and soon they run your business and become an enormous success. Soon, you end up selling your business and your employees are left jobless. One problem with employees is that they think that the business is going to keep afloat no matter what.
geofft 8y ago
How do you measure that it works? Is there another Armed Forces without the screaming but with a comparable budget that we regularly engage in war games with and regularly win against? I think "it works" is often indistinguishable from "we've always done it that way," especially for organizations like the US military that have the budget and entrenched status that it's hard to imagine the organization suddenly not working. Maybe the thing you're doing is irrelevant and you might as well stop. Maybe you'd do better if you stopped. But you have no way of knowing.
- MikkoFinell 8y ago
  The military only has one goal, and that is to be as effective as possible. You can bet your house they have experimented with different modes of creating discipline. Also the screaming happens mainly in basic training, as far as I understand.
jakelazaroff 8y ago
Framing a bullying and demeaning (and sexually harassing) environment in terms of effectiveness is optimizing for the wrong thing. We should be creating spaces that make people happy, with productivity as a secondary goal. It's a bit like measuring chattel slavery by its economic output. The vastly more important issue — whether people would be able to own other people — is entirely orthogonal. With regard to the armed forces analogy, consider too the difference in situations one is likely to encounter as a member of the military as opposed to a SV non-profit.
- xstartup 8y ago
  But does not doing wrong, prevents you from going out of business? What if you desperately need to sign a sketchy deal which helps you keep your business afloat and if you try finding some better way which does not exist, you end up losing your business. I think what's good in market differs from what is good in general. Those two are a different thing, you might want the market to accept your "good behavior" as default but that won't make it more profitable by default.
  - jakelazaroff 8y ago
    Businesses don't have a right to exist. If you need to do something unethical in order to keep your business afloat, maybe it deserves to go under? Granted, the proprietors of said business may not see it that way… but no one commenting on this article is representing the Silicon Valley Community Foundation. As consumers (or, in this case, donors) we should hold businesses to a standard of absolute good. The market incentive to be ethical only exists if we create it.
adrianmonk 8y ago
I wouldn't assume it has any connection to being effective. Oftentimes people have horrible flaws but are tolerated if they bring enough value to the organization to offset it. Not only that, the more they clue in that they are operating in a consequence-free environment, the more pronounced their flaws become. Not only are the disincentives for bad behavior removed, but it also may feed their ego: every time they get away with something others wouldn't, it is like the organization is confirming how exceptional they are in other ways.

by whack 8y ago

germinalphrase 8y ago

The Marines have a system and rules with specific intentions behind how they treat their recruits. It's not at all analogous.

afarrell 8y ago

1) I think that organizations whose normal mode of operations includes physically dominating others and violating their bodily autonomy are a different enough case that my intuition is that you'd probably not want to apply the same reasoning. If we were having a conversation about the cultures of police or prison guards, I think this would be a productive analogy to start working from. 2) "They're doing it because they believe that it works" implies a certain deliberateness and design. Having spoken with a few USMC recruiters back when I was a teenager, I'm very inclined to believe that they've put a lot of thought into this and that there is a fair amount written about how they use these harsh methods to solve the problems like "How do we give people from a wide range of social backgrounds the mental toughness to be able to do trigonometry in their heads while mortars are going off near them?" This is quite different from refusing to deal with one employee who has a habit of randomly screaming at people about accounts receivable issues.

whack 8y ago
1) This seems like a very arbitrary distinction. Is there any hard evidence that yelling is only effective in training people to "physically dominate others"? In the absence of such evidence, we should default towards consistency 2) Your point here is that it's ok to engage in yelling if the decision was made "deliberately" and "by design"? I don't think we as a society should be micromanaging the internal working of a private organisation to that extent. We should be regulating organizations by their behaviors and outcomes, not their thought processes. Lest anyone misunderstands me, I certainly do not advocate for yelling and belittling behavior. I don't think it makes for a productive workplace, and I would never want to work in one. But I do think there's an inconsistency wrt the wide latitude we give the armed forces. To the extent that such inconsistency is acceptable, I'm curious as to why. Edit: Another example that just came to my mind, was many athletic coaches in sports like soccer. Specifically, the "greatest football manager ever", Alex Ferguson. https://www.givemesport.com/1251440-sir-alex-ferguson-used-to-shout-at-rooney-when-he-really-wanted-to-shout-at-nani https://www.givemesport.com/1251440-sir-alex-ferguson-used-t... https://www.telegraph.co.uk/football/2016/01/29/how-cristiano-ronaldo-was-reduced-to-tears-by-sir-alex-ferguson/ https://www.telegraph.co.uk/football/2016/01/29/how-cristian...
- wolco 8y ago
  The basic training that lasts a few weeks that involves yelling, breaking down a person only to rebuild them stronger by the end could be looked at as filtering and weeding out those who would not work well under those conditions. This is part of the interview process. Once basic training is over most move into positions without yelling. In this case yelling was used to belittle everyone and secure more power. If you break someone down but never build them back up you have crushed people. If we still want to turn people into killing machines than yelling is a tool to help that process.
  - xtian 8y ago
    > The basic training that lasts a few weeks “a few months” would be more accurate
- xtian 8y ago
  > But I do think there's an inconsistency wrt the wide latitude we give the armed forces. To the extent that such inconsistency is acceptable, I'm curious as to why. The armed forces are specifically looking to replace any creative or independent thinking with responsiveness to the chain of command and willingness to commit acts of violence. Those are exceptional requirements which are generally in direct conflict with the productive functioning of any other organization. I do think it’s worth inquiring into why we’ve created a society which necessitates such broad-scale weaponization of human beings, however.
  - ModernMech 8y ago
    > responsiveness to the chain of command and willingness to commit acts of violence There is even a term for it: Followership. Something I had never even heard of until I looked into joining ROTC, and realized they weren't looking for future leaders, but robots they could program.
xstartup 8y ago
There is opportunity cost as well. What if you don't it then a new startup comes, starts doing it and soon they run your business and become an enormous success. Soon, you end up selling your business and your employees are left jobless. One problem with employees is that they think that the business is going to keep afloat no matter what.

geofft 8y ago

How do you measure that it works? Is there another Armed Forces without the screaming but with a comparable budget that we regularly engage in war games with and regularly win against? I think "it works" is often indistinguishable from "we've always done it that way," especially for organizations like the US military that have the budget and entrenched status that it's hard to imagine the organization suddenly not working. Maybe the thing you're doing is irrelevant and you might as well stop. Maybe you'd do better if you stopped. But you have no way of knowing.

MikkoFinell 8y ago
The military only has one goal, and that is to be as effective as possible. You can bet your house they have experimented with different modes of creating discipline. Also the screaming happens mainly in basic training, as far as I understand.

jakelazaroff 8y ago

Framing a bullying and demeaning (and sexually harassing) environment in terms of effectiveness is optimizing for the wrong thing. We should be creating spaces that make people happy, with productivity as a secondary goal. It's a bit like measuring chattel slavery by its economic output. The vastly more important issue — whether people would be able to own other people — is entirely orthogonal. With regard to the armed forces analogy, consider too the difference in situations one is likely to encounter as a member of the military as opposed to a SV non-profit.

xstartup 8y ago
But does not doing wrong, prevents you from going out of business? What if you desperately need to sign a sketchy deal which helps you keep your business afloat and if you try finding some better way which does not exist, you end up losing your business. I think what's good in market differs from what is good in general. Those two are a different thing, you might want the market to accept your "good behavior" as default but that won't make it more profitable by default.
- jakelazaroff 8y ago
  Businesses don't have a right to exist. If you need to do something unethical in order to keep your business afloat, maybe it deserves to go under? Granted, the proprietors of said business may not see it that way… but no one commenting on this article is representing the Silicon Valley Community Foundation. As consumers (or, in this case, donors) we should hold businesses to a standard of absolute good. The market incentive to be ethical only exists if we create it.

adrianmonk 8y ago

I wouldn't assume it has any connection to being effective. Oftentimes people have horrible flaws but are tolerated if they bring enough value to the organization to offset it. Not only that, the more they clue in that they are operating in a consequence-free environment, the more pronounced their flaws become. Not only are the disincentives for bad behavior removed, but it also may feed their ego: every time they get away with something others wouldn't, it is like the organization is confirming how exceptional they are in other ways.