4 ms·

> Faced with a rule-driven culture, the best employees ... are usually the first to go, because they’re in high demand and have more opportunity than most. What

> Faced with a rule-driven culture, the best employees ... are usually the first to go, because they’re in high demand and have more opportunity than most. What’s left is a pool of people who are mediocre at what they do ... And that is when I stop reading any article. EDIT: She's stating rules in the workplace make good employees leave and only mediocre employees remain. The term BS automatically applies here.

pjc50 8y ago
Why?
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- Tor3 8y ago
  Indeed, why? I've seen exactly that. Stupid rules coming up, extremely performing employees leaving or making it clear that unless that's revoked they'll leave.
  - pjc50 8y ago
    My favourite example of this was when one company tried to issue all the devs with new contracts with the "standard" IP clauses claiming ownership of everything we did. Since there were a number of Free Software devs on the team, this was unacceptable ... so, while asking for clarification and a change, we simply didn't sign the new contracts. There was no way the company could have taken action against us without completely wrecking their ability to ship, so it stalemated until they backed down.
    - philpem 8y ago
      These are usually the first clauses I query ;) This works pretty well as a response: "Okay so I maintain some open-source stuff, it's all on Github. I appreciate you want to maintain your IP, and I agree to give you first-refusal on anything new before I make it public, and stay out of any market where the company has an interest." This is usually enough to swing things from "we own everything" to "we own everything you make on work time, unless it intersects with one of our products".
philpem 8y ago
Excessive check-box rulemaking certainly does. Clean-desk policies, bans on "personal items" (want a photo of your family on your desk? nope), strict uniform policies ("failure to wear the company polo shirt AND jumper, even if it's 30C, will result in dismissal")... Individually the rules don't mean much. But when they're added together -- and especially if they're changed (removing 'dress-down Fridays', say) can end up creating a bit of a "death by a thousand papercuts" scenario. Because really, who's harmed by someone putting a photo of their wife and kid on their desk? Or a quiet little office toy (a stress ball maybe?) they were given at a trade show? But easily the biggest way you can show that you don't trust your employees is to pretend to listen to their concerns and suggestions for improving the workplace, only to laugh at them and dismiss them. That type of treatment is just about guaranteed to lose you good people. Let your staff work on their own initiative, foster their creativity, and they'll produce magic. And when they're slipping a bit - have a polite, private conversation, away from the eyes of the madding crowd and office gossipers, and ask how you (As a manager) or the company can help them. TL/DR: Treat your staff like adults.
rootlocus 8y ago
Some rules are good, some rules are bad. Too many bad rules result in people with the possibility of leaving to leave. The better an employee is, the more possibilities it has to leave. In conclusion, given a company with enough bad rules, good people will leave. I don't see a problem with this premise. You can argue about which rules are good, and which rules are bad, but to skip the entire article (and brag about doing it) is shortsighted.
lllr_finger 8y ago
I think she was close to figuring out what can happen, but missed the mark. Great developers leaving are your canaries, and the Dead Sea Effect is a real thing. So what do rules and processes have to do with this? I'm currently happiest at my job that is the most "enterprisey" and has more rules. I can't wear shorts or sandals to work, which perpetually irritates me. I can't run the OS I want at work, and I have a hard time getting simple things like a decently sized monitor because of esoteric rules. A lot of these rules are dumb, and sound like the ones in the article, but I'm planning on staying for as long as I'm challenged and having fun. Our team runs kanban instead of scrum/sprints, and we're constantly asking to use non-approved technologies (where appropriate) in a traditionally Java-based company. We have individual and team agency, and there is an implied trust that we will prioritize accordingly, get things done, and make good technology decisions. I would gladly deal with a dozen other dumb rules as long as I'm able to hold onto the above, as interesting work and agency to solve it in creative ways is the number one thing I'm looking for. Contrast that with some of the other places I've worked. I used to be able to drink beer at work, we could have dogs in the office, I had more vacation time, free beverages and snacks, etc. All those things are nice perks, but they came tethered with what I consider the detestable processes that the article glosses over. Any process related to productivity is designed to set a bar which will bring up your lower performing individuals. This bar will drag down your good developers - that is what makes good developers leave. Knowing how to fix problems and being unable to do anything about it while stuck in an endless barrage of sprint planning, sprint retros, forced demos, velocity tracking, etc. is not fun. Forced consensus on any decisions is like pulling teeth and people end up afraid to contribute or have a dissenting opinion. The people that are OK with the productivity bar are the ones that stick around for 15 years and become "indispensable" because they know where the bodies are hidden. Anyone good that joins the company probably won't last more than 18 months. I apologize for the long rant, but it's been a topic I've spent a great deal thinking about in the last 2 years after trying (and eventually succeeding) to find a good place to work.
- philpem 8y ago
  This is the first time I've heard of the Dead Sea Effect, I just had to look it up. Thanks for the informative post, it explains a lot about "churn" in a few organisations I've worked for in the past.

pjc50 8y ago

Why?

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
Tor3 8y ago
Indeed, why? I've seen exactly that. Stupid rules coming up, extremely performing employees leaving or making it clear that unless that's revoked they'll leave.
- pjc50 8y ago
  My favourite example of this was when one company tried to issue all the devs with new contracts with the "standard" IP clauses claiming ownership of everything we did. Since there were a number of Free Software devs on the team, this was unacceptable ... so, while asking for clarification and a change, we simply didn't sign the new contracts. There was no way the company could have taken action against us without completely wrecking their ability to ship, so it stalemated until they backed down.
  - philpem 8y ago
    These are usually the first clauses I query ;) This works pretty well as a response: "Okay so I maintain some open-source stuff, it's all on Github. I appreciate you want to maintain your IP, and I agree to give you first-refusal on anything new before I make it public, and stay out of any market where the company has an interest." This is usually enough to swing things from "we own everything" to "we own everything you make on work time, unless it intersects with one of our products".

philpem 8y ago

Excessive check-box rulemaking certainly does. Clean-desk policies, bans on "personal items" (want a photo of your family on your desk? nope), strict uniform policies ("failure to wear the company polo shirt AND jumper, even if it's 30C, will result in dismissal")... Individually the rules don't mean much. But when they're added together -- and especially if they're changed (removing 'dress-down Fridays', say) can end up creating a bit of a "death by a thousand papercuts" scenario. Because really, who's harmed by someone putting a photo of their wife and kid on their desk? Or a quiet little office toy (a stress ball maybe?) they were given at a trade show? But easily the biggest way you can show that you don't trust your employees is to pretend to listen to their concerns and suggestions for improving the workplace, only to laugh at them and dismiss them. That type of treatment is just about guaranteed to lose you good people. Let your staff work on their own initiative, foster their creativity, and they'll produce magic. And when they're slipping a bit - have a polite, private conversation, away from the eyes of the madding crowd and office gossipers, and ask how you (As a manager) or the company can help them. TL/DR: Treat your staff like adults.

rootlocus 8y ago

Some rules are good, some rules are bad. Too many bad rules result in people with the possibility of leaving to leave. The better an employee is, the more possibilities it has to leave. In conclusion, given a company with enough bad rules, good people will leave. I don't see a problem with this premise. You can argue about which rules are good, and which rules are bad, but to skip the entire article (and brag about doing it) is shortsighted.

lllr_finger 8y ago

I think she was close to figuring out what can happen, but missed the mark. Great developers leaving are your canaries, and the Dead Sea Effect is a real thing. So what do rules and processes have to do with this? I'm currently happiest at my job that is the most "enterprisey" and has more rules. I can't wear shorts or sandals to work, which perpetually irritates me. I can't run the OS I want at work, and I have a hard time getting simple things like a decently sized monitor because of esoteric rules. A lot of these rules are dumb, and sound like the ones in the article, but I'm planning on staying for as long as I'm challenged and having fun. Our team runs kanban instead of scrum/sprints, and we're constantly asking to use non-approved technologies (where appropriate) in a traditionally Java-based company. We have individual and team agency, and there is an implied trust that we will prioritize accordingly, get things done, and make good technology decisions. I would gladly deal with a dozen other dumb rules as long as I'm able to hold onto the above, as interesting work and agency to solve it in creative ways is the number one thing I'm looking for. Contrast that with some of the other places I've worked. I used to be able to drink beer at work, we could have dogs in the office, I had more vacation time, free beverages and snacks, etc. All those things are nice perks, but they came tethered with what I consider the detestable processes that the article glosses over. Any process related to productivity is designed to set a bar which will bring up your lower performing individuals. This bar will drag down your good developers - that is what makes good developers leave. Knowing how to fix problems and being unable to do anything about it while stuck in an endless barrage of sprint planning, sprint retros, forced demos, velocity tracking, etc. is not fun. Forced consensus on any decisions is like pulling teeth and people end up afraid to contribute or have a dissenting opinion. The people that are OK with the productivity bar are the ones that stick around for 15 years and become "indispensable" because they know where the bodies are hidden. Anyone good that joins the company probably won't last more than 18 months. I apologize for the long rant, but it's been a topic I've spent a great deal thinking about in the last 2 years after trying (and eventually succeeding) to find a good place to work.

philpem 8y ago
This is the first time I've heard of the Dead Sea Effect, I just had to look it up. Thanks for the informative post, it explains a lot about "churn" in a few organisations I've worked for in the past.