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I worked for a while for Thomson Reuters, where some years ago somebody in charge read that companies with value statements performed better than those that did

I worked for a while for Thomson Reuters, where some years ago somebody in charge read that companies with value statements performed better than those that did not. So they hired a 3rd party consultant to write down their values and they had these posted all over the walls. They also had posters of stuff like "the mood elevator" pasted up in the kitchen: https://themoodelevator.com/ https://themoodelevator.com/ Everyone I felt like I could talk to about this thought this was childish, idiotic nonsense. Do companies have thousands of childish people who take this stuff seriously and think it is great? Or does everyone have to just pretend because they don't want to get fired? I have a hard time understanding it. Anyway I left that place.

deogeo 7y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Emperor's_New_Clothes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Emperor's_New_Clothes
orclev 7y ago
It's a problem of delegation. Some executive "reads" some whitepaper (I.E. gets told about offhandedly by their buddy at the golf course), and thinks that it sounds like a great way to prove their "doing something" about moral or diversity or whatever. They then turn around and tell someone under them to "make it so", who does a tiny bit of research and then passes that off to someone under them. Eventually this arrives at someone with a clue who actually does some research and figures out this is an idiotic idea, but at that point you'd basically be telling your bosses bosses boss that he's a moron, so instead you just play along, get it done, and hope everyone forgets about it in a couple months.
radcon 7y ago
> So they hired a 3rd party consultant to write down their values and they had these posted all over the walls. My previous employer did something similar with a word they invented -- except it was really just a synonym for efficiency. The CFO got so excited that he had a bunch of posters printed out and handed out smaller versions to the supervisors. The supervisors all thought it was embarrassing but none of them had the guts to say that to the CFO. To this day they still list that fake word in all their job postings with a little blurb about what it means, completely unaware that most applicants will probably spit their coffee out laughing at the absurdity of it. I think it might even have its own page on their website too...
- pwodhouse 7y ago
  That doesn't sound very Googley.
  - raphlinus 7y ago
    I chuckled, but I have to say that the word "Googley" used to mean something when I was there. It was exemplified by, among others, Claire Stapleton, who would post incredible little stories to go along with TGIF announcements. Retaliating against her for organizing a walkout is one of the most un-Googley things you can imagine. Now that she's left, if someone uses the word "Googley" unironically, you can laugh in their face and tell them I gave you permission. ETA: I found that Claire has posted a sampling of these on her site: http://cargocollective.com/clairest/Miscellaneous http://cargocollective.com/clairest/Miscellaneous
maxxxxx 7y ago
For me any kind of motivational posters on the wall are an immediate red flag. Usually it means that things aren't going well and management can't come up with anything better than hanging up posters. Well-run companies show their values by the way they work. They don't need posters.
- brokenmachine 7y ago
  My company sends emails about online surveys. The surveys are thankfully anonymous. I know these useless surveys will never have any effect, and you never hear about any results or changes that have happened because of the surveys. There are only checkboxes for "mildly agree", "agree", etc. But there is usually a tiny "other comments" box. So I usually write long diatribes about all the company's failings in that tiny "other comments" box. At least I'm getting paid while filling them out, but they must be wondering who the disgruntled truth-sayer is, since I'm sure not many in the company actually bother to do the surveys. The only reason I know not many actually bother to do the surveys is because they do release stats on that, and encourage people to do them - I imagine it's some kind of Executive KPI for worker engagement or some such bullshit.
pixl97 7y ago
>I worked for a while for Thomson Reuters I'm sorry, have you recovered? Dealing with their accounting/auditing software is not good for ones health.
- gameswithgo 7y ago
  it was brief. we got bought, laid off, good severance!
BryantD 7y ago
Values work really well if the company is actually serious about them. Having a third party consultant write down your values is usually an indication that you're not too serious about it. Amazon's values work because management is deadly serious about implementing them. You may not enjoy working at a company organized around those values, but they keep the majority of people focused where Bezos wants them focused. Apple has a very different set of values; still works. Ditto Google. At companies under a certain size, you don't need to write down your values to make sure everyone knows what they are. One of the common causes of growth failure is forgetting to keep an eye on your values as you grow, and then all of a sudden half the new engineers don't seem to understand why you need to keep latency as low as possible. Here's an interviewing tip. If the company you're interviewing at has core values, ask how they apply to the team you're looking at. Bonus points if it's a core value that doesn't seem to apply -- maybe something about product if you're interviewing for a datacenter job, say. If the answer is weak, the company might have lost track of how it wants to do business.
c3534l 7y ago
> So they hired a 3rd party consultant to write down their values and they had these posted all over the walls. That sounds like a pretty big statement of the company's values, regardless of what they actually said.

deogeo 7y ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Emperor's_New_Clothes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Emperor's_New_Clothes

orclev 7y ago

It's a problem of delegation. Some executive "reads" some whitepaper (I.E. gets told about offhandedly by their buddy at the golf course), and thinks that it sounds like a great way to prove their "doing something" about moral or diversity or whatever. They then turn around and tell someone under them to "make it so", who does a tiny bit of research and then passes that off to someone under them. Eventually this arrives at someone with a clue who actually does some research and figures out this is an idiotic idea, but at that point you'd basically be telling your bosses bosses boss that he's a moron, so instead you just play along, get it done, and hope everyone forgets about it in a couple months.

radcon 7y ago

> So they hired a 3rd party consultant to write down their values and they had these posted all over the walls. My previous employer did something similar with a word they invented -- except it was really just a synonym for efficiency. The CFO got so excited that he had a bunch of posters printed out and handed out smaller versions to the supervisors. The supervisors all thought it was embarrassing but none of them had the guts to say that to the CFO. To this day they still list that fake word in all their job postings with a little blurb about what it means, completely unaware that most applicants will probably spit their coffee out laughing at the absurdity of it. I think it might even have its own page on their website too...

pwodhouse 7y ago
That doesn't sound very Googley.
- raphlinus 7y ago
  I chuckled, but I have to say that the word "Googley" used to mean something when I was there. It was exemplified by, among others, Claire Stapleton, who would post incredible little stories to go along with TGIF announcements. Retaliating against her for organizing a walkout is one of the most un-Googley things you can imagine. Now that she's left, if someone uses the word "Googley" unironically, you can laugh in their face and tell them I gave you permission. ETA: I found that Claire has posted a sampling of these on her site: http://cargocollective.com/clairest/Miscellaneous http://cargocollective.com/clairest/Miscellaneous

maxxxxx 7y ago

For me any kind of motivational posters on the wall are an immediate red flag. Usually it means that things aren't going well and management can't come up with anything better than hanging up posters. Well-run companies show their values by the way they work. They don't need posters.

brokenmachine 7y ago
My company sends emails about online surveys. The surveys are thankfully anonymous. I know these useless surveys will never have any effect, and you never hear about any results or changes that have happened because of the surveys. There are only checkboxes for "mildly agree", "agree", etc. But there is usually a tiny "other comments" box. So I usually write long diatribes about all the company's failings in that tiny "other comments" box. At least I'm getting paid while filling them out, but they must be wondering who the disgruntled truth-sayer is, since I'm sure not many in the company actually bother to do the surveys. The only reason I know not many actually bother to do the surveys is because they do release stats on that, and encourage people to do them - I imagine it's some kind of Executive KPI for worker engagement or some such bullshit.

pixl97 7y ago

>I worked for a while for Thomson Reuters I'm sorry, have you recovered? Dealing with their accounting/auditing software is not good for ones health.

gameswithgo 7y ago
it was brief. we got bought, laid off, good severance!

BryantD 7y ago

Values work really well if the company is actually serious about them. Having a third party consultant write down your values is usually an indication that you're not too serious about it. Amazon's values work because management is deadly serious about implementing them. You may not enjoy working at a company organized around those values, but they keep the majority of people focused where Bezos wants them focused. Apple has a very different set of values; still works. Ditto Google. At companies under a certain size, you don't need to write down your values to make sure everyone knows what they are. One of the common causes of growth failure is forgetting to keep an eye on your values as you grow, and then all of a sudden half the new engineers don't seem to understand why you need to keep latency as low as possible. Here's an interviewing tip. If the company you're interviewing at has core values, ask how they apply to the team you're looking at. Bonus points if it's a core value that doesn't seem to apply -- maybe something about product if you're interviewing for a datacenter job, say. If the answer is weak, the company might have lost track of how it wants to do business.

c3534l 7y ago

> So they hired a 3rd party consultant to write down their values and they had these posted all over the walls. That sounds like a pretty big statement of the company's values, regardless of what they actually said.