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Honestly this is a pretty naive view of management. The moral solution is to do what's best for the team. It's also not ethical to keep someone due to their dem

Honestly this is a pretty naive view of management. The moral solution is to do what's best for the team. It's also not ethical to keep someone due to their demographics. If someone is performing well, you keep them if you can afford them (and reward them well!). If they're not doing good, you let them go. That's the same if the employee is 21 or 51. Game theory plays a huge role in successful operations. Even from a ethical perspective, it's bad to make everyone suffer (or lose their jobs) just to save one poorly performing person. > The best managers are the ones who take underperformers and make them great. In my experience (successfully managing a large amount of people) you can't really turn around underperformers in most cases and expending the energy to do so is harmful to the rest of the team. You should focus on your best employees and let the underperformers go asap. As an IC I also appreciate this strategy as I strive to be a top performer.

crimsonalucard 7y ago
>Honestly this is a pretty naive view of management. The moral solution is to do what's best for the team. It's also not ethical to keep someone due to their demographics. Not saying use their demographics as a metric to keep them. I'm using that as an empathetic example of the potential damage you are inflicting when you let someone go. Obviously that blew right over your head as if you're some psychopathic robot. >Game theory plays a huge role in successful operations. Even from a ethical perspective, it's bad to make everyone suffer (or lose their jobs) just to save one poorly performing person. Who the heck calls management a process out of game theory? Sure let one person go to save others but this is not the case I'm talking about nor was it the case you were talking about previously. We were talking about efficiency. Letting someone go for efficiency reasons without giving him a chance to improve is not ethical at all. You should note that people of your rank often don't play fair. They let people go if they perceive a threat to their rank or if they have personal problems with an employee. Measures must be put in place to protect employee livelihood from gross misuse of power. Additionally in most cases keeping an underperformer does not actually harm the team. they're salaries don't change whether you fire or keep the underperformer. The only thing that changes is your budget. Of course as I said before if your company is doing so poorly that you have to lay people off, do it, but until then they all deserve a shot at improvement. > As an IC I also appreciate this strategy as I strive to be a top performer. Your language displays a severe lack of empathy. "As an IC." As a top performing software engineer, I would never ever want to work for someone with your attitude. One day you'll eat your own medicine.
- malvosenior 7y ago
  This is an overly rude and personal reply, but I'll respond anyway. Efficiency is important to the survival of a company. You're not taking an organizational view of the situation. If you're inefficient, your competitors will eat your lunch and the whole company will be looking for new jobs. It happens all the time. You have to run the organization in the most efficient state that you can. It's the only ethical thing to do (it's also your job description as a manager). > Additionally in most cases keeping an underperformer does not actually harm the team. they're salaries don't change whether you fire or keep the underperformer. The only thing that changes is your budget. You're grossly underestimating the cost of keeping someone who's not very productive employed. People get paid out of that budget, it's not for the manager to pocket themselves. If I can repurpose that salary to someone who works hard and performs well I'll do it every time because it's what's fair to that individual, the rest of the team and the company at large. > One day you'll eat your own medicine. The key to success is understanding the real mechanics behind business. It's not personal, it's just the reality of living in a world with limited resources and competition.
  - crimsonalucard 7y ago
    >This is an overly rude and personal reply, but I'll respond anyway. Rude? Did you not think calling my view of management naive in your first line rude? Here's a better way to start your first line: "I understand your opinions, but I disagree, here's why." After your little declaration of my opinion "naive" of course the following reply would be rude. Not being able to see that indicates to me that your management skills are naive. Maybe operationally you perform, but I highly doubt people under you would call you a good leader. Maybe I'm wrong. Throw out an anonymous survey and see how much people like working for you. >Efficiency is important to the survival of a company. You're not taking an organizational view of the situation. If you're inefficient, your competitors will eat your lunch and the whole company will be looking for new jobs. It happens all the time. You have to run the organization in the most efficient state that you can. It's the only ethical thing to do (it's also your job description as a manager). Of course it's important. Slave labor is possibly the most efficient form of managing people with limited resources. But of course nobody does this anymore because it's not ethical. A company and economy can survive, function and compete with certain inefficiencies and these inefficiencies are already required by law. We are humans, not computers, life isn't just about game theory. Studies on economics and many other things show that humans don't behave according to that theory. If you behave that way, the studies indicate that you are outside of the norm. >You're grossly underestimating the cost of keeping someone who's not very productive employed. People get paid out of that budget, it's not for the manager to pocket themselves. If I can repurpose that salary to someone who works hard and performs well I'll do it every time because it's what's fair to that individual, the rest of the team and the company at large. I am not underestimating anything. It varies by situation. Many, Many companies operate at rates of inefficiencies that are incredibly higher than your process of immediately canning all underperformers AND these companies survive. There are tons of examples in society. I mean the military, any company with a Union... come on. Also I never said the budget is for you to pocket yourself. However it does make you look good from a political perspective to lower your financial expenses and increase performance at the expense of your employees. That being said I am not advocating military levels of inefficiency. We aren't out to build an F-35. I am advocating enough inefficiency to protect people and give them time to search for another job, or give them time to improve. Even top performers suffer from burnout, are you going to fire a top performer due to that? In the long term terminating a top performer because of burnout is inefficient, the efficient and ethical solution here is to give him work at a rate where he won't burn out. >The key to success is understanding the real mechanics behind business. It's not personal, it's just the reality of living in a world with limited resources and competition. There are more than enough resources in the world for humans to act ethically. Your abilities will degrade with time and will eventually reach a point where you'd be a resource drain to the economy. This is true of all people as they get older. The ethical thing to do would be to care for these older people, the efficient thing to do is to exterminate them, but we don't do that and the united states is still the country with the highest performing GDP. There is room for ethics, business and success to happen side by side. Whether or not you'll eat your own medicine depends on the people who manage you... if they learned from and act as you do, you'll be eating it eventually.

crimsonalucard 7y ago

>Honestly this is a pretty naive view of management. The moral solution is to do what's best for the team. It's also not ethical to keep someone due to their demographics. Not saying use their demographics as a metric to keep them. I'm using that as an empathetic example of the potential damage you are inflicting when you let someone go. Obviously that blew right over your head as if you're some psychopathic robot. >Game theory plays a huge role in successful operations. Even from a ethical perspective, it's bad to make everyone suffer (or lose their jobs) just to save one poorly performing person. Who the heck calls management a process out of game theory? Sure let one person go to save others but this is not the case I'm talking about nor was it the case you were talking about previously. We were talking about efficiency. Letting someone go for efficiency reasons without giving him a chance to improve is not ethical at all. You should note that people of your rank often don't play fair. They let people go if they perceive a threat to their rank or if they have personal problems with an employee. Measures must be put in place to protect employee livelihood from gross misuse of power. Additionally in most cases keeping an underperformer does not actually harm the team. they're salaries don't change whether you fire or keep the underperformer. The only thing that changes is your budget. Of course as I said before if your company is doing so poorly that you have to lay people off, do it, but until then they all deserve a shot at improvement. > As an IC I also appreciate this strategy as I strive to be a top performer. Your language displays a severe lack of empathy. "As an IC." As a top performing software engineer, I would never ever want to work for someone with your attitude. One day you'll eat your own medicine.

malvosenior 7y ago
This is an overly rude and personal reply, but I'll respond anyway. Efficiency is important to the survival of a company. You're not taking an organizational view of the situation. If you're inefficient, your competitors will eat your lunch and the whole company will be looking for new jobs. It happens all the time. You have to run the organization in the most efficient state that you can. It's the only ethical thing to do (it's also your job description as a manager). > Additionally in most cases keeping an underperformer does not actually harm the team. they're salaries don't change whether you fire or keep the underperformer. The only thing that changes is your budget. You're grossly underestimating the cost of keeping someone who's not very productive employed. People get paid out of that budget, it's not for the manager to pocket themselves. If I can repurpose that salary to someone who works hard and performs well I'll do it every time because it's what's fair to that individual, the rest of the team and the company at large. > One day you'll eat your own medicine. The key to success is understanding the real mechanics behind business. It's not personal, it's just the reality of living in a world with limited resources and competition.
- crimsonalucard 7y ago
  >This is an overly rude and personal reply, but I'll respond anyway. Rude? Did you not think calling my view of management naive in your first line rude? Here's a better way to start your first line: "I understand your opinions, but I disagree, here's why." After your little declaration of my opinion "naive" of course the following reply would be rude. Not being able to see that indicates to me that your management skills are naive. Maybe operationally you perform, but I highly doubt people under you would call you a good leader. Maybe I'm wrong. Throw out an anonymous survey and see how much people like working for you. >Efficiency is important to the survival of a company. You're not taking an organizational view of the situation. If you're inefficient, your competitors will eat your lunch and the whole company will be looking for new jobs. It happens all the time. You have to run the organization in the most efficient state that you can. It's the only ethical thing to do (it's also your job description as a manager). Of course it's important. Slave labor is possibly the most efficient form of managing people with limited resources. But of course nobody does this anymore because it's not ethical. A company and economy can survive, function and compete with certain inefficiencies and these inefficiencies are already required by law. We are humans, not computers, life isn't just about game theory. Studies on economics and many other things show that humans don't behave according to that theory. If you behave that way, the studies indicate that you are outside of the norm. >You're grossly underestimating the cost of keeping someone who's not very productive employed. People get paid out of that budget, it's not for the manager to pocket themselves. If I can repurpose that salary to someone who works hard and performs well I'll do it every time because it's what's fair to that individual, the rest of the team and the company at large. I am not underestimating anything. It varies by situation. Many, Many companies operate at rates of inefficiencies that are incredibly higher than your process of immediately canning all underperformers AND these companies survive. There are tons of examples in society. I mean the military, any company with a Union... come on. Also I never said the budget is for you to pocket yourself. However it does make you look good from a political perspective to lower your financial expenses and increase performance at the expense of your employees. That being said I am not advocating military levels of inefficiency. We aren't out to build an F-35. I am advocating enough inefficiency to protect people and give them time to search for another job, or give them time to improve. Even top performers suffer from burnout, are you going to fire a top performer due to that? In the long term terminating a top performer because of burnout is inefficient, the efficient and ethical solution here is to give him work at a rate where he won't burn out. >The key to success is understanding the real mechanics behind business. It's not personal, it's just the reality of living in a world with limited resources and competition. There are more than enough resources in the world for humans to act ethically. Your abilities will degrade with time and will eventually reach a point where you'd be a resource drain to the economy. This is true of all people as they get older. The ethical thing to do would be to care for these older people, the efficient thing to do is to exterminate them, but we don't do that and the united states is still the country with the highest performing GDP. There is room for ethics, business and success to happen side by side. Whether or not you'll eat your own medicine depends on the people who manage you... if they learned from and act as you do, you'll be eating it eventually.