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Once upon a time I received quite a lot of well-meaning advice on dealing with organizational difficulties, "deal with the process, not the people," and so on.

Once upon a time I received quite a lot of well-meaning advice on dealing with organizational difficulties, "deal with the process, not the people," and so on. I was told that I focused too much on individuals. The person who kept pushing this advice on me -- they would be referred to as a "thought leader" these days -- was absolutely blind-sided and shoved out by a bad actor. As far as I am concerned, pretending that bad actors simply do not exist has allowed some of the greatest problems I've seen plague organizations, drive out good people, and so on. I have noticed that saying you have a bad actor reflects poorly on the people doing the hiring (this insulated one of the bad actors until all of the relevant hiring parties left), but so much of it seems like willful disregard. I find myself sometimes amazed at how easily greased people are by snake oil salesmen selling largely themselves and a kind of "don't even worry about it" optimism.

codyZ 7y ago
Multiple people in my last organization fit this bill. Worse, these bad actors are somehow able to leverage their incompetency to be branded as 'thought leaders' themselves. Its comically impressive...
LeoTinnitus 7y ago
The sad thing is the snake oil merchant method is the only way to get a job. If we all had to have evidence and proof of our skills and honesty, meritocratic hiring would be the standard.
leto_ii 7y ago
> As far as I am concerned, pretending that bad actors simply do not exist has allowed some of the greatest problems I've seen plague organizations Absolutely. In my experience there are vicious cycles at play. Political people (that's my name for bad actors) seem on average better at identifying whether somebody is political or not. They are also better at reinforcing each other. Political people will tend to hire and promote political people since that's the game they understand. Non-political people might tend to promote more of their own kind, but they will probably be worse at spotting the political kind, hence they will make more mistakes wrt promoting competence. Come to think of it this whole thing seems quite amenable to some sort of evolutionary game theory. Maybe in conjunction with social network theory. I'm curious if anybody studied this already.
carapace 7y ago
"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing."
- blaser-waffle 7y ago
  A good and true quote, but to equate things like the Nazis or genocides with a couple of assholes on the Solution Design team who strongly prefer Technology [X] is overkill. They're not evil, they're just a wet blanket, and you're not a good person, at least not per se, for opposing them -- maybe they're right?
  - top_kekeroni_m8 7y ago
    It's just a quote, you're taking it too literally. "The only thing necessary for the triumph of assholes is that good men do nothing."
laurex 7y ago
I was reminded of this article, and how sometimes you really can't do anything but regard situations like this as an anthropologist. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/05/smarter-living/how-to-deal-with-a-jerk-without-being-a-jerk.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/05/smarter-living/how-to-dea...
sopooneo 7y ago
The thing is, you have to take it all without a sign of unhappiness or grumble. Roll with it and deal with it... until you don't. Then you go hard against. You can never be halfway.

codyZ 7y ago

Multiple people in my last organization fit this bill. Worse, these bad actors are somehow able to leverage their incompetency to be branded as 'thought leaders' themselves. Its comically impressive...

LeoTinnitus 7y ago

The sad thing is the snake oil merchant method is the only way to get a job. If we all had to have evidence and proof of our skills and honesty, meritocratic hiring would be the standard.

leto_ii 7y ago

> As far as I am concerned, pretending that bad actors simply do not exist has allowed some of the greatest problems I've seen plague organizations Absolutely. In my experience there are vicious cycles at play. Political people (that's my name for bad actors) seem on average better at identifying whether somebody is political or not. They are also better at reinforcing each other. Political people will tend to hire and promote political people since that's the game they understand. Non-political people might tend to promote more of their own kind, but they will probably be worse at spotting the political kind, hence they will make more mistakes wrt promoting competence. Come to think of it this whole thing seems quite amenable to some sort of evolutionary game theory. Maybe in conjunction with social network theory. I'm curious if anybody studied this already.

carapace 7y ago

"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing."

blaser-waffle 7y ago
A good and true quote, but to equate things like the Nazis or genocides with a couple of assholes on the Solution Design team who strongly prefer Technology [X] is overkill. They're not evil, they're just a wet blanket, and you're not a good person, at least not per se, for opposing them -- maybe they're right?
- top_kekeroni_m8 7y ago
  It's just a quote, you're taking it too literally. "The only thing necessary for the triumph of assholes is that good men do nothing."

laurex 7y ago

I was reminded of this article, and how sometimes you really can't do anything but regard situations like this as an anthropologist. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/05/smarter-living/how-to-deal-with-a-jerk-without-being-a-jerk.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/05/smarter-living/how-to-dea...

sopooneo 7y ago

The thing is, you have to take it all without a sign of unhappiness or grumble. Roll with it and deal with it... until you don't. Then you go hard against. You can never be halfway.