7 ms·

The individuals in aggregate may be toddlers, but unfortunately the C-suite as individuals are often also toddlers, at least vis a vis their responsibilities. T

by fivre 7y ago

The individuals in aggregate may be toddlers, but unfortunately the C-suite as individuals are often also toddlers, at least vis a vis their responsibilities. Tasked with providing IT infrastructure that works for the company, they seem to largely shirk their responsibility and choose IT infrastructure that best serves them, the needs of others be damned. CIOs will seemingly gladly choose something that provides a good UX for one central administrator even if the UX for hundreds or thousands of others is "the software literally shoots knives out of the monitor and gouges out your eyes". Reports that the software gouges out everyone's eyes are roundly ignored. I'm not sure to what degree this corporate disdain for quality of work environment is intentional or simply inability to grasp how other people may have different experiences using something, but I'm even more unsure how to solve it. What do we do when attempts to explain how shit sucks fall on deaf ears? Bring back pistol dueling?

officialchicken 7y ago
Please recognize the fact that the argument you are making here is based on whataboutism and is dishonest trying to setup a us-versus-them situation and confuse the actual issue. Then you proceed to follow up with illlogical conclusions with absurdist claims ... pistol dueling has nothing to do with the ROI/TCO of an adopted SaaS. The actual issue the parent argument is about managing diversity - and that you can never please everyone - and that isn't a pistols at dawn kind of situation.
afarrell 7y ago
Part of the problem here is that there is a balance to be struck with these sorts of things: Cost, User experience, Mange-ability, and time spent shopping around rather than just going with the industry-default or one with the best sales-team. Responsible decision-makers have to make trade-offs. When you say > Reports...are roundly ignored That lack of weight given to your experience as a signal of real business cost is a real problem. So what is the solution? 1. Understand the problem they're trying to solve. What are their real motives and pressures? 2. Understand where your needs align with theirs and where they diverge in reality. 3. Tell a compelling story of where your needs are in fact aligned. 3.1) Prepare Evidence If your case is "This tool is causes literal permanent eye injuries to our staff", then there should be written reports of those injuries. If your case is "This software package has multiple missing-affordances which present operational risks to the business", then you should be able to take screen recordings of that. 3.2) Start with why When turning evidence into a presentation, remember that people listen better when they know why they are listening. So start with: What is at stake? 3.3) Credible language If your words say "the UX for hundreds or thousands of others is 'the software literally shoots knives out of the monitor and gouges out your eyes'" but you can't actually back that up with the factual reality, you seem like you're exaggerating. If I think you are exaggerating, then I can't trust your words when I'm trying to understand magnitudes. If I can't trust your words about magnitudes, then how do I give you a voice in making a well-balanced trade-off? ------- Literally: (adverb) 1. In in a way of speaking that is completely accurate and unexaggerated. 2. In in a way of speaking that is exaggerated for emotional effect.
- travisjungroth 7y ago
  You’re giving advice on how to be persuasive, and it’s rare I find comments as off-putting as yours.
  - pault 7y ago
    I found it thoughtful and of much greater effort than your dismissal.
  - afarrell 7y ago
    I'm curious why, if you have any insights.
    - travisjungroth 7y ago
      The person you replied to pointed out where leaders were failing them. Rather than empathizing, you skipped to pointing out what they should be doing instead. They made a hyperbolic comment (“literally shooting out knives”) and you’ve focused on dissecting it and accused them of using inaccurate language. Of course they’re just exaggerating when they said that even if people were losing eyes management wouldn’t care. You switched to first person (“how can I know...”) representing the boss. This not-so-subtly puts you above the person you’re responding to. Copy-pasting a definition comes off as pedantic. Finally, no-one asked for an enumerated lecture on how they should be behaving.
      - afarrell 7y ago
        > rather than empathizing, you skipped hmmmm... I had tried to convey "hey, not being listened to really sucks" but now that I re-read "That lack of weight given to your experience as a signal of real business cost is a real problem." that's a pretty damn sterile way to express that. Also you're right that it should come first before the "here is this other perspective you should consider" bit. > You switched to first person (“how can I know...”) representing the boss. This not-so-subtly puts you above the person you’re responding to. hmmmm... really I hadn't considered that. My goal had been to suggest seeing things from the leader's perspective because they have a goal of changing leader's mind. But now that you point this out, I can see how this also creates a pompous framing. Thank you, thats helpful to know to watch out for. -------- > enumerated lecture By this do you mean I was overly verbose? Or that having things in numbers comes off as...professorially pompous? Or both? > no-one asked for ... how they should be behaving. So I had interpreted the comment as a combination of an emotional vent but also a request for advice, particularly the "I'm unsure how to solve it. What do we do..." Is this unreasonable? --------- > They made a hyperbolic comment ("literally shooting knives") > Copy-pasting a definition comes off as pedantic. > Of course they’re just exaggerating I... I guess I'm really struggling to cope with the loss of a word which is so dear to me and my ability to bridge gaps of understanding with my fellow human. Like, if the word "literally" no longer means.... _____ ...I don't even know how to express the concept without a verbose and phrase like "a way of speaking that is completely accurate and unexaggerated." that would overtax the patience of anyone. Take that away and...as far as I can see whole swaths of meaning about the world that I'd want to express are silenced. And I let the emotion of that get away with me. The word is dying. And if it affects me so deeply, I should not rage against the dying of its light but actually find a way to properly grieve it on its way.
LudwigNagasena 7y ago
I think being able to overcome principal-agent problem is one of the things that differentiate good C-suite from a bad one.
itronitron 7y ago
>> "the software literally shoots knives out of the monitor and gouges out your eyes" That would be PeopleSoft. A former employer decided to use it to integrate/replace multiple different working business systems they had been running for at least a decade without issue. Part of that solution involved having 'project specialists' specially trained on the system so that they could run reports for project managers, presumably while also fetching them coffee (/s). I looked at the UI once out of curiosity but very quickly shut down my browser as my eyes started bleeding.
wpietri 7y ago
> this corporate disdain for quality of work environment You may find the term "managerialism" handy. It's the belief that managers and execs are the central story of a company, that everything must flow through them, especially key decisions. And of course, that as the special people, they deserve outsized rewards. It's the dominant philosophy of US business, and although it seems eternal to us, it was invented in the 1950s and 1960s, along with the MBA that became a vital qualifier to join the managerial class. And it is definitely a class system; note who flies in "business class", for example. It took me a long time to be able to see it, but once I did I see it all over the place. It was sort of the same struggle when I learned functional programming: I had never really thought about the rest of programming, its philosophy and value system. I was soaking in it, so I didn't need to. The book that got me going was "Confronting Managerialism", but I'm sure there's a fair bit more out there these days: https://www.amazon.com/Confronting-Managerialism-Business-Economic-Controversies-ebook/dp/B00A76WZ96 https://www.amazon.com/Confronting-Managerialism-Business-Ec...
- ibeckermayer 7y ago
  I’ve seen another user on HN who grew up in the USSR call it “soviet capitalism”. A friend of mine also recognized it in this 2015 article (see footnote 1): https://reasonandliberty.com/articles/obamacare https://reasonandliberty.com/articles/obamacare
  - wpietri 7y ago
    That's a good description. I'll also talk about "corporate feudalism", where you have the Duke of Engineering fighting with the Duke of Product, and the King/CEO must mediate the conflicts. The peasants, of course, are basically property of their various nobles. But I really like "soviet capitalism", as it points at a key contradiction. Somehow, fans of capitalism, which maximizes surplus value by freeing individuals to make economically rational choices, rarely seem to notice that large corporations never make use of the mechanisms of capitalism, instead relying on central planning. And like the soviet era, corporate central planners often do things that are economically irrational, but useful to their careers and their quality of life.
mattrp 7y ago
Toddlers you say.. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been in a senior leadership weekly meeting where someone thinks it would be a good idea to assign a senior executive the task of grouping together everyone’s phone plans and deciding policy on who gets the company phone, who gets reimbursed and who is sol.

by fivre 7y ago

officialchicken 7y ago

Please recognize the fact that the argument you are making here is based on whataboutism and is dishonest trying to setup a us-versus-them situation and confuse the actual issue. Then you proceed to follow up with illlogical conclusions with absurdist claims ... pistol dueling has nothing to do with the ROI/TCO of an adopted SaaS. The actual issue the parent argument is about managing diversity - and that you can never please everyone - and that isn't a pistols at dawn kind of situation.

afarrell 7y ago

Part of the problem here is that there is a balance to be struck with these sorts of things: Cost, User experience, Mange-ability, and time spent shopping around rather than just going with the industry-default or one with the best sales-team. Responsible decision-makers have to make trade-offs. When you say > Reports...are roundly ignored That lack of weight given to your experience as a signal of real business cost is a real problem. So what is the solution? 1. Understand the problem they're trying to solve. What are their real motives and pressures? 2. Understand where your needs align with theirs and where they diverge in reality. 3. Tell a compelling story of where your needs are in fact aligned. 3.1) Prepare Evidence If your case is "This tool is causes literal permanent eye injuries to our staff", then there should be written reports of those injuries. If your case is "This software package has multiple missing-affordances which present operational risks to the business", then you should be able to take screen recordings of that. 3.2) Start with why When turning evidence into a presentation, remember that people listen better when they know why they are listening. So start with: What is at stake? 3.3) Credible language If your words say "the UX for hundreds or thousands of others is 'the software literally shoots knives out of the monitor and gouges out your eyes'" but you can't actually back that up with the factual reality, you seem like you're exaggerating. If I think you are exaggerating, then I can't trust your words when I'm trying to understand magnitudes. If I can't trust your words about magnitudes, then how do I give you a voice in making a well-balanced trade-off? ------- Literally: (adverb) 1. In in a way of speaking that is completely accurate and unexaggerated. 2. In in a way of speaking that is exaggerated for emotional effect.

travisjungroth 7y ago
You’re giving advice on how to be persuasive, and it’s rare I find comments as off-putting as yours.
- pault 7y ago
  I found it thoughtful and of much greater effort than your dismissal.
- afarrell 7y ago
  I'm curious why, if you have any insights.
  - travisjungroth 7y ago
    The person you replied to pointed out where leaders were failing them. Rather than empathizing, you skipped to pointing out what they should be doing instead. They made a hyperbolic comment (“literally shooting out knives”) and you’ve focused on dissecting it and accused them of using inaccurate language. Of course they’re just exaggerating when they said that even if people were losing eyes management wouldn’t care. You switched to first person (“how can I know...”) representing the boss. This not-so-subtly puts you above the person you’re responding to. Copy-pasting a definition comes off as pedantic. Finally, no-one asked for an enumerated lecture on how they should be behaving.
    - afarrell 7y ago
      > rather than empathizing, you skipped hmmmm... I had tried to convey "hey, not being listened to really sucks" but now that I re-read "That lack of weight given to your experience as a signal of real business cost is a real problem." that's a pretty damn sterile way to express that. Also you're right that it should come first before the "here is this other perspective you should consider" bit. > You switched to first person (“how can I know...”) representing the boss. This not-so-subtly puts you above the person you’re responding to. hmmmm... really I hadn't considered that. My goal had been to suggest seeing things from the leader's perspective because they have a goal of changing leader's mind. But now that you point this out, I can see how this also creates a pompous framing. Thank you, thats helpful to know to watch out for. -------- > enumerated lecture By this do you mean I was overly verbose? Or that having things in numbers comes off as...professorially pompous? Or both? > no-one asked for ... how they should be behaving. So I had interpreted the comment as a combination of an emotional vent but also a request for advice, particularly the "I'm unsure how to solve it. What do we do..." Is this unreasonable? --------- > They made a hyperbolic comment ("literally shooting knives") > Copy-pasting a definition comes off as pedantic. > Of course they’re just exaggerating I... I guess I'm really struggling to cope with the loss of a word which is so dear to me and my ability to bridge gaps of understanding with my fellow human. Like, if the word "literally" no longer means.... _____ ...I don't even know how to express the concept without a verbose and phrase like "a way of speaking that is completely accurate and unexaggerated." that would overtax the patience of anyone. Take that away and...as far as I can see whole swaths of meaning about the world that I'd want to express are silenced. And I let the emotion of that get away with me. The word is dying. And if it affects me so deeply, I should not rage against the dying of its light but actually find a way to properly grieve it on its way.

LudwigNagasena 7y ago

I think being able to overcome principal-agent problem is one of the things that differentiate good C-suite from a bad one.

itronitron 7y ago

>> "the software literally shoots knives out of the monitor and gouges out your eyes" That would be PeopleSoft. A former employer decided to use it to integrate/replace multiple different working business systems they had been running for at least a decade without issue. Part of that solution involved having 'project specialists' specially trained on the system so that they could run reports for project managers, presumably while also fetching them coffee (/s). I looked at the UI once out of curiosity but very quickly shut down my browser as my eyes started bleeding.

wpietri 7y ago

> this corporate disdain for quality of work environment You may find the term "managerialism" handy. It's the belief that managers and execs are the central story of a company, that everything must flow through them, especially key decisions. And of course, that as the special people, they deserve outsized rewards. It's the dominant philosophy of US business, and although it seems eternal to us, it was invented in the 1950s and 1960s, along with the MBA that became a vital qualifier to join the managerial class. And it is definitely a class system; note who flies in "business class", for example. It took me a long time to be able to see it, but once I did I see it all over the place. It was sort of the same struggle when I learned functional programming: I had never really thought about the rest of programming, its philosophy and value system. I was soaking in it, so I didn't need to. The book that got me going was "Confronting Managerialism", but I'm sure there's a fair bit more out there these days: https://www.amazon.com/Confronting-Managerialism-Business-Economic-Controversies-ebook/dp/B00A76WZ96 https://www.amazon.com/Confronting-Managerialism-Business-Ec...

ibeckermayer 7y ago
I’ve seen another user on HN who grew up in the USSR call it “soviet capitalism”. A friend of mine also recognized it in this 2015 article (see footnote 1): https://reasonandliberty.com/articles/obamacare https://reasonandliberty.com/articles/obamacare
- wpietri 7y ago
  That's a good description. I'll also talk about "corporate feudalism", where you have the Duke of Engineering fighting with the Duke of Product, and the King/CEO must mediate the conflicts. The peasants, of course, are basically property of their various nobles. But I really like "soviet capitalism", as it points at a key contradiction. Somehow, fans of capitalism, which maximizes surplus value by freeing individuals to make economically rational choices, rarely seem to notice that large corporations never make use of the mechanisms of capitalism, instead relying on central planning. And like the soviet era, corporate central planners often do things that are economically irrational, but useful to their careers and their quality of life.

mattrp 7y ago

Toddlers you say.. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been in a senior leadership weekly meeting where someone thinks it would be a good idea to assign a senior executive the task of grouping together everyone’s phone plans and deciding policy on who gets the company phone, who gets reimbursed and who is sol.