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> You need a team who you can trust to execute without looking over their shoulder. They're loyal, brilliant and quick. Startups that we celebrate on this forum

> You need a team who you can trust to execute without looking over their shoulder. They're loyal, brilliant and quick. Startups that we celebrate on this forum exude this from all their pores. During a planning meeting, you decide that Bob should build new feature X. Bob says yes, and then never does it. Secretly, Bob only takes requests from Bill, because Bill hired him into the company and was also his fraternity brother. You go on vacation and temporarily hand off your support responsibilities to your counterpart on another team. When you return, you find that your counterpart has jammed a half-finished feature into your code, making it unrecognizable. Your skip lead leaves for another company. Within weeks, half of your division leaves to follow him. Your support burden triples and no one is left to tell you how undocumented legacy functionality was supposed to work. If startups worked like corporate executives, there would never be a successful one. The entire MO of the executive class is zero attention span, zero focus, and zero memory.

irjustin 6y ago
Sorry, I believe you switched the directionality of my analogy because I agree with you. Corp execs should run like startups. Trusting, fast moving units effective in its execution towards a common goal. When a corp exec replaces a whole layer or unit with their own guys it's because they need to move like a startup does. Or it could just be cronyism - that's always possible too, but I think we're trying to find a positive/useful reason in this thread.
- alistairSH 6y ago
  Or it could just be cronyism It's this. In my experience (line manager), when a new C-level is hired, within two years, they've usually replaced 50% of the VP/directors that sit below them in the org. That's far too much churn for it to be because those particular VP/directors are brilliant - by extension, that would mean the outgoing VP/directors were not - except many of them went to work for the recently departed C-level! They can't all be brilliant and they can't all be useless, so we're largely left with cronyism.
  - irjustin 6y ago
    To me, the difference between cronyism vs trusted VPs is simply whether they were successful or not in the long run. And you're right, you lose _lots_ of brilliant talent when the helm changes hands. I think what's helpful is to imagine you are that exec going in to a new position of a large org, 26,000 people, say Chief Marketing Officer. A few know you, but there are a lot of new faces who now have to call you boss and answer to your directions whether they agree or not. You now have to convince each major head that what you're doing is the right thing. How long does it take to build that level of trust? Typically years and a few large projects won. Some of those heads have been around for a long time and don't like the way you do things. If you want to be effective, you don't have much time to figure out who is toxic, who is simply lazy, who resists your leadership. Some resist openly, but most behind closed doors by dragging things, sowing discord. etc etc. You clearly can't keep everyone - it doesn't do any good. At a certain level trust and speed make up for brilliance. Just like hard work/grit can close a gap of genius. Again, I agree with you - lots of good guys are lost. So many times at the detriment of the company, but that means the outgoing leader picked the wrong successor. Separately I enjoy this topic. Its our human condition laid bare.
    - codeisawesome 6y ago
      What are some books that talk about this at length?
      - specialist 6y ago
        Histories of regimes and empires. The Prince and 48 Laws of Power try to serve as TLDRs.
golergka 6y ago
> you decide that Bob should build new feature X > Bill hired him So, who's Bob's direct manager? Usually it's the one who hired and can fire the person.
- marcosdumay 6y ago
  Hum... The person with the title of "Bob's manager", the person that hired him, the person that can fire him, and the person he will take orders from may be up to 4 different people.
  - golergka 6y ago
    I know that sometimes things like this happen, but it's a sign that organization is deeply broken.
    - MichaelZuo 6y ago
      Yup, when the responsibility and authority are not aligned the chances of a good outcome approaches zero.

irjustin 6y ago

Sorry, I believe you switched the directionality of my analogy because I agree with you. Corp execs should run like startups. Trusting, fast moving units effective in its execution towards a common goal. When a corp exec replaces a whole layer or unit with their own guys it's because they need to move like a startup does. Or it could just be cronyism - that's always possible too, but I think we're trying to find a positive/useful reason in this thread.

alistairSH 6y ago
Or it could just be cronyism It's this. In my experience (line manager), when a new C-level is hired, within two years, they've usually replaced 50% of the VP/directors that sit below them in the org. That's far too much churn for it to be because those particular VP/directors are brilliant - by extension, that would mean the outgoing VP/directors were not - except many of them went to work for the recently departed C-level! They can't all be brilliant and they can't all be useless, so we're largely left with cronyism.
- irjustin 6y ago
  To me, the difference between cronyism vs trusted VPs is simply whether they were successful or not in the long run. And you're right, you lose _lots_ of brilliant talent when the helm changes hands. I think what's helpful is to imagine you are that exec going in to a new position of a large org, 26,000 people, say Chief Marketing Officer. A few know you, but there are a lot of new faces who now have to call you boss and answer to your directions whether they agree or not. You now have to convince each major head that what you're doing is the right thing. How long does it take to build that level of trust? Typically years and a few large projects won. Some of those heads have been around for a long time and don't like the way you do things. If you want to be effective, you don't have much time to figure out who is toxic, who is simply lazy, who resists your leadership. Some resist openly, but most behind closed doors by dragging things, sowing discord. etc etc. You clearly can't keep everyone - it doesn't do any good. At a certain level trust and speed make up for brilliance. Just like hard work/grit can close a gap of genius. Again, I agree with you - lots of good guys are lost. So many times at the detriment of the company, but that means the outgoing leader picked the wrong successor. Separately I enjoy this topic. Its our human condition laid bare.
  - codeisawesome 6y ago
    What are some books that talk about this at length?
    - specialist 6y ago
      Histories of regimes and empires. The Prince and 48 Laws of Power try to serve as TLDRs.

golergka 6y ago

> you decide that Bob should build new feature X > Bill hired him So, who's Bob's direct manager? Usually it's the one who hired and can fire the person.

marcosdumay 6y ago
Hum... The person with the title of "Bob's manager", the person that hired him, the person that can fire him, and the person he will take orders from may be up to 4 different people.
- golergka 6y ago
  I know that sometimes things like this happen, but it's a sign that organization is deeply broken.
  - MichaelZuo 6y ago
    Yup, when the responsibility and authority are not aligned the chances of a good outcome approaches zero.