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Which applies to all areas. As your organization grows it more and more attracts people who typically just switch jobs between organizations of the same size, a
by mojuba 6y ago
Which applies to all areas. As your organization grows it more and more attracts people who typically just switch jobs between organizations of the same size, and bring their culture, "best practices" that are typically the worst, approaches to work and other values with them.
At the same time you can see founders caring less and less about what's going on.
Is there a way to stop this? I don't think so for as long as there's a lot of investment money in circulation. Raising money for any more or less successful tech business is so cheap these days that founders rarely think of the alternatives, such as not raising and staying lean.
- beaconstudios 6y agoWhat you're describing is regression to the mean (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regression_toward_the_mean https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regression_toward_the_mean). I would think avoiding this involves maintaining a high bar for recruiting, at the cost of having to hire more slowly and probably pay more than your competitors. That, or you accept it and become a Java shop.
- dennis_jeeves 6y agoYep a high bar has to be constantly maintained even if it mean that 'growth' is slow: My thoughts on the subject: https://realminority.wordpress.com/ https://realminority.wordpress.com/
- falcolas 6y ago> That, or you accept it and become a Java shop. This, in a topic focusing on HR... It hits far too close to home. Java is now our recommended language, and HR is implementing all kinds of policies like “pay leveling” and “engineering promotions require job reqs complete with interviews” and “pay raises can only occur in N month”.
- beaconstudios 6y agoWhen bureaucrats are in charge of the business, it will be run as a bureaucracy: focusing on standardisation, quantified measurements and derisking. It's a process of stagnation.
- Dracophoenix 6y agoWell how else to make sure all your dollars go to the right place? I'm not suggesting that a rigid, top-down structure is necessary, but there must some way of pursuing effectiveness, knowledge, and efficiency with relying on serendipity or cargo cult superstition. With this in mind, I'd argue the opposite of your claim: stagnation by bureaucracy is a conditional failure to achieve your stated ends. It isn't the inevitable evolution towards decline that you suggest it is. A working bureaucracy should behave like a working scientific instrument.
- beaconstudios 6y agoInnovation can't come from measuring what you already have. You can use heuristics or metrics to confirm you've done the right thing once you try something but you can't use them effectively to innovate. Only to optimise, which is stagnation if you don't also innovate.