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The article actually jumps right to the three major points that I see, rephrased to: (1) misaligned priorities, (2) policy flux, and (3) attrition. The most da
by lightbendover 5y ago
The article actually jumps right to the three major points that I see, rephrased to: (1) misaligned priorities, (2) policy flux, and (3) attrition.
The most damning trend I have witnessed first hand is that directors have extreme agency and are most of the time not incentivized to help other directors, especially if they’re under a different VP or SVP. The high-level leadership are too detached from the details (as they should be — but this is the thing that is most different in large orgs — it becomes more and more difficult to know everything, eventually becomes impossible, and then even knowing “enough” becomes impossible) to make centralized decisions so you’re left with one organization at a standstill with another, which causes attrition in the lower ranks of people who just want to get stuff done. That attrition results directly in knowledge loss and overall reduced productivity, which hampers most teams from breaking out of their set of problems. And it all just gets worse with time.
Large companies have way more guardrails and standards than smaller companies and they also change at a greater rate. Since these policies so rarely help improve or ship features, it’s just an ever-increasing source of productivity loss from the perspective of someone who wants to get stuff done. When internal politics are complained about, this is typically the root cause.
Hiring and retaining talent becomes harder as all companies grow and previous top talents becomes disenfranchised over time. Average talent hits an inflection point and then begins a descent. This just adds fuel to the fire, but I believe things would still become extremely difficult without this trait as well.
All of this becomes only more difficult to deal with over time as the company increases in size and age.
Nepotism, cronyism, etc.. all factor in as well, but those issues also affect small organizations and their impact there is even higher.
- jiggawatts 5y ago> Since these policies so rarely help improve or ship features, it’s just an ever-increasing source of productivity loss from the perspective of someone who wants to get stuff done. When internal politics are complained about, this is typically the root cause. "Why do I have to fill in this mountain of paperwork, in triplicate, just to get permission to do this basic activity that is an essential part of my job, and hence the permission being granted is a foregone conclusion anyway?" "Eleven years ago a guy named Bob tried something similar and screwed up terribly." "But not the same?" "No, but similar. So anyway now we have a 'process' to make sure nothing like that will ever happen again." "Is Bob liable to make the same mistake?" "Oh no, he's learned his lesson. Also, he was fired a year later, so he's not around anyway." "So, has anyone made the same mistake since?" "No." "Do you think I'll make the same mistake?" "I don't believe so, no." "So why do I have to fill out the paperwork to avoid making a mistake we all know I won't make, especially now that I've been made aware of it." "Just in case." "Just in case, what?" "Well, how do we know that you won't make mistakes? We have to have proof, some sort of written evidence." "But you can't prove ahead of time that people won't make mistakes! People don't make mistakes on purpose, so no amount of paperwork will ever stop mistakes happening." "You're just being argumentative now. You're not special, everyone has to do the paperwork." "Why everyone? You just said only Bob ever made the mistake!" "HR told us that we can't make rules just for Bob, so everyone has to follow the same rules. That's fair." "But you don't need the paperwork any more, you got rid of Bob!" "Yes, but the process has been established, it would take a lot of time and effort -- and paperwork -- to change it now." "It's less than making everyone jump through unnecessary hoops just to do their jobs!" "Maybe, but I'm very busy. Back-to-back meetings to discuss important matters, like how several staff are behind on their paperwork and may need to be disciplined." etc, etc, etc... I've had conversations like that -- nearly verbatim -- at several organisations in contexts such as: "Why does it take four weeks to add a firewall rule?" and: "Why is the minimum permitted change turnaround time two months?" and: "Why can't person responsible for system X have access to said system X?"
- Jensson 5y agoThe real answer is typically "These rules is why I have my job, I can't remove them since I want to stay". It is like when you automate 90% of someone's job they usually don't get happy. This is the same thing but the opposite, bureaucrats de-automate tasks to create new jobs.
- NikolaNovak 5y agoThe terrifying part for me,is that by now I've been on both sides of that conversation multiple times - and the third,less seen side, where the paying client explicitly and specifically asks and expects you to implement such a Process as part of "lessons learned". It's noble to say "ouch! well let's make sure we don't do THAT again!", but yeah ; over time the processes and procedures do expand ad infinitum :-/
- ekimekim 5y ago> expects you to implement such a Process as part of "lessons learned". I sometimes refer to this as "scar tissue" - an over-response to a trauma that causes ongoing issues more so than the initial injury.
- PeterisP 5y agoLooking back at a megacorp experience, I could read most of your exact text but replacing the Bob's mistake with Bob's intentional fraud - and then the process does start making sense. People do make mistakes on purpose; sure, a small minority of people, but in a large organization that will be multiple cases every year.