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I once had a leader come in and commit to not making radical changes, that he was going to listen and learn and then make adjustments accordingly. That was so r

I once had a leader come in and commit to not making radical changes, that he was going to listen and learn and then make adjustments accordingly. That was so refreshing and I really respected him as a result. It feels like more often than not execs who come in and immediately change things are just pattern matching approaches they've seen previously without actually understanding what they're trying to change. A classic example is Marissa Mayer's attempts to Googlify Yahoo. You can't change a business model or a culture by doing a reorg. It's literally cargo cult behaviour.

ragnot 5y ago
It's not about changing the business model or culture. It's ensuring that the CEO can survive and has allies he can work with. I hate to break it to you, but execs who come from the outside (i.e. non founders) rarely care about the long term future of the company. What do they care about? The stock options they were granted. The notch in their resume. And of course the money. Relatively short term plays. Surrounding themselves with familiar people cuts down on the tremendous political burden the job bears and allows them to get to those short term profits in an easier way.
- astrange 5y ago
  Parag has been a Twitter engineer for the last 10 years. Reorganizing away from a functional structure is a weird choice, though.
  - ragnot 5y ago
    Perhaps. Or perhaps over those 10 years he was keeping a list and had some scores to settle. I've found execs "in the game" (so to speak) rarely forget.
    - kbos87 5y ago
      …or perhaps he’s coming to the situation with a deep and accurate understanding of what is broken at Twitter?
1123581321 5y ago
I admire that as well, and would work hard to provide that kind of person with a lot of information, but there are people who would take advantage of the bought time to work against the eventual decisions, and that approach also doesn’t curry as much favor when urgent changes are perceived to be needed.

ragnot 5y ago

It's not about changing the business model or culture. It's ensuring that the CEO can survive and has allies he can work with. I hate to break it to you, but execs who come from the outside (i.e. non founders) rarely care about the long term future of the company. What do they care about? The stock options they were granted. The notch in their resume. And of course the money. Relatively short term plays. Surrounding themselves with familiar people cuts down on the tremendous political burden the job bears and allows them to get to those short term profits in an easier way.

astrange 5y ago
Parag has been a Twitter engineer for the last 10 years. Reorganizing away from a functional structure is a weird choice, though.
- ragnot 5y ago
  Perhaps. Or perhaps over those 10 years he was keeping a list and had some scores to settle. I've found execs "in the game" (so to speak) rarely forget.
  - kbos87 5y ago
    …or perhaps he’s coming to the situation with a deep and accurate understanding of what is broken at Twitter?

1123581321 5y ago

I admire that as well, and would work hard to provide that kind of person with a lot of information, but there are people who would take advantage of the bought time to work against the eventual decisions, and that approach also doesn’t curry as much favor when urgent changes are perceived to be needed.