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The judgment, however, is that while one is not the same priority any longer, one's priorities are necessarily devalued, due to the a competition for resources,

The judgment, however, is that while one is not the same priority any longer, one's priorities are necessarily devalued, due to the a competition for resources, namely, time. I see the common explanation here is to just shrug at the state of affairs. Is this the best management can do? I can see why Fortune 500 companies die now.

danielmarkbruce 5y ago
When you say "is this the best management can do", I believe you are thinking about it in the wrong terms. It's a trade off. Almost all these decisions are trade offs and there isn't a strictly better option available. I read most of the explanations here pointing to that trade off and understanding it. Let's assume for a minute the poster has joined google. Do you want some random person changing code in a system used to deploy applications? No. That same code deploys Google Search. That thing pumps out over $50 bill a qtr of high margin revenue. The process described could be at Google, Microsoft, Facebook, Amazon, Netflix, Apple. These are Fortune 500 companies and while they will die eventually, it isn't going to be in any time soon and it isn't going to be because the team working on internal infra doesn't move fast enough.
- achillesheels 5y ago
  Fair point regarding the golden goose. My point is there is more motivation to keep things as-is then to continue to adapt. Why is that? Because all the key decision-makers can just get up and leave when revenue starts to deteriorate. The good ones always do, because they are in it for more than a paycheck to support their mortgages. Give birth and do not possess-Tao Te Ching, 10
bastijn 5y ago
I see a lot of startups dying, much more than fortune 500 companies. Can I now conclude not having processes kills companies faster? It's not that this thread advices to shrug it off. They try to explain why some things can't go faster that easily and what seems cloggy and stupid can still be an effective machine at scale.
- achillesheels 5y ago
  >I see a lot of startups dying, much more than fortune 500 companies. Can I now conclude not having processes kills companies faster? No you cannot, because your starting premise is flawed. One organization has demonstrated its value over time - quite possibly inter-generationally - and the other has not proven its certainty in returning income. And what created that value in time? The people. With startups, it could be the idea. >It's not that this thread advices to shrug it off. They try to explain why some things can't go faster that easily and what seems cloggy and stupid can still be an effective machine at scale. My point is it looks effective, but the S&P 500 historically demonstrates bureaucracies asphyxiate. I'm simply pointing that out to people in this thread who likely participate in the miscarriage of organizational competency.
  - danielmarkbruce 5y ago
    The S&P 500 doesn't demonstrate that. It demonstrates that businesses die. It doesn't demonstrate the cause. You might assume it's increased bureaucracy or lack of organizational competency but there isn't compelling evidence, I don't buy it, and good investors like Warren Buffett don't buy it. Talk to anyone who worked at a big successful newspaper in the 80s and anyone who worked (or works) at Coke (or Pepsi). Both will give you horror stories about bureaucracy. The newspaper industry is dead, and Coke keeps printing money (Pepsi too). Why?
    - achillesheels 5y ago
      Good points. Will you agree that businesses die due to unprofitability? And what causes unprofitability in a firm? One might answer a whole slew of reasons, such as profit erosions, but it is mostly due to lack of innovation; at least at the rate in which business cycles naturally move external to the business firm. It is the decaying rate of sales growth, then, which seems tautological, but what underlies the inability for firms such as IBM to continue to grow? I recognize it takes four years for McDonalds to add a new product to their global supply chain. That is a symptom of scale which the administration therein attempts to streamline. In the likes of $KO, I would wager there is less complexity in the internal administration of manufacturing a beverage which has not changed in recipe in a century, and which takes nearly the same amount of time to launch diet coke. The good manufacturing practices, in other words, have not changed nor do they need to as KO continues to grow in market share globally for beverages. Meanwhile, business computing has simply exploded since 2010 yet IBM's revenue has shrunk ~30%. Are you to suggest it is not the personnel that are responsible for its tepid business development in response to a market which moves fast and breaks things? That maybe the preservation of the internal cohesiveness of the organization as intrinsically valuable kills companies in the presence of new market environments which the organization is motivated to be responsive at the risk of termination? I advise reading The Innovator's Dilemma to corroborate my assumption.

danielmarkbruce 5y ago

When you say "is this the best management can do", I believe you are thinking about it in the wrong terms. It's a trade off. Almost all these decisions are trade offs and there isn't a strictly better option available. I read most of the explanations here pointing to that trade off and understanding it. Let's assume for a minute the poster has joined google. Do you want some random person changing code in a system used to deploy applications? No. That same code deploys Google Search. That thing pumps out over $50 bill a qtr of high margin revenue. The process described could be at Google, Microsoft, Facebook, Amazon, Netflix, Apple. These are Fortune 500 companies and while they will die eventually, it isn't going to be in any time soon and it isn't going to be because the team working on internal infra doesn't move fast enough.

achillesheels 5y ago
Fair point regarding the golden goose. My point is there is more motivation to keep things as-is then to continue to adapt. Why is that? Because all the key decision-makers can just get up and leave when revenue starts to deteriorate. The good ones always do, because they are in it for more than a paycheck to support their mortgages. Give birth and do not possess-Tao Te Ching, 10

bastijn 5y ago

I see a lot of startups dying, much more than fortune 500 companies. Can I now conclude not having processes kills companies faster? It's not that this thread advices to shrug it off. They try to explain why some things can't go faster that easily and what seems cloggy and stupid can still be an effective machine at scale.

achillesheels 5y ago
>I see a lot of startups dying, much more than fortune 500 companies. Can I now conclude not having processes kills companies faster? No you cannot, because your starting premise is flawed. One organization has demonstrated its value over time - quite possibly inter-generationally - and the other has not proven its certainty in returning income. And what created that value in time? The people. With startups, it could be the idea. >It's not that this thread advices to shrug it off. They try to explain why some things can't go faster that easily and what seems cloggy and stupid can still be an effective machine at scale. My point is it looks effective, but the S&P 500 historically demonstrates bureaucracies asphyxiate. I'm simply pointing that out to people in this thread who likely participate in the miscarriage of organizational competency.
- danielmarkbruce 5y ago
  The S&P 500 doesn't demonstrate that. It demonstrates that businesses die. It doesn't demonstrate the cause. You might assume it's increased bureaucracy or lack of organizational competency but there isn't compelling evidence, I don't buy it, and good investors like Warren Buffett don't buy it. Talk to anyone who worked at a big successful newspaper in the 80s and anyone who worked (or works) at Coke (or Pepsi). Both will give you horror stories about bureaucracy. The newspaper industry is dead, and Coke keeps printing money (Pepsi too). Why?
  - achillesheels 5y ago
    Good points. Will you agree that businesses die due to unprofitability? And what causes unprofitability in a firm? One might answer a whole slew of reasons, such as profit erosions, but it is mostly due to lack of innovation; at least at the rate in which business cycles naturally move external to the business firm. It is the decaying rate of sales growth, then, which seems tautological, but what underlies the inability for firms such as IBM to continue to grow? I recognize it takes four years for McDonalds to add a new product to their global supply chain. That is a symptom of scale which the administration therein attempts to streamline. In the likes of $KO, I would wager there is less complexity in the internal administration of manufacturing a beverage which has not changed in recipe in a century, and which takes nearly the same amount of time to launch diet coke. The good manufacturing practices, in other words, have not changed nor do they need to as KO continues to grow in market share globally for beverages. Meanwhile, business computing has simply exploded since 2010 yet IBM's revenue has shrunk ~30%. Are you to suggest it is not the personnel that are responsible for its tepid business development in response to a market which moves fast and breaks things? That maybe the preservation of the internal cohesiveness of the organization as intrinsically valuable kills companies in the presence of new market environments which the organization is motivated to be responsive at the risk of termination? I advise reading The Innovator's Dilemma to corroborate my assumption.