3 ms·

This should not stop at the CEO level, it needs to apply to every job within the company, at every level. Nobody cares about your excuses, whoever you are. Eve

by dmk23 15y ago

This should not stop at the CEO level, it needs to apply to every job within the company, at every level. Nobody cares about your excuses, whoever you are. Everyone's job involves goals, milestones and deadline. If you are performing you deserve commensurate rewards, if you are failing nobody should care to hear your excuses - only what could you fix and perhaps why you believe you deserve another chance. The performance of the CEO and overall company performance depends on everyone pulling their weight. If the CEO does not enforce accountability throughout the entire organization, he/she is heading for failure and nobody would care about their sorry fate!

coffeemug 15y ago
Most employees have a very different mindset. It seems that a company composed only of people who understand and follow the 'nobody cares' principle would be a perfectly operating entity where everyone always smoothly goes in the right direction, but I'm not actually convinced that's possible. 'Nobody cares' personal philosophy is very much correlated with alpha personalities, and you can't have a team where everyone is an alpha - they'll rip each other apart with conflicts. It's very tricky to balance this well - I'd like to see how different leaders do it in organizations of different sizes.
- nostrademons 15y ago
  The incentives at a typical corporation are also not setup to encourage "nobody cares" attitudes. Employees are paid whatever the results are, unless they do something egregiously bad. They have every incentive to care about their effort and motivations - that's what they get fired for - and no incentive to care about results. That's diametrically opposed from an equity-owning cofounder (who basically can't be fired, unless the board forces them out) but doesn't get paid anything unless the company succeeds. You could argue that this is the reason why anyone would accept a salaried employment position. In a well-run knowledge organization, employees have just as much freedom as startup founders do. The difference is risk assignment: under an employment agreement, the employer assumes the risk (and reward) that the product may fail despite the employee's best efforts, while in a startup, the founder assumes the risk that the company may fail for reasons outside his control. (The incentives issue actually falls out of this as a form of moral hazard.) Note that the alternative of paying everyone by results doesn't always work either. Many financial firms use this approach. The problem is that realistically, in a decent-sized organization, people don't have a measurable effect on outcomes, and results will be dominated by randomness anyway. If you pay for results but results are not under the worker's control, you end up incentivizing risky behavior, because the worker's upside is potentially unlimited but their downside is generally capped at "everything they own". This was the problem at Enron, LTCM, and many hedge funds in the financial crisis.
jroseattle 15y ago
Sure, but with a big fat IF: If one is provided the resources necessary to accomplish stated goals/milestones/deadlines, then this is fair. Most organizations have excuses for not providing sufficient authority with expected responsibilities, and then try to pass that off as management. Want the excuses stop? It has to work both directions.

by dmk23 15y ago

coffeemug 15y ago

Most employees have a very different mindset. It seems that a company composed only of people who understand and follow the 'nobody cares' principle would be a perfectly operating entity where everyone always smoothly goes in the right direction, but I'm not actually convinced that's possible. 'Nobody cares' personal philosophy is very much correlated with alpha personalities, and you can't have a team where everyone is an alpha - they'll rip each other apart with conflicts. It's very tricky to balance this well - I'd like to see how different leaders do it in organizations of different sizes.

nostrademons 15y ago
The incentives at a typical corporation are also not setup to encourage "nobody cares" attitudes. Employees are paid whatever the results are, unless they do something egregiously bad. They have every incentive to care about their effort and motivations - that's what they get fired for - and no incentive to care about results. That's diametrically opposed from an equity-owning cofounder (who basically can't be fired, unless the board forces them out) but doesn't get paid anything unless the company succeeds. You could argue that this is the reason why anyone would accept a salaried employment position. In a well-run knowledge organization, employees have just as much freedom as startup founders do. The difference is risk assignment: under an employment agreement, the employer assumes the risk (and reward) that the product may fail despite the employee's best efforts, while in a startup, the founder assumes the risk that the company may fail for reasons outside his control. (The incentives issue actually falls out of this as a form of moral hazard.) Note that the alternative of paying everyone by results doesn't always work either. Many financial firms use this approach. The problem is that realistically, in a decent-sized organization, people don't have a measurable effect on outcomes, and results will be dominated by randomness anyway. If you pay for results but results are not under the worker's control, you end up incentivizing risky behavior, because the worker's upside is potentially unlimited but their downside is generally capped at "everything they own". This was the problem at Enron, LTCM, and many hedge funds in the financial crisis.

jroseattle 15y ago

Sure, but with a big fat IF: If one is provided the resources necessary to accomplish stated goals/milestones/deadlines, then this is fair. Most organizations have excuses for not providing sufficient authority with expected responsibilities, and then try to pass that off as management. Want the excuses stop? It has to work both directions.