9 ms·

Every sufficiently large company has a lot of dead wood, and nobody has yet devised a better strategy than 'turning up the heat'.

by s17n 4y ago

corrral 4y ago
Does this not have the side effect of also driving away employees with the best alternatives (so, probably your best ones)?
- thenightcrawler 4y ago
  The key for this to work is that you need to give everybody big raises so the best want to stay when the heat gets tough (like sterotypical ibanking)
  - kennywinker 4y ago
    That’s implying the best people choose the best pay, not the best work, 100% of the time. I quit my Big Tech job because the work sucked. There was no reasonable raise that would have kept me there, but turning DOWN the heat might have kept me there…
- adg001 4y ago
  Absolutely, employees leave bad managers, they seldom want to leave the employer itself – Or at least this was my personal experience, always on the run from dead woods.
- nkrisc 4y ago
  The worst performers know they can't get an equivalent job somewhere else, so they're going to cling on no matter how miserable you make it. They have no choice. Your best performers know they have their pick of any job they like so it anything gets worse for them they'll just go somewhere else.
mcv 4y ago
Is it an effective strategy at all? I can imagine that turning up the heat without any benefits is just as likely to chase the most talented people away.
- hn_throwaway_99 4y ago
  I disagree, though it greatly depends on how "turning up the heat" is done. There is not a lot that is more demoralizing to top performers than to see dead wood continue to plot along and earn a sizable paycheck and produce little of value. And it's not even all solely an envy issue - it's also an issue of poor performers getting in the way and making other people's job more painful and inefficient. So a message of "we're going to start getting real about ensuring our high bar is met, and having hard conversations with people who consistently don't meet that bar" is something that some folks would look forward to. Of course, like I said, the devil is in the details, and if "turning up the heat" means we're going to have more time cops than yes, I think it would be demoralizing.
- IncRnd 4y ago
  The stock value has dropped by over half and meta is preparing for a recession. Ad sales and user growth have already slowed.
- huffmsa 4y ago
  If it's just reviewing people at a higher standard, I don't see how that'll turn high performers away.
kennywinker 4y ago
Citation needed. alternative strategies would include: Rewarding good employees and firing bad ones. Deciding on actual useful performance metrics ahead of time and measuring people against them.
- hluska 4y ago
  If I had one wish, it would be that we would all give up that rude “citation needed” trope. I agree with you, yet that’s such a childish way to argue that it hurts the point. Just have the confidence to say you don’t agree!
  - kennywinker 4y ago
    What I mean by that is more than “i don’t agree” - it’s “hey, it looks like you asserted an opinion as fact”. I’m pretty sure all ways of saying that come off rude. Sometimes rudeness is irreducible, and I think this is one of those times. I like “citation needed” because to me it seems like a playful version of rude rather than a serious version of rude. Shrugging emoji
- bricemo 4y ago
  This is exactly what they are doing with one improvement: instead of firing, they are allowing attrition to happen naturally. That’s better than layoffs
  - kennywinker 4y ago
    Why is that better? Making everybody suffer until some people leave because it’s intolerable to them… that doesn’t sound better to me.
    - bricemo 4y ago
      It’s not “making people suffer”. It is having high expectations for performance that A-players and teams can easily hit. If companies are going to survive during a crisis time when the whole world is facing headwinds, there is no margin for error, at FB or anywhere. Layoffs are always awful, they take jobs away from people without them having a say. They should always be a last resort.
synu 4y ago
How does this work well? Aren’t the good people the first to leave if you decide to make everyone miserable?
- blantonl 4y ago
  the good people are the ones that perform well in the kitchen when it gets hot.
  - joshstrange 4y ago
    Lol. Bullshit. The good ones know to get out when a company treats it's employees like shit. Just because they aren't the target today doesn't mean they won't be the target tomorrow. The idea that people should wear bad working conditions as a badge of honor is just silly and something I'd expect people (the good ones) to grow out of after a few years max in the industry.
    - blantonl 4y ago
      you know, there are economic times where it's tough to find a job in certain industries, no matter how awesome you are.
      - joshstrange 4y ago
        Just so I'm clear, your response to "good workers don't put up with that shit" is essentially "they will if they can't find a different/better job"? Cause that just sounds exploitative and scummy. I'm sure companies make those calculations but it doesn't make it right/moral. In a vacuum I can understand and empathise with your comment but as part of this chain (where you say "the good people are the ones that perform well in the kitchen when it gets hot.") I can't take it seriously. Which is it? Do the good people perform well (and enjoy) when it gets hot or are they held hostage by the economic times?
        blantonl 4y ago
hluska 4y ago
There are many better strategies.
mcculley 4y ago
Organizations that need good people will try to improve the ones they have. While some organizations have dead wood that cannot be improved and must be replaced, great organizations play the long game and try to develop people.
joshstrange 4y ago
Because expecting managers to do their damn jobs would just be too hard? It wasn't the #1 reason but "dead wood" probably ranked 2 or 3 for why I left my last job and it was 100% the manager's fault. Had that company decided to "turn up the heat" I would have left even faster and I can promise you the "dead wood" would have stayed till the bitter end. I doubt the claim that no one has come up with a better strategy and I question the leadership abilities of anyone who thinks it's a good strategy.
- robonerd 4y ago
  Managers have personal priorities and interests that may not align with the interests of the company. e.g. company doesn't want dead weight, but the manager does for any number of reasons. Maybe the manager really likes those people on a personal level, or maybe the dead weight have dirt on the manager, or maybe the dead weight are kept around as sacrificial material should the manager ever be forced to make cuts, or maybe the incentive structure in the company rewards managers for having more reports, etc. So yes, expecting managers to put company interests before their own may actually be too hard.
  - joshstrange 4y ago
    Or, in my specific situation, my manager (and the manger above them) were terrible at handling intrapersonal conflicts. They would just ignore it until it went away and hating confronting anyone about anything. At least one of them also "liked" the "dead wood" in question or had at least worked with them for a long time. I understand all of that. But at the end of the day, it was bad managers. Even if you somehow manage to clear the "dead wood" (good luck, they hold on longer that performing members in my experience) you are still stuck with bad managers and you'll be right back in the same place in little time.
    - s17n 4y ago
      From the CEO's point of view, line managers and employees are basically an undifferentiated mass of potential dead wood. Getting managers to "do their jobs" is exactly the intention of a policy like this.

Every sufficiently large company has a lot of dead wood, and nobody has yet devised a better strategy than 'turning up the heat'.

by s17n 4y ago

Every sufficiently large company has a lot of dead wood, and nobody has yet devised a better strategy than 'turning up the heat'.

corrral 4y ago

Does this not have the side effect of also driving away employees with the best alternatives (so, probably your best ones)?

thenightcrawler 4y ago
The key for this to work is that you need to give everybody big raises so the best want to stay when the heat gets tough (like sterotypical ibanking)
- kennywinker 4y ago
  That’s implying the best people choose the best pay, not the best work, 100% of the time. I quit my Big Tech job because the work sucked. There was no reasonable raise that would have kept me there, but turning DOWN the heat might have kept me there…
adg001 4y ago
Absolutely, employees leave bad managers, they seldom want to leave the employer itself – Or at least this was my personal experience, always on the run from dead woods.
nkrisc 4y ago
The worst performers know they can't get an equivalent job somewhere else, so they're going to cling on no matter how miserable you make it. They have no choice. Your best performers know they have their pick of any job they like so it anything gets worse for them they'll just go somewhere else.

mcv 4y ago

Is it an effective strategy at all? I can imagine that turning up the heat without any benefits is just as likely to chase the most talented people away.

hn_throwaway_99 4y ago
I disagree, though it greatly depends on how "turning up the heat" is done. There is not a lot that is more demoralizing to top performers than to see dead wood continue to plot along and earn a sizable paycheck and produce little of value. And it's not even all solely an envy issue - it's also an issue of poor performers getting in the way and making other people's job more painful and inefficient. So a message of "we're going to start getting real about ensuring our high bar is met, and having hard conversations with people who consistently don't meet that bar" is something that some folks would look forward to. Of course, like I said, the devil is in the details, and if "turning up the heat" means we're going to have more time cops than yes, I think it would be demoralizing.
IncRnd 4y ago
The stock value has dropped by over half and meta is preparing for a recession. Ad sales and user growth have already slowed.
huffmsa 4y ago
If it's just reviewing people at a higher standard, I don't see how that'll turn high performers away.

kennywinker 4y ago

Citation needed. alternative strategies would include: Rewarding good employees and firing bad ones. Deciding on actual useful performance metrics ahead of time and measuring people against them.

hluska 4y ago
If I had one wish, it would be that we would all give up that rude “citation needed” trope. I agree with you, yet that’s such a childish way to argue that it hurts the point. Just have the confidence to say you don’t agree!
- kennywinker 4y ago
  What I mean by that is more than “i don’t agree” - it’s “hey, it looks like you asserted an opinion as fact”. I’m pretty sure all ways of saying that come off rude. Sometimes rudeness is irreducible, and I think this is one of those times. I like “citation needed” because to me it seems like a playful version of rude rather than a serious version of rude. Shrugging emoji
bricemo 4y ago
This is exactly what they are doing with one improvement: instead of firing, they are allowing attrition to happen naturally. That’s better than layoffs
- kennywinker 4y ago
  Why is that better? Making everybody suffer until some people leave because it’s intolerable to them… that doesn’t sound better to me.
  - bricemo 4y ago
    It’s not “making people suffer”. It is having high expectations for performance that A-players and teams can easily hit. If companies are going to survive during a crisis time when the whole world is facing headwinds, there is no margin for error, at FB or anywhere. Layoffs are always awful, they take jobs away from people without them having a say. They should always be a last resort.

synu 4y ago

How does this work well? Aren’t the good people the first to leave if you decide to make everyone miserable?

blantonl 4y ago
the good people are the ones that perform well in the kitchen when it gets hot.
- joshstrange 4y ago
  Lol. Bullshit. The good ones know to get out when a company treats it's employees like shit. Just because they aren't the target today doesn't mean they won't be the target tomorrow. The idea that people should wear bad working conditions as a badge of honor is just silly and something I'd expect people (the good ones) to grow out of after a few years max in the industry.
  - blantonl 4y ago
    you know, there are economic times where it's tough to find a job in certain industries, no matter how awesome you are.
    - joshstrange 4y ago
      Just so I'm clear, your response to "good workers don't put up with that shit" is essentially "they will if they can't find a different/better job"? Cause that just sounds exploitative and scummy. I'm sure companies make those calculations but it doesn't make it right/moral. In a vacuum I can understand and empathise with your comment but as part of this chain (where you say "the good people are the ones that perform well in the kitchen when it gets hot.") I can't take it seriously. Which is it? Do the good people perform well (and enjoy) when it gets hot or are they held hostage by the economic times?
      - blantonl 4y ago

hluska 4y ago

There are many better strategies.

mcculley 4y ago

Organizations that need good people will try to improve the ones they have. While some organizations have dead wood that cannot be improved and must be replaced, great organizations play the long game and try to develop people.

joshstrange 4y ago

Because expecting managers to do their damn jobs would just be too hard? It wasn't the #1 reason but "dead wood" probably ranked 2 or 3 for why I left my last job and it was 100% the manager's fault. Had that company decided to "turn up the heat" I would have left even faster and I can promise you the "dead wood" would have stayed till the bitter end. I doubt the claim that no one has come up with a better strategy and I question the leadership abilities of anyone who thinks it's a good strategy.

robonerd 4y ago
Managers have personal priorities and interests that may not align with the interests of the company. e.g. company doesn't want dead weight, but the manager does for any number of reasons. Maybe the manager really likes those people on a personal level, or maybe the dead weight have dirt on the manager, or maybe the dead weight are kept around as sacrificial material should the manager ever be forced to make cuts, or maybe the incentive structure in the company rewards managers for having more reports, etc. So yes, expecting managers to put company interests before their own may actually be too hard.
- joshstrange 4y ago
  Or, in my specific situation, my manager (and the manger above them) were terrible at handling intrapersonal conflicts. They would just ignore it until it went away and hating confronting anyone about anything. At least one of them also "liked" the "dead wood" in question or had at least worked with them for a long time. I understand all of that. But at the end of the day, it was bad managers. Even if you somehow manage to clear the "dead wood" (good luck, they hold on longer that performing members in my experience) you are still stuck with bad managers and you'll be right back in the same place in little time.
  - s17n 4y ago
    From the CEO's point of view, line managers and employees are basically an undifferentiated mass of potential dead wood. Getting managers to "do their jobs" is exactly the intention of a policy like this.