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I am convinced that we need to move companies from effective hierarchical dictatorships to more democratic institutions. A CxO should be like an elected politi

I am convinced that we need to move companies from effective hierarchical dictatorships to more democratic institutions. A CxO should be like an elected politician - representing some manifesto that is a coherent (!) package of measures and gets appointed maybe by an election amount employees / shareholders. As such they need to persuade a majority of people who will supply the (human / financial) capital that their manifesto is the best option. They essential earn their way into the office. Edit: I am also semi convinced that the hierarchical thing is half the problem. Having a single person make "the hard decisions" is usually a way to have the wrong decision made about 50% of the time. Somehow humanity has found science as good means of improving those odds. But for the sort of decisions we make in business (very little hard science) then I suspect democratic consensus might be a much better way to get a good decision. (no this is not about decision by committee.)

zamfi 4y ago
This is a bit of a weird take IMO -- CEOs already need to persuade most employees (human capital) and most investors (financial capital) that their manifesto is the best option, or the employees will quit and the investors will take their money elsewhere. With some exceptions, no one is really forced to invest / remain employed as they might be in an actual dictatorship. Observe the benevolent-dictator-for-life phenomenon in open source software -- I fully support democracy but it's not obvious to me that its benefits scale down (or perhaps transfer sideways) to corporations; if they did, wouldn't we see a lot more organizations structure this way? Most of government is already not organized around democratic norms, with one extreme being the military. I'm curious -- what convinces you of the need for this shift?
zdragnar 4y ago
I've seen this in a startup that grew to around 500 people, and it wasn't pretty. The office is full enough of politics as is, and it only gets worse when you have to campaign for your job. Hiring externally side steps all of that, and can bring a fresh perspective.
- q7xvh97o2pDhNrh 4y ago
  You do have to admire the staggering idealism of suggesting that office politics could be fixed by turning it into real politics, though. ;)
  - lifeisstillgood 4y ago
    You cannot fix it but you can at least stop pretending and make it transparent :-(
    - zdragnar 4y ago
      In this case, it is made more transparent by amplifying all of the worst aspects of it.
    - q7xvh97o2pDhNrh 4y ago
      So, I know my initial comment above was pretty snarky. My follow-up reply here will probably sound a bit argumentative. For what it's worth, I mean to engage genuinely in the below comment, and try to offer a little bit of whatever wisdom I've managed to acquire -- so that maybe your :-( can turn into a :-) as you engage with office politics. I would put to you that it already is quite transparent -- to folks who know how to speak the language. Look closely at who is speaking, what is being said, and (perhaps most importantly) what isn't being said. Power in a corporation is measured in information and resources. So, a simple definition of office politics could be: the art of influencing the flow of information and resources. If it doesn't feel transparent, the most obvious causes are (in rough dependency order): not being in the right rooms, not knowing what to listen for, or not knowing how to talk the talk. Can I ask if this definition or mini-framework resonates for you? What have you tried to make things more transparent for yourself? How has it gone so far?
      - lifeisstillgood 4y ago
        But that same argument was made in the real world of politics - I expect both Cardinal Richelieu and Talleyrand have quotations on it. The point is not that there is a framework that advantages certain people (usually just being in the room requires certain advantages from birth) but that we should get rid of the framework and replace it with a new fairer one. I have been in the rooms - and the people in them are not as smart as inciteful or as informed as many outside. We can do much better. I will keep my idealism as it warms me during the long dark winter of selfishness
californical 4y ago
This makes sense in theory, but seems insanely weird in practice. 1. I start a company. It’s just me. Obviously, I lead the company. 2. It’s successful! 3. I hire two more people to help with some of the low-hanging fruit that I don’t have as much time for. 4. Do I need to be careful now so that they don’t just conspire against me, elect one of themselves to “run the company” and just take the assets and run? Or is this too small of a company for this to make sense? Do we make it law for companies with more than 500 employees? So most companies will stay at 499 employees for as long as possible?
- barry-cotter 4y ago
  How does make sense in theory? They’ve just reinvented partnerships or cooperatives, which have not exactly outcompeted corporations despite long having had enough time to do so.
  - AngryData 4y ago
    Co-ops have actually been having a pretty big uptrend in both popularity and market share the last decade. I wouldn't discount them so much.
- AngryData 4y ago
  You run it like a co-op and get a stake in the company no matter how your position or job changes. And you can leave and sell off your stake when you want.
- lmm 4y ago
  > 4. Do I need to be careful now so that they don’t just conspire against me, elect one of themselves to “run the company” and just take the assets and run? If your company was structured as a co-op, yes. Of course you'd probably make them buy in at a certain level, or else their ownership would be lower than yours by enough that they wouldn't be able to vote you down (or at least not until their share vests several years down the line). But fundamentally you should have some skin in the game; they're putting their time and effort into the company too, you owe it to them not to fuck it up and they deserve to be able to replace you if you go off the rails. > Or is this too small of a company for this to make sense? Do we make it law for companies with more than 500 employees? So most companies will stay at 499 employees for as long as possible? We don't need to mandate the co-op model, just allow it to compete and let the best model win. Tweaks to antitrust enforcement, tax treatment, and securities laws would be a good way to level the playing field. IMO it's past time to start pulling back on limited liability too (which was meant to be something granted to corporations that promised significant public benefits, not something everyone gets by default). Frankly we're already starting to see a rise in co-ops; traditionally they found it a lot harder to raise capital than traditional corporations, but nowadays there's a lot of capital sloshing around at the same time that cheaper communication, outsourcing and SAAS means lots of businesses (especially in tech) can be run in a more capital-light fashion than ever before. And who knows, maybe the CEO-as-dictator model will still win out. But we should let them fight on a level playing field so that the best model wins on its merits.
toast0 4y ago
See the other thread about humans taking too long to make decisions between roughly equal options. Requiring consensus for business decisions is a guarantee of slow decisions. With a good process, you can make the easy decisions in a timely manner, but the hard decisions will still take a long time, and there's going to be a lot more effort spent on coming to decisions. You kind of said it by accident here: > I am convinced that we need to move companies from effective hierarchical dictatorships to more democratic institutions. You want to move from effective leadership to something else. ;p It's much better, IMHO, to work towards making sure decisions can be made quickly and reconsidered if necessary, than to try to make sure decisions are made correctly at the cost of finding consensus.
- lifeisstillgood 4y ago
  None of which needs to be undemocratic. Set time limits on decisions and revisit under certain circumstances. I bet there is / will be a lot of fertile ground for research Frankly just being transparent about such decision making will almost certainly put that company in the top quartile for good decision making - most large companies make many decisions - and anecdotally make them badly
snowwrestler 4y ago
The org chart is hierarchical but large companies don’t run on the org chart in practice. Executives do need to sell their vision into the org, even their own direct reporting division. There are millions of ways for staff to subtly or not so subtly sabotage executive plans. The ability to succeed at aligning and motivating staff is one of the big differentiators between an effective C-level leader and an over-promoted manager. An effective C leader does need public leadership skills similar to a politician’s.
- lifeisstillgood 4y ago
  As does Putin or Xi. And they are good at it. But that does not mean the people under them are free or able to influence resource allocation in a fair equal manner.

zamfi 4y ago

This is a bit of a weird take IMO -- CEOs already need to persuade most employees (human capital) and most investors (financial capital) that their manifesto is the best option, or the employees will quit and the investors will take their money elsewhere. With some exceptions, no one is really forced to invest / remain employed as they might be in an actual dictatorship. Observe the benevolent-dictator-for-life phenomenon in open source software -- I fully support democracy but it's not obvious to me that its benefits scale down (or perhaps transfer sideways) to corporations; if they did, wouldn't we see a lot more organizations structure this way? Most of government is already not organized around democratic norms, with one extreme being the military. I'm curious -- what convinces you of the need for this shift?

zdragnar 4y ago

I've seen this in a startup that grew to around 500 people, and it wasn't pretty. The office is full enough of politics as is, and it only gets worse when you have to campaign for your job. Hiring externally side steps all of that, and can bring a fresh perspective.

q7xvh97o2pDhNrh 4y ago
You do have to admire the staggering idealism of suggesting that office politics could be fixed by turning it into real politics, though. ;)
- lifeisstillgood 4y ago
  You cannot fix it but you can at least stop pretending and make it transparent :-(
  - zdragnar 4y ago
    In this case, it is made more transparent by amplifying all of the worst aspects of it.
  - q7xvh97o2pDhNrh 4y ago
    So, I know my initial comment above was pretty snarky. My follow-up reply here will probably sound a bit argumentative. For what it's worth, I mean to engage genuinely in the below comment, and try to offer a little bit of whatever wisdom I've managed to acquire -- so that maybe your :-( can turn into a :-) as you engage with office politics. I would put to you that it already is quite transparent -- to folks who know how to speak the language. Look closely at who is speaking, what is being said, and (perhaps most importantly) what isn't being said. Power in a corporation is measured in information and resources. So, a simple definition of office politics could be: the art of influencing the flow of information and resources. If it doesn't feel transparent, the most obvious causes are (in rough dependency order): not being in the right rooms, not knowing what to listen for, or not knowing how to talk the talk. Can I ask if this definition or mini-framework resonates for you? What have you tried to make things more transparent for yourself? How has it gone so far?
    - lifeisstillgood 4y ago
      But that same argument was made in the real world of politics - I expect both Cardinal Richelieu and Talleyrand have quotations on it. The point is not that there is a framework that advantages certain people (usually just being in the room requires certain advantages from birth) but that we should get rid of the framework and replace it with a new fairer one. I have been in the rooms - and the people in them are not as smart as inciteful or as informed as many outside. We can do much better. I will keep my idealism as it warms me during the long dark winter of selfishness

californical 4y ago

This makes sense in theory, but seems insanely weird in practice. 1. I start a company. It’s just me. Obviously, I lead the company. 2. It’s successful! 3. I hire two more people to help with some of the low-hanging fruit that I don’t have as much time for. 4. Do I need to be careful now so that they don’t just conspire against me, elect one of themselves to “run the company” and just take the assets and run? Or is this too small of a company for this to make sense? Do we make it law for companies with more than 500 employees? So most companies will stay at 499 employees for as long as possible?

barry-cotter 4y ago
How does make sense in theory? They’ve just reinvented partnerships or cooperatives, which have not exactly outcompeted corporations despite long having had enough time to do so.
- AngryData 4y ago
  Co-ops have actually been having a pretty big uptrend in both popularity and market share the last decade. I wouldn't discount them so much.
AngryData 4y ago
You run it like a co-op and get a stake in the company no matter how your position or job changes. And you can leave and sell off your stake when you want.
lmm 4y ago
> 4. Do I need to be careful now so that they don’t just conspire against me, elect one of themselves to “run the company” and just take the assets and run? If your company was structured as a co-op, yes. Of course you'd probably make them buy in at a certain level, or else their ownership would be lower than yours by enough that they wouldn't be able to vote you down (or at least not until their share vests several years down the line). But fundamentally you should have some skin in the game; they're putting their time and effort into the company too, you owe it to them not to fuck it up and they deserve to be able to replace you if you go off the rails. > Or is this too small of a company for this to make sense? Do we make it law for companies with more than 500 employees? So most companies will stay at 499 employees for as long as possible? We don't need to mandate the co-op model, just allow it to compete and let the best model win. Tweaks to antitrust enforcement, tax treatment, and securities laws would be a good way to level the playing field. IMO it's past time to start pulling back on limited liability too (which was meant to be something granted to corporations that promised significant public benefits, not something everyone gets by default). Frankly we're already starting to see a rise in co-ops; traditionally they found it a lot harder to raise capital than traditional corporations, but nowadays there's a lot of capital sloshing around at the same time that cheaper communication, outsourcing and SAAS means lots of businesses (especially in tech) can be run in a more capital-light fashion than ever before. And who knows, maybe the CEO-as-dictator model will still win out. But we should let them fight on a level playing field so that the best model wins on its merits.

toast0 4y ago

See the other thread about humans taking too long to make decisions between roughly equal options. Requiring consensus for business decisions is a guarantee of slow decisions. With a good process, you can make the easy decisions in a timely manner, but the hard decisions will still take a long time, and there's going to be a lot more effort spent on coming to decisions. You kind of said it by accident here: > I am convinced that we need to move companies from effective hierarchical dictatorships to more democratic institutions. You want to move from effective leadership to something else. ;p It's much better, IMHO, to work towards making sure decisions can be made quickly and reconsidered if necessary, than to try to make sure decisions are made correctly at the cost of finding consensus.

lifeisstillgood 4y ago
None of which needs to be undemocratic. Set time limits on decisions and revisit under certain circumstances. I bet there is / will be a lot of fertile ground for research Frankly just being transparent about such decision making will almost certainly put that company in the top quartile for good decision making - most large companies make many decisions - and anecdotally make them badly

snowwrestler 4y ago

The org chart is hierarchical but large companies don’t run on the org chart in practice. Executives do need to sell their vision into the org, even their own direct reporting division. There are millions of ways for staff to subtly or not so subtly sabotage executive plans. The ability to succeed at aligning and motivating staff is one of the big differentiators between an effective C-level leader and an over-promoted manager. An effective C leader does need public leadership skills similar to a politician’s.

lifeisstillgood 4y ago
As does Putin or Xi. And they are good at it. But that does not mean the people under them are free or able to influence resource allocation in a fair equal manner.