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My ability to do work is explicitly constrained by management mismanagement and randomness, but that’s the one sacred cow we can’t discuss in this dynamic. And

My ability to do work is explicitly constrained by management mismanagement and randomness, but that’s the one sacred cow we can’t discuss in this dynamic. And yet, my org has been drifting towards this “hard line” too.

MonkeyMalarky 4y ago
Right, one can only "step it up" so many times just to see priorities shift and projects change a few weeks later and watch all your extra work go down the toilet.
CipherThrowaway 4y ago
Reducing mismanagement and fixing systemic issues will pay greater dividends than just having workers "step up."
scaredginger 4y ago
Middle management is the lowest hanging fruit when looking for redundancies; the article also mentioned this: "Sometimes there are areas to make progress [where] you have three people making decisions, understanding that and bringing it down to two or one improves efficiency by 20%."
- 88913527 4y ago
  Too many people needed plus unanimous approval required generally keeps things moving at the speed of molasses. But sometimes that's good for business continuity. Many times it isn't necessary.
  - scaredginger 4y ago
    Agreed; for a successful company, sometimes you want controls to provide stability that will keep the engine running, even if it's frustrating to work in that sort of environment
  - drewcoo 4y ago
    > Too many people . . . moving at the speed of molasses The difference being that more people means slower motion but with enough mass, molasses is pretty speedy (estimated 35 mph in linked article). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Molasses_Flood https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Molasses_Flood And I'm only being somewhat facetious when I claim we need more molasses-like leadership: normally slow us down and make us think about things but if there's momentum, pull out the stops and let's go! We try to manage to slow things down regardless of the scale or the purpose, and that's where (pun intended) molasses has us licked.

MonkeyMalarky 4y ago

Right, one can only "step it up" so many times just to see priorities shift and projects change a few weeks later and watch all your extra work go down the toilet.

CipherThrowaway 4y ago

Reducing mismanagement and fixing systemic issues will pay greater dividends than just having workers "step up."

scaredginger 4y ago

Middle management is the lowest hanging fruit when looking for redundancies; the article also mentioned this: "Sometimes there are areas to make progress [where] you have three people making decisions, understanding that and bringing it down to two or one improves efficiency by 20%."

88913527 4y ago
Too many people needed plus unanimous approval required generally keeps things moving at the speed of molasses. But sometimes that's good for business continuity. Many times it isn't necessary.
- scaredginger 4y ago
  Agreed; for a successful company, sometimes you want controls to provide stability that will keep the engine running, even if it's frustrating to work in that sort of environment
- drewcoo 4y ago
  > Too many people . . . moving at the speed of molasses The difference being that more people means slower motion but with enough mass, molasses is pretty speedy (estimated 35 mph in linked article). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Molasses_Flood https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Molasses_Flood And I'm only being somewhat facetious when I claim we need more molasses-like leadership: normally slow us down and make us think about things but if there's momentum, pull out the stops and let's go! We try to manage to slow things down regardless of the scale or the purpose, and that's where (pun intended) molasses has us licked.