4 ms·

I'll take the unpopular opinion and say I don't think the occasional team/company shakeup is always bad. Often times, the resulting team can be stronger than i

by cj 4y ago

I'll take the unpopular opinion and say I don't think the occasional team/company shakeup is always bad. Often times, the resulting team can be stronger than it was before. Particularly if the organization just went through an extremely ultra-fast hiring spree where it's likely low quality candidates were hired. The "cut 10% of my pay to save my coworkers" works well if you have a high performing team/company. If you don't, the high performers may become resentful if they start to feel like they're subsidizing the salary of low performers.

iso1631 4y ago
> Particularly if the organization just went through an extremely ultra-fast hiring spree where it's likely low quality candidates were hired. The trick is identifying those low quality candidates. You can try to measure them, but once you measure them they become a target, and you get to the equivalent of the person who takes all the easy jobs from a queue because they then think they'll be higher in the value queue.
Apocryphon 4y ago
> If you don't, the high performers may become resentful if they start to feel like they're subsidizing the salary of low performers. But then they can always walk, and be replaced by high performers who were axed at other companies.
- cj 4y ago
  Most (all?) companies don’t want their high performers to walk away. Especially during a layoff.
  - Apocryphon 4y ago
    Sure, but during mass layoffs, those high performers are a lot more replaceable, and they themselves would know as well, and be disincentivized to walk.
    - ominous_prime 4y ago
      High performing employees are not always fungible. You risk are losing significant expertise and institutional knowledge.
      - Apocryphon 4y ago
        And you might lose more of them by pursuing mass layoffs!
r00fus 4y ago
I am truly amazed at the mythology of "high performers" as separate from the org. Teams can be high performing, but high performing individuals are often built by the environment. Yet, in the US we have this almost Stakhanovite mythology where a single worker can pull an entire organization. I have worked with individuals who had been pariahs in the previous org (got that info over beers with the individual) but were rockstars in our org. Also with so-called high-fliers from other teams/companies who just cratered when they joined our group. Personally I think cutting 10% pay is preferable because a) the work doesn't go away - if 10% are let go, I'll probably end up doing 10%+ more work. b) it's a commitment by the organization and that shows they care enough to not unilaterally make a decision.
- andrekandre 4y ago
  > Yet, in the US we have this almost Stakhanovite mythology where a single worker can pull an entire organization. wow never heard that term until now, it puts into terms something i've noticed a lot at companies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stakhanovite_movement https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stakhanovite_movement
  - r00fus 4y ago
    Amusingly I was also quite unaware of this historical footnote until I listened to this song [1] from a Putamayo album that mentioned Stakhanovism and had to look it up. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sncLH_1oONg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sncLH_1oONg
- stuxnet79 4y ago
  > Teams can be high performing, but high performing individuals are often built by the environment. This is a common bias I experience in American corporate culture and it drives me nuts. Viewing things at the individual level makes it really difficult to understand and cultivate productivity in a sustainable way. Often I find it more useful to look at productivity at the team level. It tends to have more explanatory power than at the individual level because it gets more into psychological safety, communication, attributes that are crucial for high performing teams but are difficult to suss out if you are just focused on individuals. Like you, I have seen way too many smart people stuck in situations where their skills and talents were completely underutilized. Vice versa there's way too many politically adept but inept individuals out there who have the companies that employ them in a stranglehold. All they do is empty these companies of resources, time and money while bringing nothing of value in return.

by cj 4y ago

iso1631 4y ago

> Particularly if the organization just went through an extremely ultra-fast hiring spree where it's likely low quality candidates were hired. The trick is identifying those low quality candidates. You can try to measure them, but once you measure them they become a target, and you get to the equivalent of the person who takes all the easy jobs from a queue because they then think they'll be higher in the value queue.

Apocryphon 4y ago

> If you don't, the high performers may become resentful if they start to feel like they're subsidizing the salary of low performers. But then they can always walk, and be replaced by high performers who were axed at other companies.

cj 4y ago
Most (all?) companies don’t want their high performers to walk away. Especially during a layoff.
- Apocryphon 4y ago
  Sure, but during mass layoffs, those high performers are a lot more replaceable, and they themselves would know as well, and be disincentivized to walk.
  - ominous_prime 4y ago
    High performing employees are not always fungible. You risk are losing significant expertise and institutional knowledge.
    - Apocryphon 4y ago
      And you might lose more of them by pursuing mass layoffs!

r00fus 4y ago

I am truly amazed at the mythology of "high performers" as separate from the org. Teams can be high performing, but high performing individuals are often built by the environment. Yet, in the US we have this almost Stakhanovite mythology where a single worker can pull an entire organization. I have worked with individuals who had been pariahs in the previous org (got that info over beers with the individual) but were rockstars in our org. Also with so-called high-fliers from other teams/companies who just cratered when they joined our group. Personally I think cutting 10% pay is preferable because a) the work doesn't go away - if 10% are let go, I'll probably end up doing 10%+ more work. b) it's a commitment by the organization and that shows they care enough to not unilaterally make a decision.

andrekandre 4y ago
> Yet, in the US we have this almost Stakhanovite mythology where a single worker can pull an entire organization. wow never heard that term until now, it puts into terms something i've noticed a lot at companies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stakhanovite_movement https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stakhanovite_movement
- r00fus 4y ago
  Amusingly I was also quite unaware of this historical footnote until I listened to this song [1] from a Putamayo album that mentioned Stakhanovism and had to look it up. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sncLH_1oONg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sncLH_1oONg
stuxnet79 4y ago
> Teams can be high performing, but high performing individuals are often built by the environment. This is a common bias I experience in American corporate culture and it drives me nuts. Viewing things at the individual level makes it really difficult to understand and cultivate productivity in a sustainable way. Often I find it more useful to look at productivity at the team level. It tends to have more explanatory power than at the individual level because it gets more into psychological safety, communication, attributes that are crucial for high performing teams but are difficult to suss out if you are just focused on individuals. Like you, I have seen way too many smart people stuck in situations where their skills and talents were completely underutilized. Vice versa there's way too many politically adept but inept individuals out there who have the companies that employ them in a stranglehold. All they do is empty these companies of resources, time and money while bringing nothing of value in return.