6 ms·

Boss' Dilemma: Taking Responsibility Signals Cooperation

54 points by KentBeck 4y ago

jmathai 4y ago
Alignment with your peers and leadership is paramount. The longer I work, the more time and energy I spend making sure everyone is rowing in the same direction. That seems to address many problems before they come to exist. This is especially true when it involves cross organizational folks with different priorities. I will spend the extra 30 minutes before a meeting to make sure that my team is aligned. Nothing is worse than the fallout of when disorganization and lack of agreement make it outside of our team's boundaries.
- KentBeck 4y ago
  I agree about the importance of alignment. The recent evolution in my thinking is to take into account the power differentials between the folks who need to be aligned. As The Boss it's easy to say, "Everyone should be aligned," without seeing the incentives you are creating for folks not to align. And then fuss about their lack of alignment.
drewcoo 4y ago
In the prisoners' dilemma, there is a mutual adversary plotting to turn them against one another. In the prisoners' there is no communication possible. Those are actually the key elements of the puzzle! Employer/employee relationships one would hope that there is open communication and that there's not some agent trying to pit them against each other. I think the analysis breaks down right where it starts for work. I also think the author should seek counseling if they see work that way. That's just a very unhealthy outlook.
- harimau777 4y ago
  From what I've seen, the problem is that if an employee communicates their concerns to their boss, then their boss can use that communication against them. E.g. by punishing them for "not being a team player". In practice, a situation where no communication is possible and a situation where it isn't safe to communicate are very similar.
  - steveBK123 4y ago
    Right, and ironically the bosses/orgs I've been in that talk about "psychological safety" had the most psycho managers.
    - epicureanideal 4y ago
      Why are these people in their positions? Why are better managed companies not replacing them?
      - steveBK123 4y ago
        Because tech mostly promotes perceived "high performing" ICs to management. Which has no correlation with being a good manager. And then those people move up and promote more people like them. I've tried it on for size a few times, don't love it, don't think I'm great at it, but fortunately moved into areas that can pay ICs well. Otherwise most ICs eventually fall into the trap of having to pretend to want to be a manger in order to keep moving up in the pay scale. Given the choice, I'll stay out of management, but if not doing it meant capping out on pay.. then sure, I'd have to do it again.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- ChadNauseam 4y ago
  I don’t think so. The prisoner’s dilemma is just a payoff matrix. Adding communication doesn’t change it as long as each player can’t see the other’s choice before making their own. And whether the payoff matrix arises because of a mutual adversary or some other way doesn’t seem like it should make a difference to me. Make it an iterated prisoner’s dilemma, or add some other way for players to punish each other after seeing their choice, and that does change the game.
  - Antoniocl 4y ago
    The relationship between a boss and an employee is so far removed from a classical single-round prisoner's dilemma that I don't think you'll draw reliably accurate conclusions from it. As it sounds like you know, constraints like iteration change the game significantly, as would making it a game with many actors and reputational effects. All models are wrong, some models are useful, and in this case it seems more wrong than useful. Edit: thought you were OP, whoops
  - Kranar 4y ago
    >Adding communication doesn’t change it as long as each player can’t see the other’s choice before making their own. Saying that communication doesn't change the prisoner's dilemma so long as each player can't communicate is a contradiction. The only difference is you used the word "see" instead of the word "communicate", but "see"ing is a form of communication.
    - SailingSperm 4y ago
      They're saying there's a distinction of being able to communicate freely (and possibly lie) while still not showing your final action to defect or cooperate. Which yes, leaves the prisoners dilemma much the same as the 0 forms of comms version.
      - Kranar 4y ago
        >They're saying there's a distinction But OP is saying there is no distinction.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
ghiculescu 4y ago
> The boss can fire the employee but not the other way around. What. Employees can quit, which is synonymous to firing the boss. Maybe the bit about software design was correct, but the first two sections incorrectly explaining game theory don’t give me much confidence.
- nerbert 4y ago
  Boss fires the employee: employee loses the salary. Employee fires the boss: employee loses the salary.
  - P_I_Staker 4y ago
    I'm not on the other side of this argument, but this is often plainly untrue. Employee fires boss, employee makes more money, boss loses work, pays tons of money, and then pays a higher salary. I do agree about the power imbalance though.
  - cjbgkagh 4y ago
    Presumably the boss was gaining more value from work done than the cost and the employee could try for a job elsewhere.
  - kbutler 4y ago
    So, why doesn't the boss always fire all employees and not pay any salaries?
    - bryanrasmussen 4y ago
      If there is one thing I've learned from reading all the comments on HN it is that management is stupid.
      - SturgeonsLaw 4y ago
        Everyone knows that the devs are the smartest guys in the room Source: the devs
Biologist123 4y ago
> The boss can fire the employee but not the other way around. When an employee severs the relationship it is called “resigning”. This makes me wonder why the difference in language and if it’s part of the power play whereby companies seek to frame the relationship as sponsor/beneficiary rather than straight contract (which is what it is).
- ElevenLathe 4y ago
  When quit, I am without a job but the boss still has his. When I am fired, the same holds except that I didn't even choose when it would happen. They are not symmetrical, as I can never choose to stay while making the other person leave. At best, I can choose /when/ I leave. But also, as a practical matter, most "bosses" (line managers at least, not sure how true this is further up the org chart) in IT can't actually fire their reports. /They/ would be fired /themselves/ if they did. Instead, they are expected to "manage out" unfavored employees by just giving a few quarters of bad reviews, performance plans, write-ups, etc. until they start interviewing elsewhere and leave on their own.
- roenxi 4y ago
  It is an interesting thought to play around with - but probably not. If a company is allowed to frame firings they would use mild language and try not to refer to the situation at all ('the business was restructured', 'redundancy', 'layoff'). If the firing was for-cause the language gets a bit stronger ('terminated' for example would indicate that the person had done something that scared a team of lawyers or was otherwise egregious). Firing is a slang term that would tend to be used by an unsympathetic press. The slang equivalent would be quit which has a similar strength.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- esperent 4y ago
  Of course there are power dynamics at play here - more or less of them depending on how crappy vs decent the company is. However, I don't see any power play in the words themselves. An employee being fired and an employee resigning are different concepts, and different concepts get different words. You could read something into the word "firing". But don't most companies avoid that word in any case, in favor of "letting go" or "dismissal"?

54 points by KentBeck 4y ago

Alignment with your peers and leadership is paramount. The longer I work, the more time and energy I spend making sure everyone is rowing in the same direction. That seems to address many problems before they come to exist. This is especially true when it involves cross organizational folks with different priorities. I will spend the extra 30 minutes before a meeting to make sure that my team is aligned. Nothing is worse than the fallout of when disorganization and lack of agreement make it outside of our team's boundaries.

KentBeck 4y ago
I agree about the importance of alignment. The recent evolution in my thinking is to take into account the power differentials between the folks who need to be aligned. As The Boss it's easy to say, "Everyone should be aligned," without seeing the incentives you are creating for folks not to align. And then fuss about their lack of alignment.

drewcoo 4y ago

In the prisoners' dilemma, there is a mutual adversary plotting to turn them against one another. In the prisoners' there is no communication possible. Those are actually the key elements of the puzzle! Employer/employee relationships one would hope that there is open communication and that there's not some agent trying to pit them against each other. I think the analysis breaks down right where it starts for work. I also think the author should seek counseling if they see work that way. That's just a very unhealthy outlook.

harimau777 4y ago
From what I've seen, the problem is that if an employee communicates their concerns to their boss, then their boss can use that communication against them. E.g. by punishing them for "not being a team player". In practice, a situation where no communication is possible and a situation where it isn't safe to communicate are very similar.
- steveBK123 4y ago
  Right, and ironically the bosses/orgs I've been in that talk about "psychological safety" had the most psycho managers.
  - epicureanideal 4y ago
    Why are these people in their positions? Why are better managed companies not replacing them?
    - steveBK123 4y ago
      Because tech mostly promotes perceived "high performing" ICs to management. Which has no correlation with being a good manager. And then those people move up and promote more people like them. I've tried it on for size a few times, don't love it, don't think I'm great at it, but fortunately moved into areas that can pay ICs well. Otherwise most ICs eventually fall into the trap of having to pretend to want to be a manger in order to keep moving up in the pay scale. Given the choice, I'll stay out of management, but if not doing it meant capping out on pay.. then sure, I'd have to do it again.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
ChadNauseam 4y ago
I don’t think so. The prisoner’s dilemma is just a payoff matrix. Adding communication doesn’t change it as long as each player can’t see the other’s choice before making their own. And whether the payoff matrix arises because of a mutual adversary or some other way doesn’t seem like it should make a difference to me. Make it an iterated prisoner’s dilemma, or add some other way for players to punish each other after seeing their choice, and that does change the game.
- Antoniocl 4y ago
  The relationship between a boss and an employee is so far removed from a classical single-round prisoner's dilemma that I don't think you'll draw reliably accurate conclusions from it. As it sounds like you know, constraints like iteration change the game significantly, as would making it a game with many actors and reputational effects. All models are wrong, some models are useful, and in this case it seems more wrong than useful. Edit: thought you were OP, whoops
- Kranar 4y ago
  >Adding communication doesn’t change it as long as each player can’t see the other’s choice before making their own. Saying that communication doesn't change the prisoner's dilemma so long as each player can't communicate is a contradiction. The only difference is you used the word "see" instead of the word "communicate", but "see"ing is a form of communication.
  - SailingSperm 4y ago
    They're saying there's a distinction of being able to communicate freely (and possibly lie) while still not showing your final action to defect or cooperate. Which yes, leaves the prisoners dilemma much the same as the 0 forms of comms version.
    - Kranar 4y ago
      >They're saying there's a distinction But OP is saying there is no distinction.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

ghiculescu 4y ago

> The boss can fire the employee but not the other way around. What. Employees can quit, which is synonymous to firing the boss. Maybe the bit about software design was correct, but the first two sections incorrectly explaining game theory don’t give me much confidence.

nerbert 4y ago
Boss fires the employee: employee loses the salary. Employee fires the boss: employee loses the salary.
- P_I_Staker 4y ago
  I'm not on the other side of this argument, but this is often plainly untrue. Employee fires boss, employee makes more money, boss loses work, pays tons of money, and then pays a higher salary. I do agree about the power imbalance though.
- cjbgkagh 4y ago
  Presumably the boss was gaining more value from work done than the cost and the employee could try for a job elsewhere.
- kbutler 4y ago
  So, why doesn't the boss always fire all employees and not pay any salaries?
  - bryanrasmussen 4y ago
    If there is one thing I've learned from reading all the comments on HN it is that management is stupid.
    - SturgeonsLaw 4y ago
      Everyone knows that the devs are the smartest guys in the room Source: the devs

Biologist123 4y ago

> The boss can fire the employee but not the other way around. When an employee severs the relationship it is called “resigning”. This makes me wonder why the difference in language and if it’s part of the power play whereby companies seek to frame the relationship as sponsor/beneficiary rather than straight contract (which is what it is).

ElevenLathe 4y ago
When quit, I am without a job but the boss still has his. When I am fired, the same holds except that I didn't even choose when it would happen. They are not symmetrical, as I can never choose to stay while making the other person leave. At best, I can choose /when/ I leave. But also, as a practical matter, most "bosses" (line managers at least, not sure how true this is further up the org chart) in IT can't actually fire their reports. /They/ would be fired /themselves/ if they did. Instead, they are expected to "manage out" unfavored employees by just giving a few quarters of bad reviews, performance plans, write-ups, etc. until they start interviewing elsewhere and leave on their own.
roenxi 4y ago
It is an interesting thought to play around with - but probably not. If a company is allowed to frame firings they would use mild language and try not to refer to the situation at all ('the business was restructured', 'redundancy', 'layoff'). If the firing was for-cause the language gets a bit stronger ('terminated' for example would indicate that the person had done something that scared a team of lawyers or was otherwise egregious). Firing is a slang term that would tend to be used by an unsympathetic press. The slang equivalent would be quit which has a similar strength.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
esperent 4y ago
Of course there are power dynamics at play here - more or less of them depending on how crappy vs decent the company is. However, I don't see any power play in the words themselves. An employee being fired and an employee resigning are different concepts, and different concepts get different words. You could read something into the word "firing". But don't most companies avoid that word in any case, in favor of "letting go" or "dismissal"?