4 ms·

>> if you achieved 100% of your goals every quarter, you weren't being ambitious enough The CEO directly created the perverse incentive: actually hitting your

>> if you achieved 100% of your goals every quarter, you weren't being ambitious enough The CEO directly created the perverse incentive: actually hitting your goals only meant more work. > How you apply it matters. The CEO applied KPIs in a way that disincentived hitting your targets, and the team responded accordingly.

smachiz 3y ago
Yes and no. There's another view where employees set actually ambitious goals and only get 90% of the way there and are still rewarded and the company also wins. If you are hitting your goals every quarter, that is a great thing - but I tend to agree, at the other end of the spectrum you have people setting easily achieved goals to check a box. The real issue is weeding out people just there to check a box when you're small, and when you're large, it's designing a system that internalizes a lot of your employees are there to check a box.
- nonameiguess 3y ago
  This is the "I swear communism works, you just need people who actually care about worker life quality and aren't tyrants to lead the revolution" school of org theory.
  - smachiz 3y ago
    I mean, that's also probably true. Best form of government is a benevolent dictator and all that... More that you have to have realistic expectations when you structure an org, that people doing the work are going to pad and sandbag in successive tiers up, and people in charge of outcomes are going to push for bigger and more down.
  - 93po 3y ago
    Does capitalism work?
    - mitthrowaway2 3y ago
      Interestingly, individual firms behave more as centrally-planned economies, and market activity is mostly absent inside of them. This is a long-studied curiosity: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_the_firm https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_the_firm
      - Propelloni 3y ago
        The book _The People's Republic of Walmart_ by Leigh Phillips <sp?> and Michael Rozowski <sp?> makes a compelling argument why employing the same technologies companies use to manage supply chains and decision making on a state level could actually produce a working communist system. Of course, we first would need to agree that this is desirable and that's probably the point where it breaks down.
  - nottorp 3y ago
    I would have laughed at that if i hadn't lived the first 14 years of my life in a communist country...
- shortrounddev2 3y ago
  the vast majority of workers do not internalize empathy for their company. They are there for the paycheck. You can either thrash against the entirety of the human race and demand that people lie to your face about how much they care about the company's goals, or you can create a system which takes advantage of the self-serving nature of your employees so that their goals align with your own
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - itsoktocry 3y ago
    >They are there for the paycheck. Well the paycheck ends when the company folds. "Doing good work" is in the best interest of all parties.
    - BowBun 3y ago
      > Well the paycheck ends when the company folds So, you get another job. With great odds of increasing your salary more than you could at your current position. There's really few downsides for workers in having this attitude.
    - shortrounddev2 3y ago
      There are more companies. I also tend to abandon ship before the company folds. I left before the 100mil loss and subsequent layoff. Additionally, at such a large company (1500 people), my individual efforts have little to no effect on whether or not a multinational corporation goes under.
    - ipsento606 3y ago
      > Well the paycheck ends when the company folds. "Doing good work" is in the best interest of all parties. Option A is being an average worker, not trying especially hard, not thinking about work outside of work hours, and having absolutely no emotional investment whatsoever in the wellbeing of the company - and potentially having to get a new job in a few years time, often with a pay increase Option B is "doing good work", "going the extra mile", "being a rock star", putting in lots extra time and effort and emotional energy (for years!) - just on the tiny chance that your particular efforts will be the difference between the company folding vs. being successful Option A sounds a hell of a lot better to me than option B.
itsoktocry 3y ago
>The CEO directly created the perverse incentive: actually hitting your goals only meant more work. You say this as if employees are absolved of any responsibility to the performance of the company. You're not clever for saying, "Oh, 100% means we weren't ambitious? Then we'll work 80% as hard." In fact, I think you'd have to be pretty dense to not understand the intention of the KPI: set lofty goals and try to get there. If you don't think it's working, why not go back with ideas to improve it, rather than doing less work? I mean, this company literally failed (from the sounds of it) and people here are blaming the CEOs KPIs versus the employees who intentionally work less to game the system. Strange.
- Consultant32452 3y ago
  I don't care if the company fails and there's no amount of emotional manipulation that can ever make me care. Only double-digit percentage ownership could make me care. Of course you can't get double-digit percentage ownership of a big company like Facebook, but in a company that big there's almost nothing I'm doing to move the needle anyways so there's no reason to be concerned, any shares are gambles. I do care about my professional reputation. I'm highly skilled and understand how to improve social dynamics on a team, making me very valuable to have around. Clever leadership will figure out a way to align my skills with their own goals. But, if they don't, that's their problem.
  - ryandrake 3y ago
    > I don't care if the company fails and there's no amount of emotional manipulation that can ever make me care. Only double-digit percentage ownership could make me care. That's the bottom line, isn't it? If the CEO wants to align employees' behavior and motivation with his own, he needs to structure the employees' compensation to be like his own compensation. If my compensation is just a "competitive" salary and a few token stonks, then I'm going to do a 9-5 job and hit the required 80% of my KPIs before I go home for the day. If my compensation consists of life-changing equity? I'll work days, nights, weekends, and holidays.
    - 3y ago
commandlinefan 3y ago
The really depressing thing about this thread is that OP is the one who will probably end up being our boss.

smachiz 3y ago

Yes and no. There's another view where employees set actually ambitious goals and only get 90% of the way there and are still rewarded and the company also wins. If you are hitting your goals every quarter, that is a great thing - but I tend to agree, at the other end of the spectrum you have people setting easily achieved goals to check a box. The real issue is weeding out people just there to check a box when you're small, and when you're large, it's designing a system that internalizes a lot of your employees are there to check a box.

nonameiguess 3y ago
This is the "I swear communism works, you just need people who actually care about worker life quality and aren't tyrants to lead the revolution" school of org theory.
- smachiz 3y ago
  I mean, that's also probably true. Best form of government is a benevolent dictator and all that... More that you have to have realistic expectations when you structure an org, that people doing the work are going to pad and sandbag in successive tiers up, and people in charge of outcomes are going to push for bigger and more down.
- 93po 3y ago
  Does capitalism work?
  - mitthrowaway2 3y ago
    Interestingly, individual firms behave more as centrally-planned economies, and market activity is mostly absent inside of them. This is a long-studied curiosity: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_the_firm https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_the_firm
    - Propelloni 3y ago
      The book _The People's Republic of Walmart_ by Leigh Phillips <sp?> and Michael Rozowski <sp?> makes a compelling argument why employing the same technologies companies use to manage supply chains and decision making on a state level could actually produce a working communist system. Of course, we first would need to agree that this is desirable and that's probably the point where it breaks down.
- nottorp 3y ago
  I would have laughed at that if i hadn't lived the first 14 years of my life in a communist country...
shortrounddev2 3y ago
the vast majority of workers do not internalize empathy for their company. They are there for the paycheck. You can either thrash against the entirety of the human race and demand that people lie to your face about how much they care about the company's goals, or you can create a system which takes advantage of the self-serving nature of your employees so that their goals align with your own
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- itsoktocry 3y ago
  >They are there for the paycheck. Well the paycheck ends when the company folds. "Doing good work" is in the best interest of all parties.
  - BowBun 3y ago
    > Well the paycheck ends when the company folds So, you get another job. With great odds of increasing your salary more than you could at your current position. There's really few downsides for workers in having this attitude.
  - shortrounddev2 3y ago
    There are more companies. I also tend to abandon ship before the company folds. I left before the 100mil loss and subsequent layoff. Additionally, at such a large company (1500 people), my individual efforts have little to no effect on whether or not a multinational corporation goes under.
  - ipsento606 3y ago
    > Well the paycheck ends when the company folds. "Doing good work" is in the best interest of all parties. Option A is being an average worker, not trying especially hard, not thinking about work outside of work hours, and having absolutely no emotional investment whatsoever in the wellbeing of the company - and potentially having to get a new job in a few years time, often with a pay increase Option B is "doing good work", "going the extra mile", "being a rock star", putting in lots extra time and effort and emotional energy (for years!) - just on the tiny chance that your particular efforts will be the difference between the company folding vs. being successful Option A sounds a hell of a lot better to me than option B.

itsoktocry 3y ago

>The CEO directly created the perverse incentive: actually hitting your goals only meant more work. You say this as if employees are absolved of any responsibility to the performance of the company. You're not clever for saying, "Oh, 100% means we weren't ambitious? Then we'll work 80% as hard." In fact, I think you'd have to be pretty dense to not understand the intention of the KPI: set lofty goals and try to get there. If you don't think it's working, why not go back with ideas to improve it, rather than doing less work? I mean, this company literally failed (from the sounds of it) and people here are blaming the CEOs KPIs versus the employees who intentionally work less to game the system. Strange.

Consultant32452 3y ago
I don't care if the company fails and there's no amount of emotional manipulation that can ever make me care. Only double-digit percentage ownership could make me care. Of course you can't get double-digit percentage ownership of a big company like Facebook, but in a company that big there's almost nothing I'm doing to move the needle anyways so there's no reason to be concerned, any shares are gambles. I do care about my professional reputation. I'm highly skilled and understand how to improve social dynamics on a team, making me very valuable to have around. Clever leadership will figure out a way to align my skills with their own goals. But, if they don't, that's their problem.
- ryandrake 3y ago
  > I don't care if the company fails and there's no amount of emotional manipulation that can ever make me care. Only double-digit percentage ownership could make me care. That's the bottom line, isn't it? If the CEO wants to align employees' behavior and motivation with his own, he needs to structure the employees' compensation to be like his own compensation. If my compensation is just a "competitive" salary and a few token stonks, then I'm going to do a 9-5 job and hit the required 80% of my KPIs before I go home for the day. If my compensation consists of life-changing equity? I'll work days, nights, weekends, and holidays.
  - 3y ago

commandlinefan 3y ago

The really depressing thing about this thread is that OP is the one who will probably end up being our boss.