7 ms·

Part of the problem has to be that as an individual in an organization it seems like a better ROI for your effort to grow your share of the pie than the entire

Part of the problem has to be that as an individual in an organization it seems like a better ROI for your effort to grow your share of the pie than the entire pie itself. Individual incentives are naturally going to be aligned by advancement and "being difficult" is something everyone wants to avoid. Easier to shed blame and avoid accountability than try to fix the social and political structure of your organization. Mostly because even if you succeed, the organization wouldn't be sophisticated enough to understand and credit you for the work.

hooverd 3y ago
Your reward for growing the pie is one (1) pizza pie.
- deleted 3y ago
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- deleted 3y ago
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- disqard 3y ago
  When the moonshot hits the sky You score a bonus pizza pie! That's amore...
borroka 3y ago
I work for a company that employs 100k people. The effects of my work strategy and behavior on the company's revenue, profit, vision, products are zero. On the contrary, the effects of my work strategy and behavior on my salary and position can be quite pronounced. My company can fire me tomorrow, they will forget my name in 5 days. To "fire" my company, I need to find another job, maybe in another city, working with colleagues I don't know who may eat food at lunch break I don't like the smell of. It is not hard to guess where I spend most of my efforts and thinking.
- repomies69 3y ago
  > My company can fire me tomorrow, they will forget my name in 5 days. To "fire" my company, I need to find another job, maybe in another city, working with colleagues I don't know who may eat food at lunch break I don't like the smell of. I don't think is very good comparison, generally. Some other company could offer you a job and you can leave any time. Depending on your tasks, the company might have very difficult time finding replacement personnel. This could be very significant (relative) cost for the company. Personally I have always lived in countries where employee protection laws are very employee-friendly. Companies can't just fire people at will, they need good reasons. There might be significant fines for misfiring for wrong reasons.
  - borroka 3y ago
    It is a very good comparison (I work in California, at-will contracts). The effect of me leaving my company and the effect of my company leaving me, for the one who is getting dropped, are not even remotely comparable. The negative effects of my leaving or being laid off/fired on the company of 100k people are, more often than not, not distinguishable from zero. Many folks left my group and other groups I worked in and, invariably, the escapees were barely remembered a few weeks after leaving. The cemetery is full of indispensable people, and I was never told that I was indispensable. The negative effects of my dismissal by the company on me range from almost zero (I wanted to leave anyway, I have ten other jobs lined up, they offer me more money) to very substantial (I didn't want to leave, I can't pay my mortgage, my partner sees me as a failure). I respect the company I work for and my colleagues. But if I have to choose between advancing my cause and advancing the cause of the company (assuming the two causes are somewhat misaligned and assuming I am not doing anything considered "wrong"), I choose myself every day of the week and twice on Sunday
    - xmcqdpt2 3y ago
      > The negative effects of my leaving or being laid off/fired on the company of 100k people are, more often than not, not distinguishable from zero. Many folks left my group and other groups I worked in and, invariably, the escapees were barely remembered a few weeks after leaving. The cemetery is full of indispensable people, and I was never told that I was indispensable. In fact, I'd go as far as to say that having "indispensable people" at all is a management failure. Large corporations that have been around for decades have survived because they don't have indispensable people. This is why you don't get more money even if you outcode everyone on your team. The company doesn't want a rockstar developer, it much prefers having 4 average devs (where "average" obviously varies a lot based on the company and how much they pay etc.) It's simple risk management: the company knows it can recruit another average dev if it needs to.
binary132 3y ago
Wisdom is realizing that fixing the social and political structure of the org is often against the interests of enough people, or at least troublesome enough, that ultimately a lot of people will fight to maintain a pathological status quo, and actively subvert reform, instead.
pdimitar 3y ago
So, financial incentives as I said. As for "being difficult", yeah, that's a huge culture problem of many Westerners. It's also a very nasty problem because everyone believes in it; I too had managers who literally told me to "stop being difficult" when all I did was asking, twice over the course of an entire month, about why aren't we given just a little more bandwidth to deal with a problem that slows down half the company. But as we know, culture problems are extremely slow to be solved and that's why I don't blame people for coasting on salary and doing the bare minimum. Tragedy of the commons, Prisoner's dilemma, Peter's principle, we can call it whatever, it's still very sad though.

hooverd 3y ago

Your reward for growing the pie is one (1) pizza pie.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
disqard 3y ago
When the moonshot hits the sky You score a bonus pizza pie! That's amore...

borroka 3y ago

I work for a company that employs 100k people. The effects of my work strategy and behavior on the company's revenue, profit, vision, products are zero. On the contrary, the effects of my work strategy and behavior on my salary and position can be quite pronounced. My company can fire me tomorrow, they will forget my name in 5 days. To "fire" my company, I need to find another job, maybe in another city, working with colleagues I don't know who may eat food at lunch break I don't like the smell of. It is not hard to guess where I spend most of my efforts and thinking.

repomies69 3y ago
> My company can fire me tomorrow, they will forget my name in 5 days. To "fire" my company, I need to find another job, maybe in another city, working with colleagues I don't know who may eat food at lunch break I don't like the smell of. I don't think is very good comparison, generally. Some other company could offer you a job and you can leave any time. Depending on your tasks, the company might have very difficult time finding replacement personnel. This could be very significant (relative) cost for the company. Personally I have always lived in countries where employee protection laws are very employee-friendly. Companies can't just fire people at will, they need good reasons. There might be significant fines for misfiring for wrong reasons.
- borroka 3y ago
  It is a very good comparison (I work in California, at-will contracts). The effect of me leaving my company and the effect of my company leaving me, for the one who is getting dropped, are not even remotely comparable. The negative effects of my leaving or being laid off/fired on the company of 100k people are, more often than not, not distinguishable from zero. Many folks left my group and other groups I worked in and, invariably, the escapees were barely remembered a few weeks after leaving. The cemetery is full of indispensable people, and I was never told that I was indispensable. The negative effects of my dismissal by the company on me range from almost zero (I wanted to leave anyway, I have ten other jobs lined up, they offer me more money) to very substantial (I didn't want to leave, I can't pay my mortgage, my partner sees me as a failure). I respect the company I work for and my colleagues. But if I have to choose between advancing my cause and advancing the cause of the company (assuming the two causes are somewhat misaligned and assuming I am not doing anything considered "wrong"), I choose myself every day of the week and twice on Sunday
  - xmcqdpt2 3y ago
    > The negative effects of my leaving or being laid off/fired on the company of 100k people are, more often than not, not distinguishable from zero. Many folks left my group and other groups I worked in and, invariably, the escapees were barely remembered a few weeks after leaving. The cemetery is full of indispensable people, and I was never told that I was indispensable. In fact, I'd go as far as to say that having "indispensable people" at all is a management failure. Large corporations that have been around for decades have survived because they don't have indispensable people. This is why you don't get more money even if you outcode everyone on your team. The company doesn't want a rockstar developer, it much prefers having 4 average devs (where "average" obviously varies a lot based on the company and how much they pay etc.) It's simple risk management: the company knows it can recruit another average dev if it needs to.

binary132 3y ago

Wisdom is realizing that fixing the social and political structure of the org is often against the interests of enough people, or at least troublesome enough, that ultimately a lot of people will fight to maintain a pathological status quo, and actively subvert reform, instead.

pdimitar 3y ago

So, financial incentives as I said. As for "being difficult", yeah, that's a huge culture problem of many Westerners. It's also a very nasty problem because everyone believes in it; I too had managers who literally told me to "stop being difficult" when all I did was asking, twice over the course of an entire month, about why aren't we given just a little more bandwidth to deal with a problem that slows down half the company. But as we know, culture problems are extremely slow to be solved and that's why I don't blame people for coasting on salary and doing the bare minimum. Tragedy of the commons, Prisoner's dilemma, Peter's principle, we can call it whatever, it's still very sad though.