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> To front-line employees, the line between right and wrong is very bright. Something happens to people as they climb up through management, she said. The brigh

> To front-line employees, the line between right and wrong is very bright. Something happens to people as they climb up through management, she said. The bright line seems to fade. This doesn't seem like a mystery to me. In my experience the more you climb up through management the more you leave the realm of clear-cut choices and enter a world of nasty trade-offs. Do that enough times, and get your head spun around enough by trade-offs you don't know how to navigate but have to deal with immediately, and you'll get a kind of "trade off numbness".

naasking 3y ago
> and get your head spun around enough by trade-offs you don't know how to navigate but have to deal with immediately, and you'll get a kind of "trade off numbness" I wonder if this could explain why corporations grow into slow behemoths, as a kind of subconscious moral cover. Most people think the causal arrow happens one way, ie. corporations grow due to efficiencies or other factors and moral rot is a side-effect, but maybe it's actually the other way around in some cases. Since everyone tries to see themselves as basically good, but they still want to make money and be profitable, they migrate towards structures with extra layers that provide extra plausible deniability and obfuscation of questionable moral decisions.
- bumby 3y ago
  A Freakonomics episode claims that corporations "grow into slow behemoths" because, by the nature of being successful, you tend to have more programs to maintain. So you spend more time in maintenance mode and outsource your innovation by acquiring scrappy start-ups. It's a risk/reward tradeoff of its own.
  - overvale 3y ago
    This matches my experience. Complexity is a real problem. I've found this video does a good job outlining how this happens: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rp4RCIfX66I https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rp4RCIfX66I
    - torvald 3y ago
      > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rp4RCIfX66I https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rp4RCIfX66I Good watch, thanks!
- dinvlad 3y ago
  I think the opposite applies too - "move fast and break things" is a helluva excuse for doing extremely shady things and not worry about the consequences. Culture and incentives are just extremely hard to get right and align with the morals, and it's a continuous struggle for any business. And this applies even to solo companies.
  - avs733 3y ago
    a mentor once referred to it as 'ship fast and shout down externalities' which always stuck with me That all being said I think for many people the ability to have a bright line is because the abstractions involved in deeply understanding these types of trade offs are not a common part of life. We are (nearly) universally worse at the types of reasoning (especially reasoning with abstractions) that we don't do frequently.
- overvale 3y ago
  Haha. Yes. Basic risk aversion.
prox 3y ago
Do you have an example of nasty trade offs? I am not familiar with managing so I am interested what those could be. I assume taking care of the worker vs taking care for the company (growth) is one of them, but again not sure.
- badpun 3y ago
  There's plenty of situations where you can do things right, but it will be expensive, slow or otherwise inconvenient, or you can screw someone over (that someone may be the taxpayers, or local community whose environment you pollute), and make the problem go away.
- suoduandao3 3y ago
  Two direct reports aren't getting along. Their work styles are both valuable but clash with each other. You need to ask one of them to adjust to the other's expectations.
- overvale 3y ago
  Is it better to lay off 10 more people and save the money or is it better to keep more people around to deal with the uncertainty of the next 6 months? How do you want to protect the team? With extra people or with extra money?
  - fallingfrog 3y ago
    Depends on how many billions you spent on stock buybacks that year..
- avs733 3y ago
  not business but I'll give one from my own work in academia. Do you change a requirement for a BS degree to only require 6 instead of 9 credits of research? Upside - students might graduate faster (this is one of many constraints on graduation) which saves them money and time. downsides - faculty may have less students to help with research (which helps faculty succeed via research productivity) complicating - students might do the research anyways, they can still get credit it just doesn't officially count for anything. context: the department is responsible to both...the actual impact of both the upside and downside are functionally impossible to predict because they are part of a broader complex partially social system that will anneal itself in ways you don't expect, metrics of success for students and faculty are important to everyone, albeit through different arms of an org chart which results in them each advocating for their metric at the expense of all others, because their success is partially evaluated on that metric. solution (this is sarcasm): remove a math course as 'required' that most students get transfer credit for and have to have as a pre-requisite for other classes. Only effect is on the 2% of students who actually have to take the course. result: everyone sees change, which they want, without perceiving a risk of harmful side effects, and with no actual change to the status quo.
joelthelion 3y ago
Also you won't climb very far if you're not willing to sacrifice at least some of your ethics.
watwut 3y ago
I do not think it is just that. In organizations where low level employees are rewarded for breaking the law or doing unethical acts, front-line employees have as muddled line between right and wrong as managers. In corporations, as you climb up, you get rewarded for unethical more and more. Ethical people get kicked out of the ladder.

naasking 3y ago

> and get your head spun around enough by trade-offs you don't know how to navigate but have to deal with immediately, and you'll get a kind of "trade off numbness" I wonder if this could explain why corporations grow into slow behemoths, as a kind of subconscious moral cover. Most people think the causal arrow happens one way, ie. corporations grow due to efficiencies or other factors and moral rot is a side-effect, but maybe it's actually the other way around in some cases. Since everyone tries to see themselves as basically good, but they still want to make money and be profitable, they migrate towards structures with extra layers that provide extra plausible deniability and obfuscation of questionable moral decisions.

bumby 3y ago
A Freakonomics episode claims that corporations "grow into slow behemoths" because, by the nature of being successful, you tend to have more programs to maintain. So you spend more time in maintenance mode and outsource your innovation by acquiring scrappy start-ups. It's a risk/reward tradeoff of its own.
- overvale 3y ago
  This matches my experience. Complexity is a real problem. I've found this video does a good job outlining how this happens: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rp4RCIfX66I https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rp4RCIfX66I
  - torvald 3y ago
    > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rp4RCIfX66I https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rp4RCIfX66I Good watch, thanks!
dinvlad 3y ago
I think the opposite applies too - "move fast and break things" is a helluva excuse for doing extremely shady things and not worry about the consequences. Culture and incentives are just extremely hard to get right and align with the morals, and it's a continuous struggle for any business. And this applies even to solo companies.
- avs733 3y ago
  a mentor once referred to it as 'ship fast and shout down externalities' which always stuck with me That all being said I think for many people the ability to have a bright line is because the abstractions involved in deeply understanding these types of trade offs are not a common part of life. We are (nearly) universally worse at the types of reasoning (especially reasoning with abstractions) that we don't do frequently.
overvale 3y ago
Haha. Yes. Basic risk aversion.

prox 3y ago

Do you have an example of nasty trade offs? I am not familiar with managing so I am interested what those could be. I assume taking care of the worker vs taking care for the company (growth) is one of them, but again not sure.

badpun 3y ago
There's plenty of situations where you can do things right, but it will be expensive, slow or otherwise inconvenient, or you can screw someone over (that someone may be the taxpayers, or local community whose environment you pollute), and make the problem go away.
suoduandao3 3y ago
Two direct reports aren't getting along. Their work styles are both valuable but clash with each other. You need to ask one of them to adjust to the other's expectations.
overvale 3y ago
Is it better to lay off 10 more people and save the money or is it better to keep more people around to deal with the uncertainty of the next 6 months? How do you want to protect the team? With extra people or with extra money?
- fallingfrog 3y ago
  Depends on how many billions you spent on stock buybacks that year..
avs733 3y ago
not business but I'll give one from my own work in academia. Do you change a requirement for a BS degree to only require 6 instead of 9 credits of research? Upside - students might graduate faster (this is one of many constraints on graduation) which saves them money and time. downsides - faculty may have less students to help with research (which helps faculty succeed via research productivity) complicating - students might do the research anyways, they can still get credit it just doesn't officially count for anything. context: the department is responsible to both...the actual impact of both the upside and downside are functionally impossible to predict because they are part of a broader complex partially social system that will anneal itself in ways you don't expect, metrics of success for students and faculty are important to everyone, albeit through different arms of an org chart which results in them each advocating for their metric at the expense of all others, because their success is partially evaluated on that metric. solution (this is sarcasm): remove a math course as 'required' that most students get transfer credit for and have to have as a pre-requisite for other classes. Only effect is on the 2% of students who actually have to take the course. result: everyone sees change, which they want, without perceiving a risk of harmful side effects, and with no actual change to the status quo.

joelthelion 3y ago

Also you won't climb very far if you're not willing to sacrifice at least some of your ethics.

watwut 3y ago

I do not think it is just that. In organizations where low level employees are rewarded for breaking the law or doing unethical acts, front-line employees have as muddled line between right and wrong as managers. In corporations, as you climb up, you get rewarded for unethical more and more. Ethical people get kicked out of the ladder.