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"And I just want to clarify that, through these changes, people feel it on the ground and sometimes people write back and say, ‘Thank you for simplifying.’" Is
by treprinum 3y ago
"And I just want to clarify that, through these changes, people feel it on the ground and sometimes people write back and say, ‘Thank you for simplifying.’"
Is there any mandatory training for CEOs to first understand when somebody is kissing up, second evaluate how devastating is cherry picking rare positive feedback to the company's morale? I can't believe top people can be so inept.
- xt00 3y agoSurvivorship bias in action.. "I'm glad to be alive.. thanks boss!" How many of the people laid off said "thank you for simplifying.." ..
- standardUser 3y agoThis is a serious problem. There will always been a handful of "career-oriented' sycophants who will tell the top bosses exactly what they want to hear. That let's those bosses ignore complaints (if people dare complain) or simply assume everything must be wonderful since they keep getting such positive feedback.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- bradleyjg 3y agoThere’s a powerful evolutionary force which provides very rich or powerful people with whatever yes-men are appealing to their particular personalities. The returns to being an accepted yes-man are so high that attempts are going to continually be made until someone clicks. Eventually someone is going to click. It’s near impossible not to become detached from reality under such circumstances. Hence all the legends across many cultures of the king dressing up as a commoner and sneaking around his kingdom.
- api 3y agoI forget where I heard this but I once read a saying that “communication is only possible between equals.” I think that’s too extreme as a blanket statement but it’s definitely true that when there are major wealth or position differences communication becomes difficult and all kinds of perverse incentives come into play. If you wonder how, for example, George Bush II thought it really was “mission accomplished” in Iraq or Vladimir Putin thought they’d conquer Ukraine in a few weeks, the mechanism you describe is the answer. “Yes sir. Everything is great sir.” Nobody wants to contradict or bear bad news. The larger the power/wealth differential and the larger and older the organization the worse it gets. Older matters because it means there has been lots of time for these perverse incentives to take root. Large matters because the organization is too big for most people to really know one another. This is probably a major mechanism of civilization decline. Eventually you end up with layers of leadership that become increasingly detached from reality as you go up. It’s pretty incredible that primate social behaviors evolved for small hunting bands and tribes can scale this big at all, but they certainly don’t do so very well. The inefficiency and error rate is incredible.
- cratermoon 3y agoThe inimitable Systemantics terms this the Hireling's Hypnosis.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- lazystar 3y agospeaking truth to power is difficult when the survival of your social structure depends on your continued income. ironically - or perhaps intentionally - the fact that no one feels safe due to random firings of "top performers", new hires, "underperformers", etc, could result in a work envoronment where everyone finally speaks the truth, because they dont have a guarantee that lying will continue to protect their paycheck.
- api 3y agoWorks the other way too. Higher ups have an incentive to provide a rosy outlook, explain away problems, and over promise to those under them to stay there. So really everyone in a hierarchy is incentivized to blow smoke.
- kinggrowler 3y agoCeline's Second Law, from the Illuminatus! series: Wilson rephrases the [law] himself many times as "communication occurs only between equals". Celine calls this law "a simple statement of the obvious" and refers to the fact that everyone who labors under an authority figure tends to lie to and flatter that authority figure in order to protect themselves either from violence or from deprivation of security (such as losing one's job).... https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celine%27s_laws https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celine%27s_laws
- siggen 3y agoWhat he said probably cannot be verified, even. On another note, has anyone noticed how Pichai likes to take pictures in front of others’ work for the media [1]? To me, it’s a weird feeling—- like someone taking credit for others’ work. [1] https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2019/10/23/google-quantum-computing-supremacy-claim-disputed-by-ibm.html https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2019/10/23/google-quantum-computing...
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- michaelt 3y agoEh, that's kinda normal. Just because the queen shows up to get photographed cutting a ribbon at a new university building, doesn't mean anyone imagines she laid any bricks or tiled any bathrooms. The photo you linked to is only confusing because he's not wearing a suit. Chuck that guy in a suit, have him look on politely as someone in a high-vis vest or a lab coat points at something, and this photo would be one among thousands.
- TaylorAlexander 3y agoOr from another perspective, it's weird when the Queen does it too.
- hyperman1 3y agoIt makes more sense if the queen is just a mascot for $country. The whole country got together and made it, but its not practical to get everyone on the photo. So you put a crown on some random person to make clear she's a representation of the whole country, not a real person (at that instant). What's missing here is the crown/suit/...
- SequoiaHope 3y agoI think there is some ideology attached to how "normal" that would be, and whether someone accepts the "mascot" analogy. If society were very focused on worker's rights and the recognition of the necessity of labor, such as in an idealized socialist society or a society with a predominance of worker cooperatives in the economy, then the idea of having a monarch or CEO of a company standing in front of the hard work of people whose names are not mentioned and whose faces are not pictured would seem absurd. You would expect and indeed commonly see photos showing many workers in front of the item in question. Just as an example I went to the wikipedia page for the Tennessee Valley Authority, and it was quick to find what I would expect: a photo of a large group of workers in front of a dam they constructed: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tennessee_Valley_Authority#/media/File:%22A_group_showing_some_of_the_men_working_at_Norris_Dam.%22_-_NARA_-_532717.jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tennessee_Valley_Authority#/me... Or you might find a focused photo of a worker who is one of the people who built the thing, and representative of the type of workers on the project: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tennessee_Valley_Authority#/media/File:PalmercarpenterA.jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tennessee_Valley_Authority#/me... I say this just to say, sure it can "make sense" but I think this is an artifact of the world we live in, where we have a hierarchical government and most firms in our economy are themselves hierarchical in nature. And so when the person at the top of the hierarchy stands for a photo op in front of the thing, we naturally accept that they serve as a "representation" of the output of the company. But someone with a more worker-focused view would be more inclined to see that and find it off-putting. For the photo of Sundar Pichai up thread, I do in fact find it irritating that they don't even mention the people who were involved with the project he is standing in front of. And wouldn't you know it, I am a very pro-worker in inclination.
- sianemo 3y agoPichai doesn't need to sincerely believe what he's relaying here to benefit from it, he needs only believe that by saying these things he can steer employee discontent to back within a manageable margin. Therein lies the ineptitude.
- slyall 3y agoThere is mandatory training for CEOs to always be positive unless there is a very good reason not to. What did you expect him to say? "Yes, moral is low and all the good people are leaving" ?
- wolverine876 3y agoYou can communicate, even in difficult situations, sincerely, genuinely, and truthfully, while providing good leadership. That is a manager's job description, effectively.
- bdd8f1df777b 3y agoThat’s only theory. In reality, people who spin everything in a positive light survive longer in a big organization.
- esafak 3y agoIt appears that Pichai's survival is at odds with the company's.
- wolverine876 3y agoI would not assume it's true; it's typical technique for responding to this kind of criticism - don't address the concerns, express complete rejection of them by claiming it's positive (layoffs are positive, if you only look at them from a certain angle), and most importantly demonstrate the conversation can't move forward - there's such a chasm between you and them that it's hopeless. It's a propaganda technique. It works - look at Ian Hickson, who resigned in despair. It fits the contemporary fad of contempt for anyone less powerful than you, including employees, courts (for some), etc.
- tdeck 3y agoI wouldn't call powerful peoples' contempt for those less powerful than them a fad. That's been a thing for millenia.
- wolverine876 3y ago> That's been a thing for millenia. Somehow, the world changes day to day, year to year, generation to generation; somehow we change the world; and all despite the fact that, as people now copypasta everywhere, 'it's always been that way'. Do people say that at work meetings? Talking to investors? One wonders what all these entrepeneurs and engineers do? No wonder funding is drying up (I think that might be a literal problem - the despair, pessimism and cynicism reaching the executive suite). We've always had carbon in the atmosphere, warfare, poverty, oppression, ... and people saying that _____ has always been that way.
- AndrewKemendo 3y agoThe CEOs job is to make the board happy. That’s it. There’s no other requirement. You make the board mad you’re fired. You make the board happy, then you’re golden and can do whatever. The easiest way to make a board happy is to reduce headcount, increase revenues (ideally wherever you have strongest margins) and prevent collective bargaining. CEO at this level isn’t a people leader like you’d expect because boards don’t care about people (unless they are unionizing). So anything they say about people issues, you can guarantee is a statement made for the board’s consumption. This fits that perfectly because what he’s communicating is “we got rid of what we consider dead weight loss because those people worked in what we arbitrarily have deemed cost centers instead of what we used to call [important buzzword like “metaverse”]
- ncr100 3y agoIt's gross, and true. The average worker, adhering to Company Culture, trading their mental space and shaving off their own quality of life in favor of the company's growth, are not the point of the business.
- ryloric 3y agoCome on, you say it as if every board member is an android focused only on short term results. They've had a board when Eric was CEO and Google was doing it's best work as well. It's not really about the board, Google has become a mature company that's not going to grow 20% YoY anymore and this is what happens to such businesses. Unless they're lead by an exceptionally strong person who can stand up to economic forces, they will turn them into IBM.
- throwawayqqq11 3y ago> It's not really about the board. > Unless they're lead by an exceptionally strong person who can stand up to economic forces Isnt the board the ultimate force, including the economic one? You are supporting OPs claim actually. Becoming a mature company brings declining workforce morale. > they will turn them into IBM. because > The CEOs job is to make the board happy. That’s it.
- skort 3y agoI don't think you get to be the CEO of a big tech company by caring about workers.
- ghaff 3y agoI don't think that's really fair. But I also think CEOs have to think about tradeoffs and realistically assess needs and strategies going forward which may not mean keeping everyone on payroll.
- dwb 3y agoCEOs have to be competent agents of capital. This is fine to them because they see capital as a force for good.
- imadierich 3y ago[dead]
- latency-guy2 3y agoWhat level of employment do you usually get to until you don't care about workers?
- rurp 3y agoYeah it's pretty unreal how hard Sundar is working to confirm all of the opinions about him being an out of touch and ineffectual manager. That line was unbelievably cringe inducing.