26 ms·

Holocracy has never worked. Someone has to do the management tasks, even if you pretend there aren’t any managers.

lolive 3y ago
The question is whether most middle-managers are able to take impactful decisions. My personal experience is that 80% of them are [Steve Jobs quote:] « bozos ».
- al_borland 3y ago
  Most middle managers aren’t there to be impactful, they are there to remove the busy work from whoever is above them. Mediate conflict within the team, approve vacation requests, do the paperwork, and clarify direction for the team as set by the person above them, so the team isn’t bothering the bigger boss with silly things like, “what is my priority?”
  - em-bee 3y ago
    the problem is that in order to do that they are given authority over the team when they should be seen as a teams assistant or secretary. the manager should report to the team and not the reverse.
    - aitchnyu 3y ago
      Is there an example of manager who has lots of reports, organized into teams which have secretaries?
      - em-bee 3y ago
        not that i know of. maybe project managers compare most closely. if they exists then they may not be visible from the outside. i also expect the salary to be lower than the senior developers, which means it is not a job a senior would be promoted to.
      - al_borland 3y ago
        For a while my company tried a “matrix organization”, it separates the people leader from the work leader. So a person would be on a team, and the work the team did would be guided by the product owner and kept on track by the scrum master. Then a person’s actual boss was someone else. This meant an employee would really only talk to their boss for HR type issues, which in practice meant most people never talked to their boss. During this time I was a product owner. This whole setup had its weaknesses. First, it was confusing and it felt a bit like the Office Space joke of having multiple bosses, although I very much tried to maintain that I was there to serve the team and kept it democratic, not every product owner took that approach. The other issue was when it came time for reviews. The people leaders gave the reviews which would impact a person’s compensation. The people on my team reported to one of 5 different people leaders. Of those 5, only one of them actually reached out to me to ask how their employee was doing when it came time for reviews. People’s reputations proceeded them, and their reviews were essentially based on their reputations, which sucks. Though I don’t think anyone made any radical changes during this period. If they had, I likely would have made it a point to make sure their boss was aware. We also did have sprint reviews that should have been attended by each of the people leaders. We put a lot of effort into making those good and making sure everyone was able to show off what they had been working on, so that probably helped. Most teams really phoned it in, but my view was that we were only as good as what we should show. If we made something amazing, but didn’t show anyone, or talked over people’s heads, it was as good as not doing it at all.
        em-bee 3y ago
        your example shows a few reasons why this is not done more often. it's confusing because we are used to getting directions from a superior (teachers in school). managers are likewise used to give directions to subordinates. there are also a few things which i feel i would do differently. tying compensation to reviews is one. some companies tie compensation to seniority and to an average experience level (like junior->mid->senior). i'd also tie compensation changes to a team, in order to get people to help each other (we all get paid more if the team performs better), or even to the company as a whole. (everyone gets a bonus if profits go up) individual reviews that affect compensation lead to competition, which i believe is unhealthy. and the other i don't even understand. why do people on one team report to different people leaders? you have the right attitude at least and i believe anyone who gets to work with you should consider themselves privileged. i hope some day i'll be in a similar position and able to act like that as well.
leverknudel_tw 3y ago
I'm here at Bayer right now and that is pretty much what is happening. The RIFs are finishing up and my team leader is now my peer. Our boss now has 10x the reports. Even a 30 minute 1:1 with everyone would take his entire week. And some people just need (or want) to be told what to do. You can't have everyone be a Steve Jobs and dream up things with nothing concrete getting done. I believe this is just a smokescreen to make Wall Street happy - until they can figure out which USA politicians to buy and get the glyphosate lawsuits under control.
- boznz 3y ago
  Ouch! holocracy is never going to work in an already toxic culture or one where the beauracracy (paperwork) stays the same.
- shinryuu 3y ago
  Who thought buying Monsanto was a good idea to begin with? Lawsuits were bound to happen. Monsanto has been highprofile for ages, and not in a good way.
  - leverknudel_tw 3y ago
    Monsanto was a 15 billion revenue dollar company in the same market (ag seeds and products) as 50 billion revenue Bayer. Werner thought he could handle the baggage. The US tort system is proving him wrong.
- mft_ 3y ago
  I think you're right that it's a smokescreen, but not for Wall Street. I think he's found what Bayer is: a deeply conservative slow monolith of an organisation, with lots of under-performing, busy-working, but long-serving employees protected by German employment law. In turn, I suspect a good proportion of those are 'middle management', and so this is a path that allows a rational removal of lots of those folks, without it looking like that's the primary goal. You're probably right that the new low-hierarchy, self-organised model won't work... but that's maybe fine in the short term. I'd expect another model (or a partial reintroduction of hierarcy) once the smoke has settled on the firings.
hodgesrm 3y ago
There are alternatives that do work. From what I've seen AWS seems to push decision-making deep into the organizational hierarchy, which means that individual cloud services can make rapid advances. It's an effective way to deploy new technoloqy quickly across a broad front, but not necessary good for regulated industries.
kitsune_ 3y ago
In holacracy you have lead links which partially fulfill that role. And of course nothing prevents you from creating roles that are accountable for other managerial tasks. As a lead link you can do relative prioritizations (X is more important than Y), assign / remove people from roles and other things.

The question is whether most middle-managers are able to take impactful decisions. My personal experience is that 80% of them are [Steve Jobs quote:] « bozos ».

al_borland 3y ago
Most middle managers aren’t there to be impactful, they are there to remove the busy work from whoever is above them. Mediate conflict within the team, approve vacation requests, do the paperwork, and clarify direction for the team as set by the person above them, so the team isn’t bothering the bigger boss with silly things like, “what is my priority?”
- em-bee 3y ago
  the problem is that in order to do that they are given authority over the team when they should be seen as a teams assistant or secretary. the manager should report to the team and not the reverse.
  - aitchnyu 3y ago
    Is there an example of manager who has lots of reports, organized into teams which have secretaries?
    - em-bee 3y ago
      not that i know of. maybe project managers compare most closely. if they exists then they may not be visible from the outside. i also expect the salary to be lower than the senior developers, which means it is not a job a senior would be promoted to.
    - al_borland 3y ago
      For a while my company tried a “matrix organization”, it separates the people leader from the work leader. So a person would be on a team, and the work the team did would be guided by the product owner and kept on track by the scrum master. Then a person’s actual boss was someone else. This meant an employee would really only talk to their boss for HR type issues, which in practice meant most people never talked to their boss. During this time I was a product owner. This whole setup had its weaknesses. First, it was confusing and it felt a bit like the Office Space joke of having multiple bosses, although I very much tried to maintain that I was there to serve the team and kept it democratic, not every product owner took that approach. The other issue was when it came time for reviews. The people leaders gave the reviews which would impact a person’s compensation. The people on my team reported to one of 5 different people leaders. Of those 5, only one of them actually reached out to me to ask how their employee was doing when it came time for reviews. People’s reputations proceeded them, and their reviews were essentially based on their reputations, which sucks. Though I don’t think anyone made any radical changes during this period. If they had, I likely would have made it a point to make sure their boss was aware. We also did have sprint reviews that should have been attended by each of the people leaders. We put a lot of effort into making those good and making sure everyone was able to show off what they had been working on, so that probably helped. Most teams really phoned it in, but my view was that we were only as good as what we should show. If we made something amazing, but didn’t show anyone, or talked over people’s heads, it was as good as not doing it at all.
      - em-bee 3y ago
        your example shows a few reasons why this is not done more often. it's confusing because we are used to getting directions from a superior (teachers in school). managers are likewise used to give directions to subordinates. there are also a few things which i feel i would do differently. tying compensation to reviews is one. some companies tie compensation to seniority and to an average experience level (like junior->mid->senior). i'd also tie compensation changes to a team, in order to get people to help each other (we all get paid more if the team performs better), or even to the company as a whole. (everyone gets a bonus if profits go up) individual reviews that affect compensation lead to competition, which i believe is unhealthy. and the other i don't even understand. why do people on one team report to different people leaders? you have the right attitude at least and i believe anyone who gets to work with you should consider themselves privileged. i hope some day i'll be in a similar position and able to act like that as well.

leverknudel_tw 3y ago

I'm here at Bayer right now and that is pretty much what is happening. The RIFs are finishing up and my team leader is now my peer. Our boss now has 10x the reports. Even a 30 minute 1:1 with everyone would take his entire week. And some people just need (or want) to be told what to do. You can't have everyone be a Steve Jobs and dream up things with nothing concrete getting done. I believe this is just a smokescreen to make Wall Street happy - until they can figure out which USA politicians to buy and get the glyphosate lawsuits under control.

boznz 3y ago
Ouch! holocracy is never going to work in an already toxic culture or one where the beauracracy (paperwork) stays the same.
shinryuu 3y ago
Who thought buying Monsanto was a good idea to begin with? Lawsuits were bound to happen. Monsanto has been highprofile for ages, and not in a good way.
- leverknudel_tw 3y ago
  Monsanto was a 15 billion revenue dollar company in the same market (ag seeds and products) as 50 billion revenue Bayer. Werner thought he could handle the baggage. The US tort system is proving him wrong.
mft_ 3y ago
I think you're right that it's a smokescreen, but not for Wall Street. I think he's found what Bayer is: a deeply conservative slow monolith of an organisation, with lots of under-performing, busy-working, but long-serving employees protected by German employment law. In turn, I suspect a good proportion of those are 'middle management', and so this is a path that allows a rational removal of lots of those folks, without it looking like that's the primary goal. You're probably right that the new low-hierarchy, self-organised model won't work... but that's maybe fine in the short term. I'd expect another model (or a partial reintroduction of hierarcy) once the smoke has settled on the firings.

hodgesrm 3y ago

There are alternatives that do work. From what I've seen AWS seems to push decision-making deep into the organizational hierarchy, which means that individual cloud services can make rapid advances. It's an effective way to deploy new technoloqy quickly across a broad front, but not necessary good for regulated industries.

kitsune_ 3y ago

In holacracy you have lead links which partially fulfill that role. And of course nothing prevents you from creating roles that are accountable for other managerial tasks. As a lead link you can do relative prioritizations (X is more important than Y), assign / remove people from roles and other things.