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Ben Horowitz: A Good Place to Work

152 points by louhong 14y ago

taskstrike 14y ago
Another key is people should be held accountable. A lot of people structure their teams with loose accountability, it becomes detrimental to everyone.
randomfool 14y ago
I think people put way too much emphasis on 1:1's- Way too much time and focus is spent on 'what did you do last week' and what to do the next week. This sort of observation & discussion should happen daily and feedback should be immediate. As a manager 90% of my 1:1's would be 10 minutes of idle chat- because we were constantly aware of what was expected and how we were delivering. Of course I always forced the meetings, just in case employee had something to get off their chest.
- pearkes 14y ago
  > in case employee had something to get off their chest 1:1's offer a consistent opportunity for dialog if there is ever a mishap, broken process or impending event to talk about. Opportunity is the key word - it doesn't necessarily mean it's crucial information being exchanged every time.
- sliverstorm 14y ago
  This sort of observation & discussion should happen daily and feedback should be immediate Of course! But, that doesn't always happen. The 1:1 is an attempt to ensure that, to some degree, the subordinate and superior get at least a little of said discussion regularly.
- philwelch 14y ago
  I think Rands wrote about this. 1:1's are not supposed to be about status updates: http://www.randsinrepose.com/archives/2010/09/22/the_update_the_vent_and_the_disaster.html http://www.randsinrepose.com/archives/2010/09/22/the_update_...
- potatolicious 14y ago
  > "Of course I always forced the meetings, just in case employee had something to get off their chest." This is the only benefit of 1:1's. Status updates and general progress tracking should be baked into your every day processes. And here's the important part: 1:1's must absolutely be off the record. It is a safe place for an employee to voice his/her grievances and concerns without repercussion. Your workplace should already be open and respectful enough that people can voice almost all problems publicly with the rest of the team - which means by default any problem that will be touched on in a 1:1 is sensitive and needs to be treated as such. I've seen so many places where this has failed dramatically. If you keep 1:1's on-record and the contents open, you will get blindsided by the things your employees are uncomfortable bringing up in the open.
zbruhnke 14y ago
Overall a great article and a great point. I've always argued that most of us learn more from our failures than out successes. I've had both, but I've always felt like I walked away learning much more after a failure. Being good to your employees involves so many things but listening to them should at the very top of the list. You could easily make the argument the most important aspect of any business is its workforce. While customers are often regarded as such it's rare that you actually achieve customer acquisition success unless you have a happy workforce willing to help and wanting your company to succeed. I consider this the "happy wife, happy life" of business
rhizome 14y ago
I'm no management type, and maybe that's the difference here, but I would not have lectured this guy like that. As a perpetual underling, being subjected to a litany of leading and loaded questions to which one is expected only to "yes/no," in an gladhanding way, I read this post and thought "look, just get to the point." That's not managing, it's haranguing, and it's not good for people. Well it is managing, but in that 50s-60s style. Is this what Opsware is going for? "Diplomacy is the art of letting someone else have your way."
geogra4 14y ago
>“In a poor organization, on the other hand, people spend much of their time fighting organizational boundaries, infighting and broken processes. They are not even clear on what their jobs are, so there is no way to know if they are getting the job done or not. In the miracle case that they work ridiculous hours and get the job done, they have no idea what it means for the company or their careers. To make it all much worse and rub salt in the wound, when they finally work up the courage to tell management how fucked up their situation is, management denies there is a problem, then defends the status quo, then ignores the problem.” This is a fantastic description of an awful workplace.
- codeonfire 14y ago
  This is a description of every workplace. If the organization isn't as described here, the job probably doesn't pay very much.
  - geogra4 14y ago
    I don't understand why high pay has to come with a toxic workplace.
    - codeonfire 14y ago
      Supply and demand. If a workplace has high pay and is good (the minority of workplaces), people will flood there from high pay and toxic workplace. As a result the majority of available high pay workplaces will be toxic.
edw519 14y ago
As a result, if Tim doesn’t meet with each one of his employees in the next 24 hours, I will have no choice but to fire him and to fire you. Are we clear? You get exactly one chance to threaten me. That was it. I quit. (Honestly, all this management style does is ensure that the only people you'll be able to keep are the ones who will put up with your shit. Not a very good recipe for building a great company, huh?)
- amateurguru 14y ago
  I'd happily let you go. Who do you think you are?
  - yllus 14y ago
    A person with self respect, I'd imagine. There is no need for this kind of condescending, threatening behavior amongst professionals.
    - retroafroman 14y ago
      Although the CEO definitely did not need to act and word the encounter the way he did, I don't see this as a self respect issue. The employee failed to do something that the CEO trained him and required him to do for his job. The employee did not hold up his end of the deal, which means he was in the wrong, and at risk of getting fired. As you say, amongst professionals, one should do the things their boss asks.
    - slurgfest 14y ago
      Right, this behavior is to be reserved for the lower-level employees. Executives should all be chummy together against the employees.
  - sliverstorm 14y ago
    That's astonishingly childish.
  - SkyMarshal 14y ago
    Not a Marine at bootcamp, for one.
readymade 14y ago
what an asshole
tgrass 14y ago
Clearly, my authority alone was not enough to get them to do what I wanted. If you want to learn how to manage people, accept that authority is an illusion. If you realize people do what you'd like not because of your position but because of who you and are and how you act, you'll discover much more effective means of leading. Clearly we respond to authority for authority's sake. Benevolent dictator and all that. But if your leadership style depends on your subordinate's perception of your power, it says more about you than it does about your subordinate.
- btipling 14y ago
  Fear vs love right, ala The Prince. I think the lesson is that people respect fear and that love will only get you so far, but that a bit of both is needed.
  - ryanmolden 14y ago
    Machiavelli was writing to someone with a kind of absolute power that business folks simply do not have and thus a large swath of his advice is simply not applicable. The entire Fear vs. Love discussion, iirc, makes the argument that fear is preferable as you control if people fear you, whereas individuals decide whom they love. As such Machiavelli proposes fear is superior for means of maintaing control as it is something you can directly create/control. This clearly doesn't apply to modern business as you can't impart massive, fear-inducing bouts of violence on people (which, btw, was what Machiavelli generally prescribed for a prince to keep the underlings in check) and anyone that has any talent at all isn't really in fear of you firing them. Contrast this with the situation during the time Machiavelli lived/wrote where most people were very directly affected by every whim of the ruling powers and there were no good alternatives (i.e. 'just move somewhere else' wasn't really a feasible option for most, and 'find another prince' certainly wasn't either). It further ignores the fact that while people do choose whom they love/like they don't just change those allegiances arbitrarily, it is generally preceded by actions, such as being a massive douchebag / trying to pull rank or play silly power games to show 'who's in charge'. Edit: grammar
    - 14y ago
EvanAnderson 14y ago
Wouldn't Ben have known that the manager wasn't conducting the mandatory "1:1" meetings with employees if Ben had regular "1:1" meetings with the next lower tier of management? The double standard irks me. Lead by example, not by intimidation.
- rhizome 14y ago
  Great observation.
- heretohelp 14y ago
  This was the most striking part of it for me. He seems like a massive douche.
- spydertennis 14y ago
  Not necessarily. Sounds like Ben was doing 1:1s with Steve and Steve wasn't aware of the problem. If Ben never thought to ask Steve it wouldn't have come up. As CEO (with 100s of things to think about) its entirely understandable that Ben forgot to ask Steve whether his managers were having 1:1s for 6 months.
  - rhizome 14y ago
    Steve doesn't have 100s of things to think about?
  - ryanmolden 14y ago
    I believe by 'next lower tier' he was talking about Steve's reports. Realistically the CEO can't meet with everyone in the entire company constantly, but it is a very good idea to have occasional 'skip-level' meetings with your direct report's direct reports (and in a reasonably hierarchical company the number of direct reports to a VP is likely small enough that Ben could do this once and awhile). If not you risk forming a view of the world that is fed entirely by your direct reports, who are more than likely telling you what they think you want to hear, which may or may not correspond with reality as seen at the lower levels of the orginization. It seems nowhere in Ben's 1:1's with Steve did he ever inquire about Steve's 1:1's with his reports, or if he did Steve never bothered to do the same with his reports, otherwise this oversight would have likely surfaced far before 6 months of no 1:1's had passed.
trekkin 14y ago
Blacklist another VC here. And he is supposed to be one of the better ones...
- joshu 14y ago
  Luckily, VCs don't really get to tell you how to run a company.
  - potatolicious 14y ago
    I'm quite certain someone who holds a very large equity share in your company and who has enormous influence over your future prospects at funding, can really tell you how to run a company.
    - rdl 14y ago
      A VC is really unlikely to get involved with the details of how your corporate culture works, provided the business works. The board-level decision they could ultimately force is replacement of founders/CEO, corporate events (financing, M&A, etc.), and really high level strategy.
- Evbn 14y ago
  Wait, is this guy the A16z Horowitz? Not a time to flout obnoxiousness and ruthless disregard for staff, in the middle of the OnLive situation.
  - greenyoda 14y ago
    Yes. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_Horowitz http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_Horowitz -- "Known for: Co-Founder of Opsware [the company being written about in the article] and Andreessen Horowitz".
- slurgfest 14y ago
  You are blacklisting someone because he reports being harsh with a subordinate who was not doing his job?
TheBoff 14y ago
Am I the only one who thinks wanting your employees to work at your company "12-16 hours a day" is surely not a mark of a good company. If I worked 16 hours a day, I know I'd not be having enough sleep to do useful work. I think I'd rather work with well balanced human beings, rather than obsessive, robotic workaholics...
- aangjie 14y ago
  Nope that was the first thing that struck me as odd about the post.
  - rimantas 14y ago
    Same here. Overall the piece left me with impression that Ben is a horrible boss and manager and his company is not a good place to work.
- greenyoda 14y ago
  I noticed that too. If employees feel the need to work a minimum of twelve hours a day, it's an indication of management problems that are much worse than someone skipping their one-on-one meetings. And if the CEO can say with a straight face "It’s important to me that the people who spend 12 to 16 hours/day here, which is most of their waking life, have a good life", that says a lot about what it was really like to work for his company. (Opsware no longer exists as such; it was bought by HP in 2007. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opsware] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opsware])
- sp4rki 14y ago
  He never said it (working 12~16 hours) was expected of his employees, but it is most probable that this is part of the startup culture "thing". I work for a big tech company, but being the second in command, I've worked with my boss to establish a culture that even though it has a lot of the startup usual hardcore-ness, is also full of benefits. Here I am, working on a Saturday at 6:30 pm... I've done pretty much a 66 hour work week this week. I've done so because I care enough about the company and our products to want (this here being the keyword) to finish a series of tasks (some of which are improvements I've myself tasked my person with, not bug tickets or feature requests) I deem needed for the continuous improvement of the software. I've also had weeks where I spent around 20 hours (2 days) helping out IT to solve some tricky architecture + linux challenges the company was having (my role as a application UX and frontend wizard, doesn't mean I'm not also the "I love to create algorithms for our backend" and "local linux mastermind" roles) - and then left on a trip to camp until the next week. This time I took off was not discounted from my pay, frowned upon, or taken out of official vacation time. It was just the company telling me that they appreciate all the effort I put in and that they respect my decision making regarding how I spend my time on the company clock, be it working unpaid overtime, or taking a few days to decompress. For me that is the real good company startup culture. The company gives me the freedom to stay late and to leave early, gives me the tools I need to be productive and doesn't force me into preset managerial roles that don't really do anything to increase productivity or facilitate increased code throughput, and gives me the trust that I'm going to achieve what my responsibilities require however I see fit. Am I a workaholic? Not a chance. I once worked almost 50 hours straight, not because I "want to work", but because I had a challenge I wanted to solve. I solved it and I went home to sleep and took a personal day (once again not unpaid or taken out of any "special time") after that. I'm not the usual geek slash programmer. I enjoy going to the gym and having one too many beers with my friends. I enjoy bar hopping and pickup up girls at clubs. I also enjoy coding, and if I weren't spending 4 to 6 extra hours at work writing code, I'd be doing it at home.
bradwhittington 14y ago
His interaction with Steve lost my attention that he had anything valid to say. Probably the reason his employees aren't doing what he feels they need to. He also spent zero time finding out how that manager was working with his team. It's pretty dis-empowering to have someone tell you how you need to work with, and run your team, and expect a great work environment.
djt 14y ago
Interesting to note the comments here, compared to comments about Steve Jobs, who by most accounts had a similar communication style.
- zem 14y ago
  what surprises me are not the comments here but the comments about steve jobs. sure, the guy did a lot, but from all accounts he is someone i would never work for, and i'm pretty sure most of the hn crowd would hate working for in actual practice.
Cowen 14y ago
While I agree with Ben's thoughts on good companies in general, I don't think he's really grasped how to make companies good himself (or if he has, it certainly doesn't come through in this story). 1:1 meetings are good, but they're just the tip of the iceberg. A far more beneficial way to make a good company is to make sure that when people fail, they are made to understand that failure and its significance in a manner that is both helpful and non-threatening. Long speeches filled with loaded questions and firing threats are the exact opposite of that. Even the mention of firing someone should be treated like brandishing a gun. Don't bring it out unless you're about to use it.
crag 14y ago
"When Steve came into my office I asked him a question: “Steve, do you know why I came to work today?” “Why did I bother waking up? Why did I bother coming in? If it was about the money, couldn’t I sell the company tomorrow and have more money than I ever wanted? I don’t want to be famous, in fact just the opposite. ” Well, then why did I come to work.” And on and on... Please... My impression would've been, "why is this guy treating me like a 5 year old". My approach (IMHO) would've been something like: Me: "Steve, one of your managers isn't following company policy concerning 1 on 1 meets". Steve: "Oh?". I give Steve the managers name, "You'll take care of it?" Steve: "Of course." Me: "Thank you." I give Steve the benefit of the doubt that he'll deal with it. No need for me, the CEO, to micromanage. Now if Steve doesn't deal with it, that's another matter.
- larsberg 14y ago
  Yeah, I don't understand either the story or the threat. It's as if the author was never _really_ a manager before. I found that, unless I worded things very carefully, my directs tended to take honest questions as statements of decisions made. I had to go to great lengths for them not to take anything I said as both 1) an extremely urgent policy decision and 2) associated with a threat of termination/failure to advance their career. The only thing that I can imagine is that this person's directs didn't respect him, forcing him to take this action. That's the only scenario I've seen managers need to "lay down the law."
- pbiggar 14y ago
  There's also "Steve, you need to spend some time and diagnose how this happened. How did you not notice? Why wasn't it Tim's number one priority? How do we fix this situation, check that it isn't happening in the rest of the organization, and make sure it doesn't happen again?"
  - alberich 14y ago
    It is really weird. For six months the CEO didn't notice anything bad in the work place, no bad things happening that would make him think that is something is going very wrong. Than, by chance, he notices that one of his employes isn't doing something he asked, for six months. Then he thinks "wow, this guy is ruining my work" and threatens to fire two workers if they don't fix it in 24 hours. From any perspective, the OP came off looking really bad, and I doubt that people will feel better in such a work place... especially when word spreads that if you make mistakes you can be fired in 24 hours.
guynamedloren 14y ago
Yes, Horowitz sounds like a total asshole. But I have a feeling it didn't go down quite like this, but rather the conversation and overall tone have been fictionalized to better illustrate the underlying message of this post: proper management and organization are crucial for a good work environment. I couldn't agree more. Management is one of those things that seems easily in theory, but is really tough to nail in practice.
- smacktoward 14y ago
  Or Horowitz sees himself as a Swashbuckling Captain of Industry, so it's been fictionalized to better illustrate his internal conception of what a Swashbuckling Captain of Industry should sound like.
- rhizome 14y ago
  Right, but the criticism I'm reading here is entirely to do with what he thinks "proper management" is. The only saving grace in this whole thing is the possibility that he did paraphrase the meeting and that it did go much more nicely. Why someone would take an event like that and portray it like was done here belies Hanlon.
sridharvembu 14y ago
We have two rules in Zoho Corp: 1. To evaluate a team member's contribution fairly, every manager has to really know the person well. In other words, no "fly-by-night" form-filling performance reviews! 2. No negatives surprises during a performance review. These two together mandate that every manager spend a great deal of time with the people who work for them and bring up any negatives on a timely basis so the team member has an opportunity to correct them rather than being inflicted a negative surprise. So I agree on the importance of regular 1-on-1's. Having said that, I am not sure I really like the tone of Ben's conversation with his manager. First of all, I find this yes/no style insulting to an intelligent person on the other side, and second, if the managers in question were valuable to the organization (which should be the presumption here), it is odd to think the CEO would threaten to fire them so readily. I would not expect an intelligent and self-respecting person to work under those terms - I know I would not.
- crag 14y ago
  I (and my partner) have one rule: respect. Everyone is treated with respect. I personally would've never "talk down" to an employee like this Ben guy did. And frankly, we expect our employees to act them same (and most do - the ones who don't don't last long here).
  - crag 14y ago
    And the second rule is to fix typos before posting. :) Sorry all.
  - slurgfest 14y ago
    So if your managers are totally failing the employees they are managing... you cannot seriously correct them? But presumably you expect the employees to take serious correction. So this really reduces to an unspoken code that management shouldn't be treated this way.
    - wpietri 14y ago
      You can correct somebody respectfully. I think Ben could have had exactly the same outcome without coming across as a jerk. I'm not judging Ben either way here; sometimes a situation requires being a jerk. But the more managing I do, the more I believe that if a manager has to be a jerk it's because they've messed something up elsewhere.
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joshu 14y ago
Personally, I would have asked WHY he didn't know this, because the events that led up to the current situation are almost certainly bigger than the fact itself. And then: fire or not fire the guy - at a small startup you have no time to rehabilitate people. It's just too expensive. (Personally, I am not a big fan of threats. This isn't something that has come up at work much, though.)
millerski150 14y ago
I'm nowhere near Ben's experience and don't fully understand the challenges of layers of management yet, but positive energy (clear objectives and highlighting success to the group) has always worked better for me than negative energy (threatening to fire). Maybe it's specific to the workplace, but I think it'd prefer the former as a leader or employee. Agree the "why" is key to buy-in and success. But leaders need to coach not command. 1:1s and firing can be necessary, but only after the CEO has done a great job of setting clear objectives that everyone buys into. It's also ideal when people hold themselves accountable versus a leader having to (e.g. report at group meetings). As a data point, Jeff Bezos, who Ben references, apparently doesn't like 1:1s. He prefers group meetings so everyone gets on the same page and to avoid "the telephone game." [source - Bing Gordon's 2011 talk at the Endeavor Summit: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jdTaywChuYM http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jdTaywChuYM]
gte910h 14y ago
That was a horrible style of management. I would never listen to this guy, either. I would never buy from Opsware until Horowitz is gone.
- bconway 14y ago
  I don't think you have much to worry about. He happily sold it in 2007. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opsware http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opsware
carsongross 14y ago
Good. You keep using that word. I do not think that it means what you think it means.
- bhorowitz 14y ago
  Sadly, this whole discussion missed the point of the post, which is probably a pretty good argument for writing it in a different way. Having said that, many people got the point and didn't get balled up in this detail. The point of the post was that either being a good company is a priority or it is not. If it's not a priority, there's very little chance that it will happen. Further, if people don't understand both why it's a priority and how high the priority is, it won't happen. The controversial line about firing Steve and Tim was intended to be a colorful way to bring sharp clarity to what had evidently been a fuzzy priority. I tend to value clarity over sensitivity, but that's obviously not universal. In terms of whether or not it was right to "clarify" things to Steve that way, I really did not provide enough context in the post to answer that question. However, implicit in the communication was me prioritizing the employees of the company over the managers and executives. Specifically, if you don't hold managers strongly accountable for management, then the employees will suffer which in my opinion is worse than executives getting their feelings hurt. For whatever it's worth, I never wrote and I never asked anybody to work 12 or 16 hours a day. I never asked anybody to work any specific number of hours. However, many people did and it was important to me that we respect the effort. The firing line was intended to come across as the very last straw. After training, after many conversations, after performance reviews, if I still couldn't get them to take management seriously then this was to be the last conversation before making a change. If I didn't hold managers accountable to that, then I should be fired as well-- no question about that.
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bhorowitz 14y ago
It seems that most people on the thread skipped most of the post and focused entirely on the firing part, so I'll clarify what I wrote. First, the post isn't about 1:1s. 1:1s were just our way of doing things at Opsware. Other companies have other ways of doing things. It was about whether or not people who worked at the company received any guidance, context, or feedback. Second, the point of the conversation was to focus the executive on what the environment was like for employees (as opposed to managers and executives). In general, I believe that is important to optimize for the feelings of the people doing the work rather than the people doing the management. If you optimize for managers, then you get what you get. Finally, 1:1s were a huge point of emphasis in the company from the initial training through everything that we discussed as a team. Not ever meeting with your people in this context basically meant that you cared nothing about your employees. If you read the entire post, you should get that. Having said that, for whatever reason I didn't make things clear to every manager in the company (my fault). The point of the conversation was clarity. The firing comment was to emphasize the importance of the employees vs. the executives. It's fine with me if you hate it, but you should probably try to understand it first. Finally, fwiw, I still talk to Steve every week and he's done extremely well in his career. This did turn out to be clarifying for him and we'd worked together for 7 years at the time of the conversation, so there was quite a bit of context. Finally, there were 600 people in the company at the time and only one manager that wasn't having regular 1:1s. It's interesting to me that most people on this thread think that it's not a serious matter to let people come to work with zero guidance or feedback. In fact, it's just fine. What's really bad is making clear what's acceptable and unacceptable management. Hmmm.
- seltzered_ 14y ago
  Thanks for writing this. I was part of an startup that got acquired, put into a satellite office, and then went through several management changes - and with it a lack of 1:1's. As an employee formerly in this situation for almost a year, it really sucks. It makes you really less productive, and made me start making my own agenda instead of bothering to collaborate.
- flipside 14y ago
  I totally got what you were saying, communicating the why, the purpose of the company is essential in order to be great. Unfortunately, your post triggered a HN immune response because the tactics you cited don't work with everyone. Just one of the current limitations of public writing, you can't choose your audience or personalize the context.
T_S_ 14y ago
Someday through historical echo transcription (YC14 perhaps), the real transcript will emerge... Me: Hi Steve, remember how I asked all the managers to me with their direct reports 1-on-1 at least once every six months. Steve: No, when was that? Me: Never mind. I heard that Tim didn't do that. Steve: Do what? Me: Meet with his direct reports. 1-on-1. Steve: Oh yeah. Reminds me, great Celtics game last night, huh? Me: I tivo'd it and caught the last 5 minutes live. Saves a shitload of time wasted on commercials. Cable is gonna die a painful death. What were we talking about? Oh yeah. Please tell Tim to follow up or I will be pissed. Steve: Sure you don't want to tell him yourself? He never listens to me. Me: OK, maybe tomorrow. Remind me in 24 hours.
andyl 14y ago
Firing as a motivational tool to foster open communication. That is priceless. Key learning for me is to avoid working with people who think this is a good idea.
sp4rki 14y ago
I think people are not getting the point of the parable inherent in this article if the only things that come out of reading the blog post are "Ohh 12 to 16 hours of work" or "I would quit because I got threatened". The focus should not be in the way the situation was handled, but in the priorities displayed by the author. Could he have handled the situation better than to voice a harsh requirement which if not met would result in termination? The answer is obviously a huge "YES". Now take into account that the administrative team have been told that one if their main objectives is not to be "classical" bossy managers, but to be the main conduit of incentives and communication between the company and it's employees to ensure the productiveness and happiness of the cogs that move the company forward. This is not about reprimanding a manager because he did not turn a report on time - which by the way should be handled by asking the reason and though process of the manager's decision to use time for something else he deems more important. This is about a manager not being able to fulfill one of the KEY objectives stablished by the company's head honcho. If you're always trying to nicely get people to do what you say and it doesn't work, sometimes you have to resort to drastic measures. In this story, both Tim and Steve failed to accomplish a goal that had long been stablished to have a high priority. It's akin to a sales person not selling, or to a programmer not doing his programming quota. There is something wrong with the machine, and one cog not working correctly can bring said machine down to the ground. I think that he should have asked why things aren't getting done first before resorting to drastic monologues, but at the end of the day drastic monologues are sometimes the only way to push, incentive, or realign a rogue "cog". At the very list I'd prefer to hear "You're not doing your job correctly because of A, B, and C. Either you fix it or your out!" than "You're just not working out for the company, and no I wont tell you why... Oh and I'm replacing you so pack your things..."
Todd 14y ago
The goal behind the 1:1s is apparently building "a good place to work." In the conclusion Ben mentions Bill Campbell and GO. Yet, there is no discussion of how Bill made GO such a great place. 1:1s aren't mentioned. Is the 1:1 process what made GO such a great place to work? Having an arbitrary rule like that doesn't engender a great work environment. Different people have different ways of working. Different managers have different managerial styles. It may be that Tim preferred to have honest conversations over a coffee or a beer, and that he met informally with his reports all the time in the hallways and by the whiteboard.
Eliezer 14y ago
I've stayed away from management my entire life because I assess my own management-talent as so low, and even I can know this isn't how you do it. Managing by fear does not make for a pleasant job experience!
- emmett 14y ago
  I'm very curious: what metric do you use to assess your management-talent as low? As a programmer, I used to believe I wouldn't be a good manager, but I'm currently making a run at it and it turns out I'm better than I thought I'd be.
goggles99 14y ago
Hmm, I doubt you had to threaten to fire them... Asking would have probably gotten the job done. If it kept happening, then I suppose you could promise disciplinary action and firing as a last resort. Now your managers are looking for another job (they will quit) because they don't want a jerk for a boss (who wins here).
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biafra 14y ago
Maybe I am ignorant to the meaning of 1-1 meetings. Doesn't that mean that only two people meet in a room with no one else to listen in? Usually as a performance review? This does not cover regular team meetings with more that one member?
pasbesoin 14y ago
I used to distinctly not look forward to most formal 1:1's with my management. Upon reflection, this may in good part have been because in that setting, I could not simply ignore and tune out the bullshit that was being shoveled at me. Real meetings -- fine. Mandated 1:1's. Propaganda. All the sadder when both parties know this but -- for legal reasons if no other -- have to talk around it. I'm sure it's different in other workplaces. Some workplaces. P.S. In my last corporate gig, 1:1's were very much about establishing a formal record for HR purposes. After you'd been through a few, and watched any substantive comments and feedback you made go nowhere, you figured it out. P.P.S. Reading through it now, the OP post seems very self-contradictory. E.g. Me: “Well, let me explain. I came to work, because it’s personally very important to me that Opsware be a good company. It’s important to me that the people who spend 12 to 16 hours/day here, which is most of their waking life, have a good life. It’s why I come to work.” ... “In a poor organization, on the other hand, people spend much of their time fighting organizational boundaries, infighting and broken processes. They are not even clear on what their jobs are, so there is no way to know if they are getting the job done or not. In the miracle case that they work ridiculous hours and get the job done, they have no idea what it means for the company or their careers. To make it all much worse and rub salt in the wound, when they finally work up the courage to tell management how fucked up their situation is, management denies there is a problem, then defends the status quo, then ignores the problem.” Explain to me the value of cramming one more meeting into the day of an employee who's already working "12 - 16 hours"? And, after six months, if "Tim's" department hasn't 'blown up', maybe your first question (to self, to Tim) should be "Why?". Maybe Tim knows something you don't. When was your last 1:1 with Tim? What did you discuss in your last 1:1 with Tim's manager. Per the OP post, Ben has been very successful. ("If it was about the money, couldn’t I sell the company tomorrow and have more money than I ever wanted?") Well, there are a lot of successful assholes out there. Well, let me explain. I came to work, because it’s personally very important to me that Opsware be a good company. Why? And how do you define that, when you are working people 12 - 16 hours per day? I don't know Ben, and circumstances could differ from the following, but one way to read this post is as being stuffed full of ego.
Geekette 14y ago
Steve, do you know why I came to work today? ... Gawd. Fuck the walk in the park and get to the point. And no, straightforward management should not preclude respect.

152 points by louhong 14y ago

Another key is people should be held accountable. A lot of people structure their teams with loose accountability, it becomes detrimental to everyone.

randomfool 14y ago

I think people put way too much emphasis on 1:1's- Way too much time and focus is spent on 'what did you do last week' and what to do the next week. This sort of observation & discussion should happen daily and feedback should be immediate. As a manager 90% of my 1:1's would be 10 minutes of idle chat- because we were constantly aware of what was expected and how we were delivering. Of course I always forced the meetings, just in case employee had something to get off their chest.

pearkes 14y ago
> in case employee had something to get off their chest 1:1's offer a consistent opportunity for dialog if there is ever a mishap, broken process or impending event to talk about. Opportunity is the key word - it doesn't necessarily mean it's crucial information being exchanged every time.
sliverstorm 14y ago
This sort of observation & discussion should happen daily and feedback should be immediate Of course! But, that doesn't always happen. The 1:1 is an attempt to ensure that, to some degree, the subordinate and superior get at least a little of said discussion regularly.
philwelch 14y ago
I think Rands wrote about this. 1:1's are not supposed to be about status updates: http://www.randsinrepose.com/archives/2010/09/22/the_update_the_vent_and_the_disaster.html http://www.randsinrepose.com/archives/2010/09/22/the_update_...
potatolicious 14y ago
> "Of course I always forced the meetings, just in case employee had something to get off their chest." This is the only benefit of 1:1's. Status updates and general progress tracking should be baked into your every day processes. And here's the important part: 1:1's must absolutely be off the record. It is a safe place for an employee to voice his/her grievances and concerns without repercussion. Your workplace should already be open and respectful enough that people can voice almost all problems publicly with the rest of the team - which means by default any problem that will be touched on in a 1:1 is sensitive and needs to be treated as such. I've seen so many places where this has failed dramatically. If you keep 1:1's on-record and the contents open, you will get blindsided by the things your employees are uncomfortable bringing up in the open.

zbruhnke 14y ago

Overall a great article and a great point. I've always argued that most of us learn more from our failures than out successes. I've had both, but I've always felt like I walked away learning much more after a failure. Being good to your employees involves so many things but listening to them should at the very top of the list. You could easily make the argument the most important aspect of any business is its workforce. While customers are often regarded as such it's rare that you actually achieve customer acquisition success unless you have a happy workforce willing to help and wanting your company to succeed. I consider this the "happy wife, happy life" of business

rhizome 14y ago

I'm no management type, and maybe that's the difference here, but I would not have lectured this guy like that. As a perpetual underling, being subjected to a litany of leading and loaded questions to which one is expected only to "yes/no," in an gladhanding way, I read this post and thought "look, just get to the point." That's not managing, it's haranguing, and it's not good for people. Well it is managing, but in that 50s-60s style. Is this what Opsware is going for? "Diplomacy is the art of letting someone else have your way."

geogra4 14y ago

>“In a poor organization, on the other hand, people spend much of their time fighting organizational boundaries, infighting and broken processes. They are not even clear on what their jobs are, so there is no way to know if they are getting the job done or not. In the miracle case that they work ridiculous hours and get the job done, they have no idea what it means for the company or their careers. To make it all much worse and rub salt in the wound, when they finally work up the courage to tell management how fucked up their situation is, management denies there is a problem, then defends the status quo, then ignores the problem.” This is a fantastic description of an awful workplace.

codeonfire 14y ago
This is a description of every workplace. If the organization isn't as described here, the job probably doesn't pay very much.
- geogra4 14y ago
  I don't understand why high pay has to come with a toxic workplace.
  - codeonfire 14y ago
    Supply and demand. If a workplace has high pay and is good (the minority of workplaces), people will flood there from high pay and toxic workplace. As a result the majority of available high pay workplaces will be toxic.

edw519 14y ago

As a result, if Tim doesn’t meet with each one of his employees in the next 24 hours, I will have no choice but to fire him and to fire you. Are we clear? You get exactly one chance to threaten me. That was it. I quit. (Honestly, all this management style does is ensure that the only people you'll be able to keep are the ones who will put up with your shit. Not a very good recipe for building a great company, huh?)

amateurguru 14y ago
I'd happily let you go. Who do you think you are?
- yllus 14y ago
  A person with self respect, I'd imagine. There is no need for this kind of condescending, threatening behavior amongst professionals.
  - retroafroman 14y ago
    Although the CEO definitely did not need to act and word the encounter the way he did, I don't see this as a self respect issue. The employee failed to do something that the CEO trained him and required him to do for his job. The employee did not hold up his end of the deal, which means he was in the wrong, and at risk of getting fired. As you say, amongst professionals, one should do the things their boss asks.
  - slurgfest 14y ago
    Right, this behavior is to be reserved for the lower-level employees. Executives should all be chummy together against the employees.
- sliverstorm 14y ago
  That's astonishingly childish.
- SkyMarshal 14y ago
  Not a Marine at bootcamp, for one.

readymade 14y ago

what an asshole

tgrass 14y ago

Clearly, my authority alone was not enough to get them to do what I wanted. If you want to learn how to manage people, accept that authority is an illusion. If you realize people do what you'd like not because of your position but because of who you and are and how you act, you'll discover much more effective means of leading. Clearly we respond to authority for authority's sake. Benevolent dictator and all that. But if your leadership style depends on your subordinate's perception of your power, it says more about you than it does about your subordinate.

btipling 14y ago
Fear vs love right, ala The Prince. I think the lesson is that people respect fear and that love will only get you so far, but that a bit of both is needed.
- ryanmolden 14y ago
  Machiavelli was writing to someone with a kind of absolute power that business folks simply do not have and thus a large swath of his advice is simply not applicable. The entire Fear vs. Love discussion, iirc, makes the argument that fear is preferable as you control if people fear you, whereas individuals decide whom they love. As such Machiavelli proposes fear is superior for means of maintaing control as it is something you can directly create/control. This clearly doesn't apply to modern business as you can't impart massive, fear-inducing bouts of violence on people (which, btw, was what Machiavelli generally prescribed for a prince to keep the underlings in check) and anyone that has any talent at all isn't really in fear of you firing them. Contrast this with the situation during the time Machiavelli lived/wrote where most people were very directly affected by every whim of the ruling powers and there were no good alternatives (i.e. 'just move somewhere else' wasn't really a feasible option for most, and 'find another prince' certainly wasn't either). It further ignores the fact that while people do choose whom they love/like they don't just change those allegiances arbitrarily, it is generally preceded by actions, such as being a massive douchebag / trying to pull rank or play silly power games to show 'who's in charge'. Edit: grammar
  - 14y ago

EvanAnderson 14y ago

Wouldn't Ben have known that the manager wasn't conducting the mandatory "1:1" meetings with employees if Ben had regular "1:1" meetings with the next lower tier of management? The double standard irks me. Lead by example, not by intimidation.

rhizome 14y ago
Great observation.
heretohelp 14y ago
This was the most striking part of it for me. He seems like a massive douche.
spydertennis 14y ago
Not necessarily. Sounds like Ben was doing 1:1s with Steve and Steve wasn't aware of the problem. If Ben never thought to ask Steve it wouldn't have come up. As CEO (with 100s of things to think about) its entirely understandable that Ben forgot to ask Steve whether his managers were having 1:1s for 6 months.
- rhizome 14y ago
  Steve doesn't have 100s of things to think about?
- ryanmolden 14y ago
  I believe by 'next lower tier' he was talking about Steve's reports. Realistically the CEO can't meet with everyone in the entire company constantly, but it is a very good idea to have occasional 'skip-level' meetings with your direct report's direct reports (and in a reasonably hierarchical company the number of direct reports to a VP is likely small enough that Ben could do this once and awhile). If not you risk forming a view of the world that is fed entirely by your direct reports, who are more than likely telling you what they think you want to hear, which may or may not correspond with reality as seen at the lower levels of the orginization. It seems nowhere in Ben's 1:1's with Steve did he ever inquire about Steve's 1:1's with his reports, or if he did Steve never bothered to do the same with his reports, otherwise this oversight would have likely surfaced far before 6 months of no 1:1's had passed.

trekkin 14y ago

Blacklist another VC here. And he is supposed to be one of the better ones...

joshu 14y ago
Luckily, VCs don't really get to tell you how to run a company.
- potatolicious 14y ago
  I'm quite certain someone who holds a very large equity share in your company and who has enormous influence over your future prospects at funding, can really tell you how to run a company.
  - rdl 14y ago
    A VC is really unlikely to get involved with the details of how your corporate culture works, provided the business works. The board-level decision they could ultimately force is replacement of founders/CEO, corporate events (financing, M&A, etc.), and really high level strategy.
Evbn 14y ago
Wait, is this guy the A16z Horowitz? Not a time to flout obnoxiousness and ruthless disregard for staff, in the middle of the OnLive situation.
- greenyoda 14y ago
  Yes. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_Horowitz http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_Horowitz -- "Known for: Co-Founder of Opsware [the company being written about in the article] and Andreessen Horowitz".
slurgfest 14y ago
You are blacklisting someone because he reports being harsh with a subordinate who was not doing his job?

TheBoff 14y ago

Am I the only one who thinks wanting your employees to work at your company "12-16 hours a day" is surely not a mark of a good company. If I worked 16 hours a day, I know I'd not be having enough sleep to do useful work. I think I'd rather work with well balanced human beings, rather than obsessive, robotic workaholics...

aangjie 14y ago
Nope that was the first thing that struck me as odd about the post.
- rimantas 14y ago
  Same here. Overall the piece left me with impression that Ben is a horrible boss and manager and his company is not a good place to work.
greenyoda 14y ago
I noticed that too. If employees feel the need to work a minimum of twelve hours a day, it's an indication of management problems that are much worse than someone skipping their one-on-one meetings. And if the CEO can say with a straight face "It’s important to me that the people who spend 12 to 16 hours/day here, which is most of their waking life, have a good life", that says a lot about what it was really like to work for his company. (Opsware no longer exists as such; it was bought by HP in 2007. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opsware] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opsware])
sp4rki 14y ago
He never said it (working 12~16 hours) was expected of his employees, but it is most probable that this is part of the startup culture "thing". I work for a big tech company, but being the second in command, I've worked with my boss to establish a culture that even though it has a lot of the startup usual hardcore-ness, is also full of benefits. Here I am, working on a Saturday at 6:30 pm... I've done pretty much a 66 hour work week this week. I've done so because I care enough about the company and our products to want (this here being the keyword) to finish a series of tasks (some of which are improvements I've myself tasked my person with, not bug tickets or feature requests) I deem needed for the continuous improvement of the software. I've also had weeks where I spent around 20 hours (2 days) helping out IT to solve some tricky architecture + linux challenges the company was having (my role as a application UX and frontend wizard, doesn't mean I'm not also the "I love to create algorithms for our backend" and "local linux mastermind" roles) - and then left on a trip to camp until the next week. This time I took off was not discounted from my pay, frowned upon, or taken out of official vacation time. It was just the company telling me that they appreciate all the effort I put in and that they respect my decision making regarding how I spend my time on the company clock, be it working unpaid overtime, or taking a few days to decompress. For me that is the real good company startup culture. The company gives me the freedom to stay late and to leave early, gives me the tools I need to be productive and doesn't force me into preset managerial roles that don't really do anything to increase productivity or facilitate increased code throughput, and gives me the trust that I'm going to achieve what my responsibilities require however I see fit. Am I a workaholic? Not a chance. I once worked almost 50 hours straight, not because I "want to work", but because I had a challenge I wanted to solve. I solved it and I went home to sleep and took a personal day (once again not unpaid or taken out of any "special time") after that. I'm not the usual geek slash programmer. I enjoy going to the gym and having one too many beers with my friends. I enjoy bar hopping and pickup up girls at clubs. I also enjoy coding, and if I weren't spending 4 to 6 extra hours at work writing code, I'd be doing it at home.

bradwhittington 14y ago

His interaction with Steve lost my attention that he had anything valid to say. Probably the reason his employees aren't doing what he feels they need to. He also spent zero time finding out how that manager was working with his team. It's pretty dis-empowering to have someone tell you how you need to work with, and run your team, and expect a great work environment.

djt 14y ago

Interesting to note the comments here, compared to comments about Steve Jobs, who by most accounts had a similar communication style.

zem 14y ago
what surprises me are not the comments here but the comments about steve jobs. sure, the guy did a lot, but from all accounts he is someone i would never work for, and i'm pretty sure most of the hn crowd would hate working for in actual practice.

Cowen 14y ago

While I agree with Ben's thoughts on good companies in general, I don't think he's really grasped how to make companies good himself (or if he has, it certainly doesn't come through in this story). 1:1 meetings are good, but they're just the tip of the iceberg. A far more beneficial way to make a good company is to make sure that when people fail, they are made to understand that failure and its significance in a manner that is both helpful and non-threatening. Long speeches filled with loaded questions and firing threats are the exact opposite of that. Even the mention of firing someone should be treated like brandishing a gun. Don't bring it out unless you're about to use it.

crag 14y ago

"When Steve came into my office I asked him a question: “Steve, do you know why I came to work today?” “Why did I bother waking up? Why did I bother coming in? If it was about the money, couldn’t I sell the company tomorrow and have more money than I ever wanted? I don’t want to be famous, in fact just the opposite. ” Well, then why did I come to work.” And on and on... Please... My impression would've been, "why is this guy treating me like a 5 year old". My approach (IMHO) would've been something like: Me: "Steve, one of your managers isn't following company policy concerning 1 on 1 meets". Steve: "Oh?". I give Steve the managers name, "You'll take care of it?" Steve: "Of course." Me: "Thank you." I give Steve the benefit of the doubt that he'll deal with it. No need for me, the CEO, to micromanage. Now if Steve doesn't deal with it, that's another matter.

larsberg 14y ago
Yeah, I don't understand either the story or the threat. It's as if the author was never _really_ a manager before. I found that, unless I worded things very carefully, my directs tended to take honest questions as statements of decisions made. I had to go to great lengths for them not to take anything I said as both 1) an extremely urgent policy decision and 2) associated with a threat of termination/failure to advance their career. The only thing that I can imagine is that this person's directs didn't respect him, forcing him to take this action. That's the only scenario I've seen managers need to "lay down the law."
pbiggar 14y ago
There's also "Steve, you need to spend some time and diagnose how this happened. How did you not notice? Why wasn't it Tim's number one priority? How do we fix this situation, check that it isn't happening in the rest of the organization, and make sure it doesn't happen again?"
- alberich 14y ago
  It is really weird. For six months the CEO didn't notice anything bad in the work place, no bad things happening that would make him think that is something is going very wrong. Than, by chance, he notices that one of his employes isn't doing something he asked, for six months. Then he thinks "wow, this guy is ruining my work" and threatens to fire two workers if they don't fix it in 24 hours. From any perspective, the OP came off looking really bad, and I doubt that people will feel better in such a work place... especially when word spreads that if you make mistakes you can be fired in 24 hours.

guynamedloren 14y ago

Yes, Horowitz sounds like a total asshole. But I have a feeling it didn't go down quite like this, but rather the conversation and overall tone have been fictionalized to better illustrate the underlying message of this post: proper management and organization are crucial for a good work environment. I couldn't agree more. Management is one of those things that seems easily in theory, but is really tough to nail in practice.

smacktoward 14y ago
Or Horowitz sees himself as a Swashbuckling Captain of Industry, so it's been fictionalized to better illustrate his internal conception of what a Swashbuckling Captain of Industry should sound like.
rhizome 14y ago
Right, but the criticism I'm reading here is entirely to do with what he thinks "proper management" is. The only saving grace in this whole thing is the possibility that he did paraphrase the meeting and that it did go much more nicely. Why someone would take an event like that and portray it like was done here belies Hanlon.

sridharvembu 14y ago

We have two rules in Zoho Corp: 1. To evaluate a team member's contribution fairly, every manager has to really know the person well. In other words, no "fly-by-night" form-filling performance reviews! 2. No negatives surprises during a performance review. These two together mandate that every manager spend a great deal of time with the people who work for them and bring up any negatives on a timely basis so the team member has an opportunity to correct them rather than being inflicted a negative surprise. So I agree on the importance of regular 1-on-1's. Having said that, I am not sure I really like the tone of Ben's conversation with his manager. First of all, I find this yes/no style insulting to an intelligent person on the other side, and second, if the managers in question were valuable to the organization (which should be the presumption here), it is odd to think the CEO would threaten to fire them so readily. I would not expect an intelligent and self-respecting person to work under those terms - I know I would not.

crag 14y ago
I (and my partner) have one rule: respect. Everyone is treated with respect. I personally would've never "talk down" to an employee like this Ben guy did. And frankly, we expect our employees to act them same (and most do - the ones who don't don't last long here).
- crag 14y ago
  And the second rule is to fix typos before posting. :) Sorry all.
- slurgfest 14y ago
  So if your managers are totally failing the employees they are managing... you cannot seriously correct them? But presumably you expect the employees to take serious correction. So this really reduces to an unspoken code that management shouldn't be treated this way.
  - wpietri 14y ago
    You can correct somebody respectfully. I think Ben could have had exactly the same outcome without coming across as a jerk. I'm not judging Ben either way here; sometimes a situation requires being a jerk. But the more managing I do, the more I believe that if a manager has to be a jerk it's because they've messed something up elsewhere.

deleted 14y ago

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joshu 14y ago

Personally, I would have asked WHY he didn't know this, because the events that led up to the current situation are almost certainly bigger than the fact itself. And then: fire or not fire the guy - at a small startup you have no time to rehabilitate people. It's just too expensive. (Personally, I am not a big fan of threats. This isn't something that has come up at work much, though.)

millerski150 14y ago

I'm nowhere near Ben's experience and don't fully understand the challenges of layers of management yet, but positive energy (clear objectives and highlighting success to the group) has always worked better for me than negative energy (threatening to fire). Maybe it's specific to the workplace, but I think it'd prefer the former as a leader or employee. Agree the "why" is key to buy-in and success. But leaders need to coach not command. 1:1s and firing can be necessary, but only after the CEO has done a great job of setting clear objectives that everyone buys into. It's also ideal when people hold themselves accountable versus a leader having to (e.g. report at group meetings). As a data point, Jeff Bezos, who Ben references, apparently doesn't like 1:1s. He prefers group meetings so everyone gets on the same page and to avoid "the telephone game." [source - Bing Gordon's 2011 talk at the Endeavor Summit: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jdTaywChuYM http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jdTaywChuYM]

gte910h 14y ago

That was a horrible style of management. I would never listen to this guy, either. I would never buy from Opsware until Horowitz is gone.

bconway 14y ago
I don't think you have much to worry about. He happily sold it in 2007. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opsware http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opsware

carsongross 14y ago

Good. You keep using that word. I do not think that it means what you think it means.

bhorowitz 14y ago
Sadly, this whole discussion missed the point of the post, which is probably a pretty good argument for writing it in a different way. Having said that, many people got the point and didn't get balled up in this detail. The point of the post was that either being a good company is a priority or it is not. If it's not a priority, there's very little chance that it will happen. Further, if people don't understand both why it's a priority and how high the priority is, it won't happen. The controversial line about firing Steve and Tim was intended to be a colorful way to bring sharp clarity to what had evidently been a fuzzy priority. I tend to value clarity over sensitivity, but that's obviously not universal. In terms of whether or not it was right to "clarify" things to Steve that way, I really did not provide enough context in the post to answer that question. However, implicit in the communication was me prioritizing the employees of the company over the managers and executives. Specifically, if you don't hold managers strongly accountable for management, then the employees will suffer which in my opinion is worse than executives getting their feelings hurt. For whatever it's worth, I never wrote and I never asked anybody to work 12 or 16 hours a day. I never asked anybody to work any specific number of hours. However, many people did and it was important to me that we respect the effort. The firing line was intended to come across as the very last straw. After training, after many conversations, after performance reviews, if I still couldn't get them to take management seriously then this was to be the last conversation before making a change. If I didn't hold managers accountable to that, then I should be fired as well-- no question about that.

deleted 14y ago

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bhorowitz 14y ago

It seems that most people on the thread skipped most of the post and focused entirely on the firing part, so I'll clarify what I wrote. First, the post isn't about 1:1s. 1:1s were just our way of doing things at Opsware. Other companies have other ways of doing things. It was about whether or not people who worked at the company received any guidance, context, or feedback. Second, the point of the conversation was to focus the executive on what the environment was like for employees (as opposed to managers and executives). In general, I believe that is important to optimize for the feelings of the people doing the work rather than the people doing the management. If you optimize for managers, then you get what you get. Finally, 1:1s were a huge point of emphasis in the company from the initial training through everything that we discussed as a team. Not ever meeting with your people in this context basically meant that you cared nothing about your employees. If you read the entire post, you should get that. Having said that, for whatever reason I didn't make things clear to every manager in the company (my fault). The point of the conversation was clarity. The firing comment was to emphasize the importance of the employees vs. the executives. It's fine with me if you hate it, but you should probably try to understand it first. Finally, fwiw, I still talk to Steve every week and he's done extremely well in his career. This did turn out to be clarifying for him and we'd worked together for 7 years at the time of the conversation, so there was quite a bit of context. Finally, there were 600 people in the company at the time and only one manager that wasn't having regular 1:1s. It's interesting to me that most people on this thread think that it's not a serious matter to let people come to work with zero guidance or feedback. In fact, it's just fine. What's really bad is making clear what's acceptable and unacceptable management. Hmmm.

seltzered_ 14y ago
Thanks for writing this. I was part of an startup that got acquired, put into a satellite office, and then went through several management changes - and with it a lack of 1:1's. As an employee formerly in this situation for almost a year, it really sucks. It makes you really less productive, and made me start making my own agenda instead of bothering to collaborate.
flipside 14y ago
I totally got what you were saying, communicating the why, the purpose of the company is essential in order to be great. Unfortunately, your post triggered a HN immune response because the tactics you cited don't work with everyone. Just one of the current limitations of public writing, you can't choose your audience or personalize the context.

T_S_ 14y ago

Someday through historical echo transcription (YC14 perhaps), the real transcript will emerge... Me: Hi Steve, remember how I asked all the managers to me with their direct reports 1-on-1 at least once every six months. Steve: No, when was that? Me: Never mind. I heard that Tim didn't do that. Steve: Do what? Me: Meet with his direct reports. 1-on-1. Steve: Oh yeah. Reminds me, great Celtics game last night, huh? Me: I tivo'd it and caught the last 5 minutes live. Saves a shitload of time wasted on commercials. Cable is gonna die a painful death. What were we talking about? Oh yeah. Please tell Tim to follow up or I will be pissed. Steve: Sure you don't want to tell him yourself? He never listens to me. Me: OK, maybe tomorrow. Remind me in 24 hours.

andyl 14y ago

Firing as a motivational tool to foster open communication. That is priceless. Key learning for me is to avoid working with people who think this is a good idea.

sp4rki 14y ago

I think people are not getting the point of the parable inherent in this article if the only things that come out of reading the blog post are "Ohh 12 to 16 hours of work" or "I would quit because I got threatened". The focus should not be in the way the situation was handled, but in the priorities displayed by the author. Could he have handled the situation better than to voice a harsh requirement which if not met would result in termination? The answer is obviously a huge "YES". Now take into account that the administrative team have been told that one if their main objectives is not to be "classical" bossy managers, but to be the main conduit of incentives and communication between the company and it's employees to ensure the productiveness and happiness of the cogs that move the company forward. This is not about reprimanding a manager because he did not turn a report on time - which by the way should be handled by asking the reason and though process of the manager's decision to use time for something else he deems more important. This is about a manager not being able to fulfill one of the KEY objectives stablished by the company's head honcho. If you're always trying to nicely get people to do what you say and it doesn't work, sometimes you have to resort to drastic measures. In this story, both Tim and Steve failed to accomplish a goal that had long been stablished to have a high priority. It's akin to a sales person not selling, or to a programmer not doing his programming quota. There is something wrong with the machine, and one cog not working correctly can bring said machine down to the ground. I think that he should have asked why things aren't getting done first before resorting to drastic monologues, but at the end of the day drastic monologues are sometimes the only way to push, incentive, or realign a rogue "cog". At the very list I'd prefer to hear "You're not doing your job correctly because of A, B, and C. Either you fix it or your out!" than "You're just not working out for the company, and no I wont tell you why... Oh and I'm replacing you so pack your things..."

Todd 14y ago

The goal behind the 1:1s is apparently building "a good place to work." In the conclusion Ben mentions Bill Campbell and GO. Yet, there is no discussion of how Bill made GO such a great place. 1:1s aren't mentioned. Is the 1:1 process what made GO such a great place to work? Having an arbitrary rule like that doesn't engender a great work environment. Different people have different ways of working. Different managers have different managerial styles. It may be that Tim preferred to have honest conversations over a coffee or a beer, and that he met informally with his reports all the time in the hallways and by the whiteboard.

Eliezer 14y ago

I've stayed away from management my entire life because I assess my own management-talent as so low, and even I can know this isn't how you do it. Managing by fear does not make for a pleasant job experience!

emmett 14y ago
I'm very curious: what metric do you use to assess your management-talent as low? As a programmer, I used to believe I wouldn't be a good manager, but I'm currently making a run at it and it turns out I'm better than I thought I'd be.

goggles99 14y ago

Hmm, I doubt you had to threaten to fire them... Asking would have probably gotten the job done. If it kept happening, then I suppose you could promise disciplinary action and firing as a last resort. Now your managers are looking for another job (they will quit) because they don't want a jerk for a boss (who wins here).

deleted 14y ago

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biafra 14y ago

Maybe I am ignorant to the meaning of 1-1 meetings. Doesn't that mean that only two people meet in a room with no one else to listen in? Usually as a performance review? This does not cover regular team meetings with more that one member?

pasbesoin 14y ago

I used to distinctly not look forward to most formal 1:1's with my management. Upon reflection, this may in good part have been because in that setting, I could not simply ignore and tune out the bullshit that was being shoveled at me. Real meetings -- fine. Mandated 1:1's. Propaganda. All the sadder when both parties know this but -- for legal reasons if no other -- have to talk around it. I'm sure it's different in other workplaces. Some workplaces. P.S. In my last corporate gig, 1:1's were very much about establishing a formal record for HR purposes. After you'd been through a few, and watched any substantive comments and feedback you made go nowhere, you figured it out. P.P.S. Reading through it now, the OP post seems very self-contradictory. E.g. Me: “Well, let me explain. I came to work, because it’s personally very important to me that Opsware be a good company. It’s important to me that the people who spend 12 to 16 hours/day here, which is most of their waking life, have a good life. It’s why I come to work.” ... “In a poor organization, on the other hand, people spend much of their time fighting organizational boundaries, infighting and broken processes. They are not even clear on what their jobs are, so there is no way to know if they are getting the job done or not. In the miracle case that they work ridiculous hours and get the job done, they have no idea what it means for the company or their careers. To make it all much worse and rub salt in the wound, when they finally work up the courage to tell management how fucked up their situation is, management denies there is a problem, then defends the status quo, then ignores the problem.” Explain to me the value of cramming one more meeting into the day of an employee who's already working "12 - 16 hours"? And, after six months, if "Tim's" department hasn't 'blown up', maybe your first question (to self, to Tim) should be "Why?". Maybe Tim knows something you don't. When was your last 1:1 with Tim? What did you discuss in your last 1:1 with Tim's manager. Per the OP post, Ben has been very successful. ("If it was about the money, couldn’t I sell the company tomorrow and have more money than I ever wanted?") Well, there are a lot of successful assholes out there. Well, let me explain. I came to work, because it’s personally very important to me that Opsware be a good company. Why? And how do you define that, when you are working people 12 - 16 hours per day? I don't know Ben, and circumstances could differ from the following, but one way to read this post is as being stuffed full of ego.

Geekette 14y ago

Steve, do you know why I came to work today? ... Gawd. Fuck the walk in the park and get to the point. And no, straightforward management should not preclude respect.