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Yeah, this ain’t happening. The problem described is the symptom, not the cause. Trying to fix symptoms is futile, especially if one doesn’t even acknowledge t

Yeah, this ain’t happening. The problem described is the symptom, not the cause. Trying to fix symptoms is futile, especially if one doesn’t even acknowledge the cause. The cause is power asymmetry. The symptom is unaccountability of management to those they are managing. Power asymmetry has some partial fixes, but the article mentions none of those and instead naively wishes that the consequences of concentrated power can be magically contracted away. Who’s going to enforce the contract? I.e.: Who’s going to arrest the King?

nine_k 1y ago
Historically there is a large number of cases of kings being arrested and sometimes even held accountable. A king is not immune, because he cannot easily fire his subjects, or get hired to a king's position in another kingdom. A CEO is in an easier situation, comparatively.
- jiggawatts 1y ago
  Arrested by the nobles in most such cases. I’ve never heard of the equivalent of a “popular uprising” or a “people’s revolution” ever occurring within a private enterprise. The law in western countries simply doesn’t allow for it — the hierarchy is entrenched in several parallel systems such as the police, judiciary, securities registrars, etc… In practice 99% of large enterprise employees must “do as they’re told” and their only available alternative option is to quit. I’ve never heard of any org where there is any kind of bottom-to-top accountability and if such a thing was promised I would be immediately suspicious that it’s just a gimmick intended to even further exploit the naive.
  - bigbadfeline 1y ago
    > In practice 99% of large enterprise employees must “do as they’re told” and their only available alternative option is to quit. I don't see this as a bug, it's a forced feature of a program that needs some other parts fixed. The problem isn't local to any organization, it's lack of functional competition and that's due to systemic reasons which are beyond the reach of CBC, bottom-up or internal anything.
    - alnewkirkcom 1y ago
      A couple of things: The knee-jerk reaction is to think CBC and bi-directional accountability must be some movement or uprising led by subordinates in an attempt to check/curtail the control of their superiors, or to at least balance the scales a bit. In reality, I see CBC being deployed by leadership (i.e., by leaders, top-down) as a way of holding subordinates accountable more objectively. As a means of enabling meritocracy. As a signaling device to show credibility and fairness. As a management system that reduces politics and favoritism by forcing clarity. And as a cultural foundation that says: what matters here is outcomes, not optics (or theater). It just so happens to apply equally to leadership also, because every leader is also a subordinate to someone, whether it’s a board, investors, customers, or the market itself. Most leaders aren't a god-emperor.
steveBK123 1y ago
> I.e.: Who’s going to arrest the King? Power asymmetry always exists and in many tech orgs I have been, while the work of ICs is concrete and measurable (Jiras, commits, PRs, features, releases), the decision makers exist more in the verbal space where very little is committed to written form in a way that could lead to accountability. The higher you go the less that meetings begin with an agenda or end with summarized minutes. I had a former boss tell me an anecdote along these lines re: when he knew his days were numbered with his Director. Director feigned ignorance of some inconvenient information so my boss reminds him that he had sent an email about it, to which the director responds "how do you know I read it, you can't just email me, you have to tell me next time". Not an unreasonable response in isolation, however shortly later a similar discussion with the same Director feigning ignorance about another piece of inconvenient info, that went something like "I don't recall you telling me about this before, you really gotta put this stuff in email". I know he was acting in bad faith because he pulled something similar on us where we proposed a plan of splitting some approved CapEx over 2 years to stretch capacity and get better hardware in year 2 for the same dollars. In year 2, of course, he grilled us about why we were asking him for servers again 2 years in a row and denied it. It is next to impossible to enforce accountability upwards.
- jiggawatts 1y ago
  "I emailed you." -> "You didn't tell me about it." "I told you." -> "You didn't put that formally in writing." "I told you and emailed you." -> "There were other (unspecified) priorities." There's always an out.
  - DoctorOetker 1y ago
    discuss and email the need of a public or shared signed list of priority evaluations, and recommend bumping up the priority of item X. but I agree, there is always some excuse. While those who believe in contract driven accountability may constitute a minority, they could start a mailing list to coordinate and discover companies or startups applying these principles, and putting the rules into legally binding contracts and the company bylaws or whatever. Nothing would happen until a local critical mass was reached, unless the work could be done remote at first. The first such companies could then spin out branches that do non-remote work (lab work, manufacture, ...).
alnewkirkcom 1y ago
You’re right about the root cause: power asymmetry exists. Leaders usually hold the levers, and without checks, accountability flows one way. The point of CBC (and bi-directional accountability) isn’t to "arrest the King." It’s to remove the cover of ambiguity that power relies on. In most orgs, leaders escape accountability not because they’re inherently unassailable, but because commitments are vague, undocumented, or endlessly reframed. CBC closes that escape hatch.
- jiggawatts 1y ago
  Your reply is missing the key point I'm making. > "without checks" Nobody in a position of power can be forced or even meaningfully incentivised to put checks on themselves so that their less powerful underlings can put their feet to the fire. This just doesn't happen. Saying that "CBC closes that escape hatch" is wishful thinking. The hard part isn't specifying or documenting management's commitments. That already happens with, for example, politicians. The effectively impossible part is enforcement and incentives. As in: there isn't any of either, and leadership holds all of the power, essentially by definition. This CBC concept reads like one of those Web 3.0 fantasies where some kids whipping up Ethereum logic think that this somehow will force the real world into alignment with their code. This. Just. Doesn't. Happen. It never has and never will, because the status quo is fundamental human nature and a game-theoretically local optimum. Feel free to propose how you intend to simultaneously fix our biological heritage and imbalanced power. But do please show your work instead of just waving your hands in the direction of some unenforceable paperwork that will certainly be ignored as soon as it is inconvenient for those in charge.
  - alnewkirkcom 1y ago
    The point isn't that people in power will suddenly volunteer to be "checked." It's that CBC allows leaders to "put their money where their mouth is". Leaders who claim to want ownership cultures, meritocracy, and outcomes over optics (i.e., performance without the theater) cannot continue to hide behind vague goals once commitments are documented, falsifiable, and visible. That's the incentive: CBC makes actual objective performance evaluation possible (i.e., performance evaluation for people and projects). And if a leader resists that? That's telling. It signals something about their leadership and the actual culture they're fostering. CBC is for leaders who claim to want meritocracy and are willing to prove it. History gives us examples. Andy Grove at Intel famously institutionalized "constructive confrontation" and rigorous OKRs, explicitly binding executives, including himself, to objective measures of performance. It wasn't a loss of power; it was the foundation of Intel's execution culture and competitive edge. CBC is cut from the same cloth. It doesn't magically enforce itself; it makes accountability legible, so leaders either live their stated values or reveal that they don't.
zug_zug 1y ago
Well I agree except in theory the board should want to force authenticity on all executives and directors and such. Fakers and cheats who lie about their results and hide behind manipulated metrics are a big threat to the board’s profitability

nine_k 1y ago

Historically there is a large number of cases of kings being arrested and sometimes even held accountable. A king is not immune, because he cannot easily fire his subjects, or get hired to a king's position in another kingdom. A CEO is in an easier situation, comparatively.

jiggawatts 1y ago
Arrested by the nobles in most such cases. I’ve never heard of the equivalent of a “popular uprising” or a “people’s revolution” ever occurring within a private enterprise. The law in western countries simply doesn’t allow for it — the hierarchy is entrenched in several parallel systems such as the police, judiciary, securities registrars, etc… In practice 99% of large enterprise employees must “do as they’re told” and their only available alternative option is to quit. I’ve never heard of any org where there is any kind of bottom-to-top accountability and if such a thing was promised I would be immediately suspicious that it’s just a gimmick intended to even further exploit the naive.
- bigbadfeline 1y ago
  > In practice 99% of large enterprise employees must “do as they’re told” and their only available alternative option is to quit. I don't see this as a bug, it's a forced feature of a program that needs some other parts fixed. The problem isn't local to any organization, it's lack of functional competition and that's due to systemic reasons which are beyond the reach of CBC, bottom-up or internal anything.
  - alnewkirkcom 1y ago
    A couple of things: The knee-jerk reaction is to think CBC and bi-directional accountability must be some movement or uprising led by subordinates in an attempt to check/curtail the control of their superiors, or to at least balance the scales a bit. In reality, I see CBC being deployed by leadership (i.e., by leaders, top-down) as a way of holding subordinates accountable more objectively. As a means of enabling meritocracy. As a signaling device to show credibility and fairness. As a management system that reduces politics and favoritism by forcing clarity. And as a cultural foundation that says: what matters here is outcomes, not optics (or theater). It just so happens to apply equally to leadership also, because every leader is also a subordinate to someone, whether it’s a board, investors, customers, or the market itself. Most leaders aren't a god-emperor.

steveBK123 1y ago

> I.e.: Who’s going to arrest the King? Power asymmetry always exists and in many tech orgs I have been, while the work of ICs is concrete and measurable (Jiras, commits, PRs, features, releases), the decision makers exist more in the verbal space where very little is committed to written form in a way that could lead to accountability. The higher you go the less that meetings begin with an agenda or end with summarized minutes. I had a former boss tell me an anecdote along these lines re: when he knew his days were numbered with his Director. Director feigned ignorance of some inconvenient information so my boss reminds him that he had sent an email about it, to which the director responds "how do you know I read it, you can't just email me, you have to tell me next time". Not an unreasonable response in isolation, however shortly later a similar discussion with the same Director feigning ignorance about another piece of inconvenient info, that went something like "I don't recall you telling me about this before, you really gotta put this stuff in email". I know he was acting in bad faith because he pulled something similar on us where we proposed a plan of splitting some approved CapEx over 2 years to stretch capacity and get better hardware in year 2 for the same dollars. In year 2, of course, he grilled us about why we were asking him for servers again 2 years in a row and denied it. It is next to impossible to enforce accountability upwards.

jiggawatts 1y ago
"I emailed you." -> "You didn't tell me about it." "I told you." -> "You didn't put that formally in writing." "I told you and emailed you." -> "There were other (unspecified) priorities." There's always an out.
- DoctorOetker 1y ago
  discuss and email the need of a public or shared signed list of priority evaluations, and recommend bumping up the priority of item X. but I agree, there is always some excuse. While those who believe in contract driven accountability may constitute a minority, they could start a mailing list to coordinate and discover companies or startups applying these principles, and putting the rules into legally binding contracts and the company bylaws or whatever. Nothing would happen until a local critical mass was reached, unless the work could be done remote at first. The first such companies could then spin out branches that do non-remote work (lab work, manufacture, ...).

alnewkirkcom 1y ago

You’re right about the root cause: power asymmetry exists. Leaders usually hold the levers, and without checks, accountability flows one way. The point of CBC (and bi-directional accountability) isn’t to "arrest the King." It’s to remove the cover of ambiguity that power relies on. In most orgs, leaders escape accountability not because they’re inherently unassailable, but because commitments are vague, undocumented, or endlessly reframed. CBC closes that escape hatch.

jiggawatts 1y ago
Your reply is missing the key point I'm making. > "without checks" Nobody in a position of power can be forced or even meaningfully incentivised to put checks on themselves so that their less powerful underlings can put their feet to the fire. This just doesn't happen. Saying that "CBC closes that escape hatch" is wishful thinking. The hard part isn't specifying or documenting management's commitments. That already happens with, for example, politicians. The effectively impossible part is enforcement and incentives. As in: there isn't any of either, and leadership holds all of the power, essentially by definition. This CBC concept reads like one of those Web 3.0 fantasies where some kids whipping up Ethereum logic think that this somehow will force the real world into alignment with their code. This. Just. Doesn't. Happen. It never has and never will, because the status quo is fundamental human nature and a game-theoretically local optimum. Feel free to propose how you intend to simultaneously fix our biological heritage and imbalanced power. But do please show your work instead of just waving your hands in the direction of some unenforceable paperwork that will certainly be ignored as soon as it is inconvenient for those in charge.
- alnewkirkcom 1y ago
  The point isn't that people in power will suddenly volunteer to be "checked." It's that CBC allows leaders to "put their money where their mouth is". Leaders who claim to want ownership cultures, meritocracy, and outcomes over optics (i.e., performance without the theater) cannot continue to hide behind vague goals once commitments are documented, falsifiable, and visible. That's the incentive: CBC makes actual objective performance evaluation possible (i.e., performance evaluation for people and projects). And if a leader resists that? That's telling. It signals something about their leadership and the actual culture they're fostering. CBC is for leaders who claim to want meritocracy and are willing to prove it. History gives us examples. Andy Grove at Intel famously institutionalized "constructive confrontation" and rigorous OKRs, explicitly binding executives, including himself, to objective measures of performance. It wasn't a loss of power; it was the foundation of Intel's execution culture and competitive edge. CBC is cut from the same cloth. It doesn't magically enforce itself; it makes accountability legible, so leaders either live their stated values or reveal that they don't.

zug_zug 1y ago

Well I agree except in theory the board should want to force authenticity on all executives and directors and such. Fakers and cheats who lie about their results and hide behind manipulated metrics are a big threat to the board’s profitability