3 ms·

That's what skip level connections and surveys are for. The tools are there, for organizations that care to use them.

by esafak 1y ago

whstl 1y ago
I don't know. I have seen CEOs and CTOs tearing apart feedback from surveys at all-hands meetings. To the point of mocking answers and saying people are "tripping", or that "in other YC companies people work 80 hours". And I've seen leads/managers leaving due to micromanagement as well. As long as the expectation is for managers to hide concerns and fall in line, the information will be hidden from C-levels. For example: > A fintech company decided to build their own authentication system rather than use established solutions. I lived this exact scenario. Fintech wanted custom authentication! It was pushed into my team. I said no and put my foot down, VPE disagreed with me and gave to another team. That team failed to deliver after 6 months, and my team finally ended up being the one implementing a third-party solution in a couple weeks. That third-party solution costed less than $100 per month, because of how little users we had. On my yearly feedback I still got knocked down a peg due to this incident. It really hurt my career at that company, even though I was in the right. That other team failed to deliver other projects too, and we got the same feedback I did, same salary increase. I got the yelling, I got the negative marks. Of course people will rationalize this with "you should have been more political". Well, that's what the people being criticized in TFA are doing: being political.
- Viliam1234 1y ago
  > tearing apart feedback from surveys That's amateur behavior. Real pros design the feedback forms in a way that only allows you to give them the answers they want to hear. "Which three company benefits are most important for you?" Frankly, all of them are meaningless, but there are ten checkboxes, and unless you mark three of them, the form won't allow you to proceed. "Do you understand how $buzzword can make you more productive? (on a scale from 0 to 10)" Answering "yes" implies that $buzzword is great. Answering "no" also implies that $buzzword is great, but you are too stupid to understand it, so you may be given some mandatory training on $buzzword. (There is no way to indicate that $buzzword actually makes you less productive.)
  - whstl 1y ago
    Well, it was just a simple NPS, people were giving zeroes, so they decided to ask why. People didn't answer so they made it anonymous. In the end they just expected amazing results without putting up the work. That was another YC hellhole, by the way. I'm out of this shit, I still frequent HN but I'm done with Paul Graham affiliated assholes.
  - rorychatt 1y ago
    I had this today when I cancelled a Microsoft Subscription, where it asked me for feedback on why I left. One of the options they gave was because "My company needs an AI solution". None of the options had anything to do with why I was unsubscribing.
- questionableans 1y ago
  Just wondering, was there ever any discussion about trying a quick prototype with a 3rd party auth solution before trying to go off and build one?
  - whstl 1y ago
    No, because the VPE was doing it out of ego and because he thought the problem was easy, not out of any practicality. No amount of argument was enough. This was his only job, he was at the company for 10 years, was a schoolfriend of the CTO and suddenly got promoted to VPE when the company grew over 50 devs. So total lack of experience. The funny thing is we didn't even need to prototype: another team had already integrated the same third-party in their own project, so there was ZERO doubts, we had an in-house expert.
    - questionableans 1y ago
      That’s unfortunate.
nwhnwh 1y ago
If people usually don't see that the house is on fire, they won't see it or care about it if you point at it. The fact that you have to do that says a lot.
paradox460 1y ago
>company survey Cool, I can honestly tell them how I feel and what's not working >your input is not anonymous Everything is smooth sailing, 4s and 5s
Whinner 1y ago
Do people really give candid feedback in skip levels? Your skip obviously doesn't trust your boss if they are having them. Are you really going to bad mouth your boss? They have the most direct control over your career at the present company.
- jeffrallen 1y ago
  If you don't feel free to be honest with your skip level that's on all 3 of you to fix. If I put my own spin on something my boss has already explained is a problem he's working on, this gives my skip level confidence we all understand the problem approximately the same. If I say, "this thing came to me that I don't really agree but I'm doing my best to get it done" this only reflects well on both me (taking one for the team) and my boss (he carried forward an unpopular thing and trusted me to give it a shot). And if I say, "this other team's behavior is causing me this problem" that's just facts. Data that we can all use to fix it. Maybe my skip level can explain the competing priorities and I'll decide to solve my problem another way.

That's what skip level connections and surveys are for. The tools are there, for organizations that care to use them.

by esafak 1y ago

That's what skip level connections and surveys are for. The tools are there, for organizations that care to use them.

I don't know. I have seen CEOs and CTOs tearing apart feedback from surveys at all-hands meetings. To the point of mocking answers and saying people are "tripping", or that "in other YC companies people work 80 hours". And I've seen leads/managers leaving due to micromanagement as well. As long as the expectation is for managers to hide concerns and fall in line, the information will be hidden from C-levels. For example: > A fintech company decided to build their own authentication system rather than use established solutions. I lived this exact scenario. Fintech wanted custom authentication! It was pushed into my team. I said no and put my foot down, VPE disagreed with me and gave to another team. That team failed to deliver after 6 months, and my team finally ended up being the one implementing a third-party solution in a couple weeks. That third-party solution costed less than $100 per month, because of how little users we had. On my yearly feedback I still got knocked down a peg due to this incident. It really hurt my career at that company, even though I was in the right. That other team failed to deliver other projects too, and we got the same feedback I did, same salary increase. I got the yelling, I got the negative marks. Of course people will rationalize this with "you should have been more political". Well, that's what the people being criticized in TFA are doing: being political.

Viliam1234 1y ago
> tearing apart feedback from surveys That's amateur behavior. Real pros design the feedback forms in a way that only allows you to give them the answers they want to hear. "Which three company benefits are most important for you?" Frankly, all of them are meaningless, but there are ten checkboxes, and unless you mark three of them, the form won't allow you to proceed. "Do you understand how $buzzword can make you more productive? (on a scale from 0 to 10)" Answering "yes" implies that $buzzword is great. Answering "no" also implies that $buzzword is great, but you are too stupid to understand it, so you may be given some mandatory training on $buzzword. (There is no way to indicate that $buzzword actually makes you less productive.)
- whstl 1y ago
  Well, it was just a simple NPS, people were giving zeroes, so they decided to ask why. People didn't answer so they made it anonymous. In the end they just expected amazing results without putting up the work. That was another YC hellhole, by the way. I'm out of this shit, I still frequent HN but I'm done with Paul Graham affiliated assholes.
- rorychatt 1y ago
  I had this today when I cancelled a Microsoft Subscription, where it asked me for feedback on why I left. One of the options they gave was because "My company needs an AI solution". None of the options had anything to do with why I was unsubscribing.
questionableans 1y ago
Just wondering, was there ever any discussion about trying a quick prototype with a 3rd party auth solution before trying to go off and build one?
- whstl 1y ago
  No, because the VPE was doing it out of ego and because he thought the problem was easy, not out of any practicality. No amount of argument was enough. This was his only job, he was at the company for 10 years, was a schoolfriend of the CTO and suddenly got promoted to VPE when the company grew over 50 devs. So total lack of experience. The funny thing is we didn't even need to prototype: another team had already integrated the same third-party in their own project, so there was ZERO doubts, we had an in-house expert.
  - questionableans 1y ago
    That’s unfortunate.

nwhnwh 1y ago

If people usually don't see that the house is on fire, they won't see it or care about it if you point at it. The fact that you have to do that says a lot.

paradox460 1y ago

>company survey Cool, I can honestly tell them how I feel and what's not working >your input is not anonymous Everything is smooth sailing, 4s and 5s

Whinner 1y ago

Do people really give candid feedback in skip levels? Your skip obviously doesn't trust your boss if they are having them. Are you really going to bad mouth your boss? They have the most direct control over your career at the present company.

jeffrallen 1y ago
If you don't feel free to be honest with your skip level that's on all 3 of you to fix. If I put my own spin on something my boss has already explained is a problem he's working on, this gives my skip level confidence we all understand the problem approximately the same. If I say, "this thing came to me that I don't really agree but I'm doing my best to get it done" this only reflects well on both me (taking one for the team) and my boss (he carried forward an unpopular thing and trusted me to give it a shot). And if I say, "this other team's behavior is causing me this problem" that's just facts. Data that we can all use to fix it. Maybe my skip level can explain the competing priorities and I'll decide to solve my problem another way.