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The promotion of yes-men and buddies of leaders is something that happens just as well in structured organizations. I've seen incapable people promoted to a pos

by sspiff 13y ago

The promotion of yes-men and buddies of leaders is something that happens just as well in structured organizations. I've seen incapable people promoted to a position of power, and talented, hard working people held back despite their merits. In structured organizations there may be rules and processes to handle promotion and management, but I've seen them being gamed by people in power more than I've seen them being used for improving anything. I've seen a lot of bad decisions being made, but speaking out about them is often not appreciated, so by now I've given up on trying to fix those problems and I just occasionally lament them in the coffee room. (Note: I work for a formerly large multinational, whose structure and processes have mostly been rusted in place. I, and many of my colleagues, are leaving the company for the lack of a clear direction, which is a result of poor management over more than a decade.)

bane 13y ago
And when it's really rigid and doesn't seem to reflect the world that's happening, people will simply work around that structure. I remember working one time at a large R&D firm, with very clear and explicit requirements of position as a function of education + experience. e.g. If you didn't have both a PhD and at least 15 years of experience you couldn't be a level 5. People with 3 M.S. and 25 years were stuck forever at level 4. It made career advancement a game of getting the organization to fund your educational "goals" so you could get a better position. Turns out though that this left large gaps in the organizational structure where there simply wasn't anybody internal who was qualified to move into a position so they turned to outside hires. As it turns out, outside hires were simply exempt from many of these promotion requirements. So career advancement ended up with people quitting, going someplace else for a few months, then getting hired back into the position they wanted to be promoted to in the first place. It was an absurd place to work.
- arethuza 13y ago
  What you describe sounds awfully like what Michael Young had in mind when he created the term "meritocracy" - which is actually quite different, and rather more interesting, than its common usage: http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2001/jun/29/comment http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2001/jun/29/comment e.g. The UK Civil Service is probably very proud of being a meritocracy - where the "best" people are promoted. However, none of their definitions of "merit" actually relate to ability to perform current or promoted roles!
- kristopolous 13y ago
  I've seen things like this before. I call them KafCos. Generally, any organization that has an arbitrary structure that is used to assign roles to individuals in a way that statistically aligns with a usual hierarchy, using some quantifiable metric that makes one group smaller than another. There's this self-destructive modality that organizations can enter into where politics matter more than product and people worry about their own resume and ego more than functioning as a team to do something greater than the sum of the parts. If you take any pride in your craft, that's the ultimate red flag to run like hell.
hannibal5 13y ago
This is general problem with any organization made from humans. Hierarchies don't make them go away, they just make them manageable and less distracting. Believe me, if you could compare similar sized organization with same people working with and without hierarchies, you would pick one with hierarchy 8 times of 10.

by sspiff 13y ago

bane 13y ago

And when it's really rigid and doesn't seem to reflect the world that's happening, people will simply work around that structure. I remember working one time at a large R&D firm, with very clear and explicit requirements of position as a function of education + experience. e.g. If you didn't have both a PhD and at least 15 years of experience you couldn't be a level 5. People with 3 M.S. and 25 years were stuck forever at level 4. It made career advancement a game of getting the organization to fund your educational "goals" so you could get a better position. Turns out though that this left large gaps in the organizational structure where there simply wasn't anybody internal who was qualified to move into a position so they turned to outside hires. As it turns out, outside hires were simply exempt from many of these promotion requirements. So career advancement ended up with people quitting, going someplace else for a few months, then getting hired back into the position they wanted to be promoted to in the first place. It was an absurd place to work.

arethuza 13y ago
What you describe sounds awfully like what Michael Young had in mind when he created the term "meritocracy" - which is actually quite different, and rather more interesting, than its common usage: http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2001/jun/29/comment http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2001/jun/29/comment e.g. The UK Civil Service is probably very proud of being a meritocracy - where the "best" people are promoted. However, none of their definitions of "merit" actually relate to ability to perform current or promoted roles!
kristopolous 13y ago
I've seen things like this before. I call them KafCos. Generally, any organization that has an arbitrary structure that is used to assign roles to individuals in a way that statistically aligns with a usual hierarchy, using some quantifiable metric that makes one group smaller than another. There's this self-destructive modality that organizations can enter into where politics matter more than product and people worry about their own resume and ego more than functioning as a team to do something greater than the sum of the parts. If you take any pride in your craft, that's the ultimate red flag to run like hell.

hannibal5 13y ago

This is general problem with any organization made from humans. Hierarchies don't make them go away, they just make them manageable and less distracting. Believe me, if you could compare similar sized organization with same people working with and without hierarchies, you would pick one with hierarchy 8 times of 10.