5 ms·

> "Oh, okay, I'll talk to him and make sure it stops." Can I come live in your world where everything is solved by a quick talk.

mbreese 13y ago
Lots of problems can be stopped from escalating by a quick chat before. The goal is to stop the small problems before they become big ones. No, you're not going to solve completely toxic situations, but you could slow them down so they could be managed. You want to know about issues before they hit the front page of Techcrunch. Regardless of what happened, it is clear that GitHub didn't manage this situation well.
kansface 13y ago
Seems straight forward to me: "stop this shit or you're fired".
- chmike 13y ago
  You should first ask for an explanation and justification of the so far alledged misbehavior. You could accuse and threat someone on false claims. If the person fails to provide a valid explanation and justification the demonstration of the existance of a problem will have been made by itself. No need the explicitly threat anyone. Threatening should be done only in phase 2 after the problem as been acertained by both parties and the person has failed to correct what could have been a simple misunderstanding or an accident.
bowlofpetunias 13y ago
A lot of problems can be solved (or prevented) by a talk at the right moment. It's supposed to be part the of the skill set of those people called "managers". You know, the people we don't need. Until we do.
michaelt 13y ago
When a line manager decides to make sure an employee stops doing something, it's actually several conversations: 1. A friendly conversation in which the manager points out the problem, establishes that they expect it to stop, but that if it stops immediately it'll all be forgotten. 2. A less friendly conversation in which the manager says I thought we were clear that you aren't supposed to do it. You're still doing it, WTF? Depending on the problem maybe the employee has some reason/excuse and you need to do something to help them with it/remove it as an excuse. If the employee is the cynical type, the aim is to establish that while you have an incentive to keep him (because you want good employees on your team), now you've taken a stance on his behaviour, letting him walk all over you would harm your reputation as a competent manager, so the incentive to keep him isn't the only one. 3. A conversation where you tell them you've started the ball rolling on getting rid of them. It's nothing personal, but the employee's actions mean your hands are tied. You've already cleared it with political allies they have at the company who could stop it. Here are the numbers of some recruiters if they'd prefer to jump before they're pushed. 4. A conversation where they are fired.
- michaelochurch 13y ago
  Most of what you say is good, but... You've already cleared it with political allies they have at the company who could stop it. If I found out that a manager was undermining me in this way, I'd strike back and it probably wouldn't be good for me or him. Trying to turn my friends against me? That's war. I'd fuck him up and I'd keep fucking him up after the end of that job. Letting an employee go isn't personal. Reaching out to his "political allies" to undermine him is personal. If you want me off your team, I'll leave. If you try to stop a transfer by corrupting people who like me, then I'm going to fuck up your shit, and it's totally personal. All that said, no organization should be in a state where a truly toxic person can be protected by having a political power base. If you can't fire someone who's genuinely causing problems (e.g. harassment) without bringing that person's political power base into the equation, you have a dysfunctional organization. This sort of thing is why companies should fire fast and be generous with severance instead of writing dishonest "performance improvement plans" that essentially mean an already-fired employee gets a month to come in to the office and still wreak havoc. It's better to err on the side of a bad employee getting an "undeserved" severance package than to have "walking dead" employees pissing all over morale. Once it's clear that the only move is to fire someone, it's best to do it quickly. Severance (enough to cover a typical job search) is actually very cheap when you consider the risk and misery (for the manager and team) involved in a PIP or paper trail.
  - michaelt 13y ago
    If I found out that a manager was undermining me in this way, I'd strike back and it probably wouldn't be good for me or him. Allow me to clarify: Before you make a threat (such as to fire someone) you need to make sure the threat is credible. This is for exactly the reason you say: If you openly try but fail to get rid of someone, they may take it personally and try to "fuck up your shit". If there's someone who can stop your threat (e.g. the employee is buddies with your boss) you go to that someone, lay out the problem and what you see as the options for solving it, and ask them for their advice. This advice will either be "go ahead" or "I'll take care of it"; in the latter case you should allow some time for them to take care of it.

mbreese 13y ago

Lots of problems can be stopped from escalating by a quick chat before. The goal is to stop the small problems before they become big ones. No, you're not going to solve completely toxic situations, but you could slow them down so they could be managed. You want to know about issues before they hit the front page of Techcrunch. Regardless of what happened, it is clear that GitHub didn't manage this situation well.

kansface 13y ago

Seems straight forward to me: "stop this shit or you're fired".

chmike 13y ago
You should first ask for an explanation and justification of the so far alledged misbehavior. You could accuse and threat someone on false claims. If the person fails to provide a valid explanation and justification the demonstration of the existance of a problem will have been made by itself. No need the explicitly threat anyone. Threatening should be done only in phase 2 after the problem as been acertained by both parties and the person has failed to correct what could have been a simple misunderstanding or an accident.

bowlofpetunias 13y ago

A lot of problems can be solved (or prevented) by a talk at the right moment. It's supposed to be part the of the skill set of those people called "managers". You know, the people we don't need. Until we do.

michaelt 13y ago

When a line manager decides to make sure an employee stops doing something, it's actually several conversations: 1. A friendly conversation in which the manager points out the problem, establishes that they expect it to stop, but that if it stops immediately it'll all be forgotten. 2. A less friendly conversation in which the manager says I thought we were clear that you aren't supposed to do it. You're still doing it, WTF? Depending on the problem maybe the employee has some reason/excuse and you need to do something to help them with it/remove it as an excuse. If the employee is the cynical type, the aim is to establish that while you have an incentive to keep him (because you want good employees on your team), now you've taken a stance on his behaviour, letting him walk all over you would harm your reputation as a competent manager, so the incentive to keep him isn't the only one. 3. A conversation where you tell them you've started the ball rolling on getting rid of them. It's nothing personal, but the employee's actions mean your hands are tied. You've already cleared it with political allies they have at the company who could stop it. Here are the numbers of some recruiters if they'd prefer to jump before they're pushed. 4. A conversation where they are fired.

michaelochurch 13y ago
Most of what you say is good, but... You've already cleared it with political allies they have at the company who could stop it. If I found out that a manager was undermining me in this way, I'd strike back and it probably wouldn't be good for me or him. Trying to turn my friends against me? That's war. I'd fuck him up and I'd keep fucking him up after the end of that job. Letting an employee go isn't personal. Reaching out to his "political allies" to undermine him is personal. If you want me off your team, I'll leave. If you try to stop a transfer by corrupting people who like me, then I'm going to fuck up your shit, and it's totally personal. All that said, no organization should be in a state where a truly toxic person can be protected by having a political power base. If you can't fire someone who's genuinely causing problems (e.g. harassment) without bringing that person's political power base into the equation, you have a dysfunctional organization. This sort of thing is why companies should fire fast and be generous with severance instead of writing dishonest "performance improvement plans" that essentially mean an already-fired employee gets a month to come in to the office and still wreak havoc. It's better to err on the side of a bad employee getting an "undeserved" severance package than to have "walking dead" employees pissing all over morale. Once it's clear that the only move is to fire someone, it's best to do it quickly. Severance (enough to cover a typical job search) is actually very cheap when you consider the risk and misery (for the manager and team) involved in a PIP or paper trail.
- michaelt 13y ago
  If I found out that a manager was undermining me in this way, I'd strike back and it probably wouldn't be good for me or him. Allow me to clarify: Before you make a threat (such as to fire someone) you need to make sure the threat is credible. This is for exactly the reason you say: If you openly try but fail to get rid of someone, they may take it personally and try to "fuck up your shit". If there's someone who can stop your threat (e.g. the employee is buddies with your boss) you go to that someone, lay out the problem and what you see as the options for solving it, and ask them for their advice. This advice will either be "go ahead" or "I'll take care of it"; in the latter case you should allow some time for them to take care of it.