5 ms·

overperformance is far more dangerous (in large companies) than underperformance. Why? Can you explain.

sitkack 13y ago
You alienate yourself with respect to your peers and your boss will think you are trying to take their job. Nearly everyone around you will consider you a threat. That is my take and my experience from that statement. The best thing to do after having been tainted by startup education is to go into consulting.
- michaelochurch 13y ago
  You alienate yourself with respect to your peers and your boss will think you are trying to take their job. Nearly everyone around you will consider you a threat. Bingo. You fucking nailed it. The best thing to do after having been tainted by startup education is to go into consulting. How easy is that? I'm considering that avenue for myself, largely because I'm sick of office politics, re-orgs, and other time-wasting bullshit. With a consulting arrangement, there's no expectation (on either side) of a long-term deal and I think that's better, because most companies renege on their side of the social contract (e.g. investing in their people's careers.) How do consultants find good ($100+ per hour) work? If I could get the same take-home pay as a consultant, I'd do it in a heartbeat. I'm honest enough to know that I'm not a team player (unless I assemble the team) but I do great work and I'd rather be in a place where that's respected.
  - sitkack 13y ago
    I'll try and follow up on this tomorrow, but I dont have a lot of insight. It is difficult. Lots of hustling.
    - carterschonwald 13y ago
      indeed, having any deal flow in consulting requires A LOT of work building up a reputation of trust and quality with clients (and choosing clients well!)
gergles 13y ago
http://www.ribbonfarm.com/2009/10/07/the-gervais-principle-or-the-office-according-to-the-office/ http://www.ribbonfarm.com/2009/10/07/the-gervais-principle-o... The Gervais Principle is a fascinating series of articles that explain why this is the case and also give a lot of insight into corporate America. It's a great read.
- jayvanguard 12y ago
  A very relevant line from this article: "Unless you very quickly demonstrate that you know your own value by successfully negotiating more money and/or power, you are marked out as an exploitable clueless Loser." If you are working long hours and aren't rapidly negotiating your way up and into serious equity then you are marking yourself as a sucker. Don't be surprised if they continue to exploit you.
  - JoeAltmaier 12y ago
    I'd just call that bad management. Team building requires some skill, including adjusting equity and compensation to build loyalty and keep valued employees. Do it wrong, and you get guys like that who are frustrated and angry.
michaelochurch 13y ago
Most underperformers don't really cause any problems. They work slowly and can't be assigned anything important, but over time the organization can adapt to them. Consequently, nothing really happens to them until there's a general belt-tightening. Usually, because people don't like being dicks and most underperformers aren't disliked, they're rolled into a general layoff and get a severance. Overperformers, on the other hand, draw attention and animosity. People may say they like change, innovation and creativity. Abstractly, they do. At work, when they're trying to hold position within an organization that would throw them under the bus without hesitation, they hate change (except change that they control) and anything that smells remotely like it might be a challenge to their authority, reputation, or power, no matter how remote that challenge may be. I'm seriously considering going into consulting, specifically because it's the one employment structure where overperformance isn't catastrophic. The worst result of overperformance is that you automate yourself out of a job, but that usually leads to another, better, one. If you're an underperformer, you might get laid off in a year or two. You'll typically have a severance or warning because people will still generally like you as long as you're not an asshole. If you're an overperformer, then unless you have someone powerful who goes out of his way to protect you, you're going to be fired (on a bogus "performance" case where you're set up to fail) in 3 months. You're also probably the type of person who, when served with a PIP despite being one the biggest assets to the company, will go nuclear, create morale-killing spectacles, and be talked about for years afterward. (Not that I know anyone like that...) Underperformers can move along. With 2-3 years on their resumes, no one asks any questions. Overperformers often blow up spectacularly and develop reputation problems because, even if they're abstractly admirable, they didn't know the rules.
- nutjob123 13y ago
  '(on a bogus "performance" case where you're set up to fail) ' Can you elaborate?
  - cbhl 13y ago
    Here's a starting point. http://michaelochurch.wordpress.com/2013/07/03/my-name-is-cleared/ http://michaelochurch.wordpress.com/2013/07/03/my-name-is-cl...
johngalt 13y ago
The curse of competence. In your next family gathering people will ask you to fix their computer. You say 'Sorry I'm not IT, I'm a programmer'. Suddenly they dislike you. Do they dislike your cousin who waits tables for not fixing their computer? No, just you. Similar themes play out in a business setting. If you're competent everyone will want you to do everything important. Which will result in: 1. You get stretched too thin and start making mistakes -> fired. 2. You refuse to take more than your share of work. This is seen as a slight to whomever you refuse. Similar to the above anecdote. No one gets upset with the person who can't help them. They get upset when the person who can help them doesn't. Additionally people tend to focus on what you haven't done yet, not what you've already accomplished. The more that you are able to do, the larger the unfulfilled expectations become. Suddenly a large portion of the projects are complaining that they would be further 'if only we could get Redmaverick to help'. Now you're seen as the bottleneck for not helping, rather than the asset because your skills apply in so many areas. If you are a skilled person who can execute tasks, it is vital that you always frame yourself by your accomplishments. By default your capabilities will be used to create a long string of perceived obligations.
- hga 13y ago
  "You get stretched too thin and start making mistakes -> fired." It can be worse than that. In a small startup, you can be the least-worst informed and capable about several critical areas, where you pitch in and do a better job than anyone else could have, and make mistakes. (In one particularly galling example in my work history where I was employee #1, I recommended an ISP, which was good, but without talking to me the co-founder who set that up also bought their bundled email service, back in 1997 when this was seldom well done. This turned out to be a mistake visible at the top of the company.... Or take firewalls: while I now know a lot more about them, and can set one up with raw iptables or Shorewall, back then all I knew was what I'd read in Cheswick and Bellovin's seminal book https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firewalls_and_Internet_Security https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firewalls_and_Internet_Securit... and said, "Gauntlet has a good reputation". Yeah, but its company, Trusted Information Systems, had just been bought by Network Associates, which apparently following a common Computer Associates business model of firing almost all of the technical staff and milking the reputation....)

You alienate yourself with respect to your peers and your boss will think you are trying to take their job. Nearly everyone around you will consider you a threat. That is my take and my experience from that statement. The best thing to do after having been tainted by startup education is to go into consulting.

michaelochurch 13y ago
You alienate yourself with respect to your peers and your boss will think you are trying to take their job. Nearly everyone around you will consider you a threat. Bingo. You fucking nailed it. The best thing to do after having been tainted by startup education is to go into consulting. How easy is that? I'm considering that avenue for myself, largely because I'm sick of office politics, re-orgs, and other time-wasting bullshit. With a consulting arrangement, there's no expectation (on either side) of a long-term deal and I think that's better, because most companies renege on their side of the social contract (e.g. investing in their people's careers.) How do consultants find good ($100+ per hour) work? If I could get the same take-home pay as a consultant, I'd do it in a heartbeat. I'm honest enough to know that I'm not a team player (unless I assemble the team) but I do great work and I'd rather be in a place where that's respected.
- sitkack 13y ago
  I'll try and follow up on this tomorrow, but I dont have a lot of insight. It is difficult. Lots of hustling.
  - carterschonwald 13y ago
    indeed, having any deal flow in consulting requires A LOT of work building up a reputation of trust and quality with clients (and choosing clients well!)

gergles 13y ago

http://www.ribbonfarm.com/2009/10/07/the-gervais-principle-or-the-office-according-to-the-office/ http://www.ribbonfarm.com/2009/10/07/the-gervais-principle-o... The Gervais Principle is a fascinating series of articles that explain why this is the case and also give a lot of insight into corporate America. It's a great read.

jayvanguard 12y ago
A very relevant line from this article: "Unless you very quickly demonstrate that you know your own value by successfully negotiating more money and/or power, you are marked out as an exploitable clueless Loser." If you are working long hours and aren't rapidly negotiating your way up and into serious equity then you are marking yourself as a sucker. Don't be surprised if they continue to exploit you.
- JoeAltmaier 12y ago
  I'd just call that bad management. Team building requires some skill, including adjusting equity and compensation to build loyalty and keep valued employees. Do it wrong, and you get guys like that who are frustrated and angry.

michaelochurch 13y ago

Most underperformers don't really cause any problems. They work slowly and can't be assigned anything important, but over time the organization can adapt to them. Consequently, nothing really happens to them until there's a general belt-tightening. Usually, because people don't like being dicks and most underperformers aren't disliked, they're rolled into a general layoff and get a severance. Overperformers, on the other hand, draw attention and animosity. People may say they like change, innovation and creativity. Abstractly, they do. At work, when they're trying to hold position within an organization that would throw them under the bus without hesitation, they hate change (except change that they control) and anything that smells remotely like it might be a challenge to their authority, reputation, or power, no matter how remote that challenge may be. I'm seriously considering going into consulting, specifically because it's the one employment structure where overperformance isn't catastrophic. The worst result of overperformance is that you automate yourself out of a job, but that usually leads to another, better, one. If you're an underperformer, you might get laid off in a year or two. You'll typically have a severance or warning because people will still generally like you as long as you're not an asshole. If you're an overperformer, then unless you have someone powerful who goes out of his way to protect you, you're going to be fired (on a bogus "performance" case where you're set up to fail) in 3 months. You're also probably the type of person who, when served with a PIP despite being one the biggest assets to the company, will go nuclear, create morale-killing spectacles, and be talked about for years afterward. (Not that I know anyone like that...) Underperformers can move along. With 2-3 years on their resumes, no one asks any questions. Overperformers often blow up spectacularly and develop reputation problems because, even if they're abstractly admirable, they didn't know the rules.

nutjob123 13y ago
'(on a bogus "performance" case where you're set up to fail) ' Can you elaborate?
- cbhl 13y ago
  Here's a starting point. http://michaelochurch.wordpress.com/2013/07/03/my-name-is-cleared/ http://michaelochurch.wordpress.com/2013/07/03/my-name-is-cl...

johngalt 13y ago

The curse of competence. In your next family gathering people will ask you to fix their computer. You say 'Sorry I'm not IT, I'm a programmer'. Suddenly they dislike you. Do they dislike your cousin who waits tables for not fixing their computer? No, just you. Similar themes play out in a business setting. If you're competent everyone will want you to do everything important. Which will result in: 1. You get stretched too thin and start making mistakes -> fired. 2. You refuse to take more than your share of work. This is seen as a slight to whomever you refuse. Similar to the above anecdote. No one gets upset with the person who can't help them. They get upset when the person who can help them doesn't. Additionally people tend to focus on what you haven't done yet, not what you've already accomplished. The more that you are able to do, the larger the unfulfilled expectations become. Suddenly a large portion of the projects are complaining that they would be further 'if only we could get Redmaverick to help'. Now you're seen as the bottleneck for not helping, rather than the asset because your skills apply in so many areas. If you are a skilled person who can execute tasks, it is vital that you always frame yourself by your accomplishments. By default your capabilities will be used to create a long string of perceived obligations.

hga 13y ago
"You get stretched too thin and start making mistakes -> fired." It can be worse than that. In a small startup, you can be the least-worst informed and capable about several critical areas, where you pitch in and do a better job than anyone else could have, and make mistakes. (In one particularly galling example in my work history where I was employee #1, I recommended an ISP, which was good, but without talking to me the co-founder who set that up also bought their bundled email service, back in 1997 when this was seldom well done. This turned out to be a mistake visible at the top of the company.... Or take firewalls: while I now know a lot more about them, and can set one up with raw iptables or Shorewall, back then all I knew was what I'd read in Cheswick and Bellovin's seminal book https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firewalls_and_Internet_Security https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firewalls_and_Internet_Securit... and said, "Gauntlet has a good reputation". Yeah, but its company, Trusted Information Systems, had just been bought by Network Associates, which apparently following a common Computer Associates business model of firing almost all of the technical staff and milking the reputation....)