5 ms·

I've only worked for small companies. My current company has roughly 30 employees. My eyes glazed over during the 2nd paragraph. Is this what it's like when you

by coldpie 12y ago

I've only worked for small companies. My current company has roughly 30 employees. My eyes glazed over during the 2nd paragraph. Is this what it's like when you have a lot of employees to manage? Sending Half-Hour Emails with Capitalized Words I've never heard of? Holacracy? Glass Frog? Teal Organization? Reinventing Organizations? Huh? Just let me do my work, damn.

smackfu 12y ago
In a typical management structure, sending out org-wide emails is often a sign of bad management, since management is not trusting their lower tiers of management to get their message out and is essentially acting like the voice of god. In a holocracy, who knows.
- a3n 12y ago
  I imagine these emails are going to have to come almost exclusively from Hsieh, as one of the few remaining formal managers.
ebbv 12y ago
Top level executives get bored and feel ineffective and look for things to do. CEOs especially can fall victim to wanting to be "bold" and being obsessed with whatever their idea of being a leader is at the time. They read articles and books which are written for them full of buzzwords and pseudo-science, and use these to justify taking action which they believe firmly will make a big difference, but really amounts to rearranging furniture. Just read the linked email. It's non-stop buzzwords and references to "the book". This is the talk of a cult member not someone acting rationally. If you didn't know this was a CEO of a successful corporation, and instead you were told it was an internal Scientology memo, would you doubt it? Self Management may or may not be a good way to run a company (it probably largely depends on the company), but there should be rational, compelling reasons for why it's the way to go. The articles included in the email are just Malcolm Gladwell style pseudoscience meant to lull top level executives into a hypnotic state of euphoria.
tomjen3 12y ago
Probably all it means is that some new management fad has come and replaced whatever was the previous fad (six sigma? Lean organizations?). If you want to a lot of dough, read the books and memorize a few buzzwords, buy a suit and name yourself a consultant. I doubt anything will actually change below a superficial level, but everybody wants to seem important and the way management does that is by making sweeping changes (we engineers aren't any different, we just want to build impressive and geeking things).
mcginleyr1 12y ago
I actually like the idea of a Holacracy, and you see it in alot of small startups intentionally or not. The generally tend to loose this as they grow. I recently read one of Ricardo Selmer's books on how he used Holacracy at Semco http://www.amazon.com/Seven-Day-Weekend-Changing-Work-Works-ebook/dp/B000PDYVXE/ref=sr_1_1 http://www.amazon.com/Seven-Day-Weekend-Changing-Work-Works-... which is a huge multi national company. I highly suggest it.
a3n 12y ago
This is exactly what it's like when you have a lot of money to spend, which is what happens when you have a lot of employees. The phrases are code words designed to reinforce the cult of whatever program or fad that the employees that operate the corporation (as opposed to producing whatever the corporation produces) use to control the rest of the employees. This will be seen, among many other contexts, in official and formal employee evaluation processes. There will be "objective" measures, like "does the associate exhibit Glass behaviors? [rate 1 to 5]." "Does the associate promote Teal results, in their own work and the work of others? [rate 1 to 5]." Yes, this is exactly what it's like in a large corporation. The names of the programs change, and the posters, colors and prayers, but it's all the same.
wmeredith 12y ago
If you'd like further bait your creeping nausea, do a little research on Holocracy... "Adopting Holacracy isn't cheap or easy. The system has its own set of rules and lingo, and is complicated to implement. The Holacracy parent company, HolacracyOne, helps companies transition by offering consulting services that run from $50,000 to $500,000, depending on how long it takes to achieve self-sufficiency. Even for much smaller companies, like Medium, which implemented Holacracy when it was just a couple dozen people in 2012, the journey takes multiple years and has a steep learning curve. Holacracy was invented by Brian Robertson, a 35-year-old former programmer with barely any management experience. He created Holacracy in 2007 because he had a "burning sense that there has to be a better way to work together," he said in an interview with Fast Company. Robertson, who describes himself as a coding savant, says he taught himself to program at age 6..."
- coldpie 12y ago
  I guess startups that get tens of millions right off the bat have to do something with their money.
corysama 12y ago
When it's just you and a couple dozen other people, just letting you do your work is a pretty safe bet. But, when its you and a few hundred or a few thousand highly variable people, just letting you do your work has a strong risk of setting you up for failure. Somebody in that huge mass of people is going to screw up your work by running full speed in the wrong direction. That somebody might be you -not out of incompetence, but because you were mis/uninformed. So, how can I repeatedly communicate dense ideas about how to keep hundreds of people aligned in dozens of dimensions using only extremely low-bandwidth channels such as weekly emails? One option is to use shared-dictionary compression in the form of a custom vocabulary of capitalized words. Of course, the messages will be inscrutable to anyone outside the org because they won't have the dictionary. But, that's not my concern.
- ryanobjc 12y ago
  books about internal corporate communication dont exactly advocate "Dense ideas" at the executive level. After all, who is going to read a 30 minute long email? Only if you are threatening their jobs (and Tony is!)
ryanobjc 12y ago
Kind of reminds me of... scientology. Replace sea org with teal organization, and auditing with 'tension meetings' and you got yourself a new cult! Then again, I'm just jealous since I always wanted to start a cult :-(
steven777400 12y ago
I work for an agency with thousands of employees. It's never like this. People do their work, they seek out the resources they need, and they self organize on short term teams to address issues. Traditional management structure exists to make sure no one is running in the wrong direction and to assess performance. "Just let me do my work" is basically what everyone wants, and a good manager will know/see that and be as hands-off as they can while still ensuring agency objectives are being appropriately accomplished.

by coldpie 12y ago

smackfu 12y ago

In a typical management structure, sending out org-wide emails is often a sign of bad management, since management is not trusting their lower tiers of management to get their message out and is essentially acting like the voice of god. In a holocracy, who knows.

a3n 12y ago
I imagine these emails are going to have to come almost exclusively from Hsieh, as one of the few remaining formal managers.

ebbv 12y ago

Top level executives get bored and feel ineffective and look for things to do. CEOs especially can fall victim to wanting to be "bold" and being obsessed with whatever their idea of being a leader is at the time. They read articles and books which are written for them full of buzzwords and pseudo-science, and use these to justify taking action which they believe firmly will make a big difference, but really amounts to rearranging furniture. Just read the linked email. It's non-stop buzzwords and references to "the book". This is the talk of a cult member not someone acting rationally. If you didn't know this was a CEO of a successful corporation, and instead you were told it was an internal Scientology memo, would you doubt it? Self Management may or may not be a good way to run a company (it probably largely depends on the company), but there should be rational, compelling reasons for why it's the way to go. The articles included in the email are just Malcolm Gladwell style pseudoscience meant to lull top level executives into a hypnotic state of euphoria.

tomjen3 12y ago

Probably all it means is that some new management fad has come and replaced whatever was the previous fad (six sigma? Lean organizations?). If you want to a lot of dough, read the books and memorize a few buzzwords, buy a suit and name yourself a consultant. I doubt anything will actually change below a superficial level, but everybody wants to seem important and the way management does that is by making sweeping changes (we engineers aren't any different, we just want to build impressive and geeking things).

mcginleyr1 12y ago

I actually like the idea of a Holacracy, and you see it in alot of small startups intentionally or not. The generally tend to loose this as they grow. I recently read one of Ricardo Selmer's books on how he used Holacracy at Semco http://www.amazon.com/Seven-Day-Weekend-Changing-Work-Works-ebook/dp/B000PDYVXE/ref=sr_1_1 http://www.amazon.com/Seven-Day-Weekend-Changing-Work-Works-... which is a huge multi national company. I highly suggest it.

a3n 12y ago

This is exactly what it's like when you have a lot of money to spend, which is what happens when you have a lot of employees. The phrases are code words designed to reinforce the cult of whatever program or fad that the employees that operate the corporation (as opposed to producing whatever the corporation produces) use to control the rest of the employees. This will be seen, among many other contexts, in official and formal employee evaluation processes. There will be "objective" measures, like "does the associate exhibit Glass behaviors? [rate 1 to 5]." "Does the associate promote Teal results, in their own work and the work of others? [rate 1 to 5]." Yes, this is exactly what it's like in a large corporation. The names of the programs change, and the posters, colors and prayers, but it's all the same.

wmeredith 12y ago

If you'd like further bait your creeping nausea, do a little research on Holocracy... "Adopting Holacracy isn't cheap or easy. The system has its own set of rules and lingo, and is complicated to implement. The Holacracy parent company, HolacracyOne, helps companies transition by offering consulting services that run from $50,000 to $500,000, depending on how long it takes to achieve self-sufficiency. Even for much smaller companies, like Medium, which implemented Holacracy when it was just a couple dozen people in 2012, the journey takes multiple years and has a steep learning curve. Holacracy was invented by Brian Robertson, a 35-year-old former programmer with barely any management experience. He created Holacracy in 2007 because he had a "burning sense that there has to be a better way to work together," he said in an interview with Fast Company. Robertson, who describes himself as a coding savant, says he taught himself to program at age 6..."

coldpie 12y ago
I guess startups that get tens of millions right off the bat have to do something with their money.

corysama 12y ago

When it's just you and a couple dozen other people, just letting you do your work is a pretty safe bet. But, when its you and a few hundred or a few thousand highly variable people, just letting you do your work has a strong risk of setting you up for failure. Somebody in that huge mass of people is going to screw up your work by running full speed in the wrong direction. That somebody might be you -not out of incompetence, but because you were mis/uninformed. So, how can I repeatedly communicate dense ideas about how to keep hundreds of people aligned in dozens of dimensions using only extremely low-bandwidth channels such as weekly emails? One option is to use shared-dictionary compression in the form of a custom vocabulary of capitalized words. Of course, the messages will be inscrutable to anyone outside the org because they won't have the dictionary. But, that's not my concern.

ryanobjc 12y ago
books about internal corporate communication dont exactly advocate "Dense ideas" at the executive level. After all, who is going to read a 30 minute long email? Only if you are threatening their jobs (and Tony is!)

ryanobjc 12y ago

Kind of reminds me of... scientology. Replace sea org with teal organization, and auditing with 'tension meetings' and you got yourself a new cult! Then again, I'm just jealous since I always wanted to start a cult :-(

steven777400 12y ago

I work for an agency with thousands of employees. It's never like this. People do their work, they seek out the resources they need, and they self organize on short term teams to address issues. Traditional management structure exists to make sure no one is running in the wrong direction and to assess performance. "Just let me do my work" is basically what everyone wants, and a good manager will know/see that and be as hands-off as they can while still ensuring agency objectives are being appropriately accomplished.