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> Hsieh sent a nearly 5,000-word company-wide memo... > To get their severance, employees had to be in good standing with the company. They were also asked to
by 7Figures2Commas 11y ago
> Hsieh sent a nearly 5,000-word company-wide memo...
> To get their severance, employees had to be in good standing with the company. They were also asked to indicate by email that they had read the management book "Reinventing Organizations" and disagreed with its manager-free vision or else state that they were not reading it.
Crazy.
I wonder how many more employees would have left if Zappos was based in a region where workers have greater mobility.
- grecy 11y agoWow, I wish my company would do something like this - middle management is clearly slowing us down and adding very little value right now. I can't wait to read that book.
- 7Figures2Commas 11y agoYou're making a flawed assumption many people make: because many managers are poor managers, management is bad. Be careful what you wish for. A company without management is like a boat without a captain. You might appear to be fine for some time, but eventually you'll be hopelessly adrift at sea.
- BillinghamJ 11y agoA company without management is not the same as a company without managers. Not having managers doesn't mean not having executives.
- k__ 11y agoMiddle management just seem to be a bad process in many companies, not more not less. They shouldn't hate the players, but the game.
- 23david 11y agoIn my experience, a bad manager can be far worse than having no managers. A management-less company may end up being adrift at sea, but that's a far better alternative than running into an iceberg or sailing into pirate-infested waters.
- logfromblammo 11y agoThe Costa Concordia had a captain.... A company without management may drift around aimlessly in Brownian motion, but at least it does not order "ahead flank" onto the rocks. There once was a manager, Who had a little curl, Right in the middle of her forehead. And when she was good, She was very, very good, But when she was bad, there were layoffs.
- deedub 11y agoha! perfect. It's so interesting that I assume over all that was a negative comment from you, but so positive to me. My favorite leaders place bets like that! I'd rather believe in a leader and be a part of a team that all believe in the same idea so much that they accept that themselves or their comrades(Some with families!) jobs are on the line. But this means you have to be in a pretty transparent company. If everyone doesn't work together, with a hard time constraint, to achieve the shared vision they believe in it seems really hard to do amazing things at any sort of market dominating speed. I accept those bets happily.
- mahyarm 11y agoA lot of zappos employees are customer support types and so on, so they don't necessarily have more job mobility in the bay area. If your not a high paid professional in the bay area, it's pretty painful to live there. Vegas is cheap, affordable and has no state income tax. All good things if you have a more typical american career trajectory.
- legohead 11y agoNo more managers! Now read this book!