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Large companies have three somewhat conflicting goals: 1) Find and retain key people 2) Make improvements in the culture and the people that work there over t

Large companies have three somewhat conflicting goals: 1) Find and retain key people 2) Make improvements in the culture and the people that work there over time 3) Have some kind of system that allows you to let people go when sales go downhill. (And sales will go downhill at some point. Bringing a group of managers into your office and telling them to get rid of 20% of the workforce within the next 4 weeks -- without the affected employes having any indication at all that they are at the bottom of the list -- makes a bad situation even worse) I think perhaps it's best to separate these goals instead of trying to do it all at once. You don't necessarily want to find people that look like the ones you have. Improvements in people, culture, and environment is something that should always be done with a focus on how the employees personal goals (which should be part of this conversation) fit into the larger enterprise goals, not the other way around. And as long as employees are getting to work in various teams over the course of the year, having each team force-rank folks according to whether they would keep them on their team if the budget was cut in half seems reasonable, because that's just what might happen. Notice that managers do not appear on the vote-them-off-the-island system. It's a very tough situation and there are no easy answers. I think identifying the various parts and how they might conflict with each other is the first step in moving to the next local optimization.

eitally 11y ago
I agree with you. One of the very simplest ways companies could help themselves is through transparent communication of corporate strategy & performance, particularly if line managers map that to individual & team objectives. I have never been at any company that did a good job of this. It seems much more common that strategic obfuscation, keeping employees in the shadows (if not entirely in the dark) is something taught in management school.
- DanielBMarkham 11y ago
  (My day job is helping organizations change.) Many years ago, I worked with a client once that was very small, like <50 people, but was staffed with people who used to hold very senior positions in large companies. We had some really kick-ass guys, don't get me wrong, but overall the entire thing was a cluster fuck. Why? Because succeeding in a selfless way in a small team and succeeding in an ambitious way in a large organization are diametrically-opposed things. These guys could talk a good game about how things were supposed to be -- they had taken all the leadership courses and been coached and mentored like hell. They were self-starters and highly-motivated overachievers. There's no doubt in my mind that giving them a clear objectives and sufficient resources would result in the objectives being met. But getting a clear idea of organizational strategy communicated from point A to point B in this place was impossible. People hold on to knowledge in a large organization. Knowledge is power. It was not unusual -- and remember this was an extremely small org -- to be part of a meeting with 4 or 5 folks where everybody in the room had a different idea of what the endgame was. The CEO told different people different things. Mid-level managers were encouraged to compete with one another. I told my wife that it was the first place I had worked where each person I met had a secret strategy for "once the board gets rid of all those other yahoos, I'll be the one left standing" Sharing a vision/strategy and living your values is something that cannot be overstated. In fact, executives have to over-communicate and demonstrate it almost as melodrama in order for the rank-and-file to really grok it.

eitally 11y ago

I agree with you. One of the very simplest ways companies could help themselves is through transparent communication of corporate strategy & performance, particularly if line managers map that to individual & team objectives. I have never been at any company that did a good job of this. It seems much more common that strategic obfuscation, keeping employees in the shadows (if not entirely in the dark) is something taught in management school.

DanielBMarkham 11y ago
(My day job is helping organizations change.) Many years ago, I worked with a client once that was very small, like <50 people, but was staffed with people who used to hold very senior positions in large companies. We had some really kick-ass guys, don't get me wrong, but overall the entire thing was a cluster fuck. Why? Because succeeding in a selfless way in a small team and succeeding in an ambitious way in a large organization are diametrically-opposed things. These guys could talk a good game about how things were supposed to be -- they had taken all the leadership courses and been coached and mentored like hell. They were self-starters and highly-motivated overachievers. There's no doubt in my mind that giving them a clear objectives and sufficient resources would result in the objectives being met. But getting a clear idea of organizational strategy communicated from point A to point B in this place was impossible. People hold on to knowledge in a large organization. Knowledge is power. It was not unusual -- and remember this was an extremely small org -- to be part of a meeting with 4 or 5 folks where everybody in the room had a different idea of what the endgame was. The CEO told different people different things. Mid-level managers were encouraged to compete with one another. I told my wife that it was the first place I had worked where each person I met had a secret strategy for "once the board gets rid of all those other yahoos, I'll be the one left standing" Sharing a vision/strategy and living your values is something that cannot be overstated. In fact, executives have to over-communicate and demonstrate it almost as melodrama in order for the rank-and-file to really grok it.