6 ms·

>That is, for most companies it's hard to imagine creating a project just to fire someone. I beg your pardon, but I think that what you've expressed is a very

>That is, for most companies it's hard to imagine creating a project just to fire someone. I beg your pardon, but I think that what you've expressed is a very naive viewpoint. Try a thought experiment. Imagine that you must reduce payroll. How do you do it without a layoff? Or, let me describe just one progression of events that I've seen play out a few times. BigCo acquires LittleCo after LittleCo starts killing BigCo with the new fancy LittleCo process/machine. The buyout terms required all LittleCo employees to be hired by BigCo. BigCo doesn't really care about these new folks, but BigCo promised, so BigCo tries to work them into the fold, and creates group "B" for them. BigCo also has its own internal group "A" of people who were doing the same thing as the folks from LittleCo, but who weren't killing it. BigCo starts shuffling people from "A" to "B" and "B" to "A" or vice-versa, whichever is more convenient; until they have the smart people and cool kids in one group, and the rest of the people in the other. Now, what do you propose will happen to now non-performing group filled with people most of whom may not be fired or laid-off? At BigCo, what happens is that the group of step-children gets a new chief and new "Project Managers". These new leaders are sticklers for the rules though, and have their own ideas about every detail of working at BigCo from breaks & start & stop time, to parking spaces, to TPS reports, and other policies and procedures; and through the power of micro-management they are going to get the group into ship-shape, and do great things at BigCo!!! The new Vogon leadership never seem to get much work for the group though, and for those reasons, morale takes a dive. Then, lo and behold within a short time most of the step-children start getting the hint and either flee to a competitor, form another LittleCo, find a new line of work, or some combination of those things. How many times would you need to see a similar gambit play out for you to question whether maybe it happens that way by design?

fenomas 11y ago
I'm not sure I understand the complaint. In your example you say BigCo honestly tries to work them into the fold, ergo the project wasn't made just to fire people (even though a predictable chain of events might lead to the same result as if it had been). I think we might be saying more or less the same thing. Side question: how did you get a blank username?
- fnordfnordfnord 11y ago
  >I'm not sure I understand the complaint. In your example you say BigCo honestly... It's not a complaint as much as it is an observation, but I wouldn't categorize BigCo's behavior as honest, it is deceptive. I'll assume you're not being obtuse, but let's be real for a moment. BigCo management harbors no specific animosity for the step-children, a few of whom are actually former BigCo employees. BigCo is a big company, and we're talking about a small part of it. BigCo is actually indifferent to the step-children; but BigCo has a stuffy corporate culture in which certain kinds of people thrive and some otherwise excellent people do not. BigCo knows that it can't really allow the step-children to mingle with the rank and file or else the step-childred might infect them with freedom of thought or whatever it was that enabled LittleCo to beat BigCo at "X", or else there will be a TPS report revolt, or something. BigCo also has practical reasons such as not needing so many people doing job-X. >ergo the project wasn't made just to fire people "Firing" people is right out, that's a dirty mean-sounding word, and BigCo already agreed not to do that, so they have to offer laterals or something. The project definitely had a purpose, and the purpose wasn't to have two internal groups competing against each other at job-X. >even though a predictable chain of events might lead to the same result as if it had been Okay, so if you grok that a chain of events can be set into motion that will achieve the goal of reducing staff with the least amount of pain for management, why don't you grok that management might choose to do so for the purpose of reducing staff? A rose by any other name, so to speak. Management must reduce staff, management never really wanted most of that additional staff to begin with, but took it on because they had to. Management has limited means with which to accomplish the staff reductions, one of which consists of a few bean-counting "PM's" and a micro-managing idiot savant. >I think we might be saying more or less the same thing. We seem to have vastly different ideas about why the things happen. Side Answer: The usual way.
  - Natsu 11y ago
    > We seem to have vastly different ideas about why the things happen. It seems to me that you two agree on the observable parts of the theory and disagree on the motivation, which relies on their state of mind and is therefore not observable as such. So it seems more like you agree than disagree to me, at least with respect to the things which can be observed.
justonepost 11y ago
You missed his point. He was just saying projects don't start with this intention. He agreed that projects can definitely morph into this. You have to be a pretty weak exec if you can't find projects to kill this way and have to create them from scratch. I will agree a lot of projects are created with the thought "sure, why not gamble on this.. if it doesn't work, we can just dump our people." I guess it's a pretty fine line.
- fnordfnordfnord 11y ago
  I don't believe I did. Whether the vehicle is a new project or an old one makes no difference. The destination is the same. I gave a fairly specific example, not a general rule.
mirceal 11y ago
+1 for squeezing in Vogon :)

fenomas 11y ago

I'm not sure I understand the complaint. In your example you say BigCo honestly tries to work them into the fold, ergo the project wasn't made just to fire people (even though a predictable chain of events might lead to the same result as if it had been). I think we might be saying more or less the same thing. Side question: how did you get a blank username?

fnordfnordfnord 11y ago
>I'm not sure I understand the complaint. In your example you say BigCo honestly... It's not a complaint as much as it is an observation, but I wouldn't categorize BigCo's behavior as honest, it is deceptive. I'll assume you're not being obtuse, but let's be real for a moment. BigCo management harbors no specific animosity for the step-children, a few of whom are actually former BigCo employees. BigCo is a big company, and we're talking about a small part of it. BigCo is actually indifferent to the step-children; but BigCo has a stuffy corporate culture in which certain kinds of people thrive and some otherwise excellent people do not. BigCo knows that it can't really allow the step-children to mingle with the rank and file or else the step-childred might infect them with freedom of thought or whatever it was that enabled LittleCo to beat BigCo at "X", or else there will be a TPS report revolt, or something. BigCo also has practical reasons such as not needing so many people doing job-X. >ergo the project wasn't made just to fire people "Firing" people is right out, that's a dirty mean-sounding word, and BigCo already agreed not to do that, so they have to offer laterals or something. The project definitely had a purpose, and the purpose wasn't to have two internal groups competing against each other at job-X. >even though a predictable chain of events might lead to the same result as if it had been Okay, so if you grok that a chain of events can be set into motion that will achieve the goal of reducing staff with the least amount of pain for management, why don't you grok that management might choose to do so for the purpose of reducing staff? A rose by any other name, so to speak. Management must reduce staff, management never really wanted most of that additional staff to begin with, but took it on because they had to. Management has limited means with which to accomplish the staff reductions, one of which consists of a few bean-counting "PM's" and a micro-managing idiot savant. >I think we might be saying more or less the same thing. We seem to have vastly different ideas about why the things happen. Side Answer: The usual way.
- Natsu 11y ago
  > We seem to have vastly different ideas about why the things happen. It seems to me that you two agree on the observable parts of the theory and disagree on the motivation, which relies on their state of mind and is therefore not observable as such. So it seems more like you agree than disagree to me, at least with respect to the things which can be observed.

justonepost 11y ago

You missed his point. He was just saying projects don't start with this intention. He agreed that projects can definitely morph into this. You have to be a pretty weak exec if you can't find projects to kill this way and have to create them from scratch. I will agree a lot of projects are created with the thought "sure, why not gamble on this.. if it doesn't work, we can just dump our people." I guess it's a pretty fine line.

fnordfnordfnord 11y ago
I don't believe I did. Whether the vehicle is a new project or an old one makes no difference. The destination is the same. I gave a fairly specific example, not a general rule.

mirceal 11y ago

+1 for squeezing in Vogon :)