[HN Gopher] Show the case against
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Show the case against
Author : shbhrsaha
Score : 32 points
Date : 2022-01-30 18:34 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.shubhro.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.shubhro.com)
| brutusborn wrote:
| I think the reason this isn't done more often is that most
| decisions making is political in nature. Explicitly stating
| downsides provides opponents of "the plan" a greater opportunity
| to continue arguing for their side in bad-faith.
|
| Presenting only the upside gives enough context to helps the team
| execute the plan.
|
| Another aspect is management trying to hide the distasteful
| aspects of decision making (e.g. choosing an "inferior"
| technology because it requires the company to invest more in
| training its staff)
|
| I wish this wasn't the case and I dream of being part of an org
| where upsides/downsides are always explicitly stated but I am yet
| to find one (outside of very small teams within larger orgs)
| where complex politics doesn't have an oversized influence on
| decision making.
| [deleted]
| Hokusai wrote:
| Trust is necessarily to work in groups.
|
| I see too often companies giving individual bonuses on
| productivity, that creates a "if you fail I win" mentality.
| Punishing people for mistakes is also quite common. You end
| with colleagues that can't trust anybody, everything is a
| competition against the guy sitting at your side.
|
| Punishment and reward systems make "office politics" toxic and
| a game for opportunists instead of a forum to get to the best
| decisions.
| Lammy wrote:
| Experiencing this in a FAANG microcosm is what made me
| realize the same thing of the economy as a whole. When
| government (Latin for "control of the mind") controls the
| incentives it never has to get its hands dirty accomplishing
| its goals. The economic reward means someone else will
| inevitably do it for them, even when that reward is something
| that's literally worthless[0] except as an idea which much be
| mutually agreed upon. The very existence of billionaires is
| the exact same kind of individual bonus, but on a global
| scale.
|
| [0] RE: https://www.treasury.gov/resource-
| center/faqs/Currency/Pages... "Federal Reserve notes are not
| redeemable in gold, silver or any other commodity, and
| receive no backing by anything. This has been the case since
| 1933. The notes have no value for themselves, but for what
| they will buy. In another sense, because they are legal
| tender, Federal Reserve notes are "backed" by all the goods
| and services in the economy."
| lupire wrote:
| If you don't present the downside, you are betting your career
| that your coworkers don't know the downside or aren't willing
| to present it in order to take you down. There is a great story
| about this in In The Plex book, about an exec who sabotaged
| another by encouraging him to propose a project and then
| embarrassing him in the meeting with the founders.
| soferio wrote:
| And you might find the following interesting:
|
| - Wikipedia entry for "groupthink" and the ways of preventing
| it.
|
| - The Israeli "10th man doctrine" and "Ipha mistabra", as one
| technique (perhaps this is real, and not just a feature of the
| plot of world War Z).
| yonixw wrote:
| Sources for your 2nd point since I was intrested:
|
| https://www.quora.com/World-War-Z-2013-movie/World-
| War-Z-201...
|
| https://jel.jewish-languages.org/words/1719
| [deleted]
| throwaway22032 wrote:
| Within companies, this seems inherently challenging because most
| employees of companies aren't privy to enough information to
| enumerate the case against, and also it's (theoretically) a
| collectivist decision.
|
| For example - in one's personal life, one can choose to learn
| woodworking. We'll ignore the case for for the sake of brevity.
|
| The case against is primarily made of opportunity cost, both of
| time and money. What could I have done with that time instead of
| woodworking? What could I have bought?
|
| It's all about your own choice. You know a lot about these
| things, and you're able to use that information to approach the
| best course of action.
|
| But if you're an employee of a company that sort of thing is
| either impossible due to a lack of information, or might just run
| counter to the company's aims.
|
| You might say "instead of doing this 6 month software project, we
| should just fire the developers and take a punt on the S&P500
| with the savings".
|
| Or "we should focus on other project A". But "other project A"
| might mean that you end up on a shrinking team and eventually get
| fired, so you're not going to suggest that.
|
| Or maybe there's some internal project you don't even know exists
| that could do with some more dev time and would be more
| profitable. You probably don't even know that exists, though.
| vacillator wrote:
| Why _shouldn't_ we show the case against?
| lupire wrote:
| Because it kills momentum for the project that will win you
| glory.
|
| That's why the US has an adversarial court system, to align
| incentives.
| LeroyRaz wrote:
| I appreciate this. What are peoples thoughts?
|
| Arguing against certainly takes more work. Do you feel that, if
| someone did the arguing against, as suggested in the article and
| presented the steel man argument against a proposal, and then
| refuted the arguement against, that their work and effort would
| be dismissed? Or worse, might others might think less of the
| proposal?
|
| My preliminary feelings are that it would still be appreciated
| and recognized, just not perhaps proportionally to the effort.
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(page generated 2022-01-30 23:01 UTC)