[HN Gopher] What are your company's anti-values?
___________________________________________________________________
What are your company's anti-values?
Author : willsewell
Score : 256 points
Date : 2022-02-15 23:30 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (willsewell.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (willsewell.com)
| im3w1l wrote:
| One thing people seem to forget regarding tradeoffs is that it's
| possible to do objectively bad ones: It's possible to have
| _neither_ a bias for action _nor_ curiosity. Mentioning both
| values is a reminder to be on the efficient frontier.
|
| Further, you probably dont want to pick an extreme tradeoff.
| Getting a drop more action at the cost of huge learnings is a
| mistake as is getting very irrelevant knowledge at a huge cost of
| action.
| marcosdumay wrote:
| Yes, it's possible to have suboptimal situations.
|
| But no, communicating feel-good meaningless statements (like
| asking for people to both act fast without waiting for the
| details and to know the details about the consequence of their
| actions) is an infallible way to create apathy and move _away_
| from the Pareto frontier, not towards it.
| Aeolun wrote:
| Hmm, for my company it would be something like: Don't upset the
| customer, so move slow and be careful.
|
| But that's only what is desired by the _company_. Individuals
| inside the company still push people to do things quickly at the
| expense of quality.
|
| We also have leadership principles: 'Play a team sport: so keep
| discussing everything with everyone until nobody disagrees
| (either through actual agreement or exhaustion)'.
| dmurray wrote:
| YC jobs used to have a good version of this, I think. They put
| two values in opposition, both couched in positive terms, and
| asked which one you prefer. Unfortunately I can't seem to find it
| now.
| yathaid wrote:
| Disclaimer: I work for a small e-commerce firm named after a
| large river, opinions are my own. Writing in response since the
| company I work at is one whose values is quoted in the article.
|
| My initial approach to the values was a similar "Who cares, these
| are bland corporatese" one. It wasn't until a 10+ year senior
| engineer on my team discussed the trade-offs between the values
| in an architecture meeting that I really understood the purpose.
| Take two of the values[1]:
|
| "Dive deep" vs "Bias for action" - these have an inherent tension
| between the two. You can justify any action with either one, but
| it is about knowing when to apply what. You do not want to be
| Diving Deep as your first action when you are oncall and your
| alarms are going off in every direction, but it may need to be
| your third.
|
| "Have Backbone; Disagree and Commit" has opposite ideas written
| into it! Having backbone is about being able to back up your
| position with as much data and research as you can. Disagree and
| Commit is about not being emotionally invested in your position
| and not taking things personally when the team chooses to go
| another way. It is recognizing the fact that you may be working
| in an area of ambiguity where no one side can be proven right
| before the fact.
|
| Like most worthy things in life, there is a lot of nuance to
| these that cannot be expressed in a pithy 140 (or 280) character
| limit. But the idea that you should have "anti-values" is a very,
| very useful one. It allows you to think through different
| scenarios and explain what your team/organization/company would
| prioritize when there are competing priorities.
|
| [1] - https://www.amazon.jobs/en-gb/principles
| justanother wrote:
| We work hard to rapidly capture our market space! (But as a
| result, sales is allowed to bully engineering, and our technical
| debt is growing faster than the Internal Revenue Code)
| svilen_dobrev wrote:
| btw the agile manifesto (and similars) has such "we value X over
| Y" phrases.
|
| Another thing; as this one says, the values are the rules (well,
| should be). Breaking (intentionaly) them is a compromise needed
| sometimes. While not following, is different matter..
| https://8thlight.com/blog/stephen-prater/2020/09/15/values-r...
| qwerty456127 wrote:
| Punctuality-maniac policy. Take your seat at 09:01 (or 08:59!)
| rather than at 09:00 precisely and you're fucked. A delegate from
| a partner company or an employment candidate who would arrive to
| an appointed meeting 10 minutes later or earlier is considered a
| dick and treated with lowest priority.
| cube00 wrote:
| Our old project manager mandated we must have daily stand-ups.
|
| They were always at least five minutes late for what should
| have been a five minute stand up because they knew we'd have to
| wait for them.
|
| I managed to get team agreement we start no later then 2
| minutes past, no matter who isn't there, management included,
| no judgement for late comers but the meeting is starting as we
| have work to get on with.
|
| Suddenly said project manager started showing up on time. Who
| knew?
| mepiethree wrote:
| I really like the "no guilt, but start on time" model,
| especially now that we don't have the disruption of someone
| entering the room. I am often late because I am in meetings 6
| hours a day which can lead to a "doctor effect" of cascading
| lateness. But for things like standup, just GO!
| SubuSS wrote:
| What do you do when the management comes in late but demands
| a recap lol. Fwiw I have seen folks who say they don't but
| rekindle a lot of discussions directly / indirectly and do it
| anyway. Obviously none at our current company - my team does
| slack daily updates.
|
| IOW - I see a lot of efforts at 'curtailing' mgmt powers. In
| my experience- Bottom up management or manipulation only goes
| so far - that's not far. Pick your managers people. You want
| nice ones who also know how to hire well.
| mepiethree wrote:
| Why is it considered a dick move to be early as an employment
| candidate? As long as the candidate is unobtrusive and keeps
| themselves busy, all it shows me is that they value the
| opportunity enough to budget extra time for things like
| traffic, etc.
|
| (Of course, _now_ we do everything remote, so I wouldn't even
| know if they are early)
| pessimizer wrote:
| Punctuality Over Progress
| sfjailbird wrote:
| I like this, and I agree that it is a lot more expressive of
| company culture than generic positivity (would love to see this
| applied to politics, too).
|
| The only companies I can think of who do this are the Facebook
| example from OP, and some of the big investment banks, who make
| it pretty clear that they do not give a shit about anything
| except how much money they make. Unfortunately it seems only
| assholes and sociopaths are transparent in this regard :-/
| krageon wrote:
| > it seems only assholes and sociopaths are transparent in this
| regard
|
| Every C-level employee is an asshole and probably a sociopath,
| if this was true every company would be transparent. As that
| isn't the case, we know that it does not necessarily have
| anything to do with being an asshole or a sociopath.
| vimacs2 wrote:
| This. It has less to do with personal character and more to
| do with the incentives baked into the company.
| sakarisson wrote:
| > Every C-level employee is an asshole and probably a
| sociopath
|
| That's a big generalization without any argument to back it
| up.
| afarrell wrote:
| Unwillingness to be seen as an asshole by anyone makes it
| impossible to maintain boundaries unless you interact with
| solely with emotionally stable people.
|
| Unwillingness to accidentally act like an asshole makes it
| impossible to act swiftly and decisively unless you trust
| yourself to be infallible in your judgement.
|
| This is not the same as _habitually_ acting like an
| asshole.
| krageon wrote:
| What is there to give arguments for? Either you've worked
| in a few companies and you have friends that have also done
| so (in which case it'd seem obvious), or you're part of a
| class that doesn't work (or you are a C-level employee
| yourself). In the latter cases, nothing I say will convince
| you. In the former case, we have enough shared
| environmental background that you understand what I'm
| saying already.
|
| Given those facts, I didn't see why a further paragraph of
| background would be valuable: My point would not land with
| more people regardless of whether or not I wrote that
| paragraph.
| sakarisson wrote:
| Your point states that all C-level employees are
| sociopaths. Logically, if I can provide you with a single
| example of a non-sociopath C-level employee, your point
| would be invalid. Of course I don't believe that you are
| literally saying that every single C-level employee in
| the entire world is a sociopath, but merely that the
| majority or a significant portion are.
|
| > My point would not land with more people regardless of
| whether or not I wrote that paragraph.
|
| It would, if you could provide me with some data that
| supports your generalization. If it was true, surely
| there would be some research backing it up.
| yebyen wrote:
| I think it's somewhere in here, this novella or whatever
| it is called The Gervais Principle, Or The Office
| According to "The Office"
|
| Of course that isn't actual data, but the analysis
| explores the idea that only sociopaths make it to the top
| in a great deal more depth, if what you're looking for is
| depth of background and understanding of where this idea
| comes from, rather than why this specific person who you
| responded to believes it to be true.
|
| https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2009/10/07/the-gervais-
| principle-...
| rightbyte wrote:
| I think there might be a big sample bias. People on your
| own level or the level above but not your boss, can't
| "mess with you" in the way a C-level can. I.e. bad people
| don't stand out as well.
|
| A clear example would be cops and cashiers at Walmart.
| The later can hardly mess with you at all, even if he
| would be a bad person.
|
| On the other hand security guards at night clubs and cops
| have about the same opportunity to mess with me, and I
| can easily say the guards on average are worse people.
| BeetleB wrote:
| Your comment can be summed up as:
|
| "Either you share my twisted view of the world or you
| don't. I choose not to believe that others can
| objectively evaluate evidence, and there's the risk that
| they may not come to the same conclusion that I did."
| zivkovicp wrote:
| > Every C-level employee is an asshole and probably a
| sociopath
|
| My experience has been mixed, there were good ones also, but
| only at the small and medium sized businesses.
| blitzar wrote:
| Small and even medium sized businesses dont really have
| C-level employeees. They might have titles that sound like
| that - but they dont sit on a different floor where mere
| mortal workers security passes are not permissioned to
| travel.
| detaro wrote:
| > _but they dont sit on a different floor where mere
| mortal workers security passes are not permissioned to
| travel._
|
| Why is that a requirement to be "really C-level"?
| blitzar wrote:
| You cant be mixing with the little people, and of course
| there has to be executive bathrooms. I hear you can catch
| being poor from a toilet seat.
| yatac42 wrote:
| > if this was true every company would be transparent
|
| "Only assholes and sociopaths are transparent" does not mean
| "all assholes and sociopaths are transparent".
| motohagiography wrote:
| Sometimes I think these values statements are a substitute for
| employees understanding why the company makes money and the
| factors that contribute to that.
|
| Without that understanding, it's like there is a hierarchy of
| companies where the companies where everyone "gets it" on revenue
| are in their massive exponential growth phase like startups with
| small teams, then there are the ones who factor it out into KPIs,
| and the job is literally to move the line on that KPI at scale
| without any other deep understanding, but their company explosive
| phase is over and their growth is linear - and then the final
| company type is where the real revenue factors are effectively
| secret, and there is a solid long term cash flow the company
| mainly optimizes its costs over, with no significant forseeable
| growth other than stock volatility.
|
| Depending on the growth phase of the organization, values and
| anti-values are sort of moot, as it's a question of what real
| growth factors your teams understand and are aligned with pushing
| in a confluent direction. I'd be concerned if someone were
| sincerely indexed on values, as it seems like a substute for, "we
| do this thing well that solves this problem for these customers
| and that makes money so that we can support our families," and
| anything beyond that seems kind of weird in comparison.
|
| Sure, I've worked for pre-PMF companies that looking back I
| suspect they were in-effect NFTs for financial/portfolio
| engineering so there wasn't really a clear way to make money, and
| they spent a lot of time on inspirational values stories, but
| that effort should have been spent on finding product market fit.
|
| To me, the only meaningful values quesiton is, when you know who
| the customers are, do you want to solve that problem for those
| people? Seems straightforward.
| lbriner wrote:
| The trade-off question is interesting.
|
| I think for us, an implied anti-value would be "Focus on the core
| product _and say no to some customers_ "
|
| As OP said, no-one would deny that focusing on the core product
| is bad but at what cost? We have failed in the past by taking on
| custom work for the cash, and it helped us bootstrap. But to
| scale, the custom work needs to go away and we need to give the
| maximum value to the broadest number of customers through the
| core offering.
| austincheney wrote:
| I haven't seen that anywhere I have worked. Normally this is a
| form of double speak. Developers claim to _" focus on the
| product"_ but typically the only focus is upon the developers'
| core strengths first and only then fit the product into the
| pieces left over.
|
| You can tell difference between focus on the product and focus
| on yourself with metrics and how readily people are eager to
| ignore numbers using excuses from poorly formed reasoning
| reflective of a more honest intent.
| [deleted]
| mytailorisrich wrote:
| I don't see any clear meaning to the term "anti-value" in this
| article.
|
| It seems to imply that a "value" means "more". It does not.
| "Frugality" is a value of that is a behaviour deemed important to
| follow, it's not an "anti-value" (whatever that might mean).
|
| Similarly, "move fast, break things" means you value action and
| risk-taking.
|
| I was expecting "anti-value" to mean a behaviour deemed negative
| and to be avoided.
| sokoloff wrote:
| Wasteful/free spending is the negative behavior to be avoided
| if you value frugality.
|
| Overly cautious, ponderous delivery is the negative behavior to
| be avoided if you value "move fast, break things".
| blurker wrote:
| How is "break things" not a negative? That seems really clear
| to me and I think is an excellent example!
| mytailorisrich wrote:
| If you advise people to "move fast, break things" then
| obviously you consider that this is a positive.
|
| "Break things" is also obviously not to be understood in
| isolation. Of course breaking things for no reason is not
| positive. It means that you will break things if you move
| fast and take risk and that it is unavoidable and worth it.
| blurker wrote:
| I see it being like this:
|
| Value: move fast (positive)
|
| Anti-value: break things (negative)
|
| Breaking things is not positive normally, but it's the
| compromise for moving fast.
| mytailorisrich wrote:
| But it's neither. It's "move fast, break things" as a
| whole to illustrate values of action and risk-taking.
| rgun wrote:
| I believe what author means by 'anti-value' is the other side
| of trade-off, which you are willing to compromise.
|
| Like in 'move fast and break things', you are willing to
| compromise reliability/stability in favour of speed.
| cube00 wrote:
| No bullshit [1]
|
| [1]
| https://web.archive.org/web/20210311001446/https://www.aussi...
|
| Edit: Switched to an archive.org version in response to comments
| about a captcha being used at the source URL.
| sharken wrote:
| Sorry, but the CAPTCHA is probably great at filtering out bots,
| but in this case it also filters out potential readers.
| ho_schi wrote:
| "Human Resources" Department
|
| I think that says enough about how company and it bosses think.
| sokoloff wrote:
| Never forget: Human is an _adjective_ in that phrase.
| sharken wrote:
| Still, it's better to be a resource than the next level,
| which is a cost.
|
| I actively try to use people instead of resources in a
| conversation, have never understood the need to use resources
| as a word.
|
| Could be it's just a relic from the HR department.
| sokoloff wrote:
| I fight that same linguistic fight. People seem to pretty
| quickly get it and usually appreciate hearing the tone aet
| that "our company uses this other perspective; please use
| people words when talking about people."
|
| I've noticed a pattern that this usage seems to be somewhat
| more prevalent in south Asians. (I mean this only as an
| observation on word choice patterns, with zero conclusion
| or implication on underlying thought patterns. I haven't
| had enough British colleagues to notice if it came from
| British other-colonies roots or not.)
| marcosdumay wrote:
| > I fight that same linguistic fight.
|
| I don't even think it's a fight. I say "computer" when I
| mean computer, why wouldn't I say "people" when I mean
| people?
| Traubenfuchs wrote:
| "Human Resources" departments are a relict of a dark and long
| gone past.
|
| It's called "people and culture" now.
| [deleted]
| csee wrote:
| > It's called "people and _culture_ " now.
|
| There's something broken about the highly extroverted non-
| technical types that are attracted to HR roles thinking
| they're in charge of shaping the 'culture' of an engineering
| organization. Please keep them far away from that particular
| role.
| crazylifetwist wrote:
| Love the idea of anti-values. Although I feel what the author is
| doing is trying to upgrade values towards guiding principles,
| which really resonates with me.
|
| I'm a Lego Serious Play certified facilitator and what we do with
| one of our workshops is helping organizations defining what we
| call Simple Guiding Principles (SGP). SGP's are identified by an
| org as a set of principles that can help guide autonomous
| decision making.
|
| The example "Optimise learning over focus" is a perfect SGP as it
| gives the individual a practical principle to follow, for example
| when prioritizing his/her time.
| makach wrote:
| not necessarily my company's anti-values, but I had some fun
| making up some; * avoid negativity * hide
| the truth * ego outperforms facts * kiss ass *
| promote incompetence * stick to your guns
| tremon wrote:
| What are your the values you came up with, if those are the
| anti-values?
| MattPalmer1086 wrote:
| I like the idea of anti values, the idea you have to trade
| something off.
|
| It doesn't always make sense though. The only company I've worked
| at whose values actually resonated with me, and evidently a lot
| of other people there, was at Maersk. They are [1]:
|
| * Constant care * Humbleness * Uprightness * Our employees * Our
| name
|
| They were a great place to work and I saw those values embodied
| there. Hard to see what the anti values would be for those.
|
| The basic principle they are working on is building trust.
|
| [1] https://www.maersk.com/about/core-values
| thenoblesunfish wrote:
| This is a very good test to determine priorities. If you simply
| ask "what should be done?", there are too many answers. A better
| question is "what needs to be done so badly that you would
| sacrifice other worthwhile things to do it?".
| kaycebasques wrote:
| This idea of anti-values helps explain the brilliance of Google's
| "focus on the user", a value which I did indeed remember and
| frequently use as justification for a course of action
| frequently. The anti-value / tradeoff is implicit but clear
| enough: focus on the needs of end users over other stakeholders.
| This was a very useful heuristic in Web DevRel because there's
| often a tension between making something easy for developers
| versus making something easy for users. E.g. making a site
| accessible makes it easier for users at the expense of more work
| & complexity for the developers.
| david_allison wrote:
| This mirrors Netflix's old culture slide deck[0]
|
| > adequate performance gets a generous severance package
|
| > We're a team, not a family; We're like a pro sports team, not a
| kid's recreational team
|
| [0] https://www.slideshare.net/reed2001/culture-1798664/
| closeparen wrote:
| I really like the culture deck, but surprisingly I find myself
| disagreeing most strongly with the expenses part, "travel as
| you would if it were your own money." When I travel with my own
| money, I'm going to fly basic economy and stay in a Holiday Inn
| Express. But I would be pretty outraged if a billion-dollar
| tech company wanted me to do either of those things while
| traveling on its behalf.
|
| My current employer's approved hotel list is pretty ritzy, much
| nicer places than I would stay in on leisure travel... and
| that's kind of the least they can do to offset the general
| imposition of work travel.
| [deleted]
| dusted wrote:
| I'm finding that Netflix slide incredibly toxic, I'd never want
| to work for Netflix after reading that, no matter how skilled I
| was (they wouldn't want me anyway so nobody lost anything).
| afarrell wrote:
| This is a signal that they have phrased their values well. A
| good values statement should polarize. It should disgust
| people whose ability to work effectively would be poisoned by
| the culture that leadership strives to maintain.
|
| A recruiting process which discriminates against people who
| do not share their values will create a more secure sense of
| belonging among people who do -- even among underprivileged
| groups who would otherwise worry they do not really fit in.
| dusted wrote:
| I totally agree, they save both themselves and me the
| trouble of finding out if I have anything to contribute
| with at their place.
| Wiseacre wrote:
| Do employees from underprivileged groups stay at Netflix
| longer than comparable companies?
| lostcolony wrote:
| Who cares? Even giving credit to the point I think you're
| trying to make, the relevant comparison would be
| employees from underprivileged groups stay at Netflix as
| long, on average, as Netflix employees not from
| underprivileged groups.
| Wiseacre wrote:
| Is that actually the case?
| lostcolony wrote:
| No idea! Certainly, their current DE&I reports are better
| than most tech companies (
| https://about.netflix.com/en/news/netflix-inclusion-
| report-2...), but finding turnover by demographic is
| hard. My point isn't "these cultural values do/do not
| conflict with DE&I", but that you were asking the wrong
| question even to begin to measure that.
| p1esk wrote:
| Should it be?
| fdjlasdfjl wrote:
| logifail wrote:
| > I'm finding that Netflix slide incredibly toxic
|
| I don't find anything in that deck even remotely toxic. I
| find it almost jaw-droppingly _honest_!
| arrow7000 wrote:
| Honestly and toxicity are orthogonal. They're not opposite
| sides of the same spectrum. Seems to me that they are both
| honest and toxic.
| logifail wrote:
| > [Honesty] and toxicity are orthogonal
|
| Q: What's our working definition for "toxicity",
| specifically in the workplace?
|
| I'm not sure they're nearly as orthogonal as one might
| think. My experiences of toxic workplaces involved a
| great deal of dishonest behaviour and I'm struggling to
| recall much if any honesty.
| dusted wrote:
| Agreed, it's much better to be upfront about it, to avoid
| wasting time and money on employees that don't fit in
| (and, as a side effect, avoid hurting those people).
|
| The reason I believe they're showing a work environment
| that would be toxic to me, is that the line "> adequate
| performance gets a generous severance package" does not
| stand alone, it's only part of it, they're giving me the
| general vibe that I should be constantly scared of being
| the next one to go, that my best will only be good enough
| until they find someone better..
|
| I don't mind competition, there's always competition, but
| for me personally, I don't want fierce competition and
| high pressure to be part of my daily life, not outside
| recreational activities where the stakes are "get fired
| for doing an adequate job". I like to do more than is
| expected, but if what is expected is by definition more
| than what is needed, well, then I would have to do more
| than more than what is needed, I don't even know what
| that is, and I'd not want to constantly think about it
| and wear myself down from trying to achieve it.
| tshaddox wrote:
| It might be better to be upfront about being toxic than
| to be secretly toxic, but I'd say it would be even better
| still to not be toxic.
| logifail wrote:
| > I like to do more than is expected, but if what is
| expected is by definition more than what is needed [..]
|
| Do (m)any companies attempt to drive sales by describing
| a product as "adequate"?
|
| If your child sits a school test and the teacher
| describes the result as "adequate" would you be content?
|
| In the workplace why wouldn't one want to always aim to
| do "good" work (which is very definitely one step above
| "adequate"). That doesn't mean amazing, outstanding or
| exceptional. It also doesn't imply pressure.
|
| Why would anyone approach a keyboard if they weren't
| attempt to do something good?
|
| Put another way, who gets out of bed aiming to be
| adequate? It's not like it even sounds like an aim, it
| sounds like it happens when you're not paying attention.
| aksss wrote:
| > Why would anyone approach a keyboard if they weren't
| attempt to do something good
|
| ..asked a comment on Hacker News. Maybe 'good' would be
| better replaced with 'of high quality'. Maybe.
| pm24601 wrote:
| There are a lot of things that I am o.k. with being
| "adequate" at. I am just fine with being "adequate" at
| driving for example.
|
| Lots of software I write just has to be "adequate"
| because the consequence of failure is minimal.
| adflux wrote:
| And that is totally fine and 100% the intent of that slide.
| You and Netflix don't match in terms of expectations. Id give
| kudos to netflix for being up front about it.
| ignoramous wrote:
| I fear "We're not a family" at this point is an oft copied
| mantra (I recall seeing this in GitLab's S1), same as
| Amazon's "missionaries over mercenaries" that's now
| prevalent (Coinbase, the most recent example), as well.
| ravenstine wrote:
| Ironically, "we're not a family" may end up being nearly
| identical to "we're a family".
|
| People distrust "we're a family" because it's an
| illusion, not because of the potential for an actual sort
| of "family" or friendship. But they may also come to
| distrust "we're not a family" once it becomes as cliche
| and they realize that every company they work for that
| makes such a claim will inevitably devolve into making
| the employee-employer relationship out to be more than it
| actually is or should be.
|
| I disbelieve most corporate values because companies are
| run by humans, and humans are pretty bad at self
| evaluation. Well, that and I've had enough experience to
| tell me that explicitly stated corporate values usually
| mean very little in practice. Only you can unveil a
| company's values, though that's no easy task beyond some
| basic red/green flags.
| cestith wrote:
| Some of my strongest lifetime friendships have been made
| in small startups where everyone treated everyone like
| family. I don't mean the Cleavers, either, but a real
| family with internal spats, sibling rivalry, and
| embarrassing stories brought out at parties. We broke
| bread together, suffered loss together, celebrated
| victories together, and protected ourselves collectively
| from outside threats. We were welcome in one another's
| homes. One of my coworkers (at three different firms) and
| I married sisters. I met my ex wife at his wedding. It
| was a wonderful life experience, but not something that I
| think can scale beyond a couple dozen people. Anyone
| who's telling you their 200-person company or
| 5,000-person company is like a family is lying to you to
| attempt to buy loyalty or is deluding themselves.
| blitzar wrote:
| I fear "We're a family" at this point is an oft copied
| mantra
|
| Of course I am assuming those that use said mantra are
| refering to the touchy feely version of family and we are
| not going down the 'what does family mean anyway' rabbit
| hole, where rivalry even Fratricide and Parricide, they
| even have a word for killing a family member.
| hutzlibu wrote:
| May I ask, what you find toxic about them?
|
| I thought them to be refreshing honest and clear (but have
| not yet read all slides).
|
| I mean, it is also not attractive for me, because I would not
| put what is good for Netflix, over what is good for me - but
| otherwise I do not think a professional, internal competing
| sports team as a goal, is necessarily toxic.
| sakarisson wrote:
| I do agree that the honesty is refreshing.
|
| That said, I personally feel like the mentality of "We will
| fire you if you aren't doing an _exceptional_ job" reads as
| a serious red flag. The implication here is that you should
| expect to work overtime and prioritize your job over all
| else. Even then, we might still fire you.
|
| Of course I'd rather have a company being open and upfront
| about their unsustainable expectations, but I'd still
| prefer a company that values work/live balance of their
| employees. Would I say that Netflix's approach is toxic?
| Honestly, yes. But I do understand that this is just my own
| opinion.
| p1esk wrote:
| You do realize they offer top of market compensation
| (250k fresh grad, >500k senior SWE, etc) for what they
| are looking for?
| hutzlibu wrote:
| So your argument would be, as long as the pay is right,
| toxic culture is allright?
|
| I mean, as long as this is a individual decision, that
| would be allright with me - but pay does not negate
| toxic. It only makes it bearable.
|
| But like stated above, I do not say that Netflix culture
| is toxic, as they are clear about what they expect: top
| performance above everything else. That this can lead to
| toxic situations, as we all are not only having good
| times - should be clear to anyone applying. But I suppose
| even at netflix they are aware of this and hopefully have
| plans to deal with temporary burn outs, other than
| instantly firing those underperformers.
| p1esk wrote:
| _So your argument would be, as long as the pay is right,
| toxic culture is allright?_
|
| No. Why would you think so?
| hutzlibu wrote:
| Because the context was toxic culture?
| p1esk wrote:
| No, the context was Netflix seeking top performance
| (results) from its employees. Whether this leads to toxic
| culture is a different question and up for a debate.
|
| My point is a company that offers top compensation can
| and should demand top performance.
| hutzlibu wrote:
| "Whether this leads to toxic culture is a different
| question and up for a debate"
|
| And here I was thinking this whole thread was about that
| question ...
|
| "My point is a company that offers top compensation can
| and should demand top performance. "
|
| Anyway, sure they can. But no company can expect from me,
| to put the company over my self. A good company has those
| goals aligned. I get money - and they get performance.
| Win win. But I will not work to death for them, as then
| all my money would be worthless.
|
| That is - no for-profit company can expect this from me.
| A non-profit on the other hand, that has truly
| utilitarian goals, that really benefit humanity - I might
| consider putting myself aside. But why should anyone
| sacrifice himself, so a company makes more money? That
| doesn't make sense to me. But of course it makes sense,
| that companies _want_ their employes give everything to
| them.
| p1esk wrote:
| _no company can expect from me, to put the company over
| my self_
|
| Yes, I agree, they should not have said that. That should
| have been left implicit. When a certain pay threshold is
| crossed (e.g. triple the industry average), I would
| expect them to expect extra from me. This might mean
| working nights/weekends if that's necessary for me to be
| "top performer" compared to my peers. Netflix expects you
| to keep up with their performance standards. They don't
| care how you do it - by working overtime, or being
| brilliant and working 2 hours a day, it simply does not
| matter, just like in professional sports. If, as you
| said, you get money, they get performance, it's a win
| win. But if you get money, but they don't get the
| expected performance, you can't blame it on toxic
| culture. If your peers are delivering and you're not,
| then you're toxic, and you should probably look for an
| easier job with less pay.
| tux3 wrote:
| >The implication here is that you should expect to work
| overtime and prioritize your job over all else.
|
| I don't think that's right. The slide says:
|
| """
|
| Hard Work -- Not Relevant
|
| We don't measure people by how many hours they work or
| how much they are in the office
|
| [...]
|
| Sustained B-level performance despite effort generates
| severance
|
| Sustained A-level performance despite minimal effort is
| rewarded
|
| """
|
| The message seems to be that you don't have to work hard.
| They seem to say they want lazy employees that have a
| good work life balance, because they finish work early.
|
| Whether that's toxic or not, that's another question. But
| I don't think they value overtime at all.
| ihumanable wrote:
| They've chosen the best possible version of "Sustained
| A-level performance," that the person is capable of doing
| that with minimal effort.
|
| There are a handful of people that are capable of
| producing "Sustained A-level performance" and for them
| this workplace probably seems ideal.
|
| Even for the engineers that could reach this bar, it's a
| very high standard to apply constantly. There's another
| slide that gives a slight allowance for temporary
| performance issues, but that lack of security is hard for
| most people.
|
| Slide 34 to be exact says this about Loyalty. "People who
| have been stars for us, and hit a bad patch, get a near
| term pass because we think they are likely to become
| stars for us again."
|
| "A bad patch" is pretty loosely defined, if you burn out
| achieving something, or are assigned a problem that is
| particularly difficult, how much leeway do you have?
|
| I don't think it would be an environment I would
| particularly enjoy, but I think to the original post's
| point this is a pretty great set of values because it
| really clearly articulates the trade-offs. If you are a
| 10x engineer and hate working at $current_company because
| they care about hard work and that's frustrating because
| you work smart not hard and you are comfortable with your
| career being contingent on consistent high performance,
| then Netflix is the place for you. If you work hard but
| think this would burn you out, look somewhere else. And
| that's what values should do, declare the trade-offs and
| take a firm stance on which things you value.
| hutzlibu wrote:
| "But I don't think they value overtime at all. "
|
| But they do value putting the company over yourself (and
| your real family).
|
| This can probably have very toxic effects, if you are
| having problems at home for example (sick kids or
| whatever) and all they allways care about, is your
| performance right now. So definitely not the place for me
| - as I would never put a company over my children (and it
| sounds like this is expected, even though they would
| likely never phrase it this way), but there are people
| without family, who have their work as top priority, so
| this might work out for them.
| tux3 wrote:
| Oh yeah, I see what you mean. Absolutely agree on that.
| sdiupIGPWEfh wrote:
| What I've seen happen at other companies that state they
| value impact over effort, openly discouraging overtime,
| is that eventually certain individuals will attain higher
| impact by not recording their overtime, who then pressure
| others to do the same. No, no one is directly rewarded
| for overtime, but effectively, yes, undocumented overtime
| becomes the expectation from your peers. That is toxic.
| p1esk wrote:
| How do you know if there's overtime involved? I've worked
| with people who could accomplish as much in two hours as
| I did in two days. Would it be "toxic" to work in such an
| environment?
| sdiupIGPWEfh wrote:
| If your colleagues are leveraging substantial
| undocumented overtime, you're going to find out
| eventually. If you know someone is in the office 40 hours
| a week and they submit massive pull requests first thing
| in the morning, even Monday mornings, for problems you
| know they hadn't solved or started the night or week
| before, you should suspect something's up. Sooner or
| later, if someone's breaking their neck, they will resent
| team members who aren't putting in the same effort, and
| they'll slip and admit to the amount of time they're
| putting in, directly or indirectly.
|
| Granted, it's easier to hide this now when everyone's
| working from home.
|
| > I've worked with people who could accomplish as much in
| two hours as I did in two days. Would it be "toxic" to
| work in such an environment?
|
| No, why would that be toxic?
| p1esk wrote:
| Why does it matter to you whether your peers are more
| productive than you because they are smarter than you, or
| because they work more? Is the former OK, but the latter
| "toxic"?
| csee wrote:
| I interpret that as a positive sign. Every manager and
| company I've worked for has been too slow to fire under-
| performers.
| jayd16 wrote:
| I would say that one possibly toxic element to that is
| that it could mean that Netflix is not a place to grow.
| Do not expect help improving. Expect the door. That has
| other knock on effects like possibly hiding struggles,
| faking results, etc etc.
|
| Does Netflix actually have such a cutthroat culture? I
| have no idea.
|
| The slides are a bit contradictory. They talk about only
| keeping top talent but then also mention a major/minor
| league analogy. So what's the culture, really?
| chasd00 wrote:
| If you've never done it, it's very hard, emotionally, to
| fire an under-performer. You see someone struggling and
| you know it's best for your team/company but now you're
| going to put that person out of a job.
|
| I'm not excusing it, but I can see people putting off
| firing under-performers just to avoid feeling like shit.
| nhoughto wrote:
| Interesting, I had the opposite reaction. Great that they are
| upfront and honest.
| papito wrote:
| I think claiming that "we are a family" is actually the toxic
| one. It's incredibly dishonest to claim that. No one gets
| fired from a family because the family is "right-sizing".
| petepete wrote:
| "we're a family but if you don't do well enough gtfo"
| nickpeterson wrote:
| It is like a family, just more like the family from
| Succession...
| ido wrote:
| I don't think that's the part OP was speaking against.
| bluedino wrote:
| Some families get together to have an intervention for
| their alcoholic brother and cut him off.
| papito wrote:
| That takes _years_ of building up until that happens.
| BirAdam wrote:
| Eh. That doesn't really work though. An alcoholic (any
| addict) has to _want_ to change. The individual must make
| the choice. Nothing else will work long term. Often
| enough, addicts die due to some effect of the addiction,
| or commit suicide when they cannot live with some effect.
| I find that people often make poor judgement when
| confronting addicts. Every addict is an individual first,
| and while the route of their addiction may look similar
| to others it is never identical. Some addicts respond
| well to interventions. The intervention can convince some
| of the need to change. For other addicts, this only
| further entrenches the addiction due to some emotional
| response. This is especially true, in my experience, when
| the family was the source of the abuse that caused the
| depression that ultimately drove the addict to some
| substance for relief. The "cut off" rather than the
| intervention would (in some cases) be truly more humane.
| Some families operate on different philosophies and they
| would argue that to be of service to family no matter the
| cost is first. While laudable, I would disagree.
|
| Source: I come from a family with many addicts: two
| uncles, sister, brother, father, mother, grandfather,
| grandmother, cousin, great uncle, great aunt, three
| aunts, myself.
| technion wrote:
| Even before I had a job, reading "we are like family" in
| advertisements just left me thinking of "well you walk out
| on a family at 5pm just because the event ended then".
| aksss wrote:
| The ol' "Irish Goodbye". Big fan.
| rightbyte wrote:
| It is a platitude, not toxic.
|
| Being a "pro sportsteam" on the other hand could be
| considered toxic. I know of no more cut throat legal
| business than sports. They are aggressivly signaling that
| they push KPI missers out.
| ivan_gammel wrote:
| Systematic KPI missers must leave in any company: it is
| hard to understand why it could be otherwise, if you are
| not living in North Korea or Cuba. People who make one
| honest mistake or have a bad quarter due to family issues
| but otherwise are great performers fit in their culture,
| they explicitly mention that in slides.
| cvlasdkv wrote:
| rightbyte wrote:
| They write that "we cut smartly to have stars in every
| position". That is dellusional.
|
| Probably works well in NHL when you draft each year
| anyway and players do the same thing, like dentists.
|
| My belief is that continuation is way more important than
| stars. Especially since recruiting (and not fireing)
| stars is a more or less random process anyway.
|
| I imply unreasonable KPIs. Also, "right to work" has more
| in common with North Korean job safety (i.e. none) than
| say Spannish dito.
| ivan_gammel wrote:
| They explain in detail what does this mean in
| presentation.
| nonameiguess wrote:
| This isn't exactly true. Other than NFL, American pro
| sports have pretty strong unions, and even if you get
| cut, you still get paid. You might even get paid more,
| even though you're not working. Netflix doesn't give out
| guaranteed contracts that continue to pay you even after
| you get fired.
| rightbyte wrote:
| Oh didn't know that interesting. I just assumed it was
| like corporate US, but a bit "more" due to the
| competitive nature. I guess Netflix choose the wrong
| analogy then with all their sports metaphors.
|
| Reading the whole slide back to back, I am a bit
| disgusted. It is so smug. It is trying to be brutally
| honest, but it feels more like a cult pep-talk. The place
| like doubled it workforce in four years -- there is not
| way to be elite after that, even if they were before ...
| logifail wrote:
| Q: Is wanting to succeed considered a bad thing?
| rightbyte wrote:
| If we are talking NHL level exceptations at my dayjob,
| ye, it is a bad thing.
|
| Especially as there are no way of rating programmers as
| fairly as sportsmen.
| jasonladuke0311 wrote:
| > Especially as there are no way of rating programmers as
| fairly as sportsmen.
|
| Oh boy, I guess you don't follow sports too closely.
| There is _endless_ debate about rankings and player value
| and statistics.
|
| But I am digressing.
| nsxwolf wrote:
| If you've ever been part of a family business, you'd know
| the approach to handling things is quite a bit different.
| When family dynamics come into play, you end up having to
| tolerate things and compromise things in ways that would be
| considered unacceptable in a corporation.
|
| You find out your brother is pocketing part of the tips
| that are supposed to go to the back of the house.
|
| Your son has been accused of sexual harassment by one of
| the waitresses.
|
| What do you do? You're not going to "take it to HR". Any
| action you take here is going to be painful and is going to
| be challenged by other members of the family with an equal
| stake.
|
| So I immediately recoil when I hear that I'm "family". Oh,
| you're going to look the other way when I get caught
| embezzling? We'll work something out when I get caught the
| second time? Didn't think so.
| _dain_ wrote:
| It's funny how people have different reactions to it. I find
| it quite compelling and well thought out. "We're a pro sports
| team" is a much better and less toxic mindset than "we're a
| family".
| hef19898 wrote:
| It is definitely more honest.
| 0x445442 wrote:
| What is adequate and what is the frame of reference? If
| adequate is average by some objective metrics and the frame of
| reference is Netflix itself then they would need to be
| terminating half their work force annually to make good. This
| sounds like braggadocio to me.
| MisterTea wrote:
| "Completed their tasks in a timely manner when asked" sounds
| good enough to me.
| lupire wrote:
| The real problem is Netflix rally refuse to hire merely
| competent staff for boring work? Do they really need 10,000
| major innovations every year?
|
| Even pro sports teams have paid support staff working with
| the "players".
| p1esk wrote:
| The point is that even for boring work (e.g. a janitor)
| it's better to hire one really good worker than two
| average ones.
| phist_mcgee wrote:
| And good luck retaining your highly paid janitor. Someone
| has to be the coaster in a workplace.
| p1esk wrote:
| Why? They are getting double the average janitor salary.
| Why would they want to leave?
| phist_mcgee wrote:
| Because then you break the rule of 'everyone must be
| excellent'. In a room full of geniuses, do many people
| choose to mop the floor?
| p1esk wrote:
| But obviously if you're an excellent janitor, you're not
| breaking the rule, right?
|
| Also, I don't see anything wrong with choosing to mop the
| floor - especially if you're really good at it.
| colechristensen wrote:
| Netflix pay is ridiculously high and they are really trigger
| happy about hiring and firing. The culture is, well, odd. If
| the pay wasn't so good it would definitely seem abusive, but
| it is high enough and they're transparent enough about it
| that I don't think anybody gets very upset.
|
| My interview was cancelled halfway through because the third
| interviewer didn't like me. _shrug_
| diegoperini wrote:
| This is more up to date as stated in the slides:
|
| https://jobs.netflix.com/culture
| sharken wrote:
| In the financial sector people over process is just not
| realistic, too much regulation makes sure that will never
| happen.
|
| Independent decision-making is also hard to do, as soon as
| something requires a budget, you can forget about the
| independent part.
|
| And maybe you can have fewer rules, but instead they will be
| labelled processes and generally end up having the same
| effect.
|
| I do agree that highly effective people should be kept, e.g.
| people who are not afraid to move out of their chosen comfort
| zone once in a while.
|
| If I should state two core values, they would be critical
| thinking and curiosity.
| lostcolony wrote:
| >> people over process is just not realistic
|
| Invest in people understanding the reasons for something,
| and allow them to ensure it's upheld. A relevant domain-
| less software analogy is testing; you can mandate some
| level of testing, and it will be a burden, a morale killer,
| and constantly fail to be upheld, or you can work to ensure
| everyone understands the benefits of testing, create space
| for people to write tests and automate their execution, and
| then rely on culture to ensure testing happens. I've been
| in places that tried to mindlessly mandate corporate
| policies to ensure compliance; it resulted in delays and
| low morale, and extremely patchwork adherence (I left that
| place still not knowing if we were compliant or not). I've
| also been at a place that implemented SOX compliance; they
| didn't mandate anything, just "we're becoming part of a
| publicly traded company. Here is what the goal is. Here is
| some training to help understand what sorts of things we
| now need to be mindful of. Here is a person who you can
| talk to to help understand what that means for you. This is
| our highest priority right now". Morale stayed high, the
| results were good, and completion was -early-.
|
| >> as soon as something requires a budget
|
| Everything requires a budget. Headcount is a budget. The
| point is give people problems to solve, the relevant
| constraints, and let them work, rather than micromanage the
| solution. Maybe that's an industry failure, but don't
| confuse it for a unique constraint on that industry, rather
| than just a universal problem in that industry.
|
| >> And maybe you can have fewer rules, but instead they
| will be labelled processes
|
| Process exceptions exist. Rule breaking exists. And failure
| to break process/rules when you should have happens too.
| The point isn't to not have a sensible default, but to
| instead arm people with knowledge so that they pick the
| default when it makes sense to, and deviate when it makes
| sense to. It's the same distinction around "best
| practices"; they're not, they're just reasonable defaults.
| And by not dictating a process, you allow evolution in the
| de facto process the teams follow, to improve the process.
| I've seen companies attempt to revamp their internal
| processes from a top-down model: universally not pretty.
| I've also seen teams and departments retro and iterate, and
| see constant improvements.
| moffkalast wrote:
| If only they spent as much time expanding their catalogue as
| they do making slides they'd probably leave the competition in
| the dust.
| loudtieblahblah wrote:
| My companys antivalue?
|
| That wfh means you work in every time zone.
| fdjlasdfjl wrote:
| dbfclark wrote:
| Not my company, but Zocdoc has the best values I've ever seen
| exactly because they all have anti-values:
|
| Patients First
|
| Important, not Immediate
|
| Learners before Masters
|
| Together, not Alone
|
| Progress before Perfection
|
| Adaptable, not Comfortable
| austincheney wrote:
| I work at a major bank and their anti-values are behaviors that
| tarnish their reputation. Examples of reputation damaging actions
| are regulatory investigations, fraud, illegal financial activity
| (even if unintentional or unknown to the bank at the time).
|
| As a software developer this is quite nebulous. The bank protects
| its reputation by prioritizing risk analysis and ethics first in
| all its internal decisions. As an industry these qualities do not
| exist in any professional capacity in software. In software, just
| like in absolutely every employer, we do whatever we want so long
| as it eases hiring, everything else be damned.
| karatinversion wrote:
| A company always consists of individuals that have to make trade-
| offs, so to the extent it has a cohesive culture at all, it will
| have values that are expressed in those trade-offs. But values
| (or anti-values) that a company publicly espouses do not need to
| coincide with its actual values: a value statement of being
| inclusive does not prevent a culture of bullying, and a value
| statement of putting the customer first does not prevent the
| actual value being to screw the customer whenever profitable.
|
| "Descriptive" vs "aspirational" values, if you will.
| alecbz wrote:
| IMO the only way to have aspirational values is to make them
| part of perf/the job ladder. Most typical "value statements"
| ought to be descriptive.
| jerglingu wrote:
| A big reason why Amazon's leadership principles (LP) are so
| ingrained into its culture is because it's a part of every
| single formal process in the company. If not officially
| (promo docs, interviews), then at the least implicitly
| (corrections of errors [COE]).
| cloverich wrote:
| This is true and i am inclined to try and ask questions about
| them. My last company had a "no jerks" policy and i was floored
| when they actually followed through in firing a (talented) PM
| who was kind of a jerk. One warning, then he was gone as fast
| as he came.
|
| I'm not sure i could ask smart and direct enough questions to
| really assess this but hope i can at least sniff out the bs.
| ivan_gammel wrote:
| This actual vs described values mismatch is a red flag and it
| could be an easy way to discover toxic culture. When applying
| for a job, you usually have multiple interviews - HR, team,
| direct manager. It makes sense to ask all of them about their
| values and compare the answers.
| puszczyk wrote:
| I'd say the opposite, there needs to be a delta between
| values and actual behavior.
|
| I want to be a good husband, dedicated employee, etc. Am I?
| I'd like to think more often than not. But we all err, and I
| value the transparency/courage to ack that we are not perfect
| on our values and still have a long way to go.
|
| For me the a flag would be if a person/company is not willing
| to acknowledge they are not as good as they public values
| are. (Because how can they improve if they can't even ack
| it).
| marcosdumay wrote:
| You mean that you should not hide of the difference between
| values and behavior?
|
| Because there's nothing on that comment that actually
| supports the difference. And if you are being honest,
| descriptive values should describe your behavior very
| closely.
| ARandomerDude wrote:
| The thing you're struggling with is the parent's
| humility.
|
| Value: be great at everything all the time
|
| Parent: I try very hard but often fail
|
| You: then you must be dishonest about your values
|
| Humility is a virtue not a vice.
| shadowfox wrote:
| Not the OP, but that situation seems to indicate
| espousing unrealistic values at the least or am I
| misreading what you are saying?
| marcosdumay wrote:
| > then you must be dishonest about your values
|
| Hum, no, but then he is talking about the "aspirational
| values" that the GP pointed.
| alecbz wrote:
| There are some reasonable explanations though:
|
| * The actual values have changed over time but the value
| statement hadn't been updated in a while
|
| * Different parts of the company genuinely have different
| values
|
| I don't think either of those necessarily indicate a toxic
| culture.
| ivan_gammel wrote:
| Totally agree that it does not point to toxic culture per
| se. It's just an easy way to spot something wrong at this
| angle.
|
| Though both explanations may also point to something:
|
| * If values changed, but company did not bother to
| communicate them, then they are not important and not
| applied in daily life. This is not necessarily a bad thing
| at the moment of observation, but it may lay a foundation
| to toxic culture eventually.
|
| * If different parts of the company have different values,
| then the decisions where those values would have been
| applied may result in a conflict between those parts. Red
| flag.
| gamerDude wrote:
| I just did this exercise with my own company values and it was
| great. By adding the anti-value, I realized a couple of our
| "values" aren't really our values. Very powerful!
| frozenport wrote:
| Write in Haskell
| nonrandomstring wrote:
| The most famous anti-value was "Don't be evil" and look where
| that ended up.
|
| "Don't be a dick" has good practical mileage.
|
| The Kantian ideal of the Kingdom of Ends is pretty good one if
| you formulate it as "Don't use people", but that's too high a
| standard for almost any business today (especially the ones whose
| entire model is "using people").
|
| One of my personal maxims is "Lead people not into temptation".
| In other words, no addictive (engagement) features, no lock-in,
| don't create dependency, make sure the code you write enables
| people and gives then freedom and choice (migration/federation
| etc). Again, those values are almost impossible to maintain in
| todays climate of hyper-exploitation.
| xhevahir wrote:
| "Don't be evil" is a dreadful credo. Allows a ridiculous amount
| of wiggle room. The fact that these very smart people
| formulated their beliefs in such a self-consciously childish
| manner should have been taken as a warning.
| munificent wrote:
| I don't think you are giving them enough credit.
|
| Choosing "don't be evil" as a credo deliberately encourages
| others to view the company through a moral lens. It is an
| invitation to judge the company according to a higher
| standard than most businesses would hold themselves to. It
| makes explicit that the company takes responsibility for the
| moral implications of what they do instead of pretending to
| live in an amoral value-free universe like many other
| corporations do.
|
| I think it was a courageous motto and I'm sad they dropped
| it.
| pydry wrote:
| "Don't be evil" was a good value. Google just didn't want to be
| bound by it.
| euroderf wrote:
| "Google: We Are Beyond Good-versus-Evil" (TM)
| beaconstudios wrote:
| Google meets Nietzsche.
| elcritch wrote:
| I've come to wonder if Google's "don't be evil" secretly always
| meant "don't be truly evil, just skirt the edge of being evil".
| It's much more profitable being in the grey zone.
| hitekker wrote:
| > One of my personal maxims is "Lead people not into
| temptation". In other words, no addictive (engagement)
| features, no lock-in, don't create dependency, make sure the
| code you write enables people and gives then freedom and choice
| (migration/federation etc). Again, those values are almost
| impossible to maintain in todays climate of hyper-exploitation.
|
| This is the most insightful comment I've read this week. I'm
| surprised no one has made the connection before. It has deep
| historical meaning and deep implications for where we're
| headed.
| aynsof wrote:
| I'd suggest the best example of anti-values is in the Agile
| Manifesto.
|
| They state that they value (as an example) individuals and
| interactions over processes and tools. But they make it clear
| that while there's value in the things on the right, they value
| the things on the left more.
|
| In the way the author describes, I always found this framing to
| be super helpful for decision-making.
|
| It's also something that frustrated me about the (otherwise
| fantastic) Amazon Leadership Principles. When should I dive
| deep and when should I have bias for action? I realise now that
| I should have bias for action when it's a reversible decision
| and dive deep when it's a one way door. But it's not clear from
| the principles themselves in the way it's clear in the Agile
| Manifesto.
| TimesOldRoman wrote:
| Toyota's "Respect for People" was a sort of joke to me when I
| worked there, then I worked at Amazon and saw the opposite.
|
| Toyota is a great company to work for, albeit super boring.
| hef19898 wrote:
| Most well-run operations tend to be boring, because there are
| not enough fuck-ups to make it interesting. Kind of what you
| want. Agree on the Amazon thing, despite being super
| efficient, and operationally well-run, they could care more
| about people. To put it diplomatically. Amazon is very
| consistent between blue and white collar so. That cannot be
| said about a lot other companies out there.
| mbg721 wrote:
| Being ethical is often aligned with being boring. I don't
| want the employees at my insurance company doing anything
| exciting with my personal information.
| drewcoo wrote:
| The ethical and boring axes are orthogonal.
|
| I didn't expect to read that ethical and boring are aligned
| during Black History Month (US).
| quartesixte wrote:
| Or with two ton metal death traps going at 100mph.
|
| Boring in manufacturing is good.
| d--b wrote:
| Don't be evil, is not an anti-value. It's negatively-stated-
| yet-positive value.
|
| The article says people should state values as a tradeoff. So
| for google it should have been something like:
|
| Favor not being evil over making more money.
| bjohnson225 wrote:
| "Don't be evil" is a slightly edgier version of the typical
| corporate value of "Do the right thing" which I've seen in
| many companies. Sounds good, but vague enough to be
| meaningless.
| xiaq wrote:
| I think "favor not being evil over making more money" is
| exactly how the "don't be evil" motto is commonly
| interpreted.
| Edman274 wrote:
| As a shareholder, I think that not making as much money as
| possible is the _real_ evil here. I always interpreted
| "don't be evil" as "don't waste money building an aquarium
| for sharks with lasers on their heads". I never in my
| darkest nightmares thought it meant "shut down profitable
| centers of corporate growth just because some bleeding
| hearts say that it's bad to pollute developing countries
| with planned obsolescent e-waste."
| rjbwork wrote:
| Poe's law right here. I really had no idea if this was
| genuine or satire the first 3 times I read it. I'm pretty
| sure it's satire.
| Edman274 wrote:
| Yeah, the ambiguity was intentional, and you're right.
| blululu wrote:
| Of all the massive cash fires at Google (Cloud) you're
| concerned about the shark photonics lab? That one might
| actually pay off some day with meaningful improvements in
| marine fiber optic cables. Given how important deep sea
| optics are for Google's core business it is a negligible
| cost with a huge upside.
| lupire wrote:
| Your problem is that you are "as a shareholder" where the
| values are the business proposition to the customers.
|
| Also your problem is that you favor evil ways of making
| money, but don't call it evil, instead of owning the
| evil.
| projectazorian wrote:
| In American capitalism the investors are the real
| customers, not the consumers.
| karaterobot wrote:
| I always felt it was meant to imply something more like:
| "show the world that not being evil is a better business
| strategy".
| dkersten wrote:
| I guess it didn't work for them so they just abandoned
| it.
| p1esk wrote:
| I'd think it's commonly interpreted as "don't be evil"
| where the cost of not being evil isn't specified.
| hammock wrote:
| "Don't be evil [at all costs]"
|
| A truly uncompromising value, if that was the intent of
| Google's motto, sits at the pinnacle of the hierarchy and the
| tradeoff is literally everything else.
| drewcoo wrote:
| You could add "at all costs" to any value. That would
| likely make it less true instead of more bold.
| hammock wrote:
| You could only add it to values that are truly
| uncompromising, as I mentioned. Any value not at the
| tippy top of the hierarchy would bend to some other cost
| in some scenario.
| candiddevmike wrote:
| Unlimited* PTO policy
|
| *Maximum 25 days a year after 15 years of employment
| exnot wrote:
| Assume positive intent -> Anti-value: Forgoing the ability of
| accurately assessing the other party's intent.
|
| Even the original value itself was problematic since rarely was
| the intent positive and assuming it was based your actions on a
| wrong assumption. Depends on the people you work with naturally,
| but in this particular organisation there was an abundance of
| people looking out for themselves mainly; e.g. avoiding work,
| shedding responsibilities, lying, twisting facts, etc, and
| especially so in management.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| glenngillen wrote:
| > "Learn and Be Curious" - what might that cost us? Maybe focus
| (because it's ok to go down rabbit holes in order to learn
| something). So how about "Optimise learning over focus"? Maybe,
| maybe not.
|
| A couple of the values pulled out here are from the Amazon
| Leadership Principles. So there's actually an answer to this
| question! The opposite of "Learn and Be Curious" is "Bias for
| Action" and "Deliver Results". The Amazon LPs are designed to
| have tension with each other. You can't embody all of them at the
| same moment. Which ones you prioritize are contextually
| dependent. Which is also helpful for dealing with conflict and
| disagreement because so many arguments are people talking past
| each other not realizing that they're actually misaligned on an
| underlying assumption and wasting energy arguing about how to
| execute.
|
| "I don't think this is a good path forward, we should take our
| time to 'Dive Deep' and do more research"... "Ah, that's the
| issue. We've already agreed as a group the prioritize for 'Bias
| for Action' because of <reasons>"... "Hrm. In that case I can
| understand why this path makese sense. If you're all confident
| that's the right priority here then let's go."
| alecbz wrote:
| Do the LPs themselves make it clear when they're supposed to be
| applied?
| jerglingu wrote:
| No, and it's a source of strain for many people at Amazon.
| There are, however, two LP's that are understood to stand
| well above the rest of the others: "Deliver Results" and
| "Customer Obsession."
| mellavora wrote:
| Don't worry, that is probably another one of the LPs. Maybe
| "Good leaders are right, alot"?
|
| So no True Scottsman^h^h^h^h good leader would ever be
| confused about which LP applied
| systemvoltage wrote:
| Honestly and respectfully, I would love to work for a company
| that does not have this theater of Diversity & Inclusion. To me,
| it is extremely fake and not genuine. Instead, work for a company
| that truly embraces people from all over the world with not a
| peep about racism/diversity/__insert_divisive_narratives__. It
| would be amazing.
| keithalewis wrote:
| Allowing "Welcome to the insane asylum" to be the standard
| greeting new hires receive. It is a great way to instantly
| demoralize people and instill fear on their first day.
| cto_of_antifa wrote:
| cube00 wrote:
| - Can I get promoted?
|
| - You can't even get paroled.
| santoshalper wrote:
| I call this "values in conflict", and it is by far the most
| interesting way to look at culture and values in an organization.
| For example: Almost every company today says that they value
| their customers. It has become fashionable to say that you are
| even customer obsessed.
|
| On the other hand, almost all companies also say that they value
| their employees and want to respect their work-life balance and
| QoL.
|
| But what about when a deliverable is going to be late and it will
| negatively impact a customer. What do you do then? Crunch hard to
| ship on time so the customer is impacted? Tell your customer the
| deliverable will be late so your employees can go home and spend
| time with their families? Try to split the difference down the
| middle and probably annoy everyone?
|
| That's when values get interesting. When they stop being a list
| of nice things, and start being a framework for how you intend to
| behave in difficult circumstances.
| LoveGracePeace wrote:
| This anti-value really bugs me. Too many companie's System
| Administrators view PC as meaning Windows. People seem to have
| forgotten there is Linux Desktop in the world as well as other
| operating systems.
|
| TL;DR PC means Personal Computer, Linux PC, Mac PC, Windows PC.
| nonfamous wrote:
| No discussion of company values would be complete without a link
| to Bryan Cantrill's classic talk, "Principles of Technology
| Leadership". https://youtu.be/9QMGAtxUlAc
|
| Uber once had a stated company value of "Always be hustling".
| Really.
| ColinHayhurst wrote:
| Search without Surveillance
| aunty_helen wrote:
| > move fast and break things
|
| Is better represented as "move fast and break important things"
| but what kind of management is going to sign up to that.
|
| In essence it becomes "move fast", which becomes another way of
| saying, "get things done faster or you're not meeting company
| values and we can blame you for that." Yay for management
| doublespeak
| [deleted]
| celnardur wrote:
| One of my favorites is "Tell it like it is" which has the heavily
| implied second part: even when the customer won't like it.
| codeptualize wrote:
| The only values that are real are the ones that contribute to
| making money.
|
| Values go out of the window real quick whenever they negatively
| impact revenue, whatever they are.
|
| I like the idea of anti values, certainly much better, but even
| there you might as well not have them imo.
| hsn915 wrote:
| This is a common sentiment but it is wrong.
|
| Making money is just one of the operational constraints that a
| company has to take into account.
|
| Companies exist to fulfil a purpose. That purpose is not just
| "make money".
|
| Steve Jobs founded Apple not to just "make money". I think this
| does not need further elaboration.
|
| The same applies to Tesla and SpaceX, founded by Elon Musk.
|
| Companies that only exist to make money are probably terrible
| by any measure you choose.
| codeptualize wrote:
| That's not the point I'm trying to make. I agree that it's
| not the only purpose, and even if it was I don't think that's
| bad per se. You could also see it as fulfilling a purpose to
| make money, they often go together, it's probably the ideal
| situation.
|
| My point is; As long as making money and their values align
| it's all good, but if decisions need to be made that present
| a choice between values and profit/growth it becomes very
| hard to choose for values. Especially once a company goes
| public, gets acquired, or needs significant investment, it
| might not even have the option to live by its values.
|
| That's why I think values are only real/true if they align
| with profit/growth. Similar to what the article describes;
| what do they really mean? How much impact do they really
| have? How much of it is PR?
|
| What it comes down to imo is; Is there willingness to
| sacrifice growth and revenue for values? I'd say in most
| cases the answer to that is no, and I would much prefer it if
| companies are just clear and honest about that.
|
| If you do count other forms of companies, like not-for-
| profits, then it's a totally different story of course.
| danuker wrote:
| While just "making money" may sound a bit short-sighted, it
| IS the reason for the company's existence.
|
| Hopefully, however, profit is correlated with/caused by
| providing value to humanity, which in turn encourages "good
| behavior" from companies. If a company is seen as "bad", it
| starts to lose clients.
| andrewingram wrote:
| There's usually some "take initiative" value, which in practice
| is undermined by how the leaders lead.
| [deleted]
| skeeter2020 wrote:
| If you choose values that have viable, realistic alternatives
| that a sane organization could reasonably target then you don't
| need anti-values explicitly stated. If this is not the case you
| have a bunch of platitudes. Your company values should often be
| interpreted (negatively) as strong opinions or even "an
| attitude". I think Basecamp does a good job of this, regardless
| if you agree with them.
| prepend wrote:
| I thought that anti-values were the true, unstated values of an
| organization. Some examples from pockets of my org...
|
| "The more important you are, the less you touch
| code/servers/things"
|
| "Lots of meetings means you're important." (People will
| frequently humblebrag "I have 13 meetings today")
|
| "Create a problem, present a problem, let someone else solve,
| celebrate the solution."
|
| There's also many positive values that I think outweigh these
| anti-values.
| huetius wrote:
| I wonder if I've misunderstood, but as a developer, I like
| being given problems, rather than solutions. I've also found
| being able to formulate a customer or business problem well
| enough that others can come up with a good solution is a real
| skill which (IMHO) should receive recognition.
| prepend wrote:
| Oh yeah me too. I mean create a problem like "log in and
| delete the config so the system crashes" then say "it's
| broken who can fix."
|
| I love being presented with puzzles and problems. I hate
| people messing up, creating crises, and pushing the mess off
| to other people.
| GuerrerOscuro wrote:
| The point in the article that values should lead to decision
| making criteria is crucial, but not actually what they are used
| for in practice. I think it practice they are meant as a
| framework for doing performance assessments. At least this was
| how it was in my previous companies. I always thought that was
| horribly cultish, because tthe interpretation of such pithy
| sentences is really subjective. A sentence like "Move fast and
| break things" could be interpreted as "try a lot and don't worry
| if things fail once in a while" but it could also mean "keep up
| and leave anyone who can't lying in the dust". Those
| interpretations represent two different companies. The former I
| would be willing to work at, the latter, not so much.
| mfringel wrote:
| I've found you can determine a company's values based on who gets
| more resources: e.g. raises, promotions, etc.
|
| Similarly, a company's anti-values could be discovered by who
| gets less; e.g. passed over for promotion, given a 'window seat',
| laid off, etc.
| munificent wrote:
| Back when I worked at EA there were obviously many horrible
| aspects to its culture. But one thing I always thought was cool
| was that they had a notion of a "razor". This was a principle or
| guideline that was worded specifically enough to clearly slice up
| a set of options into whether they fit it or not.
|
| When designing a game, "The game is fun," is a shitty razor
| because it doesn't tell you how to prioritize or make trade-offs.
| "Multi-player is the most fun mode," is a better razor because if
| you're trying to decide which features to cut, the single player
| ones are clearly it.
|
| "Anti-value" is, I think, another way to say something similar.
|
| This touches on a cognitive mistake I see often. We often
| naturally think of choices in terms of "yes or no". Do I want to
| go out for dinner tonight? Should I ask that person out? Should I
| buy that house?
|
| But opportunity cost pervades all aspects of life. Our time and
| resources are finite and any "yes" choice is implicitly a "no" to
| the other options that give up the capacity to say yes to. It's
| very hard to make good choices without thinking of those other
| options.
|
| Framing your values in terms of "razors" or "anti-values" is a
| good way to get out of the "yes/no" mindset and into the more
| accurate "which one" mindset. It helps you discriminate among
| options.
| econnors wrote:
| > When designing a game, "The game is fun," is a shitty razor
| because it doesn't tell you how to prioritize or make trade-
| offs
|
| coming from countless hours of playing games and near zero
| hours making them, I'm curious why "this game is fun" doesn't
| help you make tradeoffs. I feel like concentrating on the game
| being fun would help avoid repetitive mechanics that would be
| tiresome or tedious (inventory management), frequent non-
| skippable dialogue, etc. Why is that not the case?
| georgeecollins wrote:
| From countless hours making games, it is because games can be
| fun in many different ways yet it is hard to make a fun game.
| One of the most common way projects fail is that they are
| trying to be fun in a variety of ways but not achieving
| player enjoyment in any of them.
|
| I used to work with a great designer who used to say the goal
| was to take the un-fun out. That actually is a more
| actionable goal.
| wongarsu wrote:
| If I understand GP correctly they use "razors" analogous to
| philosophical razors [1], as a quickly evaluated rule of
| thumb to shave away options. "This game is fun" doesn't work
| for that, because often "does X make the game more fun"
| requires prototyping X and having some people playtest it.
| You can definitely make great games that way, but you are not
| really applying a rule of thumb anymore.
|
| Compare that to "is this usable in multiplayer", "does it
| serve a narrative purpose", "can we show it in a trailer".
| All of those are quick to answer (but not all of them make
| for good games).
|
| 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophical_razor
| twoxproblematic wrote:
| Not answering your question, but among my gamedev circle,
| "fun" is seen as a useless word because there are so many
| different possible meanings (challenging, soothing,
| exploratory, nice graphical effect feedback, nice music,
| social, etc) and often are contradictory with each other.
| We've seen countless times people setting merely "fun" as
| their goal, and then getting horribly depressed when the
| nebulous "fun" is never struck upon, with no clue how to make
| any ground in that direction.
| munificent wrote:
| It is much much harder to design, build, and ship a
| profitable game that is fun in all aspects than most people
| realize.
|
| A game is a very carefully balanced hanging mobile of
| hundreds of parts and it's very hard to tweak one without
| risking throwing others off. Inventory management might be
| tedious, but it may be that simplifying that throws off other
| more critical game mechanics. Or it could be that the feature
| ended up being made worse in the process of fixing an even
| more important mechanic and now the team has simply run out
| of time to circle back and improve it.
|
| _> frequent non-skippable dialogue_
|
| Dialog usually is skippable, but if it's not, there could be
| reasons. For example, games pretty often rely on unskippable
| transitions to load content in the background and minimize
| time spent staring at a loading screen.
|
| Saying "make the game fun" is about as actionable as telling
| a musician to "write a good song".
| LadyCoconut wrote:
| Because "this game is fun" is too vague. To find good
| answers, you need good questions that are well-worded.
|
| Think of it as setting achievable goals for yourself. "I want
| to improve my life!" is a useless objective; while "my
| appartment is dirty and I want it to be clean" is a useful
| one.
|
| "Improving one's life" is so vague it's useless (are we
| talking about love? Health? Work? Family? Housing? Would you
| even know what to suggest to someone asking you for advice
| about this?) while "my apartment is dirty" is a clear
| objective with clearer solutions: "I'll clean it more
| often/hire a housekeeper".
|
| "The game isn't fun" is just as vague, especially when you
| have to make choices regarding resources/money, and
| especially when "fun" is so different depending on people. If
| we're talking the Sims, for instance, some people will find
| more fun in creating sims; some, in creating houses; some, in
| actually playing with their sims. In this context, trying to
| make the game "more fun" would be meaningless. "These three
| sides of the game should feel equally developed" is already a
| bit better, though still very subjective.
| dkersten wrote:
| Fun isn't a well defined, well understood thing. There's no
| quick and easy way to know if something will make the game
| more fun or not, you often have to guess and just try it out
| in a prototype. Fun is also subjective, so fun _for who_?
|
| In the example given, adding something to multiplayer isn't
| more fun for people who don't play multiplayer, but it may
| well be for those that do and since they're the focus, the
| feature gets added. So "prioritize multiplayer" is a useful
| razor because you can act on it: does it add to multiplayer?
| yes, it gets kept, no it gets cut. Its actionable. Is it fun?
| Who knows, you gotta test it out first.
| setr wrote:
| Fun doesn't mean anything, and people have fun regardless of
| whether a game or feature is good. My goto example is
| multiplayer is basically a hack on fun -- anything is fun if
| you're with your friends; from well-defined sports to poking
| a bloating corpse.
|
| But going further, fun is not found in any particular
| feature; it's an outcome of the total system. A game can be
| described as fun, or a sequence of events, but you can't say
| that a helicopter spawn in an FPS is fun, or not, without
| further diving into all of the surrounding context.
|
| And you dig deep enough and you realize that it's not the
| helicopter specifically that you're looking for -- it's the
| action-space it enables, or the potential counter-play (or
| lack thereof), or the satisfaction in steering, or that it's
| simply the act of being rewarded for skilled play, or
| whatever.
|
| Fun is at best a description that the game and its mechanisms
| didn't impede the mechanisms you enjoyed operating.
|
| It's also why you have an internet argument where someone
| says "this game is not good, for reasons x,y,z", and the
| response is simply "but I enjoyed it", and it blows up into a
| nonsensical mess -- the two are talking about totally
| different things; fun is only marginally correlated with good
| cuddlybacon wrote:
| When choosing whether to do A or B, "this game is fun"
| usually leads to "why not both?".
|
| > I feel like concentrating on the game being fun would help
| avoid repetitive mechanics that would be tiresome or tedious
| (inventory management), frequent non-skippable dialogue, etc.
|
| These things are fun to many people. Just not you. Sometimes
| they are fun to me, usually not. I think "this game is fun"
| would lead to including more of this stuff, not less.
|
| YouTubers in particular seem to like this kind of stuff.
| tshaddox wrote:
| I think it's because pretty much any conceivable game design
| decision will only be a _difficult_ decision to make if there
| is disagreement on what is fun. In other words, you 'll never
| have two game designers trying to make a difficult decision
| where one designer says "the thing I want to do is less fun"
| and the other designer says "the thing I want to do is more
| fun." They'll both think that the thing they want to do is
| more fun, because in the context of game design "fun" is
| essentially synonymous with "good."
| [deleted]
| olivermarks wrote:
| 'The Purpose of a Business is to Create a Customer'
|
| Drucker - 'The Practice of Management' is full of common sense
| 'anti-values'
| sebastianconcpt wrote:
| In my social media profile image I use a Saint Augustine maxim
| for friendship:
|
| _Ubi amicita est, ibi idem velle et idem nolle._
|
| "True friendship is in, same likes and same dislikes." [1]
|
| Is the best radar (sonar?) I've found to predict and sense how
| shallow or deep a friendship with any person you'll have.
|
| Now you can use it as a generator of the types of relations with
| individuals that you company has/wants to have: founders,
| developers, marketeers, commercial, support, partners and
| customers.
|
| [1] So the _dislikes_ part you might take it as the anti-value
| notion proposed here but is still a value.
|
| PS: about the anti-value notion, I think we're still talking
| about values. Like a value matrix you have in your deep
| psychology that is symmetrical. It has the values of the things
| you're attracted to and the things you are repelled from. Like
| all the cells in the matrix being little vectors that will
| eventually synthesise a final position on everything you input.
| fidesomnes wrote:
| greenie_beans wrote:
| my old company had motivational posters plastered all over the
| place with these values: integrity, teamwork, excellence, fun.
| felt like i was in middle school again.
| tonyedgecombe wrote:
| When my son was looking to buy his first house I noticed a lot
| of people putting motivational messages on their walls. These
| sort of things:
| https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32630732796.html
|
| I just don't understand some people.
| straffs wrote:
| There is a cultural aspect to this. American often try to be pro-
| stuff. French are always anti-stuff (pro life in the US, anti
| abortion in France, etc)
| bigDinosaur wrote:
| Does that actually result in any meaningful differences between
| these countries in the debate?
| makapuf wrote:
| On this specific topic, things are absolutely not similar
| otherwise, so it's difficult to compare. More generally,
| French people can tell you immediately that's not possible
| because... which sounds fatalistic but it s not, we're just
| saying here are the roadblocks I see, please convince me they
| can be alleviated and I'm totally in.
| straffs wrote:
| Usualy being against something is associate with being aginst
| change, and the other way around.
| blitzar wrote:
| Its not an election issue in one of those countries, and in
| the other it is ... I doubt you even need to take a public
| stand on exactly what your position is on the issue to run
| for office.
| straffs wrote:
| It used to be, but the public debate moved away once
| legislation changed.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2022-02-17 23:01 UTC)