[HN Gopher] Company, Team, Self
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Company, Team, Self
Author : omoindrot
Score : 56 points
Date : 2022-12-01 08:30 UTC (14 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (lethain.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (lethain.com)
| umutisik wrote:
| Put customers first. The company, team, and self (in a work
| context) are there to help customers.
| misthop wrote:
| It's always about incentive misalignment. As an employee thinking
| Company first will improve the bottom line for the company. As an
| executive thinking company first may well eliminate me as an
| employee.
|
| Why should an employee put the company interests above their own
| with that incentive alignment? The company should work to make
| the company's interests serve the individual interests of the
| employees
| lifeisstillgood wrote:
| Yes.
|
| And may I suggest a simple method: have employees vote for
| executives
|
| Incentives align naturally when there is two way feedback
| twblalock wrote:
| I suspect this would result in a lot of companies being run
| into the ground, as executives would focus on keeping
| employees happy at the cost of the business. "Vote for me,
| and everyone gets a raise and a bonus!"
|
| When the interests of employees are put ahead of the success
| of the company, in the long run the employees end up losing
| because the company will fail, or at least need to lay people
| off.
|
| Also, most employees simply aren't capable of understanding
| or judging executives more than a few levels above them. I'd
| hate to work somewhere where the junior devs get to pick the
| engineering directors, for example.
| lifeisstillgood wrote:
| And that's the argument put forward in 1700s and 1800s for
| not extending the vote beyond those with land.
|
| Maybe employees will make intelligent informed decisions
| about who is actually capable as an executive. Maybe they
| will make more effective decisions themselves if they have
| a greater say and commitment to the company.
|
| Maybe not. Maybe we shall fall into totalitarian dystopias
| and the dream of universal suffrage will enter myth.
|
| maybe
| civopsec wrote:
| The real reason why the powers that be oppose workplace
| democracy is because then the well-being of the people
| that work at the company will be prioritized over making
| profits for the shareholders.
|
| > Maybe employees will make intelligent informed
| decisions about who is actually capable as an executive.
| Maybe they will make more effective decisions themselves
| if they have a greater say and commitment to the company.
|
| Yes, intelligent decisions. Such a red herring. For what
| is an "intelligent decision" in the market economy?
| Maximizing profits. So either the workers work within the
| bourgeoisie logic of maximizing profits--creating the
| same problems for themselves as they had under command
| economy rule--or they make "unintelligent decisions" by
| proritizing their collective selves. With the former they
| "fail the test" of this red herring scenario because
| _intelligent decisions_ according to the workers are not
| the same as _intelligent decisions_ according to the
| bourgeoisie.
| lifeisstillgood wrote:
| Ok - here's my take on intelligent decisions. The
| European Union has 27 countries in it - each nation has a
| proud and often violent past, with different cultural
| triggers. Politicians in Hungary can put their hands on
| hearts and talk of knights holding back the Mongols,
| Politicians in Spain can talk of defeating Moors, and
| guess what, Hungarian voters don't give two hoots about
| El Cid and Polish voters laugh if the Greek Prime
| minister lauds over Thermopylae
|
| What's left is politicians wanting to do something for
| the home crowds, and realising wrapping themselves in the
| flag won't cut it - so they go for stuff that will
| benefit everyone - build a railway from the tip of Italy
| to the top of Sweden ? Yeah why not that ought to provide
| a stronger market. We can sell that back home.
|
| If you are diverse enough the phase space of intelligent
| decisions becomes fairly narrow and surprisingly good for
| everyone.
| xyzelement wrote:
| I think the idea in the article is something like - by thinking
| company-first you can arrive at better outcomes for yourself in
| the long run. It's not about self sacrifice.
|
| Certainly all the good gains in my career happened as a
| consequence of achieving big things for the company, which I
| wouldn't have landed with me-first thinking.
| zelon88 wrote:
| Contrary to that, some of my biggest achievements have been
| things I've done on my own for companies that the company
| didn't realize it needed. Things that I've done to make my
| job easier continue to make other people's jobs easier to
| this day. Nobody asked me to do those things. The business
| would have continued regardless. But these things I did to
| make my job easier have payed dividends in the long run.
| rqtwteye wrote:
| "Certainly all the good gains in my career happened as a
| consequence of achieving big things for the company, which I
| wouldn't have landed with me-first thinking."
|
| You did me-first. You just had situations where what was good
| for the company was good for you too. If you repeatedly did
| what was good for the company but never got anything for
| yourself you would probably stop. A lot of people are in a
| situation where what's good for the company doesn't give them
| any reward or is even negative (lose their job, more work).
| misthop wrote:
| Interesting. I think I have come out about the same but being
| rather self-serving, or at least not company first.. Doing
| something big for the company reflects well on me, improves
| my standing, and I can tout those achievements to others for
| other career growth. But I do make a point of working for
| companies where I think my own interests align with the role
| in the company
| xyzelement wrote:
| Me too. I've generally only worked in companies where I
| feel good about doing right for the company eventually
| finding its way back to my comp and role. If you don't work
| in a company like that (or don't feel like you do) then
| probably the approach recommended here doesn't make sense.
| conductr wrote:
| Not sure I follow or just have contradicting experiences.
| Executive's personal bottom lines are usually tied to the
| Company's.
|
| The company's goals are usually a derivative of customer goals.
| Why are Customers not considered?
|
| Any ways, I like being individual focused, but we all work for
| _this_ Company for a reason (interest?) and so we should
| probably just say something like; the company goals should be
| such that they can be reasonably accomplished with <100% of
| available resources, time and efforts. Leaving time for some
| independent individual development. Something like what Google
| theoretically did with their 80/20 policy. It's up to you to
| figure out what the right X/Y mix is.
| pphysch wrote:
| > As I've become a more experienced manager, I've stopped giving
| this advice. I still believe it's the correct advice, and I
| continue to see managers who fail because they are missing this
| perspective. However, I've also seen some of the best leaders
| that I've worked with burn out by following this advice too
| loyally.
|
| Most employees, especially in the West, especially in USA, are
| going to be biased towards their individual interests. Aligning
| their interests with the collective organizational interest is an
| _extremely_ hard problem, but an extremely important one.
| Definitely something that could burn out a manager. But very much
| worth trying if you want a successful, healthy organization.
| youallsuck wrote:
| jacobyoder wrote:
| I've been in situations as a dev where I've figuratively
| screamed from the rafters "X is happening - we need to do ABC".
| It's almost universally ignored because "well, devs just like
| to do ABC! not happening this year... etc".
|
| No... I hate doing ABC.
|
| What's in _my_ immediate interest is to quietly paper over
| problems, and pass them along to someone else.
|
| What's _also_ in my interest _longer term_ is the organization
| to fix operational issues to help ensure there _is_ a 'longer
| term' for the organization to continue in to. To think I'm
| _not_ thinking of that, and just wanting to do bullshit busy
| work because "he's a dev! that's what they do!" is patronizing
| to say the least.
|
| Many people are capable of looking at things from a few
| perspectives.
| xyzelement wrote:
| This is a really common dynamic and I think it's an
| opportunity.
|
| Let's assume you are right, you are seeing some real threat
| and have a solution in mind.
|
| If others were "ready" to see it, they'd already see it on
| their own and you'd have nothing additional to offer.
|
| The reason your perspective is valuable is because you are
| seeing something others aren't, but it also by definition
| implies that they aren't ready to see it.
|
| This is a universal thing - the gap between your insight and
| the org's awareness is directly related both to the value of
| your insight and how much of an uphill battle the sell is.
|
| If you can become the person who can both see issues _and_
| drive others to see them through persuasive education, you
| become immensely impactful. Otherwise you are limited to only
| making impact on things where others are already sold on the
| issue while being frustrated by this limitation.
| n0w wrote:
| This is something I really struggle with. I think this
| difference of perspective is one of my greatest strengths,
| but in the last few places I've been I ended up burning out
| trying to get others to see the same things.
|
| Have you got any tips or advice for getting better at
| "persuasive education" or inspiring others to see the same
| things?
| xyzelement wrote:
| It's not just you who struggles with this - it's a very
| hard thing to do even for those who do it a lot. The
| number one barrier is just recognizing that it's _a
| thing_ and you can work on it and do consciously (and
| sounds like you did that, so that 's already huge!)
|
| In fact, what distinguishes executives is their
| experience, ability and _willingness_ to get others to
| see and rally around a problem or goal - which is why I
| positioned this to the person I was responding to as an
| opportunity. If you can figure this out, your career (and
| life) unlocks to the next level.
|
| Now to answer your question, some practical advice:
|
| 1. Most often, people conflate problems and solutions and
| just say "we should do X" without making the person first
| understand and agree that there's a problem to which X is
| a solution. So when you get pushback on X, is it because
| the other person doesn't think it's a good solution, or
| did you not even help them understand that there's a
| problem to begin with?
|
| 2. People often fail to evaluate whether problems are
| relevant, and to communicate that relevance. EG, have a
| solid answer to "who gives a fuck?" Like "this system is
| not well designed and I want to refactor it" - "who
| cares?". "This system is hard to work on, and we work on
| it all the time, so our feature delivery velocity is only
| half of what it could be" - now I am listening.
|
| 3. If you lost people, troubleshoot where you lost them.
| "You don't agree with my proposal to refactor the system,
| so I just wanted to double check if I had explained the
| problem well. To remind, do you agree that our feature
| velocity is slow? (yes/no) If yes, do you agree with me
| that the root cause of the slowness is the
| complexity/messiness of the underlying system? (yes/no)
| Do you agree that my proposal to refactor it will address
| it (yes/no) Do you just think now is not the time we can
| afford that investment (yes/no)." etc. Walk them slowly
| through the conversation, and if you ever get a "no" you
| didn't expect - dig into that. Is it because you didn't
| explain something, or because the person knows something
| you don't? It's not THAT different that debugging code,
| by trying to find the place where it disconnected from
| what you expect. But it takes time and confidence to
| stick with this process.
|
| 4. Write it down and have someone read it and tell you if
| you actually got the point across clearly. Writing things
| down helps me establish the logic to my intuition which
| is what enables me to do #3 better.
|
| 5. Realize this will never feel easy because it's hard,
| as long as you're trying and learning from the experience
| you're doing all you can be doing.
|
| 6. Take a class or read a book on negotiations
| (negotiations is just a process of understanding the
| other side's position as well as your own and talking
| through it in a way that finds a solution that works for
| both).
|
| Good luck. Happy to answer anything else.
| esparrohack wrote:
| That's cus they don't trust you. Win their trust!
|
| I don't like the persuasive education angle. You're going to
| come off as smarmy.
|
| So not everything is an opportunity. You gotta remember that
| things are the way they are cus they got that way.
|
| 1) solution may seem stupid bad now, but at the time, it was
| the lesser of two evils
|
| 2) the people most responsible are now your coworkers.
|
| It's not always a good idea to see everything or comment on
| everything. Pick your battles.
| esparrohack wrote:
| "It was very frustrating to me that the correct answer to most
| prioritization and architecture projects was obvious"
|
| Lost me there. People that think they know everything are the
| easiest to trick.
|
| "People are complex, and they get energy in complex ways. Some
| managers get energy from writing some software"
|
| No. We get energy from food.
|
| "folks will accomplish more if you let them do some energizing
| work, even if that work itself isn't very important."
|
| Cited himself. No proof of claim.
|
| " fun project is prototyping a throwaway service in a new
| programming language, then hmm, maybe that's fine. But if you put
| it into production, then your energizing detour is going to be
| net negative on energy generation after other teams are pulled in
| to figure out how to support it. Honestly, don't worry about the
| other rules, just make sure to follow this one."
|
| I think you should fix your deploy pipeline. Prototypes don't
| belong in production. Now, if that started a prototype and team
| decided it had to go to prod, then it's a good decision. They had
| their reasons
|
| ----
|
| I gave up. It's hard to take it seriously. Obviously the self is
| always more important.
|
| Anyway, the main issue is you have two midwits purple-prosing
| past each other.
|
| Circumstances change. Shit happens. There is no such thing as
| "the right way". Or correct. You pick the lesser of two evils and
| do your best.
|
| "still believe it's the correct advice, and I continue to see
| managers who fail because they are missing this perspective.
| However, I've also seen some of the best leaders that I've worked
| with burn out by following this advice too loyally."
|
| Then by definition it's not "correct" because it can fail and
| fails spectacularly.
| mfuzzey wrote:
| Problem is who gets to decide what is best for the company?
|
| In many organisations most people may not have enough information
| to really know what is best for the whole organisation, even if
| they do have good ideas about their part.
|
| And top executives often can't be trusted to act in the best
| interest of the _company_ (rather than that of the shareholders,
| the stock market or themselves...). Short term vs longterm is
| also very imporant, the best way to make a quick buck today is
| often at odds with what is needed to remain relevant in 5 or 10
| years.
| bitwize wrote:
| > Problem is who gets to decide what is best for the company?
|
| People above your pay grade. What is best for the company for
| your purposes will be made clear to you by your manager or
| their superiors. Your job is to not question or criticize but
| to carry out. Be wary of calls for feedback (e.g., eNPS); every
| Hundred Flowers Campaign can be expected to soon be followed by
| an Anti-Rightist Campaign, i.e., the feedback solicited will
| likely be used to identify and eliminate potential
| troublemakers rather than effect actual change.
| codemac wrote:
| meta, metamates, me
| simonw wrote:
| I loved this paragraph:
|
| > People are complex, and they get energy in complex ways. Some
| managers get energy from writing some software. That's great,
| particularly if you avoid writing software with strict
| dependencies. Some managers get energy from coaching others.
| That's great. Some get energy from doing exploratory work. Others
| get energy from optimizing existing systems. That's great, too.
| Some get energy from speaking at conferences. Great. Some get
| energy from cleaning up internal wiki's. You get the idea: that's
| great. All these things are great, not because managers should or
| shouldn't program/speak at conferences/clean up wiki's/etc, but
| because folks will accomplish more if you let them do some
| energizing work, even if that work itself isn't very important.
|
| A think I've found challenging about management is that /people
| are different/. What works for one person in terms of motivation
| or style of work won't work for another person. A big part of
| effective people management is understanding that and figuring
| out what style works for each of the people you work with.
| kqr wrote:
| But it's not just about people being different. It's also about
| how not everything people do has to be valuable to the
| customer. It can be valuable in the sense that the person stays
| in the organisation for longer if they get to do it.
|
| This realisation hit me when I was in a heated debate with my
| (then) product manager about what did and did not provide value
| for our customers. Then suddenly he said, "I'm pretty sure
| almost half of what I ask your team to do is not because it's
| valuable to our customers, but because it's clearly important
| to your team, for whatever reason I don't have to care about."
|
| I had no idea until that point, but it did make a lot of sense.
| wenholmes wrote:
| The thing that brought the same idea home for me is the idea
| that optimization is a destructive process. A business is a
| complex thing with many, many variables influencing its
| success. If you truly optimize "customer value" then you must
| give up everything else. A much more nuanced approach is to
| do what you did, and balance off various values against each
| other. Unfortunately this is very difficult to measure or
| "logic," it requires appreciating things like complexity,
| uncertainty, and indirection. But ultimately it produces
| better outcomes, and I'll take a manager who thinks like that
| over one that doesn't every time.
|
| P.S. Recommended reading on this topic, "Obliquity" by John
| Kay is excellent.
| throwawaysleep wrote:
| If it will put a penny in my pocket, I will burn a billion of my
| employer's dollars.
| p0pcult wrote:
| Dumb idea: what if we re conceptualized firms as entities whose
| role it is to keep people meaningfully employed at good wages, in
| order to support societal stability?
|
| Oh right, I live in the USA.
| PubliusMI wrote:
| captnswing wrote:
| I miss the customer in this. I've given the same advice in this
| format
|
| Customer > Company
|
| Company > Team
|
| Team > Self
| smcleod wrote:
| This feels like pretty typical capitalist rhetoric on the surface
| at least.
|
| Ignoring income - Do you go to work to make the company you work
| for more wealthy? Or do you go to work to enjoy what you do and
| make friends? Or do you go to work to learn new skills and better
| yourself? - In which order do you place the statements? (Yes,
| it's a false trichotomy.)
|
| Unless you're the company founder or a major shareholder I would
| really hope making the company more wealthy is not your top
| priority.
|
| I always say to my co-workers health > family > work. If they're
| not healthy, they're not happy and they're not able to look after
| family (or close friends), for family (or close friends) I'm not
| happy or healthy they're less likely to be a viable support
| network. You can be passionate, expressive, and absorbed in your
| work - but doing what is best for the company above all else is
| not what is best for humanity most of the time.
| jmk123 wrote:
| > health > family > work
|
| 100% agree.
|
| I would've flipped the thesis of the post in reverse order:
| yourself, your team, your company.
| wccrawford wrote:
| I agree, but it's more complex than both of those. If
| something matters to you, but matters a _lot_ more to the
| company, it 's probably a good idea to do what's good for the
| company. And if it matters a _lot_ to you and not much to the
| company, it 's probably right to do what you want.
|
| When things meet in the middle it means you have to take lot
| of other things into account, too, to make the decision.
|
| These hollow 1-way maps don't ever give good advice.
| alex_young wrote:
| Management theory ex Office Space?
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dA5rB63Mzc8
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