As a skeptical corporate peon: This is an attempt to make everyone an "individual contributor." In many ways this is good, even great: people who manage processes are often crazily, even completely out of touch with the work it takes to actually complete their processes. See that lsherwood post. But then again if i didn't have a manager of some sorts I'd really never do anything. 1) I note as a multi-year extremely-intermittent Zappo's shopper that 2-day shipping is no longer standard; instead 4-5 BD shipping is the new "free" and those white kicks I need for my Halloween costume this Friday just got $15 tacked on for 2-day, which of course is all that will do, except it used to be this was a benefit of using Zappo's not a cost; Therefore 2) I wonder as a banker, a corporate peon, a worker, a consumer and therefore as a person who reads "let's get rid of bosses" and concludes "let's get rid of hierarchy", if what Zappo's is really trying to do is just cut their costs and maximimze profits now that they done got caught and their manager needs to answer to another manager
Now, just as an honest corporate peon, maybe even an optimistic one: If I didn't have a manager I'd totally absolutely get nothing done, at all, ever, besides writing and hubski and reddit and every single interesting thing you can think to look up on Wikipedia and then all the summations of all the basic plots and then every single short story of any note you can read free online and then all the interesting lit journals and then their archives and oh did I mention yet I once read the entirety of HPMOOR on work time at a shitty job? In like maybe a month? And did I mention all those pictures of cats? It would be so great, not having a manager. And then it would be boring and then it would be terrible. And then, maybe then, I'd give you more than half-invested work. So no. Don't get rid of the managers. Someone needs to manage me.
A good manager's job is to figure out where the team needs help and push resources in that direction. A great manager keeps the higher ups off the back of the team. Good managers also make doing shit work bearable, if not fun. Steam is a great example of why you need someone in charge. Their Customer Service sucks because there is nobody in charge to force someone ANYONE to step into the crap work of dealing with angry people and fix the end user experiences of their customers. My boss knows when I am frustrated and need a break by the way I pound on the keyboard. She then gives me something to do so that I have to step back for a few. I'm the type of person who gets in a zone and digs a tunnel of focus that I tend to not look around me and forget other duties. Without a good manager, I'd be a bad employee. Nice way of putting it. Bravo.If I didn't have a manager I'd totally absolutely get nothing done
So no. Don't get rid of the managers. Someone needs to manage me.
Decentralization and the end of topdownism seems to be driving change now. Think about it.
Sounds like The Circle by Dave Eggers... So instead of having jobs, in Holacracy people have roles. Each role belongs to a circle rather than a department, and circles are guided not by managers but by lead links.
Duuude, I thought the same thing. What'd you think of The Circle? I really enjoyed it conceptually. As a literary piece of work, it sucked (IMO).
Damn, really? That's a shame. I marathoned the end. Granted, I was on an 11 hour flight so...there wasn't much else to do. Interestingly enough, I did not anticipate the ending.
I wish that you would unlock that article. The first tidbit sounds intriguing. I'm calling total and complete bullshit on "self-organizing." Self-organization as a biology construct (which they keep mentioning here) has as much to do with corporate structure as social darwinism has to do with actual natural selection. One has to make a choice with one's structure, and no structure is also a choice, albeit probably a really bad one. Self-organization arises in biology due to thermodynamics. Self-organization in the corporate world sounds like a recipe for bullies controlling everyone. Even if it isn't, there's not much worse than corporate assholes co-opting science for their self serving social interests (even though they're totally beyond ego, dude). And anyway, who says that ant colonies, being self organized, don't have a hierarchy? A drone will always sacrifice herself in service of the colony. Is that what Tony Hsieh wants? If he didn't have an ego I suspect so. I'm trying hard not to sit in judgement of this system, because I've only read a few articles about it, so my knowledge is limited. But as a scientist, the language sounds like eugenics all over again. Maybe I'm wrong. However, I can't see myself ever working at a "teal" firm, as bad as working for a boss can seem sometimes.
My two favorite workplace maxims: Work expands to fit available time; and, Workers are promoted until they are no longer competent (aka the Peter Principle). That's a great summation of my opinions of corporate hierarchy, even if it's not accurate as a reflection of individual people I know and work with within that hierarchy.
FWIW, this is pretty close to Valve's company design, and from what I've heard, most employees there are pretty happy with the workplace. Though I think it does take a lot of pruning of potential hires to find people who work well in that model.Self-organization in the corporate world sounds like a recipe for bullies controlling everyone. Even if it isn't, there's not much worse than corporate assholes co-opting science for their self serving social interests (even though they're totally beyond ego, dude).
A) They have like 300 employees who are all focused on game development, and B) They definitely do have some dissenters. Point A is probably the most salient, as dissenters abound in every organization.
Anecdotal evidence, I have some second / third connections in Valve and I'm yet to hear a bad thing about working there. I've also heard the only way is recommendations from people already working there.
Sorry. The ability to make a one-letter account was part of a bug introduced when we added the captcha to account creation. Unfortunately, that bug created a pretty big security hole; you could log on as an existing user. Patching that bug killed off one letter accounts, as cool as they were.