> Is it inconceivable that each part works to its own goals and metrics consistent both with its own values and those of the wider organisation?
Beyond a certain number of people, absolutely it is.
Beyond a certain number of people, absolutely it is.
Trying to group 1000 people together and measure all of them, sure that seems insurmountable for an informal system.
Taking that same group of 1000, splitting them into subgroups of 7 and giving those individual groups their own goals and autonomy to pursue them may again allow for informal performance measurement.
that's because of the lack of trust, and the flow of responsibility and control.
If you structure a company such that the employees themselves has to be responsible for their output in such a way that higher output leads to more money for them, you'd not have this problem. For example, contractors who work on a results basis.
But what metric would you use to measure output that solves the gamification problem?
Even for contractors or sales people (where you could use the sales volume), this could lead them to favor short term results and compromise the long-term health of the company (e.g. by favoring quick, low-quality solutions by contractors, or selling features that don't yet exist and creating unsustainable roadmaps by sales people).
Maybe the gaming effect would be lessened by that compensation approach, but at a very large scale org, I doubt that it would. Although, it would be interesting to see real life studies of this, in case such practices have already been tried out.
It’s only true if you believe that the average human being is not opportunistic.
so let that happen. Those who can't can leave, and see how the company actually fairs. When they find that some crucial roles aren't taken and the company starts "failing", then they will surely admit that said role is needed, and reward it accordingly.
But perhaps there are indeed roles that aren't useful, and therefore, actually could've been eliminated but for the stigma - so may be this is the way to go forward.
I currently work for a company that has been transitioning from being tiny (I was employee #24) to pretty big (we're close to 60 now). One thing I've learned, much to my disappointment, is that once you get past a certain size it gets harder and harder to recruit people worth trusting with that kind of responsibility. The supply of such people is too limited, and they tend to get poached quickly.
>If you structure a company such that the employees themselves has to be responsible for their output in such a way that higher output leads to more money for them
Oh so all you need to do is fairly and reliably measure "output" in an ungameable way? Easy! /s
If your feeling that at 60, imagine what that must feel like..
I agree with your point, but I think your scale factors for size are off by orders of magnitude.
That seems like an absurd standard to me. The three largest employers in the world (by number of employees) are 1. The U.S. Department of Defense, 2. The People's Liberation Army (China), and 3. Walmart. Each of these three largest employers in the world has between 2 and 3 million employees, which is much less than your standard of "tens of millions".
Prior to that size companies can kind of get by on luck, skill, or the "heroic efforts" of individual contributors to carry them along. Once you hit 50 FTE that approach starts to fail more and fail harder. This is why tons of small businesses flame out when they hit this threshold.