Susan Fowler: Why I Wrote the Uber Memo | Hacker News Reader

Susan Fowler: Why I Wrote the Uber Memo

nytimes.com

33 pointsaugustt13 comments

I reread her memo, https://www.susanjfowler.com/blog/2017/2/19/reflecting-on-on...

It is discouraging, the corruption shown by just one of any of the people she interacted with. Then to see it in so many different people, so consistently, with no exceptions, is eye opening to me. But worst of all is their job titles: manager, director, executive, Human Resources. Part of their jobs was to get in the way of this very thing!

The thing is I don't think Uber was acting any differently than any other corporation. This is just how corporations operate. They are sociopathic entities.

Not quite. The organization will defend the organization, but a more mature and less toxic organization will do that by removing the toxic elements instead of enabling them. The founder sets the tone, though, and ultimately Uber had to remove the founder to reduce the toxicity of the organization.

They were different. I've worked at only one that was as toxic as Uber under Travis Kalanick but most of the others were far better to their employees.

HR is to protect the company not employees.

I wish they taught this in college because if you have to learn it on your own, it's a painful lesson.

They clearly failed at that.

But I have to agree with the general theme of what you're saying--HR will always try to suppress the victim.

Asking because I’m genuinely interested in a solution: Is there a way to design a HR department against this?

For your own company, how would you set up a HR function that does not have this tendency?

You wouldn't have an HR department as they currently exist, imo. Too many companies lump too many roles into that space because they don't fit need buckets besides "people stuff." Like just split of disputes into a department like you would compliance or an outside auditor.

But honestly it's an organizational systems and behavioral science problem. Look at the trends of HR problems that cause risk to the business (either directly through settlement or brand harm, or indirectly by losing good talent, also personal risk like being able to sleep at night), then isolate the feedback loops that allow the discord to amplify and eliminate them. So go trawl some unis that have systems researchers and spend money on IO psychologists, also listen to them because they're better educated on the subject than most business folks.

It’s called a “union.”

If I want to build a big company how do I prevent stuff like this? What if I aggressively fire those kinds of managers and anyone playing these kinds of political games? I imagine you'd have to deal with lawsuits but you'd be more successful as a business so it wouldn't matter.

Setting the right vision and hiring well helps. But I think you need to have consequences for when you make mistakes there.

book advertisement.

do not take that as being critical of the content. just calling it out for what it is. i think it will actually be a good read and i admire her courage.

it's double-shipping

https://zachholman.com/posts/double-shipping

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