Hacker News Reader

Which organizations have figured out how to handle their bad apples?

It’s not a binary outcome. Of course all large organizations will have people of varying types. But it’s an order of magnitude easier to clean house outside of government and union shops.

Am big fan of Peter Drucker. Believe management is a technology.

I'd LOVE for someone to research this. Case studies. Metrics.

My experience with unions has been mixed. Same with non-union shops. Recognizing that I'm just a simple bear, I haven't been able to figure out any rules for what works, or doesn't. My hunch is governance. eg Unions that are more democratic, accountable perform better. I have zero notions about what might make non-union shops better or worse.

All of the ones that last. If you don't handle your bad apples and your business requires generating a profit to survive, you will not prosper for long if you don't prune the bad apples (and you may not even survive, unless the business throws off such huge profits that it can afford to carry the dead weight).

It's as simple as "Please clean out your desk". Have you never seen The Apprentice? Do you believe that people never get fired?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com