Comment by supernova87a | Hacker News Reader

Comment by supernova87a | Hacker News Reader

It would be amazing if there were a silver bullet like this that everyone could identify the root cause of companies' woes. And could be reset by flipping a switch.

But I think it's much deeper -- having worked at a couple big companies now, I realize (at least to my limited observations) that the path of a company is set by the deeply ingrained culture that has been established over many years by its founders, by its evolution, its successive leaders, and in fact, the competitive environment in which it operates. Things (good or bad) that last far beyond any one leader.

It manifests in the little incentives that people far below the CEO understand to do their jobs in a certain way, to pursue certain things and decide to drag their feet or ignore certain other things.

If you were hired at a company and worked there for years understanding that if you did <x>, you got <y>, it will be hard to change a whole workforce of that notion, especially when one individual gets beaten back in line if they stray. Even if others want to change just as much. Even if the CEO says to change. It takes years for that info to percolate. Sometimes it never does.

No, sometimes companies need to die in order to be reborn.

You're describing life under caretaker CEOs, which true to form are a self-fulfilling prophecy for mediocrity. The vast majority of large public CEOs are caretaker CEOs, and it's why working for large public companies can feel so slow and dreary.

But then you get turnaround CEOs, the ones the board hires because the company is in dire financial straits, who comes in, fires executives, sets new strategy, communicates openly and plainly across all layers of management and labor. Things can change quickly under the right leadership.

I experienced two turnaround CEOs, and they were the ones that did all the firing. One let the company bleed away headcount until it became desirable for a buyer.

What that really a turnaround then?

For the one that let the company bleed, it was supposed to be, until the previous recession hit, and it became more of “a soft landing is better than a hard one”.

The same happens in companies led by founders. I've seen it, and lots of people at google when under larry and sergey will tell you. People under Zuckerberg at FB, Bill G at MSFT, there are stories from all these places if you talk to folks who were there.

And they were all smart guys, courageous, right incentives etc. Large organizations are complicated. The post above is right - there is no silver bullet.

I was under the impression that they were largely stepped out because they couldn't continue the business side of being executives and felt like they were letting the company down? Maybe just impressions I got regarding their departures. I kinda feel like from an outsiders perspective Google had already started to turn into not quite awesome before Larry stepped down. The only interest I have in Google these days is following their next to be cancelled project blunder, year after year.

Well they're sacking a lot of people to avoid thinking about strategy. Maybe firing CEO's is the silver bullet. A big stick incentive to remind the C suite to drive value creation rather than whatever they do now.

It was Sundar's idea (reportedly) to build a browser. Has to be one of the top 10 strategic decisions in the history of business. He's no dummy.

My only experience with turnaround managers at any level boils down to people who don’t take the time to understand how things work before making sweeping changes that they either had at previous employers or wished they had at previous employers. It never seemed to work besides by accident, and definitely seemed to have little to do with a desire or ability to improve the quality of a business.

One of the wall street darlings turn around specialist Albert Dunlap committed fraud probably at every company he ran. So there is that.

I agree. I think when Steve Jobs returned to apple, direction was coaxed from the workforce. The memo to stay or leave. The product confusion and the "4-quadrant" idea (laptop/desktop consumer/pro)

I also remember what happened when steve jobs came back from medical leave, and lots of directionless meandering was cancelled out as someone took the rudder again.

But first you need a company in dire enough straits that a critical mass of people understand a turnaround is necessary. Otherwise, that transformational leader may fire a few people but end up undermined by the masses who just don't care.

> No, sometimes companies need to die in order to be reborn.

Absolutely agreed, but here's my take: Enabling failure to be more equitable either helps fix a company's problems faster, or causes the company to fail faster. These are both healthy things.

You describe corporate culture as being something that's very difficult to change. Absolutely true. If culture, to some degree, is a root problem for why a company isn't performing well, lay-offs aren't going to improve things. They're only going to make things worse. Exiting the CEO or other leadership and bringing in new leadership that can reorganize, push culture in a specific direction, increase output, etc; could help things. Change isn't easy, and many people will resist the change, but being able to view that resistance through the lens of a conversation with the people resisting rather than a broad and blind lay-off actually helps. At a high level, you can build the framework of new expectations; identify problem departments, teams, and people; help them adjust to the new normal; and at worse have that hard conversation.

But, of course, some companies are just rotten beyond repair; and changes like this would change too much and potentially disrupt the whole organization. It sucks, but its better to identify that sooner rather than later.

Saying "ah darn, well running a company is hard, if only there was a panacea for our problems ah darn!" is so fucking often used as an excuse to keep bad leadership around. No: There isn't a panacea. That does not exempt leadership from criticism!

Satya Nadella 180'd Microsoft's culture on a dime. You're right that it isn't just about specific decisions, it's about pervasive culture, but I think a given CEO is (or at least can be) the person who defines the culture

I don't think that's a fair comparison; a lot of the so-called "improved Microsoft culture" is (1) the product of the growth of greenfield orgs and acquisitions (Azure, Github, etc), and (2) a PR smokescreen. Microsoft still has a VERY substantial old guard.

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