Democratized management could become a major recruiting advantage
blog.jaredfriedman.com
blog.jaredfriedman.com
I worked at Valve for several years, and my experience was quite different from what the popular handbook described. It wasn't an especially bad experience, but it wasn't nearly as good as the lore makes it out to be. As you might expect, without written rules or hierarchy, the scene is dominated by social forces. If you put a bunch of people in a room, tell them that there is no hierarchy, then compel them to complete a difficult task, natural human interaction will create a pecking order among other very ugly control systems. Without some rational thought (ie written and mutually-agreed rules and laws), things can turn into Lord of the Flies pretty quickly. It's true that no one tells anyone else what to do at Valve. It's also true that people get fired without warning. Think of it more like the wild west than anything else. Sure, you can be very successful there, but the chaos level might be too high for some folks (me). Check out glassdoor for other anecdotes.
This is a 1970s article about power structures in the women's liberation movement, which also tried to embrace structureless, "flat" leadership. What you're describing isn't new, it's a lesson that's been relearned many times.
I'm not entirely sure that trading explicit power for implicit power is a good thing. It can definitely build a more collaborative atmosphere when done right, but it also can be very disorienting and opaque for new or less savvy people.
Discussed recently here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9617665
Few seem to use Robert's Rules of Order any more. (Except union meetings.[http://www.ueunion.org/stwd_tipsrununmtg.html]) Those rules built on the assumption that the goal of a meeting is to make decisions, which are then acted upon. Motion, discussion, vote, on to the next item. Without that kind of structure, the loudest voice in the room tends to win.
The military has the interesting convention that the most junior person in the meeting speaks first on a topic. This is to avoid everybody agreeing on an off the cuff bad idea from the senior officer present.
Who decides who is getting fired and for what kind of reasons do people get fired for at Valve? Like how does that process work from top to bottom? Does a general consensus build among some of the people who've been there longer and they start plotting your downfall behind your back, take it to Gabe Newell and then you're out the door?
I've read about this before[1] but was curious if you had any more insights.
[1] http://www.develop-online.net/news/valve-s-perfect-hiring-hi...
Come on now, you can't just call something that and not elaborate!
Unless you have a team of unusually conscientious engineers, "democratic" or "flat" decision-making often translates to who shouts the loudest.
Not to mention engineers often want to complete the project in the most technically exciting way possible, rather than the way that will most benefit the product. Flat structure + too many engineers like that and you end up with this http://www.smbc-comics.com/?id=2597, written in Haskell.
Or the one that has the most political capital.
Well, this has a habit of happening everywhere, no matter who is running the show.
If I were a minority or worse at getting along with others I'd definitely avoid flat management schemes as well.
> Agreed
Unless you have a team of unusually conscientious engineers, "democratic" or "flat" decision-making often translates to who shouts the loudest.
> Not to mention engineers often want to complete the project in the most technically exciting way possible, rather than the way that will most benefit the product.
Also sadly true and even has a name: Resume Driven Development
> Flat structure + too many engineers like that and you end up with this http://www.smbc-comics.com/?id=2597, written in Haskell.
Aww, why pick on Haskell here? You know Bump[0] used Haskell. Point being that Haskell can be a choice which is a choice that most benefits the product. I recently had experience writing an app to deal with medical data sets that really benefited from correct by construction or wholemeal[1] programming.
0: https://www.fpcomplete.com/wp-content/uploads/Bump-case-stud... 1: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/6957270/what-is-wholemeal...
Noted as a good example in the stack overflow answer:
> I always found the Hutton/Bird Sudoku solver a good example of wholemeal programming: http://www.cs.nott.ac.uk/~gmh/sudoku.lhs
Isn't that how hierarchical corporations work anyway? If you aren't part of an in-group or friendly enough with a particular department then your coworkers become an impediment to getting things done.
Most lean manufacturing books will talk about how managers have to go investigate problems raised by employees. Having reports means the manager has some level of responsibility to see that their reports can do their job.
A "flat" structure just means that the senior employees (and there are senior employees) never have to do their jobs, because they don't have a team that can fail.
As for turf wars - they'll still exist. But nothing's as bitter as a turf war where there's no-one with the authority to sort things out.
The author does make a good point that organizational structure and decision-making is an area ripe for innovation and improvement. And it does indeed seem to be one where new companies have a distinct advantage over existing ones.
A lot of the things people dislike in traditional management hierarchies are also things that are ultimately bad for the company overall and its shareholders - excessive politics, slow decision-making, etc.
A flat organization is something else entirely. The Valve way is simple, but not easy. You need to be able to put a huge amount of trust in people. You can't be shy about getting rid of people who aren't working out. It's not "managerless nirvana," it's different, and it's unclear if it's really what you want in a focused company like a start-up, where you have a financial fuse and little luxury to experiment.
(I read the Zappos manifesto. It was full bull-goose batshit crazy; basically unreadable psychobabble power-blended with scientology-class buzzwords. It looked like they didn't want employees, they wanted bio-robots capable of running some funky version of Python. Hoo boy).
I don't like being told how to do my job.
But I don't want to do everyone else's, either.
On an engagement I don't have to think about what feature to develop next. That's up to my product manager, working with a designer. I sometimes venture an opinion, but it's just, like, my opinion man.
And they don't have to worry about the minutiae of code. That's my job as an engineer. They can ask questions and make suggestions, but it's up to my peers and I to decide the engineering questions.
The problem isn't with clearcut roles. Clear separation of responsibility is great. The problem is trust.
And trust problems are not solved by throwing everyone into the same deep end.
Find people who are GOOD at leading, make them leaders. If you have bad leaders, of course that's a bad thing, but "WE DON'T LIKE BOSSES" is a horrible way to tell if someone is good or bad at leading, it's just teenage angst.
I reckon there is leadership when a boss is driving a corporate all-hands. But when you're in a 1-on-1 with your team lead, and he tells you that your performance is too low, there is no leadership involved. It's only driving and authority. No convincing, no leadership. The TL is here to review the tasks, the sprint backlog, remove hurdles for you, potentially check everyone's preferences or career advancement.
Can someone point me to a situation where a team lead isn't acting using authority but using leadership? Is there any time I could choose that he's wrong and do something else than he says?
* You aren't a team player, and he doesn't like you. He doesn't like spending time with you, he wants you to quit. This is a personality issue. Possibly he's at fault, but more than likely you are. Ask yourself, "Do I make the jobs of other people easier or harder? Do I make my team lead's job easier or harder?" Be honest. Remember, missing a deadline is often something he can smooth over. If you were really irreplaceable you wouldn't be having reviews with your team lead -- watch your attitude. (I'm putting this first because it's a hot market and so many devs have attitude problems / entitlement problems as a result.) Personality is 85% of your success, technical skills the other 15%.
* He has to give someone a bad rating (and he doesn't like you / you are the low man). Stack ranking sucks, but it's very real. You are being graded on a curve at work, even if you're a solid performer you're being compared to the others on your team. Always do what you can to show your worth. Never let others speak or you, or present your ideas. Get the credit for what you do.
* You deserve it. Be honest.
* He's a douche. But chances are he is a douche because he doesn't have insight (because you didn't do your work in a way he could see it, or your attitude sucks). It's rare for team leads to want people off their team, they usually aren't promoted because they were bad at their job / not ambitious. As long as you know what his ambitions are... and align yourself with them... you can have a great relationship with your boss. Don't jump to the conclusion that your boss is a douche. Do your best, and try to understand what's going on here. 99% of the time your boss wants you to succeed and you're your own worst enemy in the workplace.
But I was really asking about the team lead. Even for others, you drive a team by prioritizing a backlog and communicating. But if you do things your employees don't like, it's the same story, they still have to work hard and perform best.
At what moment is leadership involved in being a manager, rather than natural subordination from the employees?
You have a valid point... and that is to say that leadership doesn't have to be from the managers only. But often they're the only ones who (because of all the damn meetings) have a full view of what's going on with the company, their competitors, and with the market as a whole.
The amount of time I devote to not coding... it makes me good at things that aren't coding. The amount of time my trusted tech lead puts into coding and helping train junior devs (so they'll hit me up for raises) is also staggering.
I miss having a hands-on job, but it's sort of a question of "who are you doing it for?" He's doing it for the staff, and I guess indirectly the company. But I would say I do it for the company, and when the company is healthy that indirectly helps the staff.
You're going to need both kinds of leadership.
Bad leaders will lean on the authority of being a boss and be coercive. When you have no bosses or you have temporary leaders/bosses who don't have authority there is no choice but to convince your peers that the thing you're working on is worthwhile.
"We don't like bosses" is only teenage angst if there's no alternative provided or explored.
>Not really sure why anyone would think democracy was a good way to run a company
George Orwell described the difference in the fascist and anarchist armies in Spain, where the anarchist groups had to convince their peers to do something. Yes it took a little longer to say "we should attack/defend X because Y and Z, and <insert answers to more questions about the plan here>" than to say "we are attacking/defending X right now or you will be shot". But each person who signed up to the plan were convinced that it was a good idea, they were more dedicated.
So yeah, you're right, lots of people in a company aren't good at leading. So either we help them get better or we reduce the power of bosses so that if a bad leader becomes in charge we all don't have to suffer (democracies are stronger than monarchies and dictatorships, pretty good reason to explore how democracy can benefit a workplace).
Now of course there are companies who have adapted this to fit modern labour types in various ways. But is there a better way?
I've had many engineers tell me that they find the emphasis on free food these days to be patronizing, as if engineers were not capable of obtaining their own food. Some of the disadvantages of free food:
- You are pressured to eat whatever the company provides. What if you prefer something else?
- You are socially pressured to eat with your coworkers every single day
- It's a transparent attempt to get people to spend more hours in the office, in return for food that is worth only a few dollars; not nearly as much as their time.
- It removes the natural opportunity for a break around lunchtime to go outside and get something to eat.
Anyway, your point is still valid that free food is less controversial than democratized management ... by a long shot :). But I thought that it was interesting how the culture around company-provided food is changing.
That's one of the reasons why it's so offered - it's a very cost effective way to increase compensation.
Did somebody hire you? He's your boss. Can somebody fire you? He's your boss. Can they tell you to show up at work at certain times, or prevent you from taking the afternoon off to take your kid to the doctor? He's your boss. Can someone control whether or not you get a raise? They're your boss.
Most importantly:
Does somebody extract the excess value from the of the labor you provide, and claim the right to do so by more efficiently organizing the workplace so as to produce value most efficiently? That's what management is.
These functions don't have to be performed by specific people with CO titles, but they do need to be done. A cooperative can perform them in a slightly different way, a partnership by slightly different rules, a privately-held VC-backed corporation by others, and publicly-traded multinationals by yet others.
I have a hard time believing that Silicon Valley is about to see a wave of startups organized in a cooperative structure. The entire culture and infrastructure is built like a factory farm to raise little companies into behemoths by pumping them full of steroids, hormones, and venture capital. I doubt most worker-run companies would make the same kinds of ethical and business decisions that VCs do, and I really* don't see VCs changing the MO to one where they just sign checks and then let the workers decide what to do with them democratically.
That said, if tech talent remains scarce, and therefore in a position to continue demanding the kind of humane treatment all workers would like, that talent may just be able to drive a change--but it won't happen in California. My guess would be that this may drive engineers to the Midwest, with its lower cost of real estate and already-entrenched culture of cooperatives (in agriculture and some industries) and worker-led structures like labor unions. Places like Chicago, Detroit, Indianapolis, or maybe even college towns like Madison and Ann Arbor (where housing cooperatives are very prevalent and widely-accepted) would be where I would look for this kind of change first. Current "'Silicon $foo' where $foo != 'Valley'" type cities (St. Louis, Austin, etc) may be a good bet too.
In short, Dylan was right, and ultimately, you gotta serve somebody.
I think this outlook is either very semantic or are overlooking how much human organisations vary geographically and historically. We have had tribes, clans, nations, hoards, navies, divinely mandated empires, amateur field hockey teams, political parties, a diverse range of associations wherein people wear uncomfortable clothes and vow celibacy... An "organisation" is just a group of people a memoplex of human culture. We have had all sorts.
A limited liability company is just one of these. We are going to keep inventing more of them. I don't think it's far fetched to expect that one or two of them will produce camera drones, video games, or medicines.
If you think these are all the same, because the abbot is the manager or something along these lines, that's what I mean by very semantic. Otherwise, change is always possible.
By the way, for reference, VCs invested $48 billion (~= 44 billion €) in 2014, which was the top year since 2000.
http://europa.eu/workingforyou/en/content/eu-launches-€-315-...
What are you talking about? In the flat-managed places I've worked in, a group a peers periodically voted on everyone else's performance. If you had to leave the office for something, you announced it (but never asked permission for it ) on the group mailing list.
> Does somebody extract the excess value from the of the labor you provide, and claim the right to do so by more efficiently organizing the workplace so as to produce value most efficiently?
The one I'm talking about was a publicly traded company, so no. The technical "owner" of the company had little to no say in the management. Maybe this place was not the typical employer. It was in a field where talent is extremely valued. The employees ruled.
If you ask me, it's quite a bit harder to brown-nose 20 of your peers, than just one boss. The dynamics were vastly different than a non-flat, 1-boss system.
> publicly traded company, so no.
Er, yes. The shareholders get your excess value and are ultimately in control. Ford v. Dodge is your constraint. I'm sure they take no active part so long as you're successful, but when you're not, what happens then?
The self-organisation described is not pure mutuality, it's just delegation from the shareholders, who currently trust that the organisation's self-organising will most likely give them the best return. Ultimately they have the right to reorganise you.
One of the popular references in this area is the USMC's book Warfighting (free PDF, Google it), which lays out their doctrine of Manoeuvre Warfare, i.e. that by optimising the speed at which your force can react and manoeuvre you can overload your opponent's command structure. To do that they distribute decision making to the greatest feasible extent under the premise that a squad leader on the front lines has the most accurate information, so must be empowered with the right amount of context and self-determination within their orders. Rather than "take that hill" it's more like "we need to advance to X, and the mortar on that hill is preventing us".
Anyway, the main point is that nobody to my knowledge is suggesting we get rid of management (the verb), and nor is anyone saying that we should ignore the power structures inherent in hiring/firing/remuneration.
Interesting theory. (Let me add Minneapolis to your list.) The Midwest gets a lot of bad press on the Coasts ("flyover country") but what's missed is that if you control for urban-versus-rural or for density, it's probably the most educated and liberal part of the country (perhaps tied with the Pacific Northwest). The East Coast, for example, isn't notably cultured (to any degree that's hard to find in other parts of the country) outside of certain neighborhoods in Boston or New York (which are getting expensive and inaccessible anyway).
The real cultural tension in the U.S. isn't South vs. North or "Red States" versus "Blue States". You might call it "urban versus rural", but there are so few farmers (and most farmers I know are actually quite educated; you have to be smart to compete with agricorps) that it's more of an urban versus suburb dichotomy (with the distinction depending more on lifestyle and outlook than whether the location is technically part of the incorporated city).
So yes, I agree. I don't know that we need more talent coming into the Midwest (although it won't hurt); we just need to stop losing the talent that we have to the Bay Area (where young engineers are still paid better after adjusting for cost-of-living; once you get older, the Midwest starts to win because it's more like 140k vs. 170k than 70k vs. 120k). Obviously, most of those talented people don't stay in the Bay Area (they get older, need space for families) but there isn't a clear "next" destination for them. Do they go to Seattle? Chicago? Portland? Austin? Somewhere else? Perhaps this is a good thing, though, because it's probably better for the country to have talent spread around than to try to replicate an aberration (SV's concentration of economic activity, which congests it and deprives the rest of the country).
Please don't degrade HN threads with uncivil jabs.
Apart from that sour note, this comment is excellent, and I hope you post more about that experience.
Edit: detached from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9908463 and marked off-topic.
The question was actually not a rhetorical jab :) But thanks, I'll keep that in mind.
I feel bad for taking a substantive subthread off-topic so I will detach this digression from its parent and demote it.