151–160 of 171 posts
Excuses happen because people don't want to be blamed. If your team had an excuses problem, it's a response to a blame problem: when a problem is identified, people aren't looking for solutions, they're looking for someone to blame. Saying "no excuses" and "we're holding people accountable" might fix the excuses problem, but it exacerbates the blame problem. "Holding people accountable" is just blaming people harder…
We come up with a target that we plan on achieving in 6 weeks and then we have said 6 weeks to execute on that plan. For example, if our goal is to add four features to a product we write it down and the intent is to deliver in six weeks.
That being said, no excuses. When it comes time to deliver we should be able to deliver on anything that we committed to. BUT - and I think this is what Steve does a poor job of spinning - it's not that we have to have our original plan fully executed; rather, if we found a problem along the way it's expected that we raise the issue and course-correct. If one of those four features turns out to hit a snag we alert the PMs and generally just cut back our scope.
The thing is that we are accountable for our work. Accountability does not mean that you'll necessarily accomplish everything on your plate - it just means that at the end of our timeline we don't throw up our arms and say that it didn't get done. We've been transparent with our stakeholders the entire way and so when something goes awry they knew about it well ahead of time and could do their own expectation management with whomever their stakeholders are - thus putting everyone in a much better position.
While I would refrain from calling this a "no excuses" culture - which sounds really dickish and annoyingly managerial - I would say a culture of accountability is an extremely strong and empowering thing. It puts the onus on you to execute but enough latitude to express when execution is no longer feasible within the expected window.
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I disagree. Strongly. A common attitude of effective managers as documented by First, Break All The Rules can be summed up by, "I never waited too long to make the right hire. I never fired the wrong one quickly enough." Having the wrong employee is very toxic for your organization and culture. The rules that Steve laid out do not actually put pressure on people. They amount to, "Be accountable for what you say, try…
>> The rules that Steve laid out do not actually put pressure on people. They amount to, "Be accountable for what you say, try to make it work, and let people know quickly once you hit a roadblock." It is about effort and communication, not achieving results. Just want to clarify: It's subjective perspective. It is pressure and it is about achieving results, but it's not unreasonable or unexpected for any business. I…
Right. Whether there is pressure is a subjective judgement. But the fact that you feel pressure DOES NOT make it an objective fact that someone else is putting pressure on you.
To get to an objective fact, you would need to find fair and neutral third parties. Neither of the two people directly involved can actually judge.
As a neutral third party, my impression of Steve Blank is that he is probably a very good person to work for. I have been in environments similar to the one that he described. And I found them very good environments to be in.
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In reading the article I also had the same interpretation as cj. Blank is talking about acknowledging and dealing with risks early.
> Blank is talking about acknowledging and dealing with risks early. True that. He also mentioned firing people for not complying with his new rules several times. And also that he did. Those seem like the more substantive acts of his reign, as communicated in this post.
However, we don't know the exact circumstances behind the firings. I'm giving Steve the benefit of the doubt that he didn't fire folks who slipped deadlines just once, but removed though who consistently didn't deliver or acknowledge risks early.
Effective policies need teeth. Particularly if your company is in a lean position (emerging from bankruptcy). It reminds me of the "War time CEO" chapter from Ben Horowitz's "The Hard Thing about Hard Things".
This was a good post and an interesting idea with some nice conclusions. One of the commenters, however, nailed it and got to the heart of the difficulty: getting people to do what they say they will do . Period. Full stop. You can wrap excuses, or culture, or other corporate vocabulary around the matter, but it boils down to that fundamental thing of people doing what they are asked and delivering what they say they…
I was enlisted. The military is a mismanaged, incompetent bureaucracy. You will never see a privately owned business as terrible at everything as the military because private businesses can't manage through fear the way the military can. The military is the last bastion of contractual servitude for a reason. Bad leaders would have literally no one left working for them if we were given a choice.
My father was a professor teaching business at a small college. On his first semester teaching, he assigned an essay due in a couple months. He said any papers turned in a day late got docked one grade, two days two grades, etc. He said no excuses would be accepted, because they had two months to do the work. The due date rolled around, and half the class turned in their papers late, and got docked grades accordingly…
Teaching business, he also wrote this on the blackboard on the first day one semester: business entrepreneuer its it's there they're their And said that if any of these words were misspelled on a paper or exam, it was an automatic F. He was sick of business majors misspelling business, and said after the new policy he didn't have to give anyone an F for that. Nobody complained about it, either. Give people reasonable…
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I was trying to intentionally create an example that avoided any case where "vigilance" would have made a difference, but I guess I wasn't clear. I don't know the age of your children, but speaking of them in a general sense (i.e. they'll still be "your child" until they're 18), I presume they will at some point go to a store on their own, take public transit, etc.? That is, they will be out in public without you, if…
My oldest will soon be thirty. I fundamentally do not agree with you. My sons were raised with real agency and genuine respect from the get go. They did not cave to bullying by adults, even as children. When away from me in public school, they inferred that they were entitled to enforce the standards I had set at home and they were not inclined to take shit off anyone. This is not an argument you will "win" with me.…
The point is:
You argued people get deemed responsible for things entirely outside their control, and as an example you pointed out parents are expected to pay for something their kids broke.
The first person to responded pointed out that you're usually not deemed accountable for things entirely outside your control, and in the case of a kid breaking something, you're expected to pay because you have a large amount of control over your kids habits, and you certainly have a large amount of control over your kids whereabouts, so them throwing a stone to break a window is something you could have avoided.
And no one deems you responsible you for things that you couldn't truly control about your kid. As an example, if your kid hits someone with a medicine ball after their gym teacher instructs them to use them in a slightly dangerous way, no one would have you pay the other kid's hospital bill.
I've always been struck by an odd irony in academia: People tend to have left-wing political beliefs, but maintain an organizational culture that is decidedly authoritarian. Perhaps this is necessary: I can't think of how else to manage a classroom than to have hard deadlines for things like homework assignments. Even in college, by definition, the work is finished when the semester ends. I'm personally guilty of mis…
There is no contradiction between left-wing and authoritarianism. Communists as they were rising to power and in power were all about that.
1) in the freedom of choice way
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Perhaps you didn't make it to this part of the article: > By accountable I meant, “We agreed on a delivery date, and between now and the delivery date, it’s OK if you ask for help because you’re stuck, or something happened outside of your control. But do not walk into my office the day something is due and give me an excuse. It will cost you your job.” That kind of accountable. > The goal wasn’t inflexible dates and…
Then he should call it, "a culture of no surprises and collective problem solving." Calling it "no excuses" is part of the management problem he has identified. My experience is, there are often other dimensions to the issue of commitment. There is a conscientiousness that comes from being an owner of a company. It's rare to have an employee who maintains the same level of attention as an "owner." That's just how thi…
This was a good post and an interesting idea with some nice conclusions. One of the commenters, however, nailed it and got to the heart of the difficulty: getting people to do what they say they will do . Period. Full stop. You can wrap excuses, or culture, or other corporate vocabulary around the matter, but it boils down to that fundamental thing of people doing what they are asked and delivering what they say they…
> You, reader, put this matter to a test: You are sitting now in your office—six clerks are within your call. Summon any one and make this request: “Please look in the encyclopedia and make a brief memorandum for me concerning the life of Corregio.” Will the clerk quietly say, “Yes, sir,” and go do the task? On your life, he will not. I had a boss like that, he was an asshole. The idea that the ideal worker (especial…
>And I will lay you ten to one that after you have answered
>the questions, and explained how to find the information,
>and why you want it, the clerk will go off and get one of
>the other clerks to help him find Garcia - and then come
> ^^^^^^
>back and tell you there is no such man. Of course I may lose
>my bet, but according to the Law of Average, I will not.
The author supplanted the subject of research with the mythical "Garcia" but even that metaphorical substitution is problematic because if Corregio:Garcia::research:letter then really all the clerks need do is return to the requester and say "I found Corregio".
It rhetorically opens the question of whether Rowan found Garcia or merely found "a" Garcia.
EDIT: subject verb agreement in first sentence. Add qualifying phrase in second sentence.