101–110 of 184 posts
It's unrealistic to not promote people. If you run a "flat" organization, you're telling your employees "I don't care that your resume indicates no progression." That's a real career limiter, and it can be perceived as an underhanded way to retain talent. Also, more pragmatically, how realistic is it to have 30 direct reports?
Doesn't "My salary kept getting raised because I kicked butt" also mean something on your résumé?
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We're optimizing for having the best work environment today. Prioritizing what some employer somewhere else might think a decade from now over improving working conditions today seems like a bad trade.
I don't understand why this has to be a binary choice. The real issue at hand appears to be that people get promoted to positions for which they are not well-suited, and then stay there, because they do a lousy job (agree that this sometimes happens... although eventually they probably get fired). What if "promotion" doesn't necessarily mean domain over other people, which seems to be the other issue. There can only…
It's unrealistic to not promote people. If you run a "flat" organization, you're telling your employees "I don't care that your resume indicates no progression." That's a real career limiter, and it can be perceived as an underhanded way to retain talent. Also, more pragmatically, how realistic is it to have 30 direct reports?
But give them an opportunity to serve as team lead on a successful project or several, and you've got plenty of resume mojo to spread around to everyone.
While I totally buy what this espouses, I think it is probably incredibly hard to scale. They are doing well if they keep things flat(ish) for 26 employees. I can't really see it working at all for > 50. And while they may not have anyone with the job title CTO, I'd be very surprised if DHH was anything other than the de facto CTO.
Why does it have to scale? 37signals took 11 years to get to 26 people. It might take us another 11 to get to 50. We can optimize for that future when and if it arrives. But making your environment worse today because you worry about some possibly maybe future is the essence of premature optimization.
However, if you want your company to grow into a Groupon or Zynga, and you have the rapidly expanding demand to support that, then you need to scale. I don't think Groupon could run on 26 people, so they needed to scale to get to such massive revenue figures.
I specifically didn't use Facebook as an example because I know your feelings about them. I figured Groupon at least has the revenue to support their valuation :)
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I don't understand why this has to be a binary choice. The real issue at hand appears to be that people get promoted to positions for which they are not well-suited, and then stay there, because they do a lousy job (agree that this sometimes happens... although eventually they probably get fired). What if "promotion" doesn't necessarily mean domain over other people, which seems to be the other issue. There can only…
If anyone ever faces this thought-experiment problem when they leave 37signals, I'll be happy to bestow them a non-managerial fancy title of their choice. If someone leaving 37signals thinks they need to have a "Master Programmer" title, they'll get that. Problem solved.
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Why does it have to scale? 37signals took 11 years to get to 26 people. It might take us another 11 to get to 50. We can optimize for that future when and if it arrives. But making your environment worse today because you worry about some possibly maybe future is the essence of premature optimization.
I agree it doesn't have to scale, and you certainly shouldn't setup an organization around projected growth 2 years out. That may never come, and you also may not want it to come. However, if you want your company to grow into a Groupon or Zynga, and you have the rapidly expanding demand to support that, then you need to scale. I don't think Groupon could run on 26 people, so they needed to scale to get to such massi…
You can't "want" your company into becoming a Groupon or a Zynga by design a certain organizational structure. Startups try that all the time by preemptively hiring tons of people to sit around and wait for the hockey stick growth that never comes.
There is a PR lesson in this for all of us!
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I agree it doesn't have to scale, and you certainly shouldn't setup an organization around projected growth 2 years out. That may never come, and you also may not want it to come. However, if you want your company to grow into a Groupon or Zynga, and you have the rapidly expanding demand to support that, then you need to scale. I don't think Groupon could run on 26 people, so they needed to scale to get to such massi…
You have it backwards. You don't design your company structure in the hopes or anticipation of becoming Groupon or Zynga. You deal with that growth when it happens. You optimize for that scenario when it occurs. You can't "want" your company into becoming a Groupon or a Zynga by design a certain organizational structure. Startups try that all the time by preemptively hiring tons of people to sit around and wait for t…
Well let me ask you this. When is it the right time to reorganize and evolve from the flat structure because you are growing like gang-busters and can't keep up with the pressure on all areas of the company (support, development, sales, etc.)
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Doesn't "My salary kept getting raised because I kicked butt" also mean something on your résumé?
You don't typically put a salary on a CV.
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"But what works there, or at FC, is not a one size fits all answer." Absolutely. I'm simply sharing our experiences with how we run things - that's what my Inc. articles are about. I wouldn't expect anyone else to do what we do because we do it. Find your own comfort zone. There are plenty of ways to do plenty of things.
I really like your approach, especially making everyone manager for a week. I think the only problem I see with it is that if people want to find another job, their 37signals title makes it seem that they essentially "went nowhere". So even if you are paying them a lot more then when they started and they are the best customer service person ever, their resume still says: "Jane Doe - Customer Service Rep 2005-2011" w…