From the numbers, it sounds like you could have saved 10% by firing yourself.
CTO day 2: downsizing the team
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Re: CTO day 2: downsizing the team
#12> As heartless as this may seem... It's not heartless, it's just stupid. It's like screwing in a lightbulb with a hammer. > And I didn’t want to do the task so, consciously ignoring Mr. Weinberg, I transformed the ordeal into an optimization problem, for which I wrote an application to help me with. Treating people like robots is probably the worst way to solve people ops problems. It's like managers learned nothing…
I don't think he treats people like robots.
The way he "delivers the message" is humane. And the way he selects who must go is totally an optimization problem.
Re: CTO day 2: downsizing the team
#13While there is lots of useful advise in there, I wonder how do you measure a "successful" termination process? What differentiates a great "we have to let you go" meeting from a terrible one, output wise? What's the metric you want to optimise here? Future references?
They're still your friend in 5 years or more, long after that job.
I did a mass termination many years ago, and those guys are still in touch with me. I made sure to telegraph that things weren't going well for the company.
One guy had a pregnant wife at home, he still laughed it off. Wrote to me the other day.
Re: CTO day 2: downsizing the team
#14Junior CTO shows how to create short term value without realizing the long term consequences of his actions, and proceeds to grandstand to help create his own personal brand so that he can get invited to do the same elsewhere. I give this company another 3 months at best before it implodes.
Re: CTO day 2: downsizing the team
#15> As heartless as this may seem... It's not heartless, it's just stupid. It's like screwing in a lightbulb with a hammer. > And I didn’t want to do the task so, consciously ignoring Mr. Weinberg, I transformed the ordeal into an optimization problem, for which I wrote an application to help me with. Treating people like robots is probably the worst way to solve people ops problems. It's like managers learned nothing…
I don't think he treats people like robots. The way he "delivers the message" is humane. And the way he selects who must go is totally an optimization problem.
You cannot boil down humans to 5-6 attribute points.
What about personalities/coordination/how people actually interact.
Product A might be filled with people who are use to taking charge, and Product B might be filled with people who are more reserved about their opinions.
This is a dreadful way to solve this problem. If it were that easy, his job as CTO wouldn't exist and we could simply plug it into a SaaS AI that spits out optimal hiring strategies.
Nonetheless, I appreciate the insight/sharing publicly.
Re: CTO day 2: downsizing the team
#16> As heartless as this may seem... It's not heartless, it's just stupid. It's like screwing in a lightbulb with a hammer. > And I didn’t want to do the task so, consciously ignoring Mr. Weinberg, I transformed the ordeal into an optimization problem, for which I wrote an application to help me with. Treating people like robots is probably the worst way to solve people ops problems. It's like managers learned nothing…
He needed to evaluate the team based on some criteria one way or another. He chose certain criteria and used the computer to assist him in the evaluation.
Another option would be to choose the team on who you just "like the most". Maybe this would have been more to your liking? It's more human, I guess. However, notice that there is still a criteria and still an evaluation phase, you can't avoid it (unless you pick by random).
None of this means that you have to use text-to-speech and have the computer read out the list of names who were fired. You can still go to each team member and talk about it, like a human.
Re: CTO day 2: downsizing the team
#17> As heartless as this may seem... It's not heartless, it's just stupid. It's like screwing in a lightbulb with a hammer. > And I didn’t want to do the task so, consciously ignoring Mr. Weinberg, I transformed the ordeal into an optimization problem, for which I wrote an application to help me with. Treating people like robots is probably the worst way to solve people ops problems. It's like managers learned nothing…
KISS. Let the coin to make decision, flip it.
You are all welcome.
Re: CTO day 2: downsizing the team
#18In the beginning, you are on an island, you have an idea to go on an adventure, so you start building a raft with the other guy on the island. The other guy has no building skills, but he procures food, water and wood. The resources on that island are dwindling but you manage to finish the raft just in time.
You begin to sail the raft, you start fishing while out in the open seas. You reach another island and sell the fish, figure out that is the way you can have an easy life since you can pay other people to procure food, water and wood with fish. You build a better boat, hire more people and repeat the process.
You now have a huge rowing boat that goes very far out at sea since there are no fish left close to land, you now fully depend on the people on that boat to make it alive to the next island. There are people who row, people who fish, people to cook, people that are on the lookout for fishing spots and islands.
Your partner notices a guy who eats more than the average rower on the boat, but rows less. You throw him overboard. A fire starts near the rowers, but the rowers continue rowing. Turns out the guy you just threw overboard he always put out fires. You find another rower, tell him to put out the fire. He throws water over it. It is now worse. You figure out the fire is the cook's fault for using too much oil. He only used so much oil because the lookouts thought fish oil is good for their eyes so they can see more ahead. You know this to be only partially true, but they don't seem to understand and even though the fire happened they still demand their food fried in fish oil.
You throw one of the lookouts in the water to make an example. The lookouts stop eating deep fried food. Now the people who fish complain they work too much. Turns out the deep fried food gave the lookouts energy to shout at the people who fish where to fish at. Now, the people who fish need to stop what they're doing and go to the lookouts for information. Because of all the extra effort the people are doing, you are now out of fresh water in the boat.
Congratulations, you now know how a CTO feels like.
Re: CTO day 2: downsizing the team
#19There's a common consequence to staff cuts that OP did not seem to consider: when cuts occur, OTHERS take that as a signal to leave. He just blindsided his staff on "day 2", it could easily happen that another 2,3,4, or more people are now planning to GTFO before they're next. All that careful planning will then be for shit because he just cut to the bone, and then the bones will start leaving.
There's no easy way to do this stuff. It's ugly no matter how you approach it.
Re: CTO day 2: downsizing the team
#20> As heartless as this may seem... It's not heartless, it's just stupid. It's like screwing in a lightbulb with a hammer. > And I didn’t want to do the task so, consciously ignoring Mr. Weinberg, I transformed the ordeal into an optimization problem, for which I wrote an application to help me with. Treating people like robots is probably the worst way to solve people ops problems. It's like managers learned nothing…
He needed to evaluate the team based on some criteria one way or another. He chose certain criteria and used the computer to assist him in the evaluation. Another option would be to choose the team on who you just "like the most". Maybe this would have been more to your liking? It's more human, I guess. However, notice that there is still a criteria and still an evaluation phase, you can't avoid it (unless you pick b…
Liking each other is a pretty huge part of a positive team dynamic. The line to unfair favoritism is thin but a team of high-skilled engineers that don't like each other will most likely perform worse than a team that likes each other but has a bit worse average skill level.
Sometimes a person that is regarded as low skill can motivate other team members to hugely increase their productivity by building a positive atmosphere.