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Bayer is getting rid of bosses and asking staff to ‘self-organize’

fortune.com

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Re: Bayer is getting rid of bosses and asking staff to ‘self-organize’

#131

Post by xingped »

fizx wrote: post #115
hasoleju wrote: post #106

The problem with too many layers of management is mainly that they stop doing what they should do. Making decisions. The lowest management layer cannot make any decisions alone, otherwise the next layer would have no reason to exist. The next layer might even have to hand over the decision to one layer above. Up there no one really understands the decision that needs to be made because they are too far away from the…

Hi, sometime middle-manager here. The goal isn't to have me make decisions, its to let people around me make decisions quickly and well enough that most of the time it works out, and when it doesn't, we can roll back easily. If this isn't working out, I hire experts to improve the quality of decision-making, with me making decisions as a last resort.

I mean you can say that, but that has never been my experience. Neither, I'm sure, has it been many other peoples' experiences either.

Re: Bayer is getting rid of bosses and asking staff to ‘self-organize’

#132

Post by grecy »

hasoleju wrote: post #106

The problem with too many layers of management is mainly that they stop doing what they should do. Making decisions. The lowest management layer cannot make any decisions alone, otherwise the next layer would have no reason to exist. The next layer might even have to hand over the decision to one layer above. Up there no one really understands the decision that needs to be made because they are too far away from the…

After working at a very large Telco with 50,000 employees and management style straight from the 1950's, your comment hit the nail precisely on the head. I put faces to the positions in your comment, and it sent shivers down my spine.

Never again.

Re: Bayer is getting rid of bosses and asking staff to ‘self-organize’

#134

Post by jncfhnb »

fizx wrote: post #115
hasoleju wrote: post #106

The problem with too many layers of management is mainly that they stop doing what they should do. Making decisions. The lowest management layer cannot make any decisions alone, otherwise the next layer would have no reason to exist. The next layer might even have to hand over the decision to one layer above. Up there no one really understands the decision that needs to be made because they are too far away from the…

Hi, sometime middle-manager here. The goal isn't to have me make decisions, its to let people around me make decisions quickly and well enough that most of the time it works out, and when it doesn't, we can roll back easily. If this isn't working out, I hire experts to improve the quality of decision-making, with me making decisions as a last resort.

So… the goal is for you to do nothing? Except not impede people making decisions and hiring consultants when you, not the person closer to the issue, thinks it’s not working?

Re: Bayer is getting rid of bosses and asking staff to ‘self-organize’

#135

Post by asadotzler »

nradov wrote: post #83
naasking wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Build a coalition of people who work in various departments, legal, marketing, research, etc. with enough momentum that could be enough to earn the credibility required. Another possibility is straight up democratic voting. These large investments place the company in financial peril, so maybe everyone should have a day. There are many ways to organize, hierarchical top-down control is useful but overused.

Ultimately someone has to approve the expense. Who makes that decision?

The CEO can. Not always ideal to have the CEO deciding the restroom soap budget, but if it's not delegated to someone else, it's up to the CEO. Keeping the company running is literally their job.

Re: Bayer is getting rid of bosses and asking staff to ‘self-organize’

#136

Post by pgwhalen »

jncfhnb wrote: post #134
fizx wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hi, sometime middle-manager here. The goal isn't to have me make decisions, its to let people around me make decisions quickly and well enough that most of the time it works out, and when it doesn't, we can roll back easily. If this isn't working out, I hire experts to improve the quality of decision-making, with me making decisions as a last resort.

So… the goal is for you to do nothing? Except not impede people making decisions and hiring consultants when you, not the person closer to the issue, thinks it’s not working?

A more charitable interpretation might be that their goal is to create space for good decisions to be made, and to de-risk those decisions.

Unless your mental model of a manager is "person who make decisions," than that is far from "doing nothing."

Re: Bayer is getting rid of bosses and asking staff to ‘self-organize’

#137

Post by FLT8 »

aleph_minus_one wrote: post #116
bjornsing wrote: post #34

> Stewart Butterfield, former CEO of Slack, recently described a dynamic within tech companies behind much of the over-hiring. He noted on Bloomberg’s Odd Lots podcast in late May that when there’s no real constraint on hiring, “you hire someone, and the first thing that person wants to do is hire other people.” The reason is that “the more people who report to you, the higher your prestige, the more your power in th…

> But sadly there just is no counteracting force (except perhaps mr Musk). When you apply for your next job as a manager they will ask you “How big was your team?”, and they won’t be impressed when you say “I managed to keep it down to four people”. I honestly would strongly prefer 4 people who are highly smart (think prodigy- or genius-level) below me than 20 "somewhat intelligent" employees (i.e. what at least 95 %…

In general I agree, but Prodigy-level people can come with their own challenges too. Eg. They're going to be coming up with a million ideas for how to improve things, so you'd better be prepared to listen and support them, which often will require changing the way the organisation works. If you don't (or can't) support them, be prepared for them to get demotivated quickly and move on. The other 90% are generally a little less high maintenance, but I agree that they will never achieve as much.

IMO your best bet is to pick and choose who you need based on the situation. Your already-in-production CRUD app may benefit from a few extra 50th percentile coders to help with the workload, but if you're building a ground breaking product from scratch, then a deliberately small team of top echelon nerds may make the difference between success and hard fail.

Re: Bayer is getting rid of bosses and asking staff to ‘self-organize’

#139

Post by nradov »

asadotzler wrote: post #135
nradov wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ultimately someone has to approve the expense. Who makes that decision?

The CEO can. Not always ideal to have the CEO deciding the restroom soap budget, but if it's not delegated to someone else, it's up to the CEO. Keeping the company running is literally their job.

Obviously that's not feasible for a large enterprise.
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