Managers are just the symptom. Growth is the disease. There is no good solution to managers except being small enough to not need them at all. The idea that companies need to grow to survive is a myth. Staying small avoids so many problems.
Bayer is getting rid of bosses and asking staff to ‘self-organize’
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Re: Bayer is getting rid of bosses and asking staff to ‘self-organize’
#212[deleted]
Re: Bayer is getting rid of bosses and asking staff to ‘self-organize’
#213Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's called "empire building" and is also part of the principal-agent problem where the manager is the agent and is assumed to have the firm's best interests in mind, but in reality doesn't. As a result, the principal (for example an owner) has to come up with methods to keep their management honest (example... tying most compensation to stock price - although I think this just makes management short sighted). I was…
A common miscommunication in an R&D organization is asking another team to do a task, and getting the reply that they're willing to do the task if you provide headcount. You're not asking them to grow their team in perpetuity. You're asking them to reprioritize their existing work to accommodate one request. (I know this isn't really a miscommunication. It's misaligned incentives leading to an exasperating kind of lo…
There are not many options. Headcount might help (secondment, overtime, contractors, move from another team, new hire) or pushing other work back (or cancelling it, reducing scope) or saying no (find a workaround, go without it). I might of missed it but there is only so much you can do. A win win might be showing how doing X now is not worth it because event Y makes X obsolete or less valuable.
Re: Bayer is getting rid of bosses and asking staff to ‘self-organize’
#214Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's called "empire building" and is also part of the principal-agent problem where the manager is the agent and is assumed to have the firm's best interests in mind, but in reality doesn't. As a result, the principal (for example an owner) has to come up with methods to keep their management honest (example... tying most compensation to stock price - although I think this just makes management short sighted). I was…
> the manager is the agent and is assumed to have the firm's best interests in mind, but in reality doesn't. Every manager I had at every major multinational company only had the interest of their own career progression in mind, not the company's, not their team's. You as an employee under them were just a means to their goal, nothing more. I naively assumed that making them look good and doing the overtime when need…
I dream of a graduation speech where someone says all of this stuff, or even a proper uni course “avoiding corporate bullshit in a narcissistic world and how to sue your landlord” … except the donors wont like this!
Re: Bayer is getting rid of bosses and asking staff to ‘self-organize’
#215Managers are just the symptom. Growth is the disease. There is no good solution to managers except being small enough to not need them at all. The idea that companies need to grow to survive is a myth. Staying small avoids so many problems.
Most companies to stay small but we hear about the big ones. Having armies of people probably does help then I imagine most of the time, unless you got that team of 10x ers (where the 10x is commutative) making an architecture that needs little maintenance and scales and marketing is built in (you are the product) etc. Selling healthcare software means you need lots of brains on different tasks. Twitter like companies could be lean but Microsofts can’t really be. Although Microsofts
could be split up vertically if that is what you mean.
Re: Bayer is getting rid of bosses and asking staff to ‘self-organize’
#216Well if it worked for Valve it'll obviously work for a pharmaceutical company!
Re: Bayer is getting rid of bosses and asking staff to ‘self-organize’
#217I've been saying this for the last 10 years. Middle managers are Bozos. They don't let you get shit done and don't let you flush your ideas and brainstorm to products. I hope this tendency becomes the new norm.
Re: Bayer is getting rid of bosses and asking staff to ‘self-organize’
#218As a manager the key to success is sincerity. Once you can fake that you’ve got it made.
Re: Bayer is getting rid of bosses and asking staff to ‘self-organize’
#219This works ONLY if there are somewhat clear goals that people can work towards. If there's a principle or a purpose that transcends a managers personal agenda, then yeah, go for it. If not, this will be just anarchy.
Open Source efforts have a been a wonderful laboratory to gather data on how different kinds of "low cost" management affect different types of efforts. I'm always surprised that given the explosion of those efforts for 20 years, businesses have never looked at them as a source of inspiration.
Re: Bayer is getting rid of bosses and asking staff to ‘self-organize’
#220Startups often avoid Bio and Pharma because of how slow the big partners can be. Would be great to see other Pharma companies restructuring in similar way - reviving the sector and attracting startups and new technologies.