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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’

#351

Post by fidotron »

whoknowsidont wrote: post #161
pyuser583 wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve been fortunate to have some very good managers. That’s why I find this idea so horrible. I wouldn’t be where I am now if I had to “self-organize.”

>I’ve been fortunate to have some very good managers. Every time I've seen this sentiment and asked for something concrete on what made them good managers I get answered with platitudes or "nice-isms." At this point in my career, the emperor has no clothes. There are no good managers, only good peers.

A disproportionately large group of the good managers I've had were ex-military, and their big traits were clarity about what we were doing and why, and that when the SHTF they would fight alongside the team, not against it. This wasn't exclusive to ex-military types, but if you are so cynical as to believe in no good managers you may want to look for places which employ this style.

I can imagine within gov contracting this same group of people are violently annoying instead, but I have never had the experience of that world.

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

#352

Post by OJFord »

_heimdall wrote: post #225
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…

I'm not sure why this article bothers attributing this insight to the former Slack CEO, this dynamic is nothing new and was a problem well before Slack or the current round of tech companies were around.

If they'd picked some older quote from someone else saying similar, someone still would complain that the idea predates them, right back to Socrates.

I don't see it claiming it's some deep novel insight, it's just someone prominent who said something recently that's salient to the point.

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

#353

Post by _zamorano_ »

incrudible wrote: post #342
Draiken wrote: post #312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't the fact that they're the market leader in what they do proof enough? Would they have created/found this cash cow if they were a traditional company? People try to poke holes in their ways, yet they have made legendary games, amazing hardware and absolutely dominate the game distribution market. Basically all of their competitors use the traditional management style. What other evidence would you expect?

A sample of one isn't enough, and in any event their success is not reproducible. They had a major title in Half Life 2, convincing people to install Steam, but that was their last major title and it is not clear that they used this process at the time. Going forward: Someone else created Counter Strike, someone else created DoTA, someone else created Portal, someone else created Team Fortress, someone else create Le…

What? Aren't those games Valve orginals since the beggining?

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

#354

Post by silvestrov »

iteria wrote: post #308
silvestrov wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Depends on if you are managing people or you are micromanaging people. It should be possible to manage 22 employees if you are good at setting directions and explaining why those directions have been chosen. You can have 22 people in one room and do functional group discussions, this is like a good size for a school class. 1 CEO -> 22 level A managers each level A manager -> 22 level B = 22 * 22 = 484 level B each le…

22 is so many direct reports. If my supervisor had 22 direct reports. I'd just check out mentally because I know I wouldn't get any real face time with them to discuss issues. Skip manager attention? Forget it. With 22 direct reports, you're not there to add your expertise and make the process better, but to be a cog in the machine.

Maybe there is a cultural difference here.

I see repeated 1:1 sessions as micromanagement, like being treated as a kid that needs their hand held.

I don't want to discuss work items on 1:1 with the manager, I want to discuss them in a group setting because it is the group as a whole that solves the tasks. I also want the input from other members in the group instead of only the managers view.

In my country we do personal "how is everything going" 1:1 meetings at most once a year.

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

#355

Post by somedude895 »

KaiserPro wrote: post #261

Using Meta as a source of good management is a fallacy that needs to be tackled. Meta has only managed to release one new "domestic" product since facebook advertising (threads) and only one of the features released on the main apps has stuck (reels) there is no strategic direction at meta, its a mass of noise, poor project management and bloated orgs craving for any metric of success other than what makes the user h…

It's like when people look at Google for inspiration. The employer brand is cool and flashy, but in reality they're just a nouveau riche search engine. Yes, they generate revenue on other services as well, but the insane profits that allow them to be what they are come from a product launched in 1998.

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

#358

Post by noisy_boy »

karaterobot wrote: post #121
smcleod wrote: post #12

I’ve worked in an environment where there are no managers for 4 1/2 years and it’s been fantastic. Here’s to getting rid of them in most (but certainly not all!) places.

I've gone the other way! I used to be strongly against managers. I drooled over that Valve manual describing the flat hierarchy, etc., and I would have honestly said that managers in general were a parasite that had latched on to the software industry. That's honestly what I felt. Now I work at a place with not enough managers to go around, and my team basically has 25% of a PM's time, and no dedicated department hea…

> So, on the whole I am pro manager, so long as they are very very very good at it.

That is a big "if" because most of the managers I have seen are on the spectrum of "ok" to "very bad"; the really good ones are rare and usually move up leaving spoiled employees that have to endure being managed by the norm of "ok" to "very bad".

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

#360

Post by robertlagrant »

consp wrote: post #333
robertlagrant wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a good way of getting the best team(s), which is what you want in a company. Maybe not so great for the emotional development of children, of course, but it's hard to say.

> It's a good way of getting the best team(s) You get the teams with people who 'get along' not the best for the company. Mediocrity with friends in high places gets far further. That's not any form of meritocracy.

> Mediocrity with friends in high places gets far further

That doesn't happen all the time, at all. It happens more in places where results are less measurable, or where you don't have to attract customers, but that doesn't mean it happens a lot. And merit isn't just competence. If a leader knows from experience they can communicate with someone and be understood, that is a big advantage.

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