Bayer is getting rid of bosses and asking staff to ‘self-organize’ • Hacker News Board

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

#421

Post by matwood » Mon, Apr 22, 2024, 3:59 PM UTC

stuff4ben wrote: post #349

matwood wrote: post #326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bingo. I find that limiting headcount is a great forcing function for only doing what's important. The classic example is Google making X different chat apps. That doesn't happen unless a company is severely overstaffed.

To me that really just screams lazy and incompetent management. Being overstaffed is just a coincidence. A good mgmt structure would have prioritized that roadmap and gotten the cats herded to work towards a singular goal/chat app. I say this as a "cat" myself who has to be reminded to not get distracted by the next shiny thing.

> To me that really just screams lazy and incompetent management.

100%. Why make hard decisions when you can just hire? A company flush with cash simply hires and lets decision makers avoid decision making.

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

#422

Post by xxpor » Mon, Apr 22, 2024, 4:02 PM UTC

sowbug wrote: post #202

7thaccount wrote: post #100

Earlier 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…

This seems impossible to fix in a divisional org structure, where each division owns their P&L. If I'm in division A, and division B wants something from us that won't make a difference on my P&L (or will just add costs [headcount]), why would I be incentivized to help? If they pay for it though, that's a fee for service. Seems fine. It's all internal accounting anyway, so it's mostly fake.

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

#423

Post by frellus » Mon, Apr 22, 2024, 4:03 PM UTC

treespace8 wrote: post #420

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…

Has any company ever tried having a bonus pool divided equally between all employees? Ie 5% of gross revenue / employees. So every time you add someone you reduce the bonus unless that person adds more to gross revenue?

Worked at a large global financial company 10 years ago in tech. It was well known that the bonus pool was finite per division, but it was also allocated on ratios based on performance reviews and retention. Everyone knew the more people, the smaller the pool -- but then again, tech was a "cost center" so it wasn't like adding technology people (with the exception of quants) earn the bank more money.

I suspect if you incentivized managers to keep their teams small, through a bonus pool, it would definitely result in smaller teams, but also with the danger of overworked ones. That seems self-fulfilling though, if you're overworked but you know there's a reward with it.

That all being said, most places don't have bonus pools so it's a mute point.

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

#424

Post by tsimionescu » Mon, Apr 22, 2024, 4:03 PM UTC

randomdata wrote: post #401

tsimionescu wrote: post #390

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it is nowhere near like that. Food is a particularly bad example, as the food industry is extremely wasteful overall, with a huge percentage of all food produced being thrown away at all levels of the production chain all the way to the final consumer. In addition, most companies that package food in various ways, including major restaurants, either own or contract farming business for specific quantities of spec…

It's told to be not like that and a bad example, but then we learn how it is exactly like that and how it is great example... Intriguing.

The point is that you do need explicit integration and cooperation. And you often have way more than 4-8 people working on one of these contracts to even define the terms.

And again, most real companies own most of their supply chain, they don't depend on a hundred different suppliers at every level like you seem to be suggesting. And they do this because it's FAR more efficient to have a large monolithic team build something together than to rely on dozens of small teams competing in a market to build the same thing.

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

#425

Post by kjkjadksj » Mon, Apr 22, 2024, 4:13 PM UTC

gryn wrote: post #233

kjkjadksj wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can just have a queue. I’ve seen departments that basically function as an internal vendor of services to other departments. First in first out. Fixed schedule to expect turn around on most requests. No one complains. Seems quite pragmatic and fair.

Until they become the sole group that does X (Officially), and other groups realize that having them do a simple task related to X is way more hassles and months of wait time so each team just build their own unofficial X or try to circumvent it from day 0. I'm not say this or that method is better just pointing out what I've seen so far through different companies. Not all work is the same priority but if you try to…

I have seen it where they are literally the sole provider of x. Cheaper than third party x vendor even because of a lack of profit margin charging internally. Still their terms are straightforward and there’s no bullshitting.

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

#426

Post by wing-_-nuts » Mon, Apr 22, 2024, 4:13 PM UTC

Rinzler89 wrote: post #103

7thaccount wrote: post #100

Earlier 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…

>unless I have written guarantees of a reward.

I'm sorry, this seems almost impossible unless you're a contractor with that explicitly stated in your contract.

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

#427

Post by WalterBright » Mon, Apr 22, 2024, 4:23 PM UTC

User23 wrote: post #329

gadders wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is called Parkinson's Law: https://www.economist.com/news/1955/11/19/parkinsons-law "To comprehend Factor I, we must picture a civil servant called A who finds himself overworked. Whether this overwork is real or imaginary is immaterial; but we should observe, in passing, that A’s sensation (or illusion) might easily result from his own decreasing energy—a normal symptom of middle-age. For this real or imagined…

One of my pet peeves is how few people read past the first line of the essay and think Parkinson’s Law is the opening quip about work expanding to fill the time available. Thanks for the proper write up.

C. Northcote Parkinson is a great and very under-appreciated economist. His books are easy reads and well worth it. He made many astute observations about human behavior, not just Parkinson's Law.

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

#428

Post by lemonwaterlime » Mon, Apr 22, 2024, 4:23 PM UTC

This is just a “Tough Culture”. Things like stack ranking will come soon. Lots of churn. Without a commitment to defining the healthy culture they want and what that looks like, the only way they can “be efficient” is to continue to ruthlessly cut people. Nothing new under the sun. There’s only one conclusion.

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

#429

Post by alwaysbeconsing » Mon, Apr 22, 2024, 4:25 PM UTC

siliconc0w wrote: post #182

I do sometimes think a self organized hierarchy is better than one organized by fiat. Everyone always will say, "Ah - but then you just get an implicit hierarchy rather than an explicit one" with these types of systems but this isn't necessarily a bad thing. For example, There shouldn't necessarily be one escalation channel for all types of conflict - technical decisions may get resolved differently than intra-person…

> but in an implicit structure that 'leader' is quickly sidelined when people figure out the quality of their decisions are poor

More likely to end up in turf war unless exist legible means to transition leadership. Some members will stick with old leader for various reason, some will push for new, some will be unawares and courted to choose their side. Person in leadership does not most likely give it up quietly and immediately.

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

#430

Post by randomdata » Mon, Apr 22, 2024, 4:26 PM UTC

tsimionescu wrote: post #424

randomdata wrote: post #401

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's told to be not like that and a bad example, but then we learn how it is exactly like that and how it is great example... Intriguing.

The point is that you do need explicit integration and cooperation. And you often have way more than 4-8 people working on one of these contracts to even define the terms. And again, most real companies own most of their supply chain, they don't depend on a hundred different suppliers at every level like you seem to be suggesting. And they do this because it's FAR more efficient to have a large monolithic team build…

> The point is that you do need explicit integration and cooperation.

Obviously. Like we said, no 4-8 person team is building anything by themselves. For one, most obviously, they'd starve to death if they even tried. Integration and cooperation are literally what defines an economy.

> most real companies own most of their supply chain

As opposed to fake companies, that have no supply chain, with them being fake and all?

> because it's FAR more efficient to have a large monolithic team build something together

How can you know? The problems needed to be solved to see that through were stated to be unsolved. Was there some breakthrough in the past 10 hours that you haven't mentioned and the rest of us missed?