You can't remove jams by adding a new process to report problems...
If you want to remove jams, just make sure decisions are taken as low as possible in the hierarchy.
Marissa Mayer's Email Promising To Make Yahoo 'The Absolute Best Place To Work'
31–40 of 49 posts
Re: Marissa Mayer's Email Promising To Make Yahoo 'The Absolute Best Place To Work'
#32So far all of Marissa Meyer's moves (at least the one's getting publicity) have made Yahoo! a bit more Google-like. While that's probably for the best, I will be real interested to see when/where she breaks with Google culture for the first time.
You can't create culture with edicts, culture is an emergent property of the community that either is supported or fought by the power structure at hand. A corporation is like an ecosystem, you can create the conditions that will allow a healthier culture to flourish but it will likely take a huge amount of time for that culture to take hold, assuming that there aren't other roadblocks still in the way such as entrenched middle management with different ideas about the place they want to work.
Re: Marissa Mayer's Email Promising To Make Yahoo 'The Absolute Best Place To Work'
#33Earlier quoted context omitted.
Interesting, sure, but most of that stuff worked amazingly well for Google back when their engineer headcount was at what Y!'s is today.
Correlation is not causation. We don't really know what combination of the many factors in Google's culture made them so successful. For all we know, it may have been due entirely to the people they hired, and the same team might have produced great results with or without all the perks that Google is famous for.
sure. but it seems to me that this woman was hired with a mandate to 'make the place more google-like' -
I'm with you; my belief is that 95% of leadership is picking the right people, but, then, I'm a bad leader.
It seems like it's worth a shot. I mean, Yahoo has tried and failed many other strategies.
Re: Marissa Mayer's Email Promising To Make Yahoo 'The Absolute Best Place To Work'
#34Some things they mention should be done at every tech company: 1. Give employees free lunch 2. Give every employee an iphone 3. Github for code review
Actually, I wouldn't be terribly happy if my company gave me a daily free lunch. It would be a disincentive to get out of the office and away from my co-workers once a day, which is something that I think makes me happier and more productive. (I work in a big city, where diverse types of food are a short walk away. If you work in an office park in Silicon Valley, I can see why a free lunch might be more appealing.) A…
>Also, having a cell phone paid for by my employer might give my employer the idea that I'm always available to them.
Heh. well, I've been on call forever. Nearly everyone I know that works at google is also on-call. (they seem to have a hierarchy, where the more valuable folks don't get called very often.)
So yeah, company cell phone? yeah, sure, that is expected. I think the thing is that most people think of an iphone as nicer than your average cellphone. From that perspective, e.g. we are going to call you anyhow, they might as well give you a nice cellphone to carry around.
(that said, a cellphone without a keyboard is of limited utility. I need to be able to type and see the screen at the same time. SSH on iphone doesn't cut it.)
Re: Marissa Mayer's Email Promising To Make Yahoo 'The Absolute Best Place To Work'
#35I've worked at a few companies where a fresh CEO asked the rank and file for a list of problems, suggestions, ideas, etc. But I've never seen it make much of a difference. I fear Marissa Meyer is already toast -- just like Yahoo.
She joined the sinking ship. She just there to soften the landing.
Re: Marissa Mayer's Email Promising To Make Yahoo 'The Absolute Best Place To Work'
#36Earlier quoted context omitted.
Actually, I wouldn't be terribly happy if my company gave me a daily free lunch. It would be a disincentive to get out of the office and away from my co-workers once a day, which is something that I think makes me happier and more productive. (I work in a big city, where diverse types of food are a short walk away. If you work in an office park in Silicon Valley, I can see why a free lunch might be more appealing.) A…
> It would be a disincentive to get out of the office and away from my co-workers once a day, which is something that I think makes me happier and more productive. If stepping away from your coworkers makes you happy and productive, your company has bigger problems than charging for meals.
He didn't say that it makes him "happy and productive", he said it makes him "happier and more productive".
You do realize that there is a difference here, right? I assume that you are an intelligent being that knows basic English grammar and hence you must have simply misread that comment.
Re: Marissa Mayer's Email Promising To Make Yahoo 'The Absolute Best Place To Work'
#37I've worked at a few companies where a fresh CEO asked the rank and file for a list of problems, suggestions, ideas, etc. But I've never seen it make much of a difference. I fear Marissa Meyer is already toast -- just like Yahoo.
She joined the sinking ship. She just there to soften the landing.
> to soften the landing.
I've always said that was Carol's job at Yahoo. If she didn't make tough choices to cut costs and trim products, Y! may very well have face-planted, hard. She did very little to create growth, but she did a good job to realign & reorg the company to a position where someone like Marissa can come in and create growth.
Re: Marissa Mayer's Email Promising To Make Yahoo 'The Absolute Best Place To Work'
#38Earlier quoted context omitted.
Actually, I wouldn't be terribly happy if my company gave me a daily free lunch. It would be a disincentive to get out of the office and away from my co-workers once a day, which is something that I think makes me happier and more productive. (I work in a big city, where diverse types of food are a short walk away. If you work in an office park in Silicon Valley, I can see why a free lunch might be more appealing.) A…
I really like the "we'll provide free food onsite, and if you go out to lunch with anyone, we'll pay for that too (but keep it reasonable)" -- encouraging employees go to out to lunch together, or to have lunch with people from other companies, or potential customers, or hires, or whatever, seems worth the cost of lunch. You may or may not be able to deduct the cost of the meals (depending on who they're with), and o…
What a hassle. Just pay more.
Re: Marissa Mayer's Email Promising To Make Yahoo 'The Absolute Best Place To Work'
#39You can't remove jams by adding a new process to report problems... If you want to remove jams, just make sure decisions are taken as low as possible in the hierarchy.
Being able to report problems is the first step to figuring out what is actually wrong.
Re: Marissa Mayer's Email Promising To Make Yahoo 'The Absolute Best Place To Work'
#40Yahoo! is in crisis mode and I think Marissa is making the right moves. If what she says inspires current employees and keeps talent then it is all worth while.
Now the pessimist could see Yahoo! as a dying company/stock. Apple was in the same position before Steve Jobs came back.
Yahoo! could possible die a slow death or this could mark the start of a recovery. Marissa understands it begins with products and to have great products, engineers need to be happy and inspired. Perhaps Yahoo! could be seen as a down stock and is poised for growth? What if Yahoo! triples in value over the next 3 years? The best time to buy into a stock is when it is down.
I will add that what Marissa is doing is also making Yahoo! more attractive to prospective employees. If a prospective employee has the hypothetical choice between working at Facebook and working at Yahoo! and hears about the changes that Marissa has made then they may be inclined to work at Yahoo! Perhaps they have heard about the poor stock performance since Facebook's IPO. If that prospective talent chooses to work at Yahoo! instead of Facebook then it is a win.