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Ask HN: Why do corporate failures always seem to punish the wrong people?

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Re: Ask HN: Why do corporate failures always seem to punish the wrong people?

#51

Post by jlengrand »

Just to add another item to the list others have brought up :

Goal displacement -> Goal displacement occurs when an organization or individual shifts focus from original objectives to secondary goals, often prioritizing procedures, metrics, or internal processes over intended outcomes.

In large corps, people who are good at staying in a company, and people who are good at serving the company's objectives are typically two different skillsets. And one of those skillset helps you stay inside the company more than the other.

Re: Ask HN: Why do corporate failures always seem to punish the wrong people?

#53

Post by rickydroll »

mittermayr wrote: post #14
Apreche wrote: post #9

Because corporations are autocratic. All power is top down. Make corporations democratic with bottom up power structures, and the opposite will happen. Leadership will face blame for everything, and the bottom rung will never.

Yeah but why does it always end up in such autocratic behavior? On paper, I'd naively argue, any team or organization, or even individual, who continues to actually deliver value for the company, shouldn't they get to have a say in where the ship could go to avoid sinking it?

An ugly truth is that corporations are built on a feudal structure (kings, lords, barons, earls, etc.) that is inherently autocratic and disguises autocratic action as efficient leadership. I like to think that cooperative business structures are less vulnerable to autocratic corruption, but they need to be on guard, watching out for people willing to exploit others to gain more power and try to keep them from finding their way onto paths to power.

Re: Ask HN: Why do corporate failures always seem to punish the wrong people?

#54

Post by dolkycape »

mittermayr wrote: post #14
Apreche wrote: post #9

Because corporations are autocratic. All power is top down. Make corporations democratic with bottom up power structures, and the opposite will happen. Leadership will face blame for everything, and the bottom rung will never.

Yeah but why does it always end up in such autocratic behavior? On paper, I'd naively argue, any team or organization, or even individual, who continues to actually deliver value for the company, shouldn't they get to have a say in where the ship could go to avoid sinking it?

The companies that win in the market are the companies that are modeled to win, not the ones modeled for justice and accountability.

To be less reductive, companies are owned by capitalists and they prefer autocracy for obvious reasons.

Re: Ask HN: Why do corporate failures always seem to punish the wrong people?

#55

Post by theideaofcoffee »

ed_balls wrote: post #11

I mean this sympathetically, but you and your partner seem to have an unhealthy relationship with work. Employment is a business transaction. You sell the company your time - it gives you money. That’s the deal. The company is not your family, your father or a secret ledger of who worked hardest. Think of it like buying groceries. You don’t expect the supermarket to love you because you’ve shopped there for 15 years.…

This is how I view work and any relationship to corporate for a long time now, and it took lots of pain to finally recognize it. I'd go even further than that: your primary role is to be selfish and pull in as much bacon as you can as fast as you can, then get out.

I recognize myself a long time ago in your partner, so much mental energy wasted to the game where I could instead just clock in, do some stuff, clock out and spend the rest of my energy where it matters: at home, with friends, cooking, working on personal projects. Let the insane corporate climbers light themselves on fire to keep management warm, I'll derive my worth elsewhere.

Re: Ask HN: Why do corporate failures always seem to punish the wrong people?

#56

Post by NikolaNovak »

First and foremost, massive sympathies on your partner's plight. It sucks, it's stressful, and has real world impacts.

To your general question, I feel it's a variation of the "why do bad things happen to good people", and philosophically we (humans) do not have a satisfying answer that I've ever arrived at, especially if you're not religious :(

To your more specific question, it seems that like myself and probably many of us here on HN, you approach large corporations as a meritocracy and you assume that key skills / merits are the ones that produce, create, support, deliver to customers, etc. It is my observation that these are loosely correlated with corporate success. There is a specific set of skills that are more associated with corporate success, including crafting your perception/eminence/image with key people, networking, being aware or appearing to be aware of the big picture, strategy, finances, and true goals/product of your company, as well as clever career management. Even many people who are aware of the required skillset, and are in principle capable of acquiring said skillset, struggle to put it into practice - it could be due to ethical frameworks, personal preferences, or just a hope/belief that "it shouldn't be this way" (For better or worse, I largely count myself in that group).

One of the things I've observed in myself and others: We assume it's our job to do a good job, and our bosses' job to notice and reward a good job. In North American corporate, that rarely works, particularly in remote, fast changing scenarios. Your boss is a human being and will notice some people & activities, and not notice some people & activities. If you care about your career, "Managing Up", taking control of your career and image in the way that your corporation requires (not "the way that I think should work in ideal world":) is, for better or for worse, key success criteria.

Note: I would NOT fall into the easy trap of saying "These are not smart people"; that leads to underestimation / expecting results from them which differ from reality. They may or may not score highly on a standardized IQ test, they may or may not have the same kind of intelligence and knowledge as you value, but clearly they are "smart" in some specific ways, and clearly very practical/useful ones.

All the best to you and your partner!

Re: Ask HN: Why do corporate failures always seem to punish the wrong people?

#58

Post by jugg1es »

inigyou wrote: post #33

They are accidentally smart. They have stumbled across the behavioral patterns that get rewarded without consciously thinking much about how to find the behavioral patterns that get rewarded. Which is mostly getting the people above you in the power pyramid to like you, and no relationship to technical skill. The overall problem can be summarised as we don't live in a meritocracy.

I'd probably amend this that we do live in a meritocracy, but the 'merit' part applies to your ability to navigate the system - not your ability to produce good outcomes.

Re: Ask HN: Why do corporate failures always seem to punish the wrong people?

#59

Post by gwbas1c »

There's a fallacy that we all fall into: We think that our job is about turning the crank, and that the best crank turners will stay around the longest.

It's not: I've been involved in quite a few projects that get abandoned, (or otherwise miss their target) for one reason or another. There's a few things that you (or your partner) can do to protect yourself.

Most important: Make sure that your role (as an engineer) in your company is in the most critical part of the company as you can handle. When budgets get cut, it's not the best "crank turner" who keeps their job; its the people in the most critical roles for products (and projects and processes) that the company no longer can fund. (Note that this isn't foolproof, because foolish management can still goof and let you go.) (Note that in large companies, this is much harder because you can become critical in a niche that the company decides to divest from. To handle this, move into a subsidiary that would be sold as a unit.)

Secondly: Understand the business cycle. All products (and projects and processes) have a lifetime, and at a certain point they are "done." (As in, not worth investing in paying the best crank turner or the most critical person to keep working on it.) When you smell this happening, let it be known that you're open to severance when the budget gets cut. It's always easiest to let go of the person who's willing to take severance because they're ready for a change in scenery.

Next: Make sure you can get a feel for how the product (project, process, ect,) is actually used. You might have turned the crank really well, but if no one is using the result, it's time to be proactive and move on.

Finally: Learn to judge your management, and build relationships with your boss's boss. This will give you a lot more insight into the company so you can learn when to move on or how to position yourself in the most critical part of the company.

Re: Ask HN: Why do corporate failures always seem to punish the wrong people?

#60

Post by lores »

My humble view: at high level in large firms, everything is politics. Even assuming high-level managers with the common good in mind, someone will sponsor with millions of dollars 10 useless but good-looking and inoffensive projects, just so they have the political capital to start one that is useful but may ruffle feathers. Your direct subordinate's failure is _your_ failure, and that will set back your ambitions. Peers turning against peers is frowned upon, for the same reason. And besides, you know them, maybe you even like them, the lower-level people are just anonymous faces, it's emotionally much easier.

And assuming they have the common good in mind is of course ridiculous.

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