Related ... for good reasons, a scrum team explicitly has the option of rejecting one of the members of the team.
(edit) presumably that includes the scrum master.
Is it Time for Mutiny?
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Re: Is it Time for Mutiny?
#32I've seen more corporate mutiny attempts in a few years than most people do in their lives. If you want mutiny, you have to divide power against itself. Power wants to unite. It wants the competition to be between it and the outside because that's the unfair kind that it can always win. Creating competition within power forces them into fights they might actually lose. They don't like that. So it's hard. The problem…
I've seen a number of mutiny attempts - some were famously successful, some worked out exactly as you would guess a "mutiny" would when their leader discovered. In one mutiny, during a pretty significant re-org/layoffs, part of our organization had been sold to another (perceived to be inferior) company - the majority of the organization (that hadn't been laid off) - was just happy to still have a job, but a select g…
I saw a preemptive counter-mutiny once that ended badly...
One person was leader of a newly formed team, and a kind of star programmer (that actually delivered). That person started to bypass the most direct boss, and talk directly to the CEO, frequently.
So we have a CEO that like the "victim", and a person between CEO and "victim" that want to get rid of the "victim" because he is a potential threat.
Then "victim" has some health issues, and start to code much slower... the "boss" attempts to fire him, but CEO rescue him.
Then "boss" awaits for CEO go some months later to a meeting, asks "victim" to show his finished project (the deadline was still next week, but "boss" claimed he could review now), declares it as failed, and fire him in a very public way, forcing him to exit the building with all of his stuff immediately and leave all his credentials and keys behind. Also "boss" stealthly sets up some e-mail filter, so "victim" cannot mail the CEO.
Other employees realized what happened, and most of them quit (Even several ones that had nothing to do with the "victim")
"boss" gambled, he was the favourite of CEO, and he knew that a public firing could not be undone by the CEO, because the CEO would not do anything that looked like a public punishment... Indeed, CEO did nothing, except watch his ship almost sink (it did not sunk, they could hire another team after about a year and a half...)
Re: Is it Time for Mutiny?
#33Sometimes if mutiny isn't possible, the mutineer takes another tack. Henry Singleton was an engineering and financial wizard at Litton, but he was not in the running for CEO, so he left with a cadre of Litton's best people and started Teledyne. Over the years, Teledyne grew much faster than Litton, bought many companies, and took large positions in other companies' stock. At its peak ownership, Teledyne had about 30% of the common shares of Litton, leading to many sleepless nights for the Litton executives.
Re: Is it Time for Mutiny?
#34I've seen more corporate mutiny attempts in a few years than most people do in their lives. If you want mutiny, you have to divide power against itself. Power wants to unite. It wants the competition to be between it and the outside because that's the unfair kind that it can always win. Creating competition within power forces them into fights they might actually lose. They don't like that. So it's hard. The problem…
Early on in my career I was working for a consulting company at a parent company (the actual end-client) - we were based in the office as a small team of about 10-15 people.
The boss of the team decided that there were good fees to be had, and so went to key players and tried to bid for the contract direct to the client under his own banner, in effect trying to form a company and go into competition with his current employer. The plan was to stitch up the contract for the second phase of the contract by underbidding, and pocket a portion of the massive fees being paid by the client to the consulting company.
He came to me with an offer of more money if I threw my lot in with him. I agreed to do so, $$$ flashing in front of my eyes.
Of course someone leaked the entire deal to the consulting company management and we all got sacked on the spot and I learnt my lesson which is to be very cagey about these types of things. It didn't worry me about losing the job, I wasn't into it much anyway, and I did actually get paid out a notice period, which was generous on their part (perhaps it was go-away money). But at a more crucial phase of a career it could have been very damaging.
Re: Is it Time for Mutiny?
#35Earlier quoted context omitted.
Fantastic example and it sounds like it went well. What about if "guy" == "son and "boss" == "father"? Any tips? :)
Find another job. Not just with "son and father" but also with genetically unrelated cronies.
Find a job but be sure to tell the father (and if you meet the replacement, warn him).
Re: Is it Time for Mutiny?
#36The key difference with corporate "mutinies" and mutinies at sea is that on a ship your mutiny needs to take control of the ship to succeed. Life without the safety of the ship poses significant existential threat. It is often better, and less risky for modern would-be mutineers to follow the example of the traitorous eight and just leave as a group and do their own thing. Also, a mutiny gathered steam inboard a ship…
actually in both settings you have an example of shared values being affronted. on a ship the values concern safety and food. in a firm the values concern socialization and esteem. in both settings, leaders undertake actions that violate shared values. so the mechanism that stimulates mutiny in both settings is identical. moreover, it is indeed possible for mutineers to take control (subtle control, over weeks or mon…
"it is indeed possible for mutineers to take control..of a ... firm."
I think it's important to make a distinction between the typical infighting of corporate politics, in which one organization (or leader) wins out over another, resulting in a round of layoffs and re-orgs where one of the leaders comes out on top, and a mutiny, in which those subordinate to an ultimate leader of a firm (CEO) take control.
In the scenario of a mutiny on a ship, this is done by force. In the scenario of the modern public corporation, the CEO is subordinate to the board of directors, and I'm struggling to come up with an example in which the subordinates of a CEO displaced that CEO. Certainly not by force, and almost never by doing an end-run around the CEO to the Board of Directors, except in the case of fraud/violations of corporate policy - which I don't really consider a Mutiny, but more of a reporting of violations to the Board of Directors, in which the Board makes a decision.
I agree with the parent - It really is very, very rare (still trying to think of an example) in which anything more than a departmental mutiny takes place. The CEO's job is usually quite secure (until the Board decides otherwise) - it is much more often the case that those individuals simply leave and go form their own venture (The traitorous eight)
Re: Is it Time for Mutiny?
#37The key difference with corporate "mutinies" and mutinies at sea is that on a ship your mutiny needs to take control of the ship to succeed. Life without the safety of the ship poses significant existential threat. It is often better, and less risky for modern would-be mutineers to follow the example of the traitorous eight and just leave as a group and do their own thing. Also, a mutiny gathered steam inboard a ship…
actually in both settings you have an example of shared values being affronted. on a ship the values concern safety and food. in a firm the values concern socialization and esteem. in both settings, leaders undertake actions that violate shared values. so the mechanism that stimulates mutiny in both settings is identical. moreover, it is indeed possible for mutineers to take control (subtle control, over weeks or mon…
actually in both settings you have an example of shared values being affronted.
Strictly speaking, yes, but certain values are much more likely to lead to mutiny if disrespected. I'd like to think most managers would get deposed/abandoned pretty quickly if they disrupted their employees' access to food and safety.
Re: Is it Time for Mutiny?
#38Let's say a "friend" of mine works for a company of about 100 people. There would be clear lines of demarcation between departments, management, and responsibility but that is not what ownership wants. Instead they run a flat system where the patriarch (of the family that owns the company): * bypasses all "managers" to assign tasks direct to the employee * never has a meeting asking for suggested fixes, just what he…
A corporate mutiny needs to be able to appeal to someone in authority to remove the problematic employee/manager. If the problem is the owner, you have no one above them to appeal to - your only hope is to convince the owner to step aside or suddenly transform from as you describe a very active role to a very passive one. The chances of success here sound incredibly low.
Re: Is it Time for Mutiny?
#39Over a period of several years at a large corporation I tested different approaches to "benign" change as I was watching dark clouds duke it out at the SVP level above us. The way to move things was to propose an opportunity that was infectious (aka the person pitching it could see benefit to passing it on) and to spread it widely fast, so it works like a trend everyone is talking about, rather than a one sided push. If everyone thought it was their idea, things moved.
The organization seemed to work like an organism - every new idea was treated like a foreign body. Rightly so, because when you have that many jobs at stake, the wrong idea can get the whole business sick. The projects that went through acted like a virus in that environment... until they reached the political cloud.
At levels below VP, we operated as a relative meritocracy. At levels above that, power was limited, so for someone to win others had to lose. If you wanted to push an initiative above that level, you had to bet on the right SVP. At that point you start seeing them play out the House of Cards mutiny style in action: the "Piss sideways to avoid splashing and to lessen the noise" kind. Needless to say, I left to do a startup.
Re: Is it Time for Mutiny?
#40Related ... for good reasons, a scrum team explicitly has the option of rejecting one of the members of the team. (edit) presumably that includes the scrum master.
A real mutiny would be rejecting the product owner!