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How Facebook Tries to Prevent Office Politics
101–110 of 187 posts
Re: How Facebook Tries to Prevent Office Politics
#102"At Facebook, moving into management is not a promotion. It’s a lateral move, a parallel track. " This is nice in theory. But when your "peers" with Manager in their title have access to more information and more decision-making power, it is not in fact a parallel track. Just saying people are equal doesn't make it so, and it doesn't change the underlying organizational structures.
If you set up the culture right, this isn't as big of a problem as you might think. On our team, it doesn't matter if you're the manager or not, the decisions for the product are made by consensus of the team. Sure management will still do approvals for time off and deal with the skinned knees and runny noses. But for day to day operations, it's peers working for a common cause.
"decisions for the product are made by consensus of the team"
I favor democratic decision making processes.
Use voting systems appropriate for the task. Roman eval for new hires, go/no go. Approval voting for triage, new features. JADs for "visions". Creative writing exercise for post-mortems. Etc.
"Democratic" does not mean winner-takes-all, which is suboptimal.
"Democratic" does not mean consensus.
Re: How Facebook Tries to Prevent Office Politics
#103Earlier quoted context omitted.
Managers don't only evaluate performance.
You're right, they also steal credit for work they didn't perform. Management is another parasitic job that needs to be removed and automated away.
Here's another perspective – "management" is a job that can be poorly executed by some, but is important as a method for effectively disseminating and collecting knowledge and goals from different parts of a larger community.
The reason my current manager is there is to communicate the business's priorities to me, and effectively deal with any grievances I have. This is astonishingly effective, in that I no longer have to spend time researching the reasons why I am performing certain tasks – I have a manager who can prioritise, but who is willing to take my views on board if I have them. Everybody wins, and I don't really want her replaced with an automated system.
Re: How Facebook Tries to Prevent Office Politics
#104Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you set up the culture right, this isn't as big of a problem as you might think. On our team, it doesn't matter if you're the manager or not, the decisions for the product are made by consensus of the team. Sure management will still do approvals for time off and deal with the skinned knees and runny noses. But for day to day operations, it's peers working for a common cause.
I've found consensus decision making to be frustrating in the environments I've encountered it. A lot of flip flopping and lack of follow through. Who made that decision? We did. Can we give up on that and try something else? Of course. I kinda like to have at least a shepherd for the day to day decisions, if not a commander. In practice in my current environment it's been the occasional PM that takes some ownership…
While it can work, "consensus" usually means ad hoc, no accountability, no followthru.
This essay was illuminating:
Tyranny of Structurelessness
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tyranny_of_Structurelessne...
Re: How Facebook Tries to Prevent Office Politics
#105"At Facebook, moving into management is not a promotion. It’s a lateral move, a parallel track. " This is nice in theory. But when your "peers" with Manager in their title have access to more information and more decision-making power, it is not in fact a parallel track. Just saying people are equal doesn't make it so, and it doesn't change the underlying organizational structures.
This is very true. Hierarchy is hierarchy. Any organization can pretend they don't have such blasphemous thing, but if that was really true then there would be no "management" to begin with. What's wrong with accepting a leader as leader? You can't have it both ways - either you lead or be led. There's no equal footing there. It's not about making everyone equal at all times. What's important is how do you choose a l…
I don't think "leadership" is synonymous with "management". Some of my best managers have been mediocre leaders. Conversely, some of the strongest technical people I've worked with are great leaders.
Re: How Facebook Tries to Prevent Office Politics
#106Earlier quoted context omitted.
There are a number of companies that are structured so that employees are effectively shareholders.
Any specifically in the software space? Operating at scale? I've looked into cooperative business organisations in the past. From my recollections, these typically fall into a few classifications: 1. Political parties. Often themselves strongly aligned with cooperative or anarchist principles. 2. Labour unions. In some cases. 3. A few creatives collaborations, but with pretty loose integration. Artists, performers, o…
Publix is another notable one https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Publix
Re: How Facebook Tries to Prevent Office Politics
#107[deleted]
Re: How Facebook Tries to Prevent Office Politics
#108"At Facebook, moving into management is not a promotion. It’s a lateral move, a parallel track. " This is nice in theory. But when your "peers" with Manager in their title have access to more information and more decision-making power, it is not in fact a parallel track. Just saying people are equal doesn't make it so, and it doesn't change the underlying organizational structures.
we do this at my (very large) company. it's awesome.
the best thing about it? engineers who aren't good at the strategic, human high-touch, or political issues, but excel at execution and implementation aren't managing teams of people -- they're busy executing and getting paid (and further promotions) based on their ability to execute, not on their ability to manage herds of programmers.
as a software engineer, i love that my boss is my boss because he's good at managing teams of software engineers. not because he's the best software engineer in the house.
Re: How Facebook Tries to Prevent Office Politics
#109Earlier quoted context omitted.
Depends what set of priorities and how far you draw the line, in my mind. Project/work priorities? Should be company first, then team, then self. I think that goes without saying, and I think thats what they're trying to get across. Going for self glory in projects isn't good for a company. Going to team glory isn't good for a company, but its better than self glory. Financial priorities? Everyone has to take care of…
>Going for self glory in projects isn't good for a company. Going to team glory isn't good for a company, but its better than self glory. you and FB missed the most important - going for the glory of your boss. It is good for the both - for the company (as the company did make sure that the glory of the boss is aligned with the glory of the company) as well as for the team (as the company did make sure that glory of…
What an amazingly hierarchical type of thinking! Glory for the boss is just that, glory for the boss. Sometimes it may be good for the company, sometimes it might build up the boss in ways that aren't aligned with the companies interests. You get ivory tower syndrome and "kingdoms" really quick with that type of thinking.
Re: How Facebook Tries to Prevent Office Politics
#110Earlier quoted context omitted.
You're right, they also steal credit for work they didn't perform. Management is another parasitic job that needs to be removed and automated away.
Here's another perspective – "management" is a job that can be poorly executed by some, but is important as a method for effectively disseminating and collecting knowledge and goals from different parts of a larger community. The reason my current manager is there is to communicate the business's priorities to me, and effectively deal with any grievances I have. This is astonishingly effective, in that I no longer ha…
Everybody wins insofar as you don't challenge the status quo. If you do, they will isolate you (i.e. not promote you) and/or terminate you. This stifles innovation and creativity. There are no places left anymore like Bell Labs - where pure research was carried out and management got out of your way.
I find it hilarious that the vast majority of people on here will agree to automating away everything, except management (we really need them!). What I also find hilarious is the amount of downvotes I'm getting. If anything, that proves my point.
Monkeys in business suits are a cancer and plague upon Silicon Valley, and the sooner we get rid of them, the sooner we can focus on solving real problems.
What I see in most SV companies is massive bloatware - managers upon managers upon managers that don't really do anything. They create no value. Yet the incentive structure is skewed in their favor. This inefficiency will be addressed eventually, either exogenously (tech bubble bursting) or endogenously (engineers finally get sick of this corrupt and infected system).