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The no excuses culture

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Re: The no excuses culture

#141

Post by weixiyen »

eric_b wrote: post #51

I guess I shouldn't be surprised that most people on HN don't like this attitude. I used to think this kind of thing was stupid too. "Oh, management by fiat, that will never work". I see comments here talking about management by fear, or, ironically, making excuses as to why this won't work most places. I've worked in numerous Fortune 500's, and without a doubt the biggest piece missing from the dysfunctional teams i…

I agree with you.

The truth is, the high performers meet the deadlines with ease, and go beyond them pretty much effortlessly the majority of the time, so holding them accountable doesn't make them scared, it gives them a platform to feature their ability.

When someone is performing above expectations and others around them are not meeting expectations and not being held accountable, resentment sets in.

One of the best ways to lose your top performers is not to hold everyone accountable.

Re: The no excuses culture

#142

Post by m-j-fox »

crooked-v wrote: post #129
kerkeslager wrote: post #118

Excuses happen because people don't want to be blamed. If your team had an excuses problem, it's a response to a blame problem: when a problem is identified, people aren't looking for solutions, they're looking for someone to blame. Saying "no excuses" and "we're holding people accountable" might fix the excuses problem, but it exacerbates the blame problem. "Holding people accountable" is just blaming people harder…

The treatment of airplane crashes comes to mind here for me. Crash studies look for cultural and technical improvements that reduce the risk of the same thing happening again, as even "pilot error" ultimately points to some problem in education or work environment.

That, and the pilot is rarely around to take any blame.

Re: The no excuses culture

#143

Post by baylisscg »

m-j-fox wrote: post #142
crooked-v wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The treatment of airplane crashes comes to mind here for me. Crash studies look for cultural and technical improvements that reduce the risk of the same thing happening again, as even "pilot error" ultimately points to some problem in education or work environment.

That, and the pilot is rarely around to take any blame.

But there is the flight recorder which let's you both see the state of the plane and what the pilots were doing. Thinking about it many roles where people make major decisions independently have a concept of records being kept either automatically or as close to the event as possible for later forensic use.

Re: The no excuses culture

#144

Post by m-j-fox »

paulddraper wrote: post #85
analog31 wrote: post #24

I've always been struck by an odd irony in academia: People tend to have left-wing political beliefs, but maintain an organizational culture that is decidedly authoritarian. Perhaps this is necessary: I can't think of how else to manage a classroom than to have hard deadlines for things like homework assignments. Even in college, by definition, the work is finished when the semester ends. I'm personally guilty of mis…

Not all organizations should be run the same way. I would prefer my government to offer more liberty, than, say my employer.

I would prefer my employer to offer more liberty than they do. What's the point living in a liberal democracy if my most local of governments, the corporation, is a bunch of Nazi dick bags?

Re: The no excuses culture

#145

Post by btilly »

Asooka wrote: post #140
btilly wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree. Strongly. A common attitude of effective managers as documented by First, Break All The Rules can be summed up by, "I never waited too long to make the right hire. I never fired the wrong one quickly enough." Having the wrong employee is very toxic for your organization and culture. The rules that Steve laid out do not actually put pressure on people. They amount to, "Be accountable for what you say, try…

>The rules that Steve laid out do not actually put pressure on people To paraphrase what someone else said, "If a person is saying you're pressuring them, it's not your place to say you aren't"

The correct form of that is that if someone says that they are under pressure, it's not your place that they aren't. However people both can be and are frequently dishonest with themselves about WHERE pressure is coming from.

The challenge with Steve's rules is that people have to fight defensive behavior within themselves. If you believe that Steve will use your actions against you, it is really hard to follow his rules. If everyone follows his rules with trust that things will work well, following them is easy and things work well. If you can't trust him, then you don't belong in that organization.

But given what I know about him from years of observation at a distance, he means what he says and says what he means. I do not believe that he will use people's actions against them. And it would quickly not work out for him if he did.

Re: The no excuses culture

#146

Post by nercht12 »

btilly wrote: post #127
pm90 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Heh, I think it made sense upto the point where he threatened firing people. I agree that is too extreme: you're gonna quickly lose a lot of people who perform best when they're not under constant pressure.

I disagree. Strongly. A common attitude of effective managers as documented by First, Break All The Rules can be summed up by, "I never waited too long to make the right hire. I never fired the wrong one quickly enough." Having the wrong employee is very toxic for your organization and culture. The rules that Steve laid out do not actually put pressure on people. They amount to, "Be accountable for what you say, try…

>> The rules that Steve laid out do not actually put pressure on people. They amount to, "Be accountable for what you say, try to make it work, and let people know quickly once you hit a roadblock." It is about effort and communication, not achieving results.

Just want to clarify: It's subjective perspective. It is pressure and it is about achieving results, but it's not unreasonable or unexpected for any business. I pay you, you do work. Period. Or the company fails.

>> People who don't put in effort and don't communicate can't be made to, and can't stay.

Depends on the personality of the individual. Make sure you work with them first and figure out if you CAN get them to cooperate. If you don't bother trying but just put up the rules and say "follow this", there is the possibility you'll dump a good employee and have to spend the next 6 months getting HR to replace him/her.

Re: The no excuses culture

#147

Post by jacques_chester »

chadaustin wrote: post #49

Funny, I was just thinking about this and Steve Blank. Early at IMVU we really struggled with our crash rate. It was a 3D desktop application for _mainstream computers_. This was back before Windows 7 and everyone had terrible onboard graphics chips with equivalently terrible drivers. During a board of advisors meeting, our CEO presented our crash metrics and justified it by saying "We might not be able to improve th…

> "That's an engineer's justification! Figure it out!"

I find that I like Steve Blank less and less.

You might as well yell at your lawyers, your accountants or a physicist. Some things are.

The problem is that, once in a while, a professional opinion is wrong. So the Blanks of the world remember only the occasions where they bullied someone and lucked out -- then assume their Non-Excusing was the magic ingredient.

Re: The no excuses culture

#148

Post by jacques_chester »

analog31 wrote: post #133
WalterBright wrote: post #131

My father was a professor teaching business at a small college. On his first semester teaching, he assigned an essay due in a couple months. He said any papers turned in a day late got docked one grade, two days two grades, etc. He said no excuses would be accepted, because they had two months to do the work. The due date rolled around, and half the class turned in their papers late, and got docked grades accordingly…

Now try a new experiment: * There are 60 students, all taking 5 classes, with multiple assignments due at random time points in each class. * To finish any assignment, the student needs several tasks to be performed by other students in different disciplines. * The exact amount of effort required for any of those tasks is unknown. * The college has ordered the professors to assign just a bit more work than can possib…

I take it you spoke to my professors.

Re: The no excuses culture

#149

Post by tensor »

analog31 wrote: post #24

I've always been struck by an odd irony in academia: People tend to have left-wing political beliefs, but maintain an organizational culture that is decidedly authoritarian. Perhaps this is necessary: I can't think of how else to manage a classroom than to have hard deadlines for things like homework assignments. Even in college, by definition, the work is finished when the semester ends. I'm personally guilty of mis…

You're looking at academia from a teacher student relationship. Outside of the classroom and teaching it's a very flat structure generally. Individual professors have complete independence from one another. Relationships to government grants, on the other hand, are a different beast.

Re: The no excuses culture

#150

Post by k2xl »

kerkeslager wrote: post #118

Excuses happen because people don't want to be blamed. If your team had an excuses problem, it's a response to a blame problem: when a problem is identified, people aren't looking for solutions, they're looking for someone to blame. Saying "no excuses" and "we're holding people accountable" might fix the excuses problem, but it exacerbates the blame problem. "Holding people accountable" is just blaming people harder…

I couldn't agree more with this comment - and maybe I have a case of confirmation bias, but it's precisely the way I manage my team. Putting blame on someone doesn't help make problems go away - I've found that it just makes people defensive and makes the problem worse.

By setting a tone with questions like "What happened? How can we fix this problem from happening in future?" the team will end up finding solutions with technology or process.

As a manager, I feel you're job is to try and get your team to problem solve - using their tools and knowledge to come up with solutions.

In the example from the comment above, if someone is showing up high, or doing something really bad, then it's up to the manager to have the discussion about with the employee. Obviously if bad patterns repeat themselves then that's ground for termination.

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