Or he could have asked the team if they preferred to take a pay cut. Oops.
CTO day 2: downsizing the team
31–40 of 112 posts
Re: CTO day 2: downsizing the team
#32I read a lot of criticism of Daniel's approach in this discussion.
People don't like the fact that he wrote an app and tried to deal with the problem objectively. But, really, how is this so different to any other objective approach?
Here in the UK there is a significant body of legislation around the process of making people redundant, so it would have worked differently, and particularly it will work differently for larger numbers of redundancies.
There is always some sort of objective scoring criteria. For larger redundancies these are agreed with employee reps as part of the consultation period. You might be able to get away with less rigour if you're only making a handful of people redundant. Regardless, those scoring criteria and the scores associated with them are going to end up in some sort of model, which might be as simple as an Excel spreadsheet, but there's nothing to stop you implementing it in code. The model is generally published as part of a consultation pack so that staff can understand how they are being evaluated, and provide feedback via their employee rep.
The end result is that the people sorted at the bottom, however many you need, are made redundant. It isn't nice. But it is objective, and it's important that it be so, because that's as close as you can get to any sense of "fairness" - not that it's going to feel fair to the people losing their jobs. You have to be able to justify these decisions, to demonstrate that you've gone through a fair and objective process to arrive at them, because you might land in court if somebody challenges your decisions.
It's not nice, and it's always going to seem heartless to some people. But that's part of leadership: sooner or later you are going to have to make decisions that some (or even many) people don't like, and that you don't like either. In many of these cases there will be no perfect choice and no perfect outcome. There is no avoiding it. If you aren't willing to deal with this, don't become a leader.
Re: CTO day 2: downsizing the team
#33Earlier quoted context omitted.
He needed to evaluate the team based on some criteria one way or another. He chose certain criteria and used the computer to assist him in the evaluation. Another option would be to choose the team on who you just "like the most". Maybe this would have been more to your liking? It's more human, I guess. However, notice that there is still a criteria and still an evaluation phase, you can't avoid it (unless you pick b…
He should have realized that he lacked the knowledge and experience to tell his boss to fuck off because on day #2 on the job you simply can not make this decision in a way that won't kill the company.
As the CTO he was in charge.
It's absolutely fine to face à situation that is new and that you feel you lack knowledge and experience on. But as a leader and the guy in charge you should not refuse to deal with it, you need to find a way and people to advise you. Don't think that CEOs, Generals, Heads of States, etc know everything, no they know how to seek information and advice but the final decision and responsibility is on them.
Re: CTO day 2: downsizing the team
#34Earlier quoted context omitted.
He needed to evaluate the team based on some criteria one way or another. He chose certain criteria and used the computer to assist him in the evaluation. Another option would be to choose the team on who you just "like the most". Maybe this would have been more to your liking? It's more human, I guess. However, notice that there is still a criteria and still an evaluation phase, you can't avoid it (unless you pick b…
He should have realized that he lacked the knowledge and experience to tell his boss to fuck off because on day #2 on the job you simply can not make this decision in a way that won't kill the company.
I assumed that it was an internal promotion. If it was an outside hire, yikes. Although to be fair, we don't know how much time he was given to make the decision.
Re: CTO day 2: downsizing the team
#35[deleted]
Re: CTO day 2: downsizing the team
#36Earlier quoted context omitted.
He needed to evaluate the team based on some criteria one way or another. He chose certain criteria and used the computer to assist him in the evaluation. Another option would be to choose the team on who you just "like the most". Maybe this would have been more to your liking? It's more human, I guess. However, notice that there is still a criteria and still an evaluation phase, you can't avoid it (unless you pick b…
He should have realized that he lacked the knowledge and experience to tell his boss to fuck off because on day #2 on the job you simply can not make this decision in a way that won't kill the company.
The author was promoted to CTO, he worked for the company before. Given that the company has less then two dozend people, he likely knows it in and out, including everyone working for it. Also "Day2" is likely a metaphor for "story series entry number 2" and probably does not literally mean 2nd day at work.
Re: CTO day 2: downsizing the team
#37Earlier quoted context omitted.
He should have realized that he lacked the knowledge and experience to tell his boss to fuck off because on day #2 on the job you simply can not make this decision in a way that won't kill the company.
It is pretty interesting how this conversation goes. CTO: I can't do that on my 2nd day. CEO: I thought your interests align with the company. It is your job to align everyone under you to our direction. CTO: Yes, of course. Right away.
> CTO: Yes, of course. Right away.
If it's the best reply they can come up with, they're not competent enough for the position.
Re: CTO day 2: downsizing the team
#38[deleted]
Re: CTO day 2: downsizing the team
#39Earlier quoted context omitted.
He should have realized that he lacked the knowledge and experience to tell his boss to fuck off because on day #2 on the job you simply can not make this decision in a way that won't kill the company.
As the CTO he was in charge. It's absolutely fine to face à situation that is new and that you feel you lack knowledge and experience on. But as a leader and the guy in charge you should not refuse to deal with it, you need to find a way and people to advise you. Don't think that CEOs, Generals, Heads of States, etc know everything, no they know how to seek information and advice but the final decision and responsibi…
> you should not refuse to deal with it
One the contrary, it is perfectly fine to ask for enough time to be able to accurately assess the situation.
Re: CTO day 2: downsizing the team
#40Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't think he treats people like robots. The way he "delivers the message" is humane. And the way he selects who must go is totally an optimization problem.
You cannot boil down humans to 5-6 attribute points. What about personalities/coordination/how people actually interact. Product A might be filled with people who are use to taking charge, and Product B might be filled with people who are more reserved about their opinions. This is a dreadful way to solve this problem. If it were that easy, his job as CTO wouldn't exist and we could simply plug it into a SaaS AI that…
Did you read the article? He specifically says: "Most important, the application gave me a few starting points. Of those, I still had to consider the team dynamics, existing teams, personalities, seniority, potential, personal situation, future needs, …"