Programming Your Culture • Hacker News Board

Re: Programming Your Culture

#31

Post by agurkas » Thu, Dec 20, 2012, 6:45 PM UTC

cynicalkane wrote: post #9

codinghorror wrote: post #8

> we instituted a ruthlessly enforced $10/minute fine for being late to a meeting with an entrepreneur. So, you are on a really important call and will be 10 minutes late? No problem, just bring $100 to the meeting and pay your fine. When new employees come on, they find this shocking, which gives us a great opportunity to explain in detail why we respect entrepreneurs. Except.. this doesn't actually work. http://www…

$3 for ten minutes is way smaller than $10 for 1 minute. When you think about how people respond to incentives, first consider the size of the incentive. Otherwise you'd be forced to conclude that, say, a $10,000 fine wouldn't work either, which is plainly absurd.

Exactly, that is comparing apples to oranges. In one of the companies I was in we started charging $5 for being late to a huddle or $20 if you were an exec - people took cabs to get to the huddle on time, because it was the fact that you had to pay, not the amount that motivated you. Cab was more than a fine.

Re: Programming Your Culture

#32

Post by agurkas » Thu, Dec 20, 2012, 6:49 PM UTC

freework wrote: post #23

Culture just happens. If you go out of your way to foster some kind of fake "culture" you're only doing your business a disservice. The company I worked for with the best culture did nothing to try to create a "culture".

Cultures don't just "happen". Culture is a deliberate act of founder instilling company values in early employees, so the culture then scales from there. Best cultures always feel natural, because founders and early employees spend a boat load of time working on it and enforcing it. 15 years and 9 startups, I walk into the company and immediately can tell if I want to be there. Companies without culture are usually those in a Fortune500 list - numb, bland, like Hondas and Toyotas.

Re: Programming Your Culture

#33

Post by pasbesoin » Fri, Dec 21, 2012, 5:14 PM UTC

Matt_Cutts wrote: post #11

davros wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those are all great and very interesting examples where senior leaders create a culture by taking tough and visible decisions. I wonder if they worked in the same sort of way that the post describes where new people talk about them and it makes them engage with the issues around the culture? That is, did they have a long-lived effect on culture or were they one-off boosts to it? I think you've got a culture when all…

Actually, I think for half of the examples I mentioned it was rank-and-file Google employees who forged Google's response. I've seen a bunch of examples of regular colleagues galvanizing Google to do the right thing. Often regular Googlers drag execs to the answer we think is right. :) I think each of the four examples I mentioned did have a long-lasting effect on the company as well, e.g. the Data Liberation Front (…

It is good to read this, in light of some current concerns and/or generalized "feeling" about the status and direction of things.

I continue to have concerns about Google, but at the same time I continue to perceive a culture where people stand up and advocate for, insist upon, or just quietly do "the right thing".

(Now, where's my green energy flying car. ;-)

P.S. I guess I felt this worthy of a comment, in that I continue to struggle with my own interpretation of this dichotomy. And I don't think I'm alone.

Re: Programming Your Culture

#34

Post by robrenaud » Tue, Dec 25, 2012, 9:14 PM UTC

codinghorror wrote: post #24

wtrk wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Should I, or anyone else, be fined for that? If you had been made aware, in advance, that there was a fine, then sure, you should be fined for being tardy. Are you pattern-matching on "VC", "lateness", "fine", and your own negative feelings regarding having been late to a VC meeting? Your reaction to this story (VC firm trying to show that it values potential investment targets' time) is like someone worrying that,…

The idea that it's all about the monetary penalty to get the "right" behavior is not just the wrong incentive, as the research shows, but also reinforcing negative stereotypes of VCs. It's a bad idea.

I don't think you really understood the research. The research was talking about the difference between social and market norms, not directly about what is the appropriate cost for lateness.

It was social norms that kept the parents picking up the kids on time consistently. Adding a small cost switched the parents from social norms mode to market norms mode. Instead of the parents thinking "oh no, I better hurry now, because it's wrong to be late" as was the case when lateness was free, it became a "is it worth $3 to be 10 minutes late?" calculation.

Replacing social norms with a poorly chosen market rate is dangerous and can potentially backfire. Essentially, there is a discontinuity in people's behavior between a cost of $0, where you benefit from social norms, and a cost of epsilon, where the social norms go out the window. If you actually charge people the cost they are inflicting on you for lateness, then it's again a different story.

Re: Programming Your Culture

#35

Post by codinghorror » Thu, Dec 27, 2012, 6:52 AM UTC

robrenaud wrote: post #34

codinghorror wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The idea that it's all about the monetary penalty to get the "right" behavior is not just the wrong incentive, as the research shows, but also reinforcing negative stereotypes of VCs. It's a bad idea.

I don't think you really understood the research. The research was talking about the difference between social and market norms, not directly about what is the appropriate cost for lateness. It was social norms that kept the parents picking up the kids on time consistently. Adding a small cost switched the parents from social norms mode to market norms mode. Instead of the parents thinking "oh no, I better hurry now,…

Correct, so we would be replacing "let's be on time for meetings with our business partners because we respect them" social norms, with "is it worth $50 to be 5 minutes late for this meeting with a company we invested in?" for ... a venture capitalist. People who have, er, lots of money. That's why they're in the room.

I'm not clear what you thought I misunderstood here.