Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

How Facebook Tries to Prevent Office Politics

hbr.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 187 posts

Re: How Facebook Tries to Prevent Office Politics

#81

Post by embiggen »

gregdoesit wrote: post #33

I have a bunch of friends at Facebook - and from what I hear, this article is not very far off from what is happening. And it's all about many of the seniors leading with example. Take Philip Su, who was the site lead for Facebook London. In most organizations, that would translate to "manager of everything happening at Facebook". After 3 years he decided to take another lateral move - to move back to software develo…

With many close friends who work at $FB, I promise you politics are alive and well :)

Re: How Facebook Tries to Prevent Office Politics

#82

Post by p4wnc6 »

mVChr wrote: post #74
p4wnc6 wrote: post #32

Have only heard negative things about FB office politics from the folks I know who work there.

FB is big enough I'm sure different teams vary pretty widely. Even at the ~300 person company I was at previously the difference between project team culture and manager interference was pretty huge.

I agree. And these same folks also like their jobs at FB despite the politics ... they see it as one of the cons but are still happy with all of the pros.

I only commented because it's frustrating to see any company painted as if it's the one magical place in the universe that has solved office politics. Facebook is not that company.

Re: How Facebook Tries to Prevent Office Politics

#83

Post by Mithaldu »

alexgartrell wrote: post #59
wskinner wrote: post #8

"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.

I think you're absolutely right, in general, but I've been at Facebook for 5 years now, and the one thing I'll say about it is that once you establish a track record of 1) doing good work and 2) making good long-term decisions, that trumps any considerations around level. The culture is definitely such that the very senior folks (Director++) will value trust over level, so it's very much "influence over authority." P…

The last time i was at a place where trust went above everything, literally all the code was the worst horrible shit, because they sold tyres and that being a solid business had run into zero trouble, ever, and thought that the developer who'd been with them for over a decade was the best, since "he has never made a wrong decision" (i.e. the company hadn't gone bankrupt yet), despite his code managing to create, just on its own, an amazing turn-over rate in developers.

Re: How Facebook Tries to Prevent Office Politics

#84

Post by nv-vn »

wskinner wrote: post #8

"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.

All employees are equal, only some are more equal than others.

Re: How Facebook Tries to Prevent Office Politics

#85

Post by _wp3r »

alexgartrell wrote: post #59
wskinner wrote: post #8

"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.

I think you're absolutely right, in general, but I've been at Facebook for 5 years now, and the one thing I'll say about it is that once you establish a track record of 1) doing good work and 2) making good long-term decisions, that trumps any considerations around level. The culture is definitely such that the very senior folks (Director++) will value trust over level, so it's very much "influence over authority." P…

While this system does work well for very meritocratic groups, it is a mostly anecdotal/self-constructed replacement for defined/quantified hierarchy. The "influence over authority" framework is the adhoc social group hierarchy that is replacing a defined hierarchy, and is very susceptible to silos, clicks, and favoritism; regardless of the accuracy of the merit calculations by the members, of the members.

I am not knocking the system, as I agree that a meritocratic structure can work in small social systems, but there are some risk. The primary ones would be new member exclusion which can be hidden behind the meritocratic mantle of "it's the best choice", and fiefdom building that can result from the finite number of members that can function in a social group or that can reliably be recalled/indexed by members with in a group.

It may be possible to have numerous self contained and self structured groups operating within a larger organization, assuming the time tables allow for them to establish, and that new member barriers are not so obvious that they decrease retention. Facebook may be knowingly or unknowingly leveraging their Employer Brand to mitigate the risk of attrition within hierarchy-lite system.

Re: How Facebook Tries to Prevent Office Politics

#87

Post by dredmorbius »

Retra wrote: post #50
gaius wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed. Where's the company that orders it employees, shareholders, management? Doesn't exist!

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, or writers organisations.

4. Food-based businesses, typically smaller tea or coffee houses, or co-op food stores.

5. Mondragon Corporation. Pretty much an only-one-in-class, of an industrial cooperative. Also almost everyone's default example. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mondragon_Corporation

6. Producer co-ops. Often in agriculture, though others exist. Blue Diamond Almonds, and, previously, both Visa and MasterCard (the latter have both since reorganised as for-profit joint-stock companies).

I don't know of any business organisations that perform software or consulting services on a cooperative basis, though of course, the entire Free Software movement is a non-business organisation of such work.

Of course, I DDG on posting and immediately find: http://www.software.coop/info/

Though I'd argue that the fact I'd never heard of this group and their size somewhat emphasises my point.

Re: How Facebook Tries to Prevent Office Politics

#89

Post by lambdasquirrel »

_wp3r wrote: post #85
alexgartrell wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're absolutely right, in general, but I've been at Facebook for 5 years now, and the one thing I'll say about it is that once you establish a track record of 1) doing good work and 2) making good long-term decisions, that trumps any considerations around level. The culture is definitely such that the very senior folks (Director++) will value trust over level, so it's very much "influence over authority." P…

While this system does work well for very meritocratic groups, it is a mostly anecdotal/self-constructed replacement for defined/quantified hierarchy. The "influence over authority" framework is the adhoc social group hierarchy that is replacing a defined hierarchy, and is very susceptible to silos, clicks, and favoritism; regardless of the accuracy of the merit calculations by the members, of the members. I am not k…

I really wouldn't be that cynical about it in that sense. I don't work at Facebook. I never have. But I've seen this work. It really can happen.

The problem isn't traditional office politics, as far as I've seen. The problem is that sometimes the influential engineers can be shortsighted about other teams' needs and it can actually be hard for management to step in and say hey look.

Re: How Facebook Tries to Prevent Office Politics

#90

Post by 1024core »

jankassens wrote: post #72
1024core wrote: post #12

> Take the incentive out of “climbing the ladder.” In other words, pay everyone the same? Of course the author didn't mean that; and pay and power are the primary drivers of upward mobility. If I get paid as much as Zuck's SVPs, sure, I won't feel the urge to climb the ladder; but until that happens, I will.

There are definitely Individual Contributors who are on the same compensation level as directors. These are the engineers who revolutionize how the company operates, such as inventing HHVM and saving tons of resources.

There's a huge chasm between Directors and SVPs.
Post reply on HN