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angry armadillo posted:I have to admit I am a bit of a bullshit artist. I got caught out the other day when someone asked me is something working now? I started with the 'ah but well' and they immediately said "haha that's a long way of saying no" - Interestingly I said actually, it's a long way of saying yes - it does work, we just want to polish it up a bit more before we let you near it. Not directing this at you personally, but I crack down on this hard in my team. If I ask a direct question like, "when will this project be ready", I don't accept a reply anything other than a time value. Then give your explanation. It's a pet peeve but it annoys the gently caress out of me. Just answer the question then give your explanation.
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Jul 19, 2020 23:46
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CelestialScribe posted:Not directing this at you personally, but I crack down on this hard in my team. If I ask a direct question like, "when will this project be ready", I don't accept a reply anything other than a time value. Then give your explanation. It's a pet peeve but it annoys the gently caress out of me. Just answer the question then give your explanation. The best bullshit artists are insanely good at it. For example when asked "when will this project be ready" give some strong, technically truthful, indicators that it will be ready soon, then drop some interesting leads to move the conversation to another area before anybody pushes too hard. Or they might have previously maneuvered another group into making some promises regarding tasks which could be considered bottlenecks for the project, and hang any issues around their necks. Some of these are encapsulated in standard consulting skillsets - i.e. "building consensus" is convincing a bunch of people in one on one meetings that your idea is correct, before having a broader meeting with the whole group (plus bosses and maybe a couple hostile staff) at which you can now push through your ideas because you've brought enough people over to your side. Your options regarding project deadlines are limitless. Maybe the project is no longer a priority; maybe you convince enough people to widen or shift the scope sufficiently that the original deadline is meaningless; or you can blame someone else. Then there's always the option to push back on the PM. Before you are asked when the project will be done, push hard on perceived errors the PM has made on the project so that when he asks for timeframes he sounds petulant. Do this right and people will assume that the PM's (potentially not even real) errors led to any delays. The one that truly convinced me of the power of bullshit was when I was working on a joint venture between two organizations, let's say a car manufacturer and an engine supplier. This joint venture required some amount of trust between the two organizations, but they both had information relevant to the venture that they would rather the other not have, that we as consultants were entrusted with. So we'd regularly have confidential meetings with both sides and then sanitize/summarize the results and share with both organizations, although we were officially hired by the car manufacturer. My boss convinced the second in command of the engine supplier to secretly send us updates on what was happening behind the scenes at his company. Like, every week this person would give us the scoop on what his boss was thinking and why, theoretically so we could "better understand how to accommodate both parties for the joint venture" when we were actually hired by the car manufacturer. That more than anything convinced me I was 100% outclassed at bullshit and no amount of training or practice would ever put me on that level.
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Jul 20, 2020 13:57
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CelestialScribe posted:Not directing this at you personally, but I crack down on this hard in my team. If I ask a direct question like, "when will this project be ready", I don't accept a reply anything other than a time value. Then give your explanation. It's a pet peeve but it annoys the gently caress out of me. Just answer the question then give your explanation. This is a huge "you're about to get hosed" red flag for your team. Anyone who gives a complex time estimate without stating their assumptions and known risks is a bullshitter, and anyone who responds to that information with "cut the bullshit and give me a date" doesn't understand how project planning works.
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Jul 20, 2020 17:00
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If a worker is refusing to give a time estimate reduce the scope of the task until you get one and then re-evaluate from there. That's if you're serious about getting your work done, if you're looking for someone to assign blame to then sure just demand time estimates for complicated tasks and take them as gospel.
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Jul 20, 2020 17:24
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Humans are terrible at estimating at a high level, but dates are good to set expectations. From a management perspective I’ve found it infinitely more useful to discuss the actual concrete tasks needed to get from A to B, and then summarize, so the person has discovered (or been trained on) the way to get to where they want to go. Then I relate that to the deadline (this means review Wednesday, clean up Thursday/Friday, release on Monday) and ask them if that sounds reasonable. A lot of times people burn calories on poo poo that doesn’t get them from A to B, or they’ve chosen a circuitous and overly complicated route, especially when it comes down to testing and analysis. Uh this isn’t the PM thread so my thoughts on bullshitting are that if you have a PM you can get turned around with bullshit, then they are probably a bullshitter themselves or dead weight and are just gonna pass along that buck. (Un)fortunately a lot of people get demoted “up” or its super hard to fire someone, so these below average PMs just permeate the landscape, asking for slide updates and relating sage advice while they work 4 hours a day Crazyweasel fucked around with this message at 19:23 on Jul 20, 2020 |
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Jul 20, 2020 19:20
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Are there specific techniques besides basic asskissing and backstabbing? Like, is it a thing to gaslight your boss into thinking an idea was his to help you out?
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Jul 21, 2020 07:04
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Abugadu posted:Are there specific techniques besides basic asskissing and backstabbing? Like, is it a thing to gaslight your boss into thinking an idea was his to help you out? That's a thing. If you're looking to get people invested in a new project or initiative it's helpful to make them feel like they're an important part of the decisions. This can range from giving them some input on minor details that feel important (naming something, etc.) or by giving them some options for the illusion of choice (like asking a child, "do you want the red bath toy or the blue bath toy", when you just want them to take a bath). In consulting this goes a step further since the goal is to become indispensable to an organization. An old consulting line is that if your client converts your presentation to their formatting and presents it as their own, you're golden - they'll either understand that they're scoring major points from your work, or else will consider you an indispensable part of the awesome initiative they totally thought up themselves. You can do this in a nice way by actually soliciting feedback and treating your client as a subject matter expert; or be all manipulative about it by pretending that they made up all the good ideas even if they didn't. There are, of course, millions of other techniques - the main idea of understanding the company's power structure and then aligning yourself with that structure is for me a useful method of categorizing those techniques. One technique I've been running into recently is choosing to connect or intentionally separating two different people. Managers looking to create value / help out will block bullshit from flowing down to their reports, and will allow good output to flow upwards. Managers looking to scrape their way upwards will block output that makes them look bad, and alter other output to make it look like their own work to take as much credit as possible. For example the CFOs of under-performing organizations are usually too lazy to actually identify cost overruns and address them; instead they can limit any reports showing that they're ignoring high cost areas. But because they're "friends" with the CEO, the CEO trusts them and never digs deep enough to learn how they are failing. That CFO has created a "political landmine". If you tell the CEO that there are cost overruns, he will ask the CFO about it. The CFO will then expend his political resources to destroy you. Congratulations, you've been fired. How do you get around that? Get the CFO to communicate the opportunity as a success story on his part. If these are long-term issues that can't be spun positively for the CFO you need to either build sufficient political capital to take him on, or more likely, just don't bother and find a better project where you can actually do something. That separating of people is generally intentional and can create significant power for a mediocre manager at the expense of reports, and is particularly common with managers of technical employees (as those employees often can't communicate effectively to higher level folks, anyways). One way around this is to quickly and concisely respond to any high-level requests in person or that you're cc'ed on - i.e. when a VP asks "how many widgets did we sell Saturday", respond with an answer before your manager can interject. This carries some significant risks but if you know what you're doing and get to what the VP needs, he will deeply appreciate it; and if your manager asks you to stop doing that, next time you pass the VP in the hallway make sure to inform him in a non-accusative fashion that your manager doesn't want the two of you talking. You've now put your manager in a terrible position while gaining good will from the higher-ups. I mentioned this before but the best bullshitters never provide their actual motivations for any actions. Let's say you want to switch jobs, run a report differently, hire more people, fire someone, etc. You should be true with yourself about your intentions; but when you communicate your action to others you should think about what scenario puts you in the best positive light. Many people do this already when quitting jobs - i.e. it's always to "explore other opportunities" / "spend more time with your family". But if you're looking to move 20 more reports under your wing so you gain more power? It's to improve efficiency, or because these 4 people need to sit next to each other because they work together, etc. etc. There are always some positive effects to any action and those should be talked up. The converse is to never trust anybody's stated motivations for any action, but instead consider all of their previous actions and identify trends to determine their goals. There are the obvious ones, like more power and money; but there are others as well such as screwing people you hate, convincing yourself you're a good person, increasing your stability in an organization, etc. etc. This is big in politics. Are you looking to screw over minorities? You're not allowed to say that but you are allowed to change how schools are funded under the guise of "efficiency" or "fairness".
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Jul 21, 2020 15:11
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Are there any companies where actual teamwork is encouraged, and working primarily for the benefit of the company is justly rewarded, or is corporate structure just too rife with fear, incompetence, and a self-selecting group of self-interested parties that it inevitably turns into the bad outcome of the Prisoner's Dilemma?
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Jul 22, 2020 01:54
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Abugadu posted:Are there any companies where actual teamwork is encouraged, and working primarily for the benefit of the company is justly rewarded, or is corporate structure just too rife with fear, incompetence, and a self-selecting group of self-interested parties that it inevitably turns into the bad outcome of the Prisoner's Dilemma? Here's a hint to guide you to the answer: corporations are largely staffed by humans.
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Jul 22, 2020 03:22
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Abugadu posted:Are there any companies where actual teamwork is encouraged, and working primarily for the benefit of the company is justly rewarded, or is corporate structure just too rife with fear, incompetence, and a self-selecting group of self-interested parties that it inevitably turns into the bad outcome of the Prisoner's Dilemma? No Wave fucked around with this message at 04:07 on Jul 22, 2020 |
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Jul 22, 2020 04:04
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Abugadu posted:Are there any companies where actual teamwork is encouraged, and working primarily for the benefit of the company is justly rewarded, or is corporate structure just too rife with fear, incompetence, and a self-selecting group of self-interested parties that it inevitably turns into the bad outcome of the Prisoner's Dilemma? the uk civil service
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Jul 22, 2020 09:44
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Abugadu posted:Are there any companies where actual teamwork is encouraged, and working primarily for the benefit of the company is justly rewarded, or is corporate structure just too rife with fear, incompetence, and a self-selecting group of self-interested parties that it inevitably turns into the bad outcome of the Prisoner's Dilemma? Most of my experience is from consulting so I generally see companies that are pathological. That said I've seen several companies that aren't terrible and presumably there are some others. Small companies run by a well-meaning and competent owner can function well - i.e. if the company has <50 employees, the owner will know every person and can tell if somebody's being lovely. Companies usually hit growth pains at around 50 where it's no longer reasonable for a leadership team to actually know everybody. At that point they will need to implement various structures and hierarchies where bad behavior can be hidden, and you start getting performance reviews, backstabbing, "meets expectations", grading on a curve, etc. etc. Commonly accepted consulting knowledge is that the leadership team sets the culture for an organization. If the C-suite focuses on accountability, efficiency and teamwork, presumably some of that will be passed on downwards. In my experience this is incredibly hard to actually do. For example, your leadership team might regularly talk about the importance of accountability and teamwork, but actually focus on their power struggles. That will then get passed down - everybody at various levels of the organization will parrot the party line about accountability while trying to backstab their colleagues. Other leadership teams might actually be well-meaning but simply not have enough visibility into lower levels of the organization. It doesn't matter how much you want people to be nice if you lack the ability to enforce it - there are a bunch of non-profits in the US that I expect are run by well-meaning folks but are shitshows. I worked at a place where the board of directors was a bunch of nuns who tried to be good people, and they had a Chief Ethics Officer in the C-suite, but it was one of the most dysfunctional places I've ever seen. Most importantly, the nuns couldn't detect bullshit, so guess what happened? You'll also get companies that are, for the most part, run well, but have several less-valued divisions which devolve because they are not considered vital. For example, a car manufacturer might have all its factories running perfectly, and properly motivate its manufacturing team, but then have a lovely HR because it's just not considered a core function of the organization. Many goons fall into these non-core functions, i.e. IT, business analytics, finance, etc. which are considered "cost centers" with no revenue opportunity. From the perspective of the leadership team that might be fine, if overall the company is doing well and those non-core functions aren't dragging down the "important" operations. All the various consulting books (which I typically haven't bothered to read) point to several companies as examples of efficient companies. Leadership consultants all try to emulate Toyota which is apparently the shining beacon of corporate efficiency and success. I have never worked there, and I'd expect that 99% of this stuff is SEO'd garbage, but supposedly Kaizen reflects the concept of continuous improvement, from the CEO to the assembly line worker. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaizen
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Jul 22, 2020 13:50
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Toyota is fairly legit as far as big companies go. I think it's also important to remember that all this stuff exists on a continuum. Like this: Abugadu posted:Are there any companies where actual teamwork is encouraged, and working primarily for the benefit of the company is justly rewarded, or is corporate structure just too rife with fear, incompetence, and a self-selecting group of self-interested parties that it inevitably turns into the bad outcome of the Prisoner's Dilemma? Are there companies where actual teamwork is encouraged and rewarded all the time? No. Are there companies where actual teamwork is encouraged and rewarded most of the time? Yeah, they're out there. Are there companies where teamwork is encouraged and rewarded some of the time? Yes, quite a few. I don't think that it's inevitable that things turn in to the bad outcome of the Prisoner's Dilemma but that is the natural equilibrium so without extraordinary effort and focus from leadership and across the company it is hard to sustain other outcomes. There are companies that manage this to varying degrees.
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Jul 22, 2020 15:58
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Abugadu posted:Are there specific techniques besides basic asskissing and backstabbing? Like, is it a thing to gaslight your boss into thinking an idea was his to help you out? There's a variation on this which is suggesting your idea as your boss' idea in front of their boss. There were a few times, where in a larger group setting, I'd suggest my idea as my boss' idea in front of her boss, which now requires us to pursue the project. Because my boss was not prepared, nor well versed enough in the subject, she would have to rely on me to do the heavy lifting, including the presentations, which got me a few accolades and exposure to other departments within the organization. I guess it was a bit like management drafting?
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Aug 3, 2020 04:34
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Abugadu posted:Are there any companies where actual teamwork is encouraged, and working primarily for the benefit of the company is justly rewarded, or is corporate structure just too rife with fear, incompetence, and a self-selecting group of self-interested parties that it inevitably turns into the bad outcome of the Prisoner's Dilemma? No, because there aren't just rewards under capitalism. Putting that aside, though, there are companies that do strongly encourage actual teamwork and putting aside personal vendettas and poo poo for the benefit of the company, but they're incredibly rare. I used to work for one, and then the company that bought it changed a bunch of poo poo and torpedoed the culture. Most recently, the parent company shut it down entirely and is shipping most of the jobs overseas because, while still reasonably profitable, it wasn't profitable enough, apparently. Tomfoolery posted:Most of my experience is from consulting so I generally see companies that are pathological. That said I've seen several companies that aren't terrible and presumably there are some others. The challenge with companies getting Kaizen right is that it requires leadership to do difficult poo poo, which they absolutely do not want to do. 99% of the time, they just want a magic bullet that they can pay somebody else to implement while they work on their golf game or whatever, because they have neither the desire nor the aptitude to do the meaningful parts themselves.
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Aug 7, 2020 19:19
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I didn't have depression but I now have it after reading this thread
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Aug 30, 2020 08:10
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KOTEX GOD OF BLOOD posted:I feel real bad for the kids who read this poo poo and think that the best way to live life is to get ahead in a corporation by being a manipulative sociopath. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uRf-sRZBiHo
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Sep 24, 2020 03:29
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There any good books on this sort of thing? I agree with the OP completely and have done some of this stuff instinctively in my career without anyone really explaining it to me or knowing what I was doing. It worked out great mostly (and blew up in my face a few times). I didn't like the Gervais Principle for the reasons stated in this thread, but it has some useful information about workplace psychology/manipulation that nobody would dare to put in a book they were trying to sell at scale. That being said I'd like to do some more reading on this sort of thing but don't know where to look. Any actual career/talking to people/how to get ahead books I've ran into are mostly pandering bullshit designed to make you feel good about yourself and provide very little useful information.
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Sep 30, 2020 19:10
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vaginite posted:There any good books on this sort of thing? Yeah mostly I've just seen pandering bullshit. It's all SEO'd garbage designed to earn $$ or to get the drones to be happy with themselves. Many of the best corporate con-artists I've seen are unable to formulate what they do that makes them so successful. Another big issue is that, like with dieting, it all depends on your own personality and wants. For example I have strong quantitative skills and am significantly weaker at reading people / saying mean things politely. My advice is aimed at similar people (most goons I'd expect), and is likely unhelpful for someone who can instinctively suss out a person's intentions. I expect that somebody, somewhere has written a good corporate self-help book for you but I can't help find it. A good book could set someone on the path to soul-sucking corporate success but in the end this is something that you have to learn by doing. A charismatic friend of mine encouraged me while at bars to look at other patrons and try to figure out why they were there, what their goals or motivations were, and what mood they were in. Little efforts like that helped me to better read my colleagues at work.
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Oct 7, 2020 19:43
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I'm going to necro this thread because I think it's good and merits further discussion. Some thoughts: I read The Gervais Principle a while ago. It's a good lens, but I feel like it's "black pill" distortion and has a few super salient moments that the rest of the book is fleshed out around. The "Power Talk" example of Jim and David Wallace shooting baskets and Jim communicating a lot under the surface is one that I think is super important. I've had a bunch of interactions with senior management that were levels above me, and early on I would fail at them. I can be too candid, lack the "Executive Presence" mentioned above and not take seriously the power dynamic between us. We're both people, right? Well, you're not. You can't corner someone who is powerful and have that work out well, even if your argument is bullet proof. That sort of "I know what you're asking, but I'm not going to come out and say it" language does end up making the powerful people comfortable around you. I was at an executive retreat where the company was seeing who was worth grooming for senior management. The CEO, the leader I've liked working for the most in my career, called on me specifically in a room full of people, asking me what happens at the end of a quarter? I said that basically, he'd yell at everyone and the whole product pipeline would move twice as fast. The room tittered nervously. Why were they laughing? It was true, he asked. Well, they were laughing because it was true and I was the dumbass saying it. They were right to laugh, I wasn't talking the right talk. As a leader, I'm a contrast to Tomfoolery. I have technical skills, but I'm very strong in soft skills and it's easy for me to discern motives and emotions. I'm critical in my current organization because there are plenty of "quants" but not a lot of "emos", and even fewer emos that can understand enough quant to be able to gain respect. I can talk someone through troubleshooting a system I don't understand, but I'm really working on how they're feeling and why they get blocked. I end up half assing the reports or making decisions based on bad information because I didn't push myself quantitatively (and, because I've gotten really comfortable with being decisive while being uncertain, since everyone wants decisions). I make a terrible consultant, but I'm a huge boon to the organizations I've been part of. The reason I say this, and the reason that books about leadership suck so bad, is that I can only tell you what worked for me. You're lucky if it works for you, but usually you have to find out what works yourself.
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Jan 21, 2021 23:21
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Moneyball posted:There is no such thing as a product. Don't ever think there is. There is only sex. Everything is sex. Just FYI, I implemented this in my SMART (Sexy Mama Agile Rhythm Technique) goals for the last eight months at work. I didn't get a promotion, but I felt much better about coming to work every day.
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Jan 22, 2021 02:05
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The Gervais Principle series was brilliant. I took it as a thesis on human maturation---about how many humans get stuck in various phases of it once they've found them to be too comfortable. Some people stop being challenged anymore once they've met their first accepting peers, or met their first teacher who gave them good grades, or (in Micheal Scott's case, as the book relates) as early as when he met his own mother and older siblings---gaining their applause for his every clueless repetition of anything symbolizing adulthood. It takes quite a privileged background for someone to be able to comfortably stop at any phase of growth. Without the privilege, then life's challenges beat it out of you until go grow into the next phase. But we live in an era in which the growing class of professional managerial service workers and their children have lacked natural obstacles for decades. While insulated from many life consequences, this class has bloated larger than it's ever been allowed to. In fact I would modify the author's representation of how organizations start, grow, bloat, and then die:   The author points out how businesses grow and die in a Darwinist ecosystem, in order to give the sociopaths that started them an exit route once the business grows too unwieldy. As each business grows, it also bloats with an increasing clueless layer to be its useless growth "managers". When the business stops growing fast enough to benefit the sociopaths that run it, it is then killed for their benefit. Whatever promises remained to produce more for society is sabotaged early. What I think the author is missing is the larger scale problem of what happens as this Darwinian effect plays out collectively across all businesses. The people in the clueless layer have to go somewhere. They don't just disappear each time a business gets salvaged and abandoned. In fact, what this model predicts across society is a growing clueless layer within the whole *civilization's* pyramid. The entire nation, all at once, gets overrun by the clueless who fancy themselves enlightened managers. Whereas a single business by itself can be killed when its get too bloated, there is no such escape lifeboat from the larger society when this gets repeated too much everywhere. I think we're at a stage where society's clueless layer has bloated to the point where it's about to burst like an infectious sore, crashing and leaving behind a collapsed society that no longer needs any managers, leaving a whole lot of people redundant. I think we're past the point of no return already with the mismanaged pandemic, economic crisis, organized crime and corruption crisis. Note, by the way, that all of those things are inherently invisible to the now-bloated clueless layer. Not maturing any further past a point terminates one's ability to process how large systems like businesses or governments work. That's why so much of America's over-influential managerial class have embraced the symbols of Woke politics without ever finding any further meaning or understanding of systemic issues, power differentials between people, or material limitations. Even if there were a post-nuclear-apocalypse, the clueless survivors would still be trying to re-open the schools, irradiated as they may be, to function as daycares so they can return to their day jobs, to lead useless mandatory meetings from behind the manager desks they've earned in life. I'm really glad I read this series. I've always been fascinated by the role of pathological individuals in controlling organizations, the impact of whom is clearly huge in politics, cults, as well as business, but no one else has put it in such clear terms of categorizing people as the Gervais Principle blog. I wonder how the author themselves has matured since having all these thoughts (from 2009-2013!) and how they would have expressed it differently today. Based on their Twitter, since then they seem to have at least used this knowledge of the world of deception for personal benefit, building a fine career as a serious-sounding business consultant and online writer. Happy Thread fucked around with this message at 06:53 on Mar 4, 2021 |
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Feb 18, 2021 06:26
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Abugadu posted:Are there any companies where actual teamwork is encouraged, and working primarily for the benefit of the company is justly rewarded, or is corporate structure just too rife with fear, incompetence, and a self-selecting group of self-interested parties that it inevitably turns into the bad outcome of the Prisoner's Dilemma? I would say such companies are rare. I had a pretty good time with my company when I hired on there was a good deal of Teamwork. However, as times have changed and.... long term projects and opportunities have dried up and gone to more... short projects and opportunities, that comes with its own deal of stress. Long term projects offer stability. Short term ones do not unless it re-occuring.
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Mar 4, 2021 04:29
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Happy Thread posted:The Gervais Principle series was brilliant. I took it as a thesis on human maturation---about how many humans get stuck in various phases of it once they've found them to be too comfortable. All businesses are started and run by sociopaths who lord it over their initial, loser hires. After a while, the hierarchy expands to fit in the clueless, as well. This eventually makes the company too bottom heavy so the sociopaths kill it and move on. This whole thing is a metaphor for society at large. I am very smart and an Understander due to my truly perfect political opinions and not at all the crippling untreated depression I also have which is completely incidental to this post.
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Mar 4, 2021 16:12
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Venkatesh Rao, who came up with the Gervais principle, is onto something. It doesn’t explain the entire human experience at work, because what could? But as a very crude and simple explanation of why people in corporations have the outcomes they do on average, it looks about right. Sensible people recognise that companies aren’t individuals and can’t have any obligation to them that isn’t written in a contract, and aren’t actually real communities in whose survival and prosperity the person has a meaningful stake. However, a workplace looks and feels a lot like a real community: you spend a lot of your time there and it provides for you day to day (until it doesn’t). And organisations expend a lot of effort trying to create parasocial relationships in which employees think the company’s a real community and act to their detriment as if it were. People who fall for this and sincerely buy in to corporate values and “just world” ideas about who gets promoted (hard workers! deserving people!) instead of relying on their own, more accurate, observations about what is happening will usually suffer for it. This is a lot of people! That’s Rao’s core insight, and I think it’s accurate. As to actually getting promoted internally, it’s usually a combination of luck, “cultural fit” (in my current company this means being a thirtysomething Haigui with an MBA; in yours it may differ), what someone else imagines you can do for them in the future and how badly someone else imagines they will be inconvenienced if you leave. The advice on flattering people outrageously is good because it actually works really well at making people think you’re a great cultural fit and that you will add a lot of value - by making them feel good, or at least safe - in the future.
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Mar 7, 2021 17:36
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bort posted:I was at an executive retreat where the company was seeing who was worth grooming for senior management. The CEO, the leader I've liked working for the most in my career, called on me specifically in a room full of people, asking me what happens at the end of a quarter? I said that basically, he'd yell at everyone and the whole product pipeline would move twice as fast. The room tittered nervously. Why were they laughing? It was true, he asked. Well, they were laughing because it was true and I was the dumbass saying it. They were right to laugh, I wasn't talking the right talk. what do you think the right response would have been? it feels like the one you gave gives credit to the ceo and everyone else should emulate his inspirational leadership style
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Mar 7, 2021 21:40
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Mar 7, 2021 22:05
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Breath Ray posted:what do you think the right response would have been? it feels like the one you gave gives credit to the ceo and everyone else should emulate his inspirational leadership style In fact, in retrospect and with a bit of wisdom, the reason it was that way was his own fault. He'd be checked out two months into the quarter, and then the CFO would likely point out what would happen to the share multiple if the earnings were going to be where they were. He'd panic and start yelling at people. bort fucked around with this message at 13:20 on Apr 1, 2021 |
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Apr 1, 2021 13:18
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and what would have been the right answer?
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Apr 1, 2021 22:09
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As a mostly manual laborer who has only known minimum-wage simple dead-end jobs all his life, the horror stories of these hosed up office dynamics depresses the gently caress out of me. Actually even thankful to have given up the "big paychecks" with "the suits" just to not participate in all this bullshit. Guess that angsty teenager instinct way back payed off! bort posted:You don't speak the truth in a room full of leaders all playing the game - unless it's some vapid truth that serves you in some veiled way and isn't controversial. Those are the rules.
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Apr 10, 2021 20:12
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The same bullshit happens in your manual labor jobs unless it's just you working alone. I mean it works that way for retail at least lol
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Apr 11, 2021 08:53
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Hell I saw these dynamics play out way more in my first job in a brewery than I did in my current role in corporate pharma.
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Apr 17, 2021 10:40
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Bastard Tetris posted:Hell I saw these dynamics play out way more in my first job in a brewery than I did in my current role in corporate pharma. You’re too low on the greasy pole then.
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Apr 19, 2021 03:54
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Remulak posted:You’re too low on the greasy pole then. Thank god for that.
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Apr 20, 2021 08:08
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bort posted:I was at an executive retreat where the company was seeing who was worth grooming for senior management. The CEO, the leader I've liked working for the most in my career, called on me specifically in a room full of people, asking me what happens at the end of a quarter? I said that basically, he'd yell at everyone and the whole product pipeline would move twice as fast. The room tittered nervously. Why were they laughing? It was true, he asked. Well, they were laughing because it was true and I was the dumbass saying it. They were right to laugh, I wasn't talking the right talk. Telling the truth when you're not supposed to is a common element of humor for precisely this reason. You're making people uncomfortable and you don't know why (or you may know exactly why and are deliberately subverting the rules). Breath Ray posted:what do you think the right response would have been? it feels like the one you gave gives credit to the ceo and everyone else should emulate his inspirational leadership style bort posted:The reason I say this, and the reason that books about leadership suck so bad, is that I can only tell you what worked for me. You're lucky if it works for you, but usually you have to find out what works yourself. Tomfoolery posted:One technique I've been running into recently is choosing to connect or intentionally separating two different people. I used to work with a woman who was the worst compartmentalizer I'd ever seen. If she didn't want you to know something, she wouldn't tell you. All information was relayed through her. This was one of her many faults, but she could sell so she was tolerated for a long time. I didn't particularly like her, but worked with her (one of a very few who could) since I knew how she was. Finally one of her enemies was promoted to manager and got rid of her. Despite being relatively loyal to her and putting up with her bullshit, she didn't tell me until she was almost literally walking out the door. As her final gently caress-you to the company, she received a $700k PO just before she left, and didn't tell anyone about it. It languished for a year until the customer asked why we hadn't taken their money. paperchaseguy fucked around with this message at 07:32 on Jan 5, 2022 |
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Jan 5, 2022 07:27
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