Comment by bertil
8 years ago
Boz has mainly changed position within Facebook where a lot of things go right: people know what they are going and why; they get challenged over it often enough to be able to explain themselves succinctly; power is held by people who make things happen and can explain what is necessary.
I have applied the same method to several companies, and that didn’t lead to a lot of goodwill in highly dysfunctional places. The crux of the issue is that in many places, people can’t offer a consistent and exhaustive view of their work in 25 minutes. Being about to do that well enough that no other meeting is necessary it’s actually quite typical of Facebook where the pressure for people’s time and meeting rooms is so high that most meetings are 30-minute long; most people are smart and curious enough to be able to structure their entire role and its context, and fit that in a cogent 25 minutes, including questions. Elsewhere, you might get into trouble for trying to make sense of a lot of frustration, under-optimal decisions and misunderstandings.
You're right and I'd like to add, from firsthand accounts of friends who workthere, facebook seems like an incredibly well-managed company. They have good process, measure what matters, focus on impact, and seem to keep their employees happy.
Most places aren't at their level of alignment or clarity; it's a huge jumble of poorly-prioritized tasks and dysfunction.
I can directly confirm, and it comes down two three simple things:
- a constance focus on finding solutions: if you don’t know something, that’s not your problem, you managers pivots that into why it wasn’t taught in Bootcamp, why it wasn’t checked; you are never stuck or blamed: it’s always about establishing a long list of things to do, many personal improvements, and having the most important on top; “How can we fix this?” is the default response and it works really well;
- no hesitation to replace managers: I did work with people who were not… great at sharing their vision, and their responsibilities changed, often and fast; there is a quarterly detailed review leveraging a very detailed poll of all employees — outcomes are shared, decisions are public and debated at every level; authority is never something you own, and nowhere else have I seen so many senior people go back to the trenches because they though that would be best; little surprise though: their ability to take and act on criticism meant they generally get promoted very fast again;
- no hesitation in promoting unconventional people for management role and allowing them to be themselves, because that role is not about being the best, but the most able to give a team a direction. No where more than there have I reacted “Your manager did WHAT?! No, that’s awesome, and brutally honest but… Wow.” Sharing graphic details of pregnancy (to ask for specific team support around length of meetings), alternative hobby (like, really — to explain an issue with one use-case). No shame, just constructive direction.