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The Dead Sea Effect In the IT Workplace
Alien54 notes a blog posting by old hand Bruce F. Webster on the current state of affairs in hiring in IT, focusing on what he calls the Dead Sea Effect. "Many large IT shops... work like the Dead Sea. New hires are brought in as management deems it necessary. Their qualifications... will tend to vary quite a bit, depending upon current needs, employee departure, the personnel budget, and the general hiring ability of those doing the hiring. All things being equal, the general competency of the IT department should have roughly the same distribution as the incoming hires. Instead, what happens is that the more talented and effective IT engineers are the ones most likely to leave -- to evaporate, if you will. They are the ones least likely to put up with the frequent stupidities and workplace problems that plague large organizations; they are also the ones most likely to have other opportunities that they can readily move to. What tends to remain behind is the 'residue' -- the least talented and effective IT engineers."
When employers all threaten everyone with the same outsourcing when/if the salary budget gets too high then none of us are better off. No one leaves and instead of a Dead Sea you have an algae pond that clogs and festers.
This just in, smart people find dumb people dumb. Film at 11.
A morning without coffee is like something without something else.
Not that I completely disagree...but these people do go somewhere. If you start with the assumption that the distribution of the talent is uniform across the marketplace, then the migration of talent from one shop to the next obviously doesn't change that.
Smart people with better options leave. wow who would have thought that would happen. next on slashdot, all about how water is wet.
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
The real nerds are busy doing math and science somewhere, while the fake ones come here to talk about video games.
I suggest you read Slashdot
Actually, the problem I'm witnessing personally at work is that when one gets promoted within the same department, it isn't as clean of a break from the old job responsibilities as you might think. If the people who are doing your old job don't step up - and you're still in the same general area (even if your title/job duties change) - the old stuff comes with you, and it's your responsibility to make sure others grasp your job.
Granted, I am not complaining, as sometimes there's really no other way to do this. However, my personal grumble is that the others don't truly seem like they have the time - or the initiative - to step up as I did......
But they still complain about not being promoted. I can lead a horse to water with the best of them, though...
Karnal
This tends to happen when companies don't focus on keeping their best talent, and don't regularly get rid of those who have no desire or ability to learn or do their job better. There are two types of employees - the guys who love their job and would spend time at home (for free) to learn more.. and those who show up, do their job, go home and don't give a shit. Your company is only as good as the people who work for it.
This is certainly not restricted to the IT industry.
In my experience working in a large petroleum company I have seen the exact same thing - high turnover of good engineers, with a few competent people who stay on dotted around the organisation, but also a lot of dead weight.
However this is not news. This is just what HR battles every day in large orgainisations - balancing pay, benefits, career advancement etc. against turnover rates, to try to make staying on more attractive. Which is hard because the grass is always greener...
I don't want to bust this guy's bubble, but let me give it a try anyway. The problem that he describes is part 'peter principle' http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Principle and part of the culture of bad leadership that infests (at least western cultures) big business.
The trouble is not what you think. Modern western businesses are generally run like the military, at least in form if not function. This puts too much control in the hands of those who are not proven fit to lead. The problem of good people moving on is prevalent in ALL industries, including the all volunteer military, forklift drivers, plumbers, restaurant managers... on and on and on. It has nothing to do with IT other than its affect on IT.
Bad leadership is the problem, and it spills out of corporate offices like stink from a blocked sewer pipe of grand proportions.
Hiring decisions are effected via budget restraints and leadership decisions between what amounts to two basic waring factions within the company: The IT shop and the HR group.
When you start to think of modern corporate businesses like armies you can see how things go wrong. It only takes one bad lieutenant to totally fuckup the battlefield. With field promotions, that Lt. gets to a spot that s/he doesn't belong and it becomes more short term pain to replace them than to let them carry on fucking things up.
Bad leadership chooses to avoid short term pain. If sports teams were run the same way they would never win anything (sorry NY).
The problem is bad leadership. end. of. story.
With good leadership, all the other problems can be mitigated or removed.
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And some managers see it that way, however there's always the war between HR & new candidates to pay as little and for as much as you can and visa-verse, and in my experience this usually leads to scraping the bottom of the barrel for rough diamonds unless strict requirements are set for competency.
...at least from what I've seen in the several IT jobs I've had in as many years: What I've found is that I am often hired into an environment where the "old guard" aren't exactly technically proficient, but they remain thanks to their collective knowledge of the domain. Which isn't exactly a bad thing: All things considered, domain knowledge often trumps technical proficiency when it comes down to getting the job done.
Still, it's quite frustrating to join a group with a collective level of technical knowledge below one's own. Groups such as this are often resistant to suggestions from the new guy, and it's been my experience that it's the new hires that end up leaving.
Bruce F. Webster (brucefwebster.com)
Thanks for insulting my only means of feeding my children, you insensitive clod!
Hey! Look a Distraction!
I someday hope that "software engineering" will be a real profession -- but on the other hand, that has legal and professional consequences (e.g., state boards, state licensing, risk of malpractice) that I suspect most people in IT wouldn't want to touch.
Bruce F. Webster (brucefwebster.com)
It's not just "evaporation" at work in those places, there's also a filter that actively excludes "fresh water" from the lake.
Consider the position of the talentless drone who's achieved a position of junior management by virtue of being the longest-serving talentless drone in the room when the previous manager left.
Is this PHB-in-training going to hire the best and brightest?
No way, s/he doesn't want underlings making him/her look bad, so s/he'll be careful to only hire other talentless drones.
There's an additional benefit (for the PHB) here, as it requires 2 or 3 talentless drones to do the work on one talented geek, and a managers prestige and remuneration are proportional to the number of people s/he manages.
So only "brackish water" ever flows into the lake, evaporation then acts to make it even worse.
Quidquid Latine dictum sit, altum videtur (anything said in Latin sounds important)
That's why a lot of places have a backwards attitude to promotion. You shouldn't get promoted to do something new. You should get promoted because of what you're doing now.
Something else is happening in the Dead Sea. Those who are left behind have an easy time assuming that they are the right ones to inherit the kingdom and will be looking for more like themselves. This may be very appropriate for a time and place so they may not be just 'residue' but it bodes poorly for flexibility. This culture builds until it is the only acceptable culture and the "way we have been and will always be". There is a building self-fulfilling prophecy that can blind a company to other options and stifle the ability to adapt to changing situations. This is fine if the market is on the upswing, but deadly where there is a "self-correction".
Many expanding companies see this as training your replacement. If you can do that then you're good for management because you're already kind of doing it.
The Dead Sea effect is not really wrong, but I believe it's swamped by larger effects:
"Not an actor, but he plays one on TV."
Doing all of that, and doing it well, still doesn't make you an engineer. A good craftsman, yes, an engineer, no. And, yes, I raised my hand, and I call myself a software engineer because it's the common term, but I don't think what we do is disciplined enough to really be called engineering, yet.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
My company manages all that without being large (~300 persons). Are we sure we aren't talking about every company where the CEO doesn't know all the people working for the company? I can talk to the CEO on first name bases, most of us can and may do that, but he wouldn't necessarily know what's going on and how frustrating the working space can get.
True engineers have much higher responsibility/accountability attached. Nobody cares if your program crashes (hence bug reports, new version, etc) but god help you if a bridge collapses because of a stupid mistake, and you're the engineer that signed off on that design. At a minimum, you'll lose your license, and have to find a new line of work. Now that I think of it, that would be good for some "software engineers" I've talked to. Most real "engineers" have the knowledge that screwups will kill/hurt people.
What are we going to do tonight Brain?
That is why one of the keys to being promoted is never allow yourself to become indispensable in your current job. As another reply stated, always be training your replacement. Its common advice from hundreds of "career help" books, and it makes sense precisely because of what you described.
_sig_ is away
What about those of us who love our jobs and love to excel in them, but don't want to make work our entire life?
That suggests to me that you've chosen a job that you don't *really* love, since you see a clean break between going to work as a necessary chore and returning home to enjoy life. That's not uncommon: it's called 9-to-5'ism, and it's the bane of company life because it creates shoddy, uncommitted workforces full of people whose main concern is leaving the office.
If you truly love something, then you *DO* want to make it your entire life --- it's part of the human makeup, to seek to maximize what you enjoy and to minimize what you don't enjoy. If you truly loved your job then you would give it unlimited attention, and multiplex it with other things that you love (eg. sleep, eating, family) as best you can, flexibly. That means sitting at the job's bedside for 48h non-stop when there is trouble, just as you would sit at a beloved's bedside non-stop when they are in trouble. No 9-to-5'ism, no treating the job as second best.
From your description, it seems that you don't place your job in the same category as your home life. This contradicts your statement that you really love your job, and it casts a doubt on your claim that you love to excel in it, since your level of committment to it is limited. You may "love to excel in it" as you say, but only on your own terms, as a secondary, less-loved interest. It's still 9-to-5'ism, and it really isn't in the same league as working in a job that you truly love.
Incidentally, the tell-tale sign of really "loving your job" is continuing to do it when you get back home after office hours are over, without getting paid, when there are no other issues of higher priority to attend to. It's part of our natural desire to maximize those things we love. If you don't do that, on principle, then you're actually deluding yourself about loving your job.
"The question of whether machines can think is no more interesting than [] whether submarines can swim" - Dijkstra
Maybe you work for the last american business that offers a pension plan or something, but if I were you, I wouldn't count on that either.
The biggest reason to be an employee rather than a permatemp is usually medical insurance.
Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
Perhaps they go and start their own shop? It's something I see in the Mac business. Lots of people leaving larger (thinks Apple) or even semi-large (think Omni Group) companies to start their own software companies. It's easy for us developers to do so, since one developer can produce a full, finished, sellable product within a reasonable timespan (like half a year) with minimal outside help (some graphics design, some translation, probably some money and law stuff).
As a developer, if you can put away enough money to survive half a year, you can start your own company with minimum risk.
(I'm not a CEO)
"I don't care about individual talent, that's crazy. Programmers are like plumbers. I run a company with 1000 plumbers. There's a turnover and a general skill level, I won't bother beyond that. Of course every plumber thinks he's a star plumber, which is funny, considering how replaceable they are. Let them scream, let them whine, let them hate the management, let them move on. They are just another commodity. The numbers are fine. Now please excuse me while I collect a huge bonus."
I think it's a bit naive and too easy to think that companies fail to hang on to star programmers because of bad management. The management doesn't care by design, as a professional choice.
That's the whole premise of privatization in government. The idea that an outside company can do the required job cheaper than in-house is a fallacy. And then they wonder where their budgets went at the end of the year. Most government services are services that the private sector can't or won't provide either because of legal requirements or profitability. To somehow assume that the private sector can do better for less when they have already shown they can't is astounding.
This is a sig. This is only a sig. Had this been an actual sig you would have been informed where to tune for more sigs.
> > Sure, but even Mozart died penniless in an unmarked grave.
> Surely an unusual place to die?
Very efficient, and you gotta give him props for his "do it yourself" ethic.
Log in or piss off.
Thanks for all the great comments, though I suspect many of you didn't ready anything more than the brief extract posted here at Slashdot. :-) Because certain themes keep coming up again and again, I thought I'd address them in a single post (I also posted this over at my website).
Here's a response to the main themes that I see coming up there.
The Dead Sea effect isn't unique to IT. True enough, though I could say the same thing about just about any project management issue regarding IT. What is unusual about IT (shared with other engineering disciplines) is the degree to which individual talent and other factors affect productivity and quality. And what is unique about IT (as opposed to, say, civil / mechanical / chemical engineers, architects, etc.) is that there is no standard (state-run) professional certification, so there is no assurance of minimum education and competency.
This is obvious/common sense/trivial. So are most of the problems in IT. Fred Brooks and Jerry Weinberg pretty much nailed down all the essential issues in IT project and personnel management more than 30 years ago; yet, amazingly, the problems haven't all gone away! There is a profound lack of professional and institutional memory in IT; almost everyone who writes about IT project/personnel management (myself included) is looking for new ways to cast or explain the core issues in a touching hope that maybe this time someone will actually listen and fix them.
The Dead Sea effect is just the Peter Principal (or a corollary thereof). No, it isn't. The Peter Principal is that a given person rises to her/his level of incompetence (I'm actually old enough to remember when 'the Peter Principal' first came out). This has nothing to do with promotion within the IT organization; it has to do with self-selected removal from that IT organization, not due to a lack of promotion or opportunity, but just because there are greener pastures elsewhere.
Not all IT shops are like this . I would certainly hope so. In fact, there are IT organizations where just the opposite occurs; the quality of the IT engineers is quite high, and engineers who are mediocre or disruptive either don't get hired or don't last long if they are. I worked in one such IT group (Pages Software) for five years. During that time, we had only one voluntary departure (the network admin); we had two others who were dismissed due to problems, and a few others who were (painfully) cut in downsizing.
Not everyone 'left behind' is incompetent . Again, this syndrome doesn't apply to all IT groups, and it doesn't apply to the same extent to all IT groups. Turnover in IT personnel is common (though it can be reduced by intelligent management), and just because good engineers have left a given IT group doesn't mean that the rest are, in fact, residue. What I'm talking about here is a very real syndrome, typically found in large corporations and government organizations, but it's certainly not universal.
The IT hiring process is broken. Amen. Not only is the IT hiring process broken in many organizations, the entire approach to IT is often broken. It is rife with empire-building, 'heroic' project management, and an 'interchangeable code monkeys' mindset. As mentioned in the comments
Bruce F. Webster (brucefwebster.com)
Unusual, yes, but very efficient.
I also agree that demoting managers who screw up is a good idea. It encourages them to learn to be better managers and make better decisions. When there are no consequences for people's actions, organizations go to hell. I've seen it too many times.
But all consequences need to be managed properly. A demotion really needs to be well deserved. Incidents need to be documented, and people met with to discuss problems before issuing a demotion. But where it is warranted, do it. Where a firing is warranted, do it. The impacts on morale, when such issues are handled properly and fairly, are positive.
But then again, this is why Dilbert can be such an accurate and funny comic strip.
That's what I used to think. But in reality, when you travel for work, you get to see the inside of airplains, hotels, the client's office, and a taxi, and very little else. What you don't get to see a lot of is friends and family.
Yes, mod parent to +5.
"It's NOT about making things better..."
It's about non-technical managers outsourcing so that they can say that technical things are no longer part of their responsibility. It's about avoidance of responsibility, and has nothing to do with improving anything or cutting costs.
The manager who outsources can blame someone else when projects fail. If things get really bad, the manager just goes to another company.
I was the senior architect and manager at a major Fortune 30 company ($50b in size) that hired in a new CEO who had been one of the Jack Welch proteges. As with nearly everyone of his sycophants, this new CEO brought both the Six Sigma and HR ranking methods with him.
During review time our managers had to rank everyone from 1 to 5 and were suggested(not formally written as required, as HR liked to point out) to have 10%-1,5 20%-2,4 40%-3's within your group.
Now my team had been composed of the strongest developers and architects from the various other units, specifically to provide guidance to the entire organization and be available in a matrix model to assist any project team that needed it.
So review time comes around, all my team were high performers, all had through out the year been involved in fixing critical issues, helping projects get back on track, etc and I had given them all 4 & 5 (3 was shows up a does their job satisfactorily).
HR told me I had to change some ratings, though they always insisted there was no required distribution, I was pressured to change them. I refused, pointing out that when compared to the organization as a whole, these were the most senior, most productive people we had.
My VP over ruled me, changed the ratings herself so that I had 1-1 (performance plan required), 1-2, 1-4, 1-5 and 3-3's. They also re-organized and took the team away from me. The excuse was that our bar was higher than everyone else, so we had to be ranked against that.
Within 6 months, all but 2 of us were gone. We all took different jobs elsewhere that didn't have this garbage.
The HR ranking model had been pioneered at GE manufacturing plants which employed union workers. In order to be able to get rid of true dead weight in a way the union leaders would agree with, they came up with this ranking model. Classify a bad seed a 1 and you can get rid of them.
The big problem with this is after the first year or two, the dead weight is gone, and the process is now cutting out good people. The other problem was the good people would stick with a particular team where they knew they would come out on top instead of offering to move around so they came out at the top of the curve.