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'First, Let's Get Rid of All the Bosses' -- the Zappos Management Experiment
schnell writes: The New Republic is running an in-depth look at online shoe retailer Zappos.com's experiment in a new "boss-less" corporate structure. Three years ago the company introduced a management philosophy that came from the software development world called "Holacracy," in which there are no "people managers" and groups self-organize based on individual creativity and talents. (When the change was announced, 14% of the company's employees chose to leave; middle management openly rebelled, but perhaps surprisingly the tech organization was slowest to embrace the new idea). The article shows that in this radically employee-centric environment, many if not most employees are thrilled and fulfilled, while others worry that self-organization in practical terms means chaos and a Maoist culture of "coercive positivity." Is Zappos the future of the American workplace, a fringe experiment, or something in between?
TFA is a description of what a holacracy is, and how it should work. And the people quitting when the experiment was announced. Not a detailed report of the theory in practice.
And while TFA glows about it, the reports I've read about the Zappos experiment [citations not committed to memory] indicate that after a year, it was hard to get issues like "getting from the office to the parking structure at night is physically dangerous because of changes since the holacracy took over" solved.
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> but I have a strong suspicion that the thing is bullshit. I'll admit I don't really know, but I wouldn't trust what I was told about this unless I saw it for myself over an extended period of time,
Valve's management is "flat". They have been doing this for years.
* http://www.valvesoftware.com/c...
Management *is* a leadership position; leadership is not computer programming. It takes a whole understanding of business to understand what's what, and most people miss that so badly they envision everyone above them in the organizational hierarchy as non-working, excess, useless money-sinks which the business would get along better without.
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Protip: you don't have to have a boss to have somebody working the management function you describe.
That's the part people are missing; the vast majority of management functions do not require a person with nearly unlimited power and discretion over the other workers involved. A team can simply have a "external liaison" hat that somebody has to wear, and whoever is currently assigned that function does the "explaining to the suits what is possible and what isn't." In your example, I see no utility at all in involving a boss. If there is a project lead who is not only a technical lead, but actually a boss, they would actually be well-served having an assistant who can do grunt work like explaining possibilities of engineering to suits. That said, most of the projects I've been on do not have a boss inside the team at all; the worst the team leader could do is the same that any other team member could do; write an email to a suit. Instead, the team leader is the one designated to have authority over what goes into the source repository, the technical requirements for those things, and to tie-break the who-does-what when everybody wants the same toy.
Conflating bossing with the management of a resource is the base of the problem. If there is truly a conflict of interest between what the team wants and what an individual worker does, that can be dealt with in a separate process than is used for managing team resources. In fact, once that sort of issue comes up and there is that much conflict, the worker just needs to get fired (or transferred, re-educated, etc, depending on your societal norms) and that can be done by a vote; there is no requirement to have a Boss even to decide who gets hired and fired.
Of course, all of that works only when workers have a high enough morale to support a healthy work ethic. If there is high turnover then it will be Lord of the Flies. But if it is well-paid professionals, who value the work they do personally, and the work the company does, then it can run very smoothly. (I use "professional" to describe people who take their career seriously, not just white collar workers with letters)
What you are describing usually works when a company is doing great. Then management can be upfront about the department's goals and criteria, and in general be transparent on what is expected out of its employees. However reality is such that if there are some problems, being upfront about these often leads to best employees leaving for greener pastures, so enforcing the whole transparency policy can be compared to sentencing oneself to death. Since companies cannot really plan for good times or bad times, idk how applicable that approach in general is.
Otherwise I agree that yes, many management positions are filled by people who don't really understand that their job is to facilitate and not to "just in general be right about everything". They should not be there, but that's the problem of the culture they indoctrinate people in MBA courses with, and not easily solvable within a company that doesn't have access to a great management talent pool.
Yes and no. GOOD managers obviate the need for a "holocracy", but good people managers are rare as hen's teeth. I have a "decent" manager, but he's too much of a pussy so I have to deal with the higher-ups myself on any important issue. And for any minor issue I don't need a manager anyway.
Any group will still have leaders. I am a de facto leader of my group, they all ask me for advice on projects and situations, because the real management will just roll over and do whatever the upper echelons say, even though they no nothing about the situation. I don't "manage" but I offer suggestions.
So the traditional people manager is not necessarily the best option. I don't know if holocracy is the best option, but at least SOMEONE is trying something new. If it works, that's awesome. But to flat out say it won't work is stupid.
This is nothing new. It's called "tyranny of the majority". Compare it with a kindergarten or schoolyard, all kinds of dysfunctional group dynamics will be allowed to fester and evolve over time.
Technical people will be marginalized even more in such a socially predatory environment, so would need higher salary and status over time, or they will just go elsewhere.
Humanity, sadly, is not that much evolved, no matter how great fantasies people may have of "everything working out if people just come together and work it out".
It's kinda like how workplaces become, when leaders are absent for too long time, which I'm sure sounds familiar.
While I agree with the sentiment,I would say in my own case as a manager, if the pay scale were the same as when I was a techy, I'd just stay a techie.
As a techy, you know what you deliver, you invest in what you are responsible for and generally speaking your working world revolves around the things you know you are skilled at. For me at least, as a manager, it took time to find what it was I was delivering and even now, when I am clearer on that, it is far less concrete a thing. If my team delivers far more than expected because I have managed well, it could be said I have delivered, but I cant get away from the feeling that in fact, my team have just done a really good job instead :)
As a techy, I had Unix, I had C, perl, storage systems, networks etc and these I knew well and they followed strict rules. As a manager, I am constantly thrown into areas of no rules I know about and it's up to me to react as best I can, understand what the hell people are talking about and deliver stuff while looking to my team like I know what the hell I am doing.
I like the people management part of the job and I do like it when the customer is happy with what the team have delivered but if it were the same pay scale, Id be on the shop floor.
In fact, it is the worst kind of boss. The one with no ability to organize the work, so they get yelled at when it doesn't happen, and no one has to do what they are told. When asked who is responsible for making it happen, everyone forms into a circle and points to their right.
You know what the most surprising part about being a boss is? Looking at tasks you think should be obvious and having to actually tell someone to do them.
Seriously, a not inconsiderable amount of my workday is making task lists, telling people to do them, and checking that they were done. Usually they are, but that one time I don't check it... no matter how obvious I thought it was... no matter how simple it would be to do... it doesn't happen and shitstorms ensue.
I think you could make a bossless workplace work, but you need a process that has strongly motivational feedback which keeps the people doing the work on task and keeps them doing the right thing by the right date. That's hard to do for people who are not fully invested.
Startup founders might be able to work that way, for instance. They have the motivation that this is their baby and they get all the credit if their idea works in addition to all the money. I just don't see that happening in a larger business unless they somehow hand people a chunk of it to profit from if they can. Sort of like a fund manager or something.
For everything else, you hire people who can focus on the tasks of the group and make the decisions to get them done.