Ask Slashdot: Would You Fire Your CEO? (cio.com)

As America celebrates a national holiday honoring organized labor, long-time Slashdot reader itwbennett shares this story about the modern workplace: Three years ago, talent management and human resources company Haufe U.S. created a workplace democracy in which C-level leadership is elected by the employees for a one-year term. In an interview with CIO, Kelly Max, who is currently serving as Haufe's CEO, explains how the company got to this point and what they've learned from the experience.

"If you're going to talk about how your employees 'own' the company, if you're going to tout how they all have a voice, why not go all the way and see what happens? Because why not? You already have people working for and with you who elect you every day, who either agree or disagree with you and follow you, so we wanted to make it very transparent," says Max.
This raises an inevitable question for Slashdot readers: would your own organization work as a democracy? So leave your answers here in the comments. Would your company's employees fire your CEO?

Comments

What's the point?

[SpaghettiPattern]

I am not pleased with our CEO. We all aren't. It's a way of life.

I'd settle for one that understands business strategy well and who knows how to keep the company profitable in the mid and in the long term. But those are few and far between.

The employee's choice will inevitably be the most popular one. Which most of the time isn't one bit better than the status quo.

Re:What's the point?

[SpaghettiPattern]

I'm always impressed that software devs and project managers and database architects understand business strategy so well that they only need about 10% of the contextual information about what's going on in the business, and no access to financial statements... and yet can tell that the C-suite has it all wrong. Have you ever thought about being CEO? We would love to have you.

A quote from Machiavelli:

Nor, I hope, will you think it presumptuous that a man of low, really the lowest, station should set out to discuss the way princes ought to govern their peoples. Just as artists who draw landscapes get down in the valley to study the mountains and go up to the mountains to look down on the valley, so one has to be a prince to get to know the character of a people and a man of the people to know the character of a prince.

I personally had to learn the hard way what business strategy is. Had (wait I still have) a company fully based on my skills. I realized that I hadn't a clue as to how I could influence the factors around me and so I quit well in time and went permanent to do what I do best. Then I studied business strategy. (Boy was I naive.) The upshot is that I now can argue as to how a technical decision supports our strategic position.

I now see pretty quickly whether a CEO has a strategy or not. Developing a strategy requires analysis, input from many different disciplines and is a hell of a job to take on. Management by decree has nothing to do with strategy. A strategy is documented reasonably well and enables people within the organisation to naturally contribute to it.

Re:What's the point?

[mattwarden]

Your quote does not apply. I did not say that you can't discuss strategy unless you're a CEO. I mocked the ridiculous attitude that many technical people have about how CEOs have no idea what they are doing and the software developer has it all figured out. It is the lack of humility I am mocking, plus the ignorance of the very real fact that people lower in the org only have partial visibility on one or two silos of business operations, and have no access to financial statements. There is a reason for financial reporting, and people without this data will make conclusions based on things they see (eg, the premium coffee service being canceled) and generally end up making the wrong conclusions. So why would your first assumption be that the people who have all this information and do have experience with strategy are idiots and have it all wrong?

That's what I am mocking. And the magnitude of this egotistical silliness is unique to tech.

Sounds oddly familiar...

[sisterk]

Arthur: Please, *please*, good people, I am in haste! WHO is your CEO?
Woman: No one is.
Arthur: Then who is your board?
Woman: We don't have a board!
Arthur: (suprised) What??
Man: I *told* you! We're an anarcho-syndicalist commune! We're taking
        turns to act as a sort of executive-officer-for-the-week--
Arthur: (uninterested) Yes...
Man: But all the decisions *of* that officer 'ave to be ratified at a
        special bi-weekly meeting--
Arthur: (perturbed) Yes I see!
Man: By a simple majority, in the case of purely internal affairs--
Arthur: (mad) Be quiet!
Man: But by a two-thirds majority, in the case of more major--
Arthur: (very angry) BE QUIET! I *order* you to be quiet!
Woman: "Order", eh, 'oo does 'e think 'e is?
Arthur: I am your king!
Woman: Well I didn't vote for you!

Workers controlling the means of production

[Mjlner]

There is one element of socialism in here. Not all elements, though, so you Americans can start breathing again.

I'm actually all for the democratic control of companies. If nothing else, stupid voters/employees might end up learning that voting for incompetent or corrupt leaders will actually make you end up without a place to work.

Benign dictatorship

[JasterBobaMereel]

The best form of leadership is a Benign/Benovolent dictatorship, this means they are reasonably popular but can get things done and can make the unpopular decisions when needed

The reasons this works for a company, are the same ones that work for a country... ... but if a company stops being profitable they go bust and disappear, whereas when a country does the equivilent you just get a classical dictator

Democracy is a terrible system of government, but it is the least bad system in the long term ....

Re:Under one condition

[Sneeka2]

I don't think it makes a whole lot of difference whether the parachute is golden or lead if you're going to fire them out of a cannon. The irony factor will be higher with the gold parachute, so I'd go for that.

Why just the CEO?

[houghi]

Would you fire your cow orker? Would you fire the coffee lady or the person sitting at the reception?

To me it depends. Are they doing their job? If so, then no. If they don't, then yes. Not really that hard. What often is the problem is twofold.
1) The amount they get (including bonuses) is not realistic compared to the work they do compared to others. Should they earn more? Sure. Should they earn 200 times more? No.
2) It is often unclear of what his job is. Most of the time it is pretty simple, make as much money for the company as possible. Sometimes it is something else, like "increase the market position to ..." or "increase the market value of the shares".
And that might be something that is not correctly interpreted. Is it possible to achieve these goals and are they realistic or is he achieving them, then no, he should not be fired. What might need to be done is to change the goals.

And there lies the issue. Are the goals something we can agree with or are those the issue? Perhaps we do not want to increase the market value of the company for a buyout. We want to keep as much people employed as possible. Or we want to give better service to customers instead of lowering prices to increase the market share.
And if we are able to change the goals, is he still the best choice for these or not? If not, fire him. If so, all the better.

Just look at him as any employee and treat him the same. I get fired if I don't do my job and so should he, but first ask what that job actually is.

I can be the world best perl programmer and am hired to write perl, but if the rest works with c# what I do is meaningless and a waste of money.

Re:Why just the CEO?

[Opportunist]

Security and its cost is part of risk assessment. And yes, there is a point where security costs more than it's worth. If the possible damage that could happen is 1000 bucks a month and it costs me more than 1000 bucks a month to secure it, then even certain impact realization would not warrant the security expense because it is actually cheaper to simply accept the damage.

Security needn't generate revenue but it has to lower the assessed risk by as much as it costs. Simple as that. This is, by the way, another reason why the whole TSA security theater is completely bogus.

Requires a knowledge of the job

[petes_PoV]

C-level leadership is elected by the employees for a one-year term.

So how to "ordinary" employees (even ones from a recruitment company) know what qualities to look for in a C-level? Do they understand the legal obligations that C-levelship brings. Do they know what is possible or within scope for a particular "C"?

Or do they simply engage in a beauty contest and vote for people they like, or who make the biggest promises: "vote for me as your CEO and I'll give everyone a pay rise and annual bonus"

It all sounds lovely and group-huggy. But does it actually make the company more successful or a better place to work?

C-level is at lowest in decades

[jabberw0k]

Why would any company want C leadership these days, when C Programming Language's Tiobe Rating [has] Drop[ped] To Lowest Level in decades? Surely some Python or even a modern Perl leadership would be far superior.

Re:HP

[Jayfar]

Can we all vote to fire HP's CEO's. Retrospectively.

In retrospect, you meant retroactively, I think.

For a solid case where they should...

[damn_registrars]

Look to Sears. The CEO there is Eddie Lampert, who used various financial manoeuvres to first take over KMart and then Sears. He has zero retail experience. He is known for only attending board meetings via videoconferencing (where he yells at board members). He has passed down illogical orders to the stores that have turned the skeleton crews into Lord of the Flies.

So why haven't they fired him? They can't. His moves placed him as majority share holder as well as CEO. The board has no way to fire him. He is in a can't-lose situation now as with very few exceptions Sears owns the land their stores sit on (even in malls) so once he drives the ship under he has millions of dollars of real estate that he can sell.

Re:Under one condition

[Niggle]

Surely the irony factor would be highest with an iron parachute?