7 ms·

>Consider that if our hero disappears on a months-long backpacking adventure in Europe and without her to save the day our velocity slows to a crawl, we've stum

>Consider that if our hero disappears on a months-long backpacking adventure in Europe and without her to save the day our velocity slows to a crawl, we've stumbled upon a systemic reliance that reveals deeper fragility. >As such generally we want to discourage a culture of heroism and seek to build systems and processes that don't require it. The economy runs on heroism. If you don't believe me, see how central planning went in the last century I have seen heroes quit because of decreased comp leading to huge revenue loss. I have also seen extremely expensive but predictable (often in that they don't deliver) "systems and processes" This post speaks to cushy managerialism

WJW 4y ago
What's the alternative to process and knowledge sharing then? If you allow heroism to run rampant in your company you basically guarantee it will die just because a single employee quits, because all areas of the company are rife with single points of failure.
- ramphastidae 4y ago
  Pay the heroes what they’re worth. Imagine if the Bulls let Michael Jordan join another team because they wanted to discourage heroism.
  - WJW 4y ago
    No amount of pay can stop people from getting hit by a bus or leaving for other reasons though. Michael Jordan is an interesting example because he eventually did stop playing for the Bulls (because he retired) and then it took the Bulls six years before they made the playoffs again. More in general: everyone thinks they're the "hero" in the situation and that they're underappreciated, but for the company the team is (and should be) more important than the individual. Imagine if you got laid off because the "hero" in (say) the sales team died and now the company is no longer profitable, because he/she was the only one bringing in any orders. Would you consider that a well-run company?
    - collaborative 4y ago
      If you discourage heroism - worse, if you announce that you discourage heroism, the average employee's motivation is going to fall drastically. Everyone will do the bare minimum. Exotic forms of corruption like thrift may even emerge This is exactly what happens in the wider economy when you discourage heroism in society Humans naturally want to see the grass greener. If you know all you'll ever be is just a number - worse, if you know you will actually be disapproved of because you tried harder or can do better than average, then everyone (but especially gifted individuals) will perform worse and worse until the company breaks What this post synthesizes is the managerial's class desire to become the "heroes" at the expense of lump-sumed menial labor performed by faceless employees. It's a parasitical philosophy on work Imagine you own a company (usually involves years' worth of sweat and tears to achieve some sort of success/profitability). Imagine you hear a manager say "let it fail". I hope the feeling that follows makes it clear that the manager is a sponger
      - WJW 4y ago
        If I own a company where (unbeknownst to me) some function has been hopelessly understaffed to the point they can no longer successfully complete all their tasks, a good thing that could happen is that eventually they do fail at their task and the subsequent investigation into why that happened reveals that they are understaffed and overworked. We can then either allocate more resources or reduce their workload so their tasks become more sustainable. The best way to fix it would be to have good enough communication at all levels that there are no such situations in the first place, but humans are imperfect and mistakes happen. The last thing I would want is for some "heroic" employee to paper over the gaps until they eventually burn out or leave, after which the company will have a huge problem. All the domain knowledge has been concentrating in that one employee and now that they are gone we have lost that knowledge and will need to rebuild it, probably at great cost if it can be done at all. Like you say, if I built my own company with many years of sweat and tears then I am don't want to let easily preventable issues to have such impact. As to the first few paragraphs of your post: there are many ways to make employees feel appreciated without also making them into a single point of failure for the entire company.
Convolutional 4y ago
> The economy runs on heroism. If you don't believe me, see how central planning went in the last century Ok...when the US and Europe were mired in depression in the 1930s, the Soviet Union was going through breakneck growth, to where US and European workers were going to the Soviet Union in droves to make money. Then virtually all of continental Europe invaded the Soviet Union and were beaten back to the Elbe River. Then it launched satellites, men into space, and other innovations. Of course several decades into this growth, when Khrushchev decided to cut capital spending, that is when the trouble started - the same with Ulbricht. In the people's republic of China, decades of central planning and five year plans have led to it becoming the second largest, and by some measures the largest economy in the world. The policies swing back and forth, planning was very centralized for decades, then Deng Xiaoping did some decentralization, but as pretty much every western media source acknowledges, Xi has been centralizing more. Also there is an odd mythology in places like the US. A mythology where transistors did not take off due to the central planning of the US government and armed forces, who allowed centralized monopolies like Bell which invented the transistor, and then funded firms like Fairchild with large orders, before transistors were commercially viable for consumers and businesses. In this mythology the current stock market is mot going up or down due to heroic innovations, but due to the announcements of the federal reserve chairman.
- swagasaurus-rex 4y ago
  The Soviet Union was mired in famine covered up by the incompetent government in the 30s. This was the Holodomor which killed millions and Ukrainian people still remember it well, how Stalin tried to prevent journalists from seeing the true horror of his leadership
  - Convolutional 4y ago
    What do you think the Dust Bowl in the US was?
    - swagasaurus-rex 4y ago
      Were there people resorting to cannibalism in the US? Millions died in Ukraine due to communist mismanagement. Lenin did the same thing before Stalin did.

WJW 4y ago

What's the alternative to process and knowledge sharing then? If you allow heroism to run rampant in your company you basically guarantee it will die just because a single employee quits, because all areas of the company are rife with single points of failure.

ramphastidae 4y ago
Pay the heroes what they’re worth. Imagine if the Bulls let Michael Jordan join another team because they wanted to discourage heroism.
- WJW 4y ago
  No amount of pay can stop people from getting hit by a bus or leaving for other reasons though. Michael Jordan is an interesting example because he eventually did stop playing for the Bulls (because he retired) and then it took the Bulls six years before they made the playoffs again. More in general: everyone thinks they're the "hero" in the situation and that they're underappreciated, but for the company the team is (and should be) more important than the individual. Imagine if you got laid off because the "hero" in (say) the sales team died and now the company is no longer profitable, because he/she was the only one bringing in any orders. Would you consider that a well-run company?
  - collaborative 4y ago
    If you discourage heroism - worse, if you announce that you discourage heroism, the average employee's motivation is going to fall drastically. Everyone will do the bare minimum. Exotic forms of corruption like thrift may even emerge This is exactly what happens in the wider economy when you discourage heroism in society Humans naturally want to see the grass greener. If you know all you'll ever be is just a number - worse, if you know you will actually be disapproved of because you tried harder or can do better than average, then everyone (but especially gifted individuals) will perform worse and worse until the company breaks What this post synthesizes is the managerial's class desire to become the "heroes" at the expense of lump-sumed menial labor performed by faceless employees. It's a parasitical philosophy on work Imagine you own a company (usually involves years' worth of sweat and tears to achieve some sort of success/profitability). Imagine you hear a manager say "let it fail". I hope the feeling that follows makes it clear that the manager is a sponger
    - WJW 4y ago
      If I own a company where (unbeknownst to me) some function has been hopelessly understaffed to the point they can no longer successfully complete all their tasks, a good thing that could happen is that eventually they do fail at their task and the subsequent investigation into why that happened reveals that they are understaffed and overworked. We can then either allocate more resources or reduce their workload so their tasks become more sustainable. The best way to fix it would be to have good enough communication at all levels that there are no such situations in the first place, but humans are imperfect and mistakes happen. The last thing I would want is for some "heroic" employee to paper over the gaps until they eventually burn out or leave, after which the company will have a huge problem. All the domain knowledge has been concentrating in that one employee and now that they are gone we have lost that knowledge and will need to rebuild it, probably at great cost if it can be done at all. Like you say, if I built my own company with many years of sweat and tears then I am don't want to let easily preventable issues to have such impact. As to the first few paragraphs of your post: there are many ways to make employees feel appreciated without also making them into a single point of failure for the entire company.

Convolutional 4y ago

> The economy runs on heroism. If you don't believe me, see how central planning went in the last century Ok...when the US and Europe were mired in depression in the 1930s, the Soviet Union was going through breakneck growth, to where US and European workers were going to the Soviet Union in droves to make money. Then virtually all of continental Europe invaded the Soviet Union and were beaten back to the Elbe River. Then it launched satellites, men into space, and other innovations. Of course several decades into this growth, when Khrushchev decided to cut capital spending, that is when the trouble started - the same with Ulbricht. In the people's republic of China, decades of central planning and five year plans have led to it becoming the second largest, and by some measures the largest economy in the world. The policies swing back and forth, planning was very centralized for decades, then Deng Xiaoping did some decentralization, but as pretty much every western media source acknowledges, Xi has been centralizing more. Also there is an odd mythology in places like the US. A mythology where transistors did not take off due to the central planning of the US government and armed forces, who allowed centralized monopolies like Bell which invented the transistor, and then funded firms like Fairchild with large orders, before transistors were commercially viable for consumers and businesses. In this mythology the current stock market is mot going up or down due to heroic innovations, but due to the announcements of the federal reserve chairman.

swagasaurus-rex 4y ago
The Soviet Union was mired in famine covered up by the incompetent government in the 30s. This was the Holodomor which killed millions and Ukrainian people still remember it well, how Stalin tried to prevent journalists from seeing the true horror of his leadership
- Convolutional 4y ago
  What do you think the Dust Bowl in the US was?
  - swagasaurus-rex 4y ago
    Were there people resorting to cannibalism in the US? Millions died in Ukraine due to communist mismanagement. Lenin did the same thing before Stalin did.