

The art of getting stuff done without bossing around - mikesun
http://blog.idonethis.com/post/32871546788/getting-stuff-done-without-any-bossing-around

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crazygringo
> _Peter Thiel said PayPal once rejected a top­-notch engineering candidate
> because he said during an interview that he liked to play “hoops,” and a
> PayPal engineer does not play basketball, much less “hoops.”_

> _Carwoo is a company that’s a little weird, so they ask every interviewee
> how weird she thinks she is on a scale of 1 to 5. There is a right answer.
> 3­-4 is the sweet spot ­­a weird person who is self-­aware._

I'm sorry, but these are just bizarre. Company culture is great, but this just
sounds cultish and even cargo-cultish.

It strikes me almost as strange that we have anti-discrimination laws for
hiring practices concerning races, sexual orientations, religions, etc... but
companies are free to discriminate against people who play "hoops" (or don't),
or are either insufficiently self-identified "weird", or overly self-
identified "weird".

Well you just can't legislate against human stupidity...

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yuhong
Personally I think these laws are likely fundamentally flawed anyway, as
hiring is subjective.

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pinko
Just because hiring is subjective doesn't mean everyone is equally subjective
with respect to race/gender/etc.

I mean, aesthetics are subjective too but most people prefer not to have poo
on a pedestal in their living room.

You can find strong and widespread biases (e.g., against fecal art) even in a
subjective domain.

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yuhong
Not what I mean. I am thinking in terms of proving discrimination etc.

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JamesBarrows
The danger of OKR's/PKI's and other "measurements" is that it's easy to do
management-by-numbers. Management-by-numbers is to great management as paint-
by-numbers is to great painting.

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stephengillie
_At the end of every week, month, and quarter, individuals measure themselves
against their OKRs to evaluate performance._

Lee Iacoca used the same technique when rising through Ford's managerial
ranks. He met with his direct reports quarterly, reviewed their progress over
the past 3 months, and set objectives for their next 3 months. Then both
schedule the next review and sign all the paperwork. He required that his
direct reports have the same quarterly reviews their subordinates, recursing
down the chain.

This, Iacoca's autobiography says, not only makes sure both sides know what
was agreed to, but gets them talking to one another, and at least
communicating on progress. Managers need to be part of the team too -- their
role is to remove roadblocks preventing the the team from shipping.

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dschiptsov
At Linux kernel, they just write code, test and send patches.)

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RDeckard
Do they get paid to do that? If no one got paid, there would be almost no need
for performance reviews.

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iyulaev
Because if you don't get paid in $$$, you're free to do shoddy work...?

Crap work has costs that far exceed the amount spent employing the person who
produced it.

