As a result, if Tim doesn’t meet with each one of his employees in the next 24 hours, I will have no choice but to fire him and to fire you. Are we clear?
You get exactly one chance to threaten me. That was it. I quit.
(Honestly, all this management style does is ensure that the only people you'll be able to keep are the ones who will put up with your shit. Not a very good recipe for building a great company, huh?)
Yes, agreed -- this is unbelievably awful executive management. Ben should be asking some questions here instead of threatening to fire Steve because Tim hasn't been filling in his TPS reports. What's especially unconscionable here is that Ben is threatening to terminate both Tim _and_ Steve. Can you imagine Steve's ensuing conversation with Tim? Or worse, the resulting 1:1 marathon held by Tim with his team at the tip of Steve's bayonet? This is just wrong in every conceivable direction -- Ben has in a stroke created an organization ruled by fiat, bureaucracy and fear. If Tim is a problem -- if his team loathes him because he refuses to communicate -- they should solve that problem, instead of creating yet more problems by not only threatening Steve but encouraging him to use fear to lead his own organization. I think Ben's blog entry would be much more aptly titled "an awesome place to leave"...
It's even worse than that, the people that work for you will make their number one priority not getting fired.
I've worked at a company like that before. Management worked hard on whatever problem the CEO noticed last, while doing their best to hide any other problems from him.
As a manager you do much better at aligning everyone's interests so that your staff does what they want to do, which just happens to work towards the outcome you want. It's more about gentle course corrections ahead of time than grabbing the wheel from them.
Interesting response. I didn't see it as a threat but clearly it was a negative consequence. People who work for you should know what is expected (their 'job' as it were) and they should know if they are or aren't meeting the expectations of that job. Clearly in Ben's case he required that his managers meet with their people, and said as much, and one of his managers wasn't. Now this was complicated by the fact that it was a couple levels down from him, but he did communicate how he wanted his managers to manage, and then described the consequences of not managing that way.
That is why I didn't see it as a threat, I read it as Ben saying "Managers who work for me have 1:1s with their reports, if you have a manager who doesn't want to manage that way that is fine, they should work somewhere else."
So if you worked for Ben and thought 1:1s were "bullshit" then you ideally would already have had a discussion about that and either understood what he wanted or have already quit.
The bottom line is that Ben needed to be clear when his direction was 'optional' and when it was not. Clearly this was a time when it was not.
The base problem is that if you've resorted to threatening my job, there are two possibilities:
- You've genuinely exhausted all your other ideas and avenues for improving the situation. Obviously this means we aren't going to be seeing eye to eye. That means this job probably isn't worth either of our time anymore, unless one of us can come up with something that will drastically change our relationship for the better.
- This is what you resort to instead of thinking hard about how to fix problems. I don't want to work with you.
It's not about fairness, it's about fear. Fear isn't a good way to run a good company. In my opinion, of course.
I actually saw this happen once. A system admin (we'll call him Rick) I worked with had failed to get something installed, and it was going to cost the company thousands of dollars. (Not 10s of thousands, though.) The CEO/Owner told Rick that if he didn't get it installed within 24 hours (the actual deadline, not made up) then he was fired.
Rick installed the software (which took most of the 24 hours apparently: remote machine, hard to work with the hosting company, etc) and then quit, effective immediately. He was jobless for a while, but he eventually got a better job.
He really should have had it installed before that, but it wasn't his only job responsibility, and the system was really, really unstable at that point. Emergencies were a daily occurrence.
I stuck it out with the company. I wanted to have a few years experience on my resume before looking for another job, and they hadn't yet done anything like that to me.
The company's HR policies were pretty much exactly what you'd expect, after that occurrence. I managed to avoid most of it, but even simple things like vacation time were really painful.
Really? As a VP, this is your reaction? The CEO, your boss, just told you that it was his number one priority to make sure that the employees felt like it was a great place to work, and that your direct report employee was failing miserably to follow this policy, and you didn't seem to notice, even though it was covered by the basic management training provided by the company?
Meta: I hate that a silly comment like this gets so much attention only because it's the first comment.
I've worked in the valley for 16 years for half a dozen companies, (Starting at Netscape in 1996) - I've also worked in Ben's organization (at Loudcloud/Opsware). Ben is the epitome of no bullshit management. He clearly establishes what he expects of his employees, and, if they fail to live up to his expectations because they decide his expectations are not a priority, he terminates them.
Working for Ben then becomes a pretty straight forward process - if Ben's priorities aren't yours, then it's time for another job. In the case of edw519 - if he is unhappy with being terminated because he's unwilling to make Ben's priorities his priorities, then he'll be soon working for a new company. The action/response equations couldn't be more simple.
Ben is also viewed by the vast majority of his employees, particularly the engineers, as one of the best CEOs they've ever worked for.
A good manager would have recognized your reaction against threat and have taken a different approach with you. Truth is, without knowing Steve or Ben and Steve's relationship with each other, it's hard to extract too much out of this line.
The executive ranks are full of people who prefer direct "do this or here's the consequence" talk. I personally prefer that. If it's really that important, then let me know with words that can't be misconstrued.
I like my leadership transparent and decisive. Sometimes that may come across as blunt and rude.
It mystifies me that a fairly unambiguous, direct decision made by the CEO (managers have regular 1:1s with their reports) can be interpreted as somehow optional or negotiable. If you're going to have a diva moment and quit because someone threatened to fire you for not doing your damn job (for the manager, holding the 1:1's--for the VP supervising that manager, holding the manager to the expectation of holding 1:1's), the company can go without you.
Yeah, I would have quit on the spot, too. Even though I agree with his overall message, and e "or you will be fired" is implicit. All he needed to do was say "making this a great place to work is my one goal" and any reasonable person would have jumped on it.
I wonder if their corporate culture at the time was so dysfunctional that threats were necessary for any response, in which case quitting is a great move anyway. Or maybe he is just trying to appear more badass for dramatic effect in a story.
(It's kind of like every time I had a rifle on a sling in a war zone, I never had to threaten anyone. You only threaten people when you have no power.)
How would you have handled it differently? We can all get handwavey and say, "I wouldn't let it happen on my watch!"
But, let's say it did happen. Something that you feel is fundamentally important to the companies core and culture hasn't occurred in six months, how do you handle it?
That sounds more like one gets exactly no chances to threaten you, but never mind your imprecise language.
These are managers we're talking about here, not workers. Middle managers have indirect, damped control over the quality of a company's output, but direct and leveraged influence over a company's culture. A bad middle manager can wreak havoc on morale, can pollute the talent well by hiring Bs and Cs and can drive the As away. Ben has stated clearly that his top priority is that culture; that kind of thing isn't said just once. These managers are both failing at implementing the CEO's wishes and he is right to hold them accountable.
Ben approached this well. He confronted Tim's boss - presumably higher paid, with all the extra trust and responsibility that implies - with a short, sharp shock and a restatement of his expectations. He phrased it in a way that makes his vision absolutely clear, then showed the consequences of failure. That boss should, if he's half decent, then have a very different meeting with Tim in which he asks why he couldn't have his one-on-ones, re-states the importance of them and provides either extra training or some resolution into the root cause of Tim's inability to hold the meetings. Tim's boss shouldn't be just passing Ben's threat of termination on like a hot potato; he should be resolving the situation.
I largely agree with your underlying message that a culture of fear is a bad thing for a company, but in this case Ben is right to wield a dirty great stick in front of his senior manager. He's doing it to protect the workers and the culture he's worked hard to build by holding his most privileged, trusted and influential staff accountable for their failure.
Agreed. They made a mistake and they should fix it, but firing people just for doing a single mistake isn't the right the way to go. Ben has treaten Steve and Tim bad with this response. Ben should have talked first to Steve and told him that he should have a 1:1 talk with Tim about the problemm, so they could figure out why Tim hadn't done any 1:1 talks with the team. Maybe he has a good reason and you could figure out a good solution to avoid this in the future.
I think that is an oversimplification. Winning overcomes a lot of things. Why did people put up with Steve jobs? Why do a lt of winning sports tems have angry shouting head coaches?
"When Steve came into my office I asked him a question: “Steve, do you know why I came to work today?”
“Why did I bother waking up? Why did I bother coming in? If it was about the money, couldn’t I sell the company tomorrow and have more money than I ever wanted? I don’t want to be famous, in fact just the opposite. ”
Well, then why did I come to work.”
And on and on... Please...
My impression would've been, "why is this guy treating me like a 5 year old".
My approach (IMHO) would've been something like:
Me: "Steve, one of your managers isn't following company policy concerning 1 on 1 meets".
Steve: "Oh?".
I give Steve the managers name, "You'll take care of it?"
Steve: "Of course."
Me: "Thank you."
I give Steve the benefit of the doubt that he'll deal with it. No need for me, the CEO, to micromanage. Now if Steve doesn't deal with it, that's another matter.
Yeah, I don't understand either the story or the threat. It's as if the author was never _really_ a manager before.
I found that, unless I worded things very carefully, my directs tended to take honest questions as statements of decisions made. I had to go to great lengths for them not to take anything I said as both 1) an extremely urgent policy decision and 2) associated with a threat of termination/failure to advance their career.
The only thing that I can imagine is that this person's directs didn't respect him, forcing him to take this action. That's the only scenario I've seen managers need to "lay down the law."
Yeah. I am a huge fan of Ben. He has done brilliant insightful post after brilliant insightful such post. And there is undoubtedly an important point being made. But the way the story is told is incredibly patronizing. I hope this was simply rhetorical artifice rather than a blow by blow account of the meeting.
I'm still a fan. Too much good stuff. But a little disappointed by the style tho not the substance.
There's also "Steve, you need to spend some time and diagnose how this happened. How did you not notice? Why wasn't it Tim's number one priority? How do we fix this situation, check that it isn't happening in the rest of the organization, and make sure it doesn't happen again?"
Am I the only one who thinks wanting your employees to work at your company "12-16 hours a day" is surely not a mark of a good company. If I worked 16 hours a day, I know I'd not be having enough sleep to do useful work. I think I'd rather work with well balanced human beings, rather than obsessive, robotic workaholics...
1. To evaluate a team member's contribution fairly, every manager has to really know the person well. In other words, no "fly-by-night" form-filling performance reviews!
2. No negatives surprises during a performance review.
These two together mandate that every manager spend a great deal of time with the people who work for them and bring up any negatives on a timely basis so the team member has an opportunity to correct them rather than being inflicted a negative surprise.
So I agree on the importance of regular 1-on-1's. Having said that, I am not sure I really like the tone of Ben's conversation with his manager. First of all, I find this yes/no style insulting to an intelligent person on the other side, and second, if the managers in question were valuable to the organization (which should be the presumption here), it is odd to think the CEO would threaten to fire them so readily. I would not expect an intelligent and self-respecting person to work under those terms - I know I would not.
I'm no management type, and maybe that's the difference here, but I would not have lectured this guy like that. As a perpetual underling, being subjected to a litany of leading and loaded questions to which one is expected only to "yes/no," in an gladhanding way, I read this post and thought "look, just get to the point." That's not managing, it's haranguing, and it's not good for people. Well it is managing, but in that 50s-60s style. Is this what Opsware is going for?
"Diplomacy is the art of letting someone else have your way."
Clearly, my authority alone was not enough to get them to do what I wanted.
If you want to learn how to manage people, accept that authority is an illusion. If you realize people do what you'd like not because of your position but because of who you and are and how you act, you'll discover much more effective means of leading.
Clearly we respond to authority for authority's sake. Benevolent dictator and all that. But if your leadership style depends on your subordinate's perception of your power, it says more about you than it does about your subordinate.
Wouldn't Ben have known that the manager wasn't conducting the mandatory "1:1" meetings with employees if Ben had regular "1:1" meetings with the next lower tier of management? The double standard irks me. Lead by example, not by intimidation.
It seems that most people on the thread skipped most of the post and focused entirely on the firing part, so I'll clarify what I wrote.
First, the post isn't about 1:1s. 1:1s were just our way of doing things at Opsware. Other companies have other ways of doing things. It was about whether or not people who worked at the company received any guidance, context, or feedback.
Second, the point of the conversation was to focus the executive on what the environment was like for employees (as opposed to managers and executives). In general, I believe that is important to optimize for the feelings of the people doing the work rather than the people doing the management. If you optimize for managers, then you get what you get.
Finally, 1:1s were a huge point of emphasis in the company from the initial training through everything that we discussed as a team. Not ever meeting with your people in this context basically meant that you cared nothing about your employees. If you read the entire post, you should get that.
Having said that, for whatever reason I didn't make things clear to every manager in the company (my fault). The point of the conversation was clarity. The firing comment was to emphasize the importance of the employees vs. the executives.
It's fine with me if you hate it, but you should probably try to understand it first. Finally, fwiw, I still talk to Steve every week and he's done extremely well in his career. This did turn out to be clarifying for him and we'd worked together for 7 years at the time of the conversation, so there was quite a bit of context.
Finally, there were 600 people in the company at the time and only one manager that wasn't having regular 1:1s. It's interesting to me that most people on this thread think that it's not a serious matter to let people come to work with zero guidance or feedback. In fact, it's just fine. What's really bad is making clear what's acceptable and unacceptable management. Hmmm.
While I agree with Ben's thoughts on good companies in general, I don't think he's really grasped how to make companies good himself (or if he has, it certainly doesn't come through in this story).
1:1 meetings are good, but they're just the tip of the iceberg. A far more beneficial way to make a good company is to make sure that when people fail, they are made to understand that failure and its significance in a manner that is both helpful and non-threatening. Long speeches filled with loaded questions and firing threats are the exact opposite of that.
Even the mention of firing someone should be treated like brandishing a gun. Don't bring it out unless you're about to use it.
I think people put way too much emphasis on 1:1's- Way too much time and focus is spent on 'what did you do last week' and what to do the next week. This sort of observation & discussion should happen daily and feedback should be immediate.
As a manager 90% of my 1:1's would be 10 minutes of idle chat- because we were constantly aware of what was expected and how we were delivering. Of course I always forced the meetings, just in case employee had something to get off their chest.
> "Of course I always forced the meetings, just in case employee had something to get off their chest."
This is the only benefit of 1:1's. Status updates and general progress tracking should be baked into your every day processes.
And here's the important part: 1:1's must absolutely be off the record. It is a safe place for an employee to voice his/her grievances and concerns without repercussion. Your workplace should already be open and respectful enough that people can voice almost all problems publicly with the rest of the team - which means by default any problem that will be touched on in a 1:1 is sensitive and needs to be treated as such.
I've seen so many places where this has failed dramatically. If you keep 1:1's on-record and the contents open, you will get blindsided by the things your employees are uncomfortable bringing up in the open.
This sort of observation & discussion should happen daily and feedback should be immediate
Of course! But, that doesn't always happen. The 1:1 is an attempt to ensure that, to some degree, the subordinate and superior get at least a little of said discussion regularly.
>“In a poor organization, on the other hand, people spend much of their time fighting organizational boundaries, infighting and broken processes. They are not even clear on what their jobs are, so there is no way to know if they are getting the job done or not. In the miracle case that they work ridiculous hours and get the job done, they have no idea what it means for the company or their careers. To make it all much worse and rub salt in the wound, when they finally work up the courage to tell management how fucked up their situation is, management denies there is a problem, then defends the status quo, then ignores the problem.”
This is a fantastic description of an awful workplace.
Someday through historical echo transcription (YC14 perhaps), the real transcript will emerge...
Me: Hi Steve, remember how I asked all the managers to me with their direct reports 1-on-1 at least once every six months.
Steve: No, when was that?
Me: Never mind. I heard that Tim didn't do that.
Steve: Do what?
Me: Meet with his direct reports. 1-on-1.
Steve: Oh yeah. Reminds me, great Celtics game last night, huh?
Me: I tivo'd it and caught the last 5 minutes live. Saves a shitload of time wasted on commercials. Cable is gonna die a painful death. What were we talking about? Oh yeah. Please tell Tim to follow up or I will be pissed.
Steve: Sure you don't want to tell him yourself? He never listens to me.
I'm nowhere near Ben's experience and don't fully understand the challenges of layers of management yet, but positive energy (clear objectives and highlighting success to the group) has always worked better for me than negative energy (threatening to fire). Maybe it's specific to the workplace, but I think it'd prefer the former as a leader or employee.
Agree the "why" is key to buy-in and success. But leaders need to coach not command. 1:1s and firing can be necessary, but only after the CEO has done a great job of setting clear objectives that everyone buys into. It's also ideal when people hold themselves accountable versus a leader having to (e.g. report at group meetings).
As a data point, Jeff Bezos, who Ben references, apparently doesn't like 1:1s. He prefers group meetings so everyone gets on the same page and to avoid "the telephone game." [source - Bing Gordon's 2011 talk at the Endeavor Summit: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jdTaywChuYM]
His interaction with Steve lost my attention that he had anything valid to say. Probably the reason his employees aren't doing what he feels they need to. He also spent zero time finding out how that manager was working with his team. It's pretty dis-empowering to have someone tell you how you need to work with, and run your team, and expect a great work environment.
The goal behind the 1:1s is apparently building "a good place to work." In the conclusion Ben mentions Bill Campbell and GO. Yet, there is no discussion of how Bill made GO such a great place. 1:1s aren't mentioned. Is the 1:1 process what made GO such a great place to work?
Having an arbitrary rule like that doesn't engender a great work environment. Different people have different ways of working. Different managers have different managerial styles. It may be that Tim preferred to have honest conversations over a coffee or a beer, and that he met informally with his reports all the time in the hallways and by the whiteboard.
Yes, Horowitz sounds like a total asshole. But I have a feeling it didn't go down quite like this, but rather the conversation and overall tone have been fictionalized to better illustrate the underlying message of this post: proper management and organization are crucial for a good work environment. I couldn't agree more. Management is one of those things that seems easily in theory, but is really tough to nail in practice.
I've stayed away from management my entire life because I assess my own management-talent as so low, and even I can know this isn't how you do it. Managing by fear does not make for a pleasant job experience!
Personally, I would have asked WHY he didn't know this, because the events that led up to the current situation are almost certainly bigger than the fact itself.
And then: fire or not fire the guy - at a small startup you have no time to rehabilitate people. It's just too expensive.
(Personally, I am not a big fan of threats. This isn't something that has come up at work much, though.)
[+] [-] edw519|13 years ago|reply
You get exactly one chance to threaten me. That was it. I quit.
(Honestly, all this management style does is ensure that the only people you'll be able to keep are the ones who will put up with your shit. Not a very good recipe for building a great company, huh?)
[+] [-] bcantrill|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gav|13 years ago|reply
I've worked at a company like that before. Management worked hard on whatever problem the CEO noticed last, while doing their best to hide any other problems from him.
As a manager you do much better at aligning everyone's interests so that your staff does what they want to do, which just happens to work towards the outcome you want. It's more about gentle course corrections ahead of time than grabbing the wheel from them.
[+] [-] ChuckMcM|13 years ago|reply
That is why I didn't see it as a threat, I read it as Ben saying "Managers who work for me have 1:1s with their reports, if you have a manager who doesn't want to manage that way that is fine, they should work somewhere else."
So if you worked for Ben and thought 1:1s were "bullshit" then you ideally would already have had a discussion about that and either understood what he wanted or have already quit.
The bottom line is that Ben needed to be clear when his direction was 'optional' and when it was not. Clearly this was a time when it was not.
[+] [-] shadowfiend|13 years ago|reply
- You've genuinely exhausted all your other ideas and avenues for improving the situation. Obviously this means we aren't going to be seeing eye to eye. That means this job probably isn't worth either of our time anymore, unless one of us can come up with something that will drastically change our relationship for the better.
- This is what you resort to instead of thinking hard about how to fix problems. I don't want to work with you.
It's not about fairness, it's about fear. Fear isn't a good way to run a good company. In my opinion, of course.
[+] [-] wccrawford|13 years ago|reply
Rick installed the software (which took most of the 24 hours apparently: remote machine, hard to work with the hosting company, etc) and then quit, effective immediately. He was jobless for a while, but he eventually got a better job.
He really should have had it installed before that, but it wasn't his only job responsibility, and the system was really, really unstable at that point. Emergencies were a daily occurrence.
I stuck it out with the company. I wanted to have a few years experience on my resume before looking for another job, and they hadn't yet done anything like that to me.
The company's HR policies were pretty much exactly what you'd expect, after that occurrence. I managed to avoid most of it, but even simple things like vacation time were really painful.
[+] [-] jt2190|13 years ago|reply
Meta: I hate that a silly comment like this gets so much attention only because it's the first comment.
(edit: By "first" I meant top of the page.)
[+] [-] ghshephard|13 years ago|reply
Working for Ben then becomes a pretty straight forward process - if Ben's priorities aren't yours, then it's time for another job. In the case of edw519 - if he is unhappy with being terminated because he's unwilling to make Ben's priorities his priorities, then he'll be soon working for a new company. The action/response equations couldn't be more simple.
Ben is also viewed by the vast majority of his employees, particularly the engineers, as one of the best CEOs they've ever worked for.
[+] [-] cglee|13 years ago|reply
The executive ranks are full of people who prefer direct "do this or here's the consequence" talk. I personally prefer that. If it's really that important, then let me know with words that can't be misconstrued.
I like my leadership transparent and decisive. Sometimes that may come across as blunt and rude.
[+] [-] gpcz|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] philwelch|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rdl|13 years ago|reply
I wonder if their corporate culture at the time was so dysfunctional that threats were necessary for any response, in which case quitting is a great move anyway. Or maybe he is just trying to appear more badass for dramatic effect in a story.
(It's kind of like every time I had a rifle on a sling in a war zone, I never had to threaten anyone. You only threaten people when you have no power.)
[+] [-] alberich|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] noahc|13 years ago|reply
But, let's say it did happen. Something that you feel is fundamentally important to the companies core and culture hasn't occurred in six months, how do you handle it?
[+] [-] scrumper|13 years ago|reply
These are managers we're talking about here, not workers. Middle managers have indirect, damped control over the quality of a company's output, but direct and leveraged influence over a company's culture. A bad middle manager can wreak havoc on morale, can pollute the talent well by hiring Bs and Cs and can drive the As away. Ben has stated clearly that his top priority is that culture; that kind of thing isn't said just once. These managers are both failing at implementing the CEO's wishes and he is right to hold them accountable.
Ben approached this well. He confronted Tim's boss - presumably higher paid, with all the extra trust and responsibility that implies - with a short, sharp shock and a restatement of his expectations. He phrased it in a way that makes his vision absolutely clear, then showed the consequences of failure. That boss should, if he's half decent, then have a very different meeting with Tim in which he asks why he couldn't have his one-on-ones, re-states the importance of them and provides either extra training or some resolution into the root cause of Tim's inability to hold the meetings. Tim's boss shouldn't be just passing Ben's threat of termination on like a hot potato; he should be resolving the situation.
I largely agree with your underlying message that a culture of fear is a bad thing for a company, but in this case Ben is right to wield a dirty great stick in front of his senior manager. He's doing it to protect the workers and the culture he's worked hard to build by holding his most privileged, trusted and influential staff accountable for their failure.
[+] [-] djt|13 years ago|reply
He stated that he trains everyone to do these meetings and the Exec did not do so.
[+] [-] shell0x|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jshen|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] slurgfest|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] 6ren|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] civilian|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] amateurguru|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] crag|13 years ago|reply
“Why did I bother waking up? Why did I bother coming in? If it was about the money, couldn’t I sell the company tomorrow and have more money than I ever wanted? I don’t want to be famous, in fact just the opposite. ”
Well, then why did I come to work.”
And on and on... Please...
My impression would've been, "why is this guy treating me like a 5 year old".
My approach (IMHO) would've been something like:
Me: "Steve, one of your managers isn't following company policy concerning 1 on 1 meets".
Steve: "Oh?".
I give Steve the managers name, "You'll take care of it?"
Steve: "Of course."
Me: "Thank you."
I give Steve the benefit of the doubt that he'll deal with it. No need for me, the CEO, to micromanage. Now if Steve doesn't deal with it, that's another matter.
[+] [-] larsberg|13 years ago|reply
I found that, unless I worded things very carefully, my directs tended to take honest questions as statements of decisions made. I had to go to great lengths for them not to take anything I said as both 1) an extremely urgent policy decision and 2) associated with a threat of termination/failure to advance their career.
The only thing that I can imagine is that this person's directs didn't respect him, forcing him to take this action. That's the only scenario I've seen managers need to "lay down the law."
[+] [-] petegrif|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pbiggar|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] TheBoff|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sridharvembu|13 years ago|reply
1. To evaluate a team member's contribution fairly, every manager has to really know the person well. In other words, no "fly-by-night" form-filling performance reviews!
2. No negatives surprises during a performance review.
These two together mandate that every manager spend a great deal of time with the people who work for them and bring up any negatives on a timely basis so the team member has an opportunity to correct them rather than being inflicted a negative surprise.
So I agree on the importance of regular 1-on-1's. Having said that, I am not sure I really like the tone of Ben's conversation with his manager. First of all, I find this yes/no style insulting to an intelligent person on the other side, and second, if the managers in question were valuable to the organization (which should be the presumption here), it is odd to think the CEO would threaten to fire them so readily. I would not expect an intelligent and self-respecting person to work under those terms - I know I would not.
[+] [-] rhizome|13 years ago|reply
"Diplomacy is the art of letting someone else have your way."
[+] [-] tgrass|13 years ago|reply
If you want to learn how to manage people, accept that authority is an illusion. If you realize people do what you'd like not because of your position but because of who you and are and how you act, you'll discover much more effective means of leading.
Clearly we respond to authority for authority's sake. Benevolent dictator and all that. But if your leadership style depends on your subordinate's perception of your power, it says more about you than it does about your subordinate.
[+] [-] EvanAnderson|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bhorowitz|13 years ago|reply
First, the post isn't about 1:1s. 1:1s were just our way of doing things at Opsware. Other companies have other ways of doing things. It was about whether or not people who worked at the company received any guidance, context, or feedback.
Second, the point of the conversation was to focus the executive on what the environment was like for employees (as opposed to managers and executives). In general, I believe that is important to optimize for the feelings of the people doing the work rather than the people doing the management. If you optimize for managers, then you get what you get.
Finally, 1:1s were a huge point of emphasis in the company from the initial training through everything that we discussed as a team. Not ever meeting with your people in this context basically meant that you cared nothing about your employees. If you read the entire post, you should get that.
Having said that, for whatever reason I didn't make things clear to every manager in the company (my fault). The point of the conversation was clarity. The firing comment was to emphasize the importance of the employees vs. the executives.
It's fine with me if you hate it, but you should probably try to understand it first. Finally, fwiw, I still talk to Steve every week and he's done extremely well in his career. This did turn out to be clarifying for him and we'd worked together for 7 years at the time of the conversation, so there was quite a bit of context.
Finally, there were 600 people in the company at the time and only one manager that wasn't having regular 1:1s. It's interesting to me that most people on this thread think that it's not a serious matter to let people come to work with zero guidance or feedback. In fact, it's just fine. What's really bad is making clear what's acceptable and unacceptable management. Hmmm.
[+] [-] Cowen|13 years ago|reply
1:1 meetings are good, but they're just the tip of the iceberg. A far more beneficial way to make a good company is to make sure that when people fail, they are made to understand that failure and its significance in a manner that is both helpful and non-threatening. Long speeches filled with loaded questions and firing threats are the exact opposite of that.
Even the mention of firing someone should be treated like brandishing a gun. Don't bring it out unless you're about to use it.
[+] [-] randomfool|13 years ago|reply
As a manager 90% of my 1:1's would be 10 minutes of idle chat- because we were constantly aware of what was expected and how we were delivering. Of course I always forced the meetings, just in case employee had something to get off their chest.
[+] [-] potatolicious|13 years ago|reply
This is the only benefit of 1:1's. Status updates and general progress tracking should be baked into your every day processes.
And here's the important part: 1:1's must absolutely be off the record. It is a safe place for an employee to voice his/her grievances and concerns without repercussion. Your workplace should already be open and respectful enough that people can voice almost all problems publicly with the rest of the team - which means by default any problem that will be touched on in a 1:1 is sensitive and needs to be treated as such.
I've seen so many places where this has failed dramatically. If you keep 1:1's on-record and the contents open, you will get blindsided by the things your employees are uncomfortable bringing up in the open.
[+] [-] philwelch|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sliverstorm|13 years ago|reply
Of course! But, that doesn't always happen. The 1:1 is an attempt to ensure that, to some degree, the subordinate and superior get at least a little of said discussion regularly.
[+] [-] pearkes|13 years ago|reply
1:1's offer a consistent opportunity for dialog if there is ever a mishap, broken process or impending event to talk about.
Opportunity is the key word - it doesn't necessarily mean it's crucial information being exchanged every time.
[+] [-] geogra4|13 years ago|reply
This is a fantastic description of an awful workplace.
[+] [-] codeonfire|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] T_S_|13 years ago|reply
Me: Hi Steve, remember how I asked all the managers to me with their direct reports 1-on-1 at least once every six months.
Steve: No, when was that?
Me: Never mind. I heard that Tim didn't do that.
Steve: Do what?
Me: Meet with his direct reports. 1-on-1.
Steve: Oh yeah. Reminds me, great Celtics game last night, huh?
Me: I tivo'd it and caught the last 5 minutes live. Saves a shitload of time wasted on commercials. Cable is gonna die a painful death. What were we talking about? Oh yeah. Please tell Tim to follow up or I will be pissed.
Steve: Sure you don't want to tell him yourself? He never listens to me.
Me: OK, maybe tomorrow. Remind me in 24 hours.
[+] [-] millerski150|13 years ago|reply
Agree the "why" is key to buy-in and success. But leaders need to coach not command. 1:1s and firing can be necessary, but only after the CEO has done a great job of setting clear objectives that everyone buys into. It's also ideal when people hold themselves accountable versus a leader having to (e.g. report at group meetings).
As a data point, Jeff Bezos, who Ben references, apparently doesn't like 1:1s. He prefers group meetings so everyone gets on the same page and to avoid "the telephone game." [source - Bing Gordon's 2011 talk at the Endeavor Summit: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jdTaywChuYM]
[+] [-] bradwhittington|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Todd|13 years ago|reply
Having an arbitrary rule like that doesn't engender a great work environment. Different people have different ways of working. Different managers have different managerial styles. It may be that Tim preferred to have honest conversations over a coffee or a beer, and that he met informally with his reports all the time in the hallways and by the whiteboard.
[+] [-] guynamedloren|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] trekkin|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Eliezer|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] joshu|13 years ago|reply
And then: fire or not fire the guy - at a small startup you have no time to rehabilitate people. It's just too expensive.
(Personally, I am not a big fan of threats. This isn't something that has come up at work much, though.)
[+] [-] gte910h|13 years ago|reply
I would never buy from Opsware until Horowitz is gone.
[+] [-] bconway|13 years ago|reply
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opsware