[asplake]

> ...but as the company grows to hundreds or thousands of employees, it becomes necessary to standardize and have some kind of metrics used for reporting and evaluations.

Does it? Is it inconceivable that each part works to its own goals and metrics consistent both with its own values and those of the wider organisation?

[Jorge1o1]

Yes. Happens all the time in large companies.

https://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/04/opinion/04brass.html?page...

Article is from 2010

Microsoft for example, was plagued by divisional infighting: ClearType was sabotaged.

[michaelcampbell]

> Is it inconceivable that each part works to its own goals and metrics consistent both with its own values and those of the wider organisation?

Beyond a certain number of people, absolutely it is.

[noobiemcfoob]

You don't address the parent's point.

Trying to group 1000 people together and measure all of them, sure that seems insurmountable for an informal system.

Taking that same group of 1000, splitting them into subgroups of 7 and giving those individual groups their own goals and autonomy to pursue them may again allow for informal performance measurement.

[chii]

> Beyond a certain number of people, absolutely it is.

that's because of the lack of trust, and the flow of responsibility and control.

If you structure a company such that the employees themselves has to be responsible for their output in such a way that higher output leads to more money for them, you'd not have this problem. For example, contractors who work on a results basis.

[hellisothers]

I think you’d prove the problem though because everybody would want to work on projects/bugs/teams that have clearly measurable results. I work at a company with clearly(ish) defined “this is what a Level X engineer does” so you can measure yourself against the current and next level for promotion’s sake. I’ve mentioned to my manager that I struggle with authentically choosing projects/tasks, I want to work on things that I see as valuable to me and/or the company but I also want to be promoted and some projects are clearly better promotion material but are not necessarily as valuable... I strive for value but probably overthink the situation :p

[chii]

> everybody would want to work on projects/bugs/teams that have clearly measurable results.

so let that happen. Those who can't can leave, and see how the company actually fairs. When they find that some crucial roles aren't taken and the company starts "failing", then they will surely admit that said role is needed, and reward it accordingly.

But perhaps there are indeed roles that aren't useful, and therefore, actually could've been eliminated but for the stigma - so may be this is the way to go forward.

[luiscleto]

> employees themselves has to be responsible for their output in such a way that higher output leads to more money for them

But what metric would you use to measure output that solves the gamification problem?

Even for contractors or sales people (where you could use the sales volume), this could lead them to favor short term results and compromise the long-term health of the company (e.g. by favoring quick, low-quality solutions by contractors, or selling features that don't yet exist and creating unsustainable roadmaps by sales people).

[jsty]

You could reward them in the same way that executives are increasingly remunerated for their performance-based pay - in shares or other financial instruments with an enforced holding period that are linked to the health of the business / business unit as appropriate.

[luiscleto]

While that's an interesting approach for compensation which might mitigate knowingly bad/irresponsible decisions, it doesn't look like it would address the core issue here of having to choose a metric to base compensation on.

Maybe the gaming effect would be lessened by that compensation approach, but at a very large scale org, I doubt that it would. Although, it would be interesting to see real life studies of this, in case such practices have already been tried out.

[heavenlyblue]

Does exec give a damn if they earn 5 or 10 million?

It’s only true if you believe that the average human being is not opportunistic.

[hopler]

If they don't, why are managers choosing to pay them $10m?

[bluGill]

Yes. Pay is partially a means of keeping score.

[naravara]

>that's because of the lack of trust, and the flow of responsibility and control.

I currently work for a company that has been transitioning from being tiny (I was employee #24) to pretty big (we're close to 60 now). One thing I've learned, much to my disappointment, is that once you get past a certain size it gets harder and harder to recruit people worth trusting with that kind of responsibility. The supply of such people is too limited, and they tend to get poached quickly.

>If you structure a company such that the employees themselves has to be responsible for their output in such a way that higher output leads to more money for them

Oh so all you need to do is fairly and reliably measure "output" in an ungameable way? Easy! /s

[katbyte]

Just want to point out 60 is really not all that big, 500 is getting big, 1000 is huge.

If your feeling that at 60, imagine what that must feel like..

[naravara]

50-60 is a transition point for small businesses. That's the point at which it literally becomes impossible to be indifferent to process or structure.

Prior to that size companies can kind of get by on luck, skill, or the "heroic efforts" of individual contributors to carry them along. Once you hit 50 FTE that approach starts to fail more and fail harder. This is why tons of small businesses flame out when they hit this threshold.

[bluGill]

500 is just getting into medium size. I'd say you need to approach 10,000 before you can say large. You need tens of millions before I could call you huge (Ie a country, depending on how you define organization might need to be a dictatorship to count for you)

I agree with your point, but I think your scale factors for size are off by orders of magnitude.

[yossi_peti]

> You need tens of millions before I could call you huge

That seems like an absurd standard to me. The three largest employers in the world (by number of employees) are 1. The U.S. Department of Defense, 2. The People's Liberation Army (China), and 3. Walmart. Each of these three largest employers in the world has between 2 and 3 million employees, which is much less than your standard of "tens of millions".