[jjav]

> Then you write a justification which you defend, to higher ups and to those who weren't promoted.

What happens next is this manager gets a low performance rating themselves, for making decisions not backed by metrics. So next year they conform.

[ryandrake]

This "don't make a decision unless it is 100% derived from metrics" mentality I just don't get. A robot could do that. Why is your company out there trying to hire/promote smart managers with good judgment if they don't let those managers apply their brains and judgment? "If employee's measured results > threshold, then reward employee" can be done by a computer. No need for a human manager.

[marcosdumay]

People create process because of the principal agent problem.

The upper managers do that because they think the lower ones are lying or incompetent. A traceable process doesn't lie.

And yeah, it's stupid, and it makes the problem worse. It's the reason nonetheless.

[jjav]

> And yeah, it's stupid, and it makes the problem worse. It's the reason nonetheless.

While that's true, it's also a difficult problem to solve. In tiny organizations like startups where the CEO personally knows everyone and what they do, it's easy.

But as soon as you grow beyond that (and I've been in a number of startups that cross that gap), how do you objectively but fairly handle this? There is no easy answer.

You could go with fully empowering all managers to do as they wish. Trust them to hire, fire and promote correctly. This is great, until you hire some bad managers. And as you grow, it is 100% guaranteed at some point you'll hire bad managers. So then they ruin it for everyone, hiring and promoting their buddies.

And that's how you end up with more objective metrics. Take away some of that freedom, make everyone measure and justify actions based on metrics. It's terrible, but probably better than the alternative.