I've found that most practices that make for visionary, distinctive companies are both highly effective and cause large problems. For example, Google has a massive shared codebase, does promotion & performance reviews via peer feedback, and shares information very widely inside the company at the expense of being a black box externally. Fog Creek makes all salary data public within the company. Palantir, I've heard, pays all engineers the same (relatively low) salary but doubles down on perks and work environment. Apple under Steve Jobs let the CEO berate any employee over the slightest product detail. Facebook releases new software via IRC chatroom.
All of these practices cause major problems, but they also fix major problems. Moreover, they're distinctive. They draw a certain type of employee, one who's willing to give up convenience in some dimension to gain autonomy, or excellence, or collaboration. It's often better to be differentiated than good.
I've found that most practices that make for visionary, distinctive companies are both highly effective and cause large problems. For example, Google has a massive shared codebase, does promotion & performance reviews via peer feedback, and shares information very widely inside the company at the expense of being a black box externally. Fog Creek makes all salary data public within the company. Palantir, I've heard, pays all engineers the same (relatively low) salary but doubles down on perks and work environment. Apple under Steve Jobs let the CEO berate any employee over the slightest product detail. Facebook releases new software via IRC chatroom.
All of these practices cause major problems, but they also fix major problems. Moreover, they're distinctive. They draw a certain type of employee, one who's willing to give up convenience in some dimension to gain autonomy, or excellence, or collaboration. It's often better to be differentiated than good.