From the Gloom, a Ray of Management Light
September 5, 2018
Forget the contentious Congressional hearings. Ignore the excitement of technology companies explaining. Forget the throttling of bandwidth.
Navigate to this management gem: “The #1 Office Perk? Natural Light.”
The Harvard Business Review, one of the fonts of management wisdom, explains:
… A new survey by my HR advisory firm Future Workplace called “The Employee Experience” reveals the reality is that employees crave something far more fundamental and essential to human needs. In a research poll of 1,614 North American employees, we found that access to natural light and views of the outdoors are the number one attribute of the workplace environment, outranking stalwarts like onsite cafeterias, fitness centers, and premium perks including on-site childcare…
Now I am not sure about the composition of the sample. For decades, I have worked in offices with zero natural light. If I had windows in my sometimes overly large offices, I blocked the natural sunlight. I put cardboard in the overhead fixtures. In short, I was happy as a clam in semi darkness. My monitors provided the light and warmth I needed.
But you, gentle reader, may be different. So take heed. Forget high school science club management methods and create natural light for your employees. If the building or loft or renovated warehouse lacks windows, do what the Romans did. Chop a hole in the room.
Don’t forget the impluvium, however. A happy company should not have workers in wet shoes.
Stephen E Arnold, September 5, 2018
High School Science Club Management: Volunteer Workers Point Out Flaws
September 4, 2018
I know that HSSCM methods is a fresh concept. I used the phrase in a few lectures years ago. I am delighted that “high school science club management methods” or HSSCM continues to be a useful concept.
One recent example is the information (which I assume to be spot on) from an online information service and a YouTube centric outfit. The source is “Unpaid and Abused: Moderators Speak Out Against Reddit.”
The point of the write up is that Reddit, itself an online social information service, reports:
Engadget and Point spoke to 10 Reddit moderators, and all of them complained that Reddit is systematically failing to tackle the abuse they suffer. Keeping the front page of the internet clean has become a thankless and abusive task, and yet Reddit’s administration has repeatedly neglected to respond to moderators who report offenses.
Reddit is owned by Advance Publications. Therefore, the write up is focusing on the management methods of a large corporation.
If the information in the write up is accurate, the large corporation has allowed HSSCM methods to help keep Reddit on track.
One example:
Subreddits can have their own bylaws, but racism, sexism and hate speech are targeted by moderators on pretty much any thread. The clear majority of abuse is in response to moderators calling users out when they break the rules.
The result? Death threats, burn out, and what seem to be a lack of management systems which can:
- Work constructively with volunteers who express concerns about their perceptions about death threats, stress, etc.
- Present a positive image of the management for the organization unit
- Make clear that innovative management methods are indeed having a positive effect on volunteers, employees, users, and stakeholders.
My view is that HSSCM methods continue to be the path of least resistance.
The problem is that those individuals who perceive the ineffectiveness of those HSSCM methods are beginning to speak up. Employee push back at a number of companies make it clear that traditional management methods are not a viable option for the owners of these outfits and that the HSSCM methods used because they are easy also lack suitable benefits.
In short, a crisis for MBA truisms and for the HSSCM approaches has arrived.
Of course, if the information in the Engadget article is not representative or not up to the accuracy standards I assume to be in play, MBA and HSSCM methods are working just fine.
Stephen E Arnold, September 4, 2018
High School Science Club Management Methods: August 30, 2018
August 30, 2018
Years ago, I learned that Google was worried about government regulation. President Trump seems to be making moves in that direction. But my topic today is high school science club management methods or HSSCMM.
The first example is news about a group of Facebook staff who are concerned about the intolerant liberal culture within Facebook. Okay, Facebook is about friends and people who share interests or likes. The notion of a political faction within an online company is one more example of a potential weakness in HSSCM. The idea that an employee worked for a company, had a job description, and received money strikes me as inoperative. The problem is that the needs of the Science Club are not the needs of the people on the football team or the field hockey team. Will the lunchroom have tables for the Science Club folks and other tables for the sports? In my high school, the Science Club was different from the band and the student council. Snort, snort, we said, when asked to coordinate with the booster club to celebrate a big win. Snort, snort.
The second example the story “14 Powerful Human-Rights Groups Write to Google Demanding It Kill Plans to Launch a China Search Engine.” The issue for Google and China is revenue. How will the HSSCM address a group of human rights organizations. I assume that these entities can issue news releases, pump out Twitter messages, and update their Facebook pages. If that sounds like the recipe for information warfare, I am not suggesting such an aggressive approach. What’s important to me is that Google will have to dip into its management methods to deal with this mini protest.
The question is, “Are high school science club management methods up to these two challenges?
My view is, “Sure, really smart people can find clever solutions.”
On the other hand, the very management methods which made Facebook and Google the business home runs each is will have to innovate. Business school curricula may not cover how to manage revolts from unexpected sources.
Stephen E Arnold, August 30, 2018
High School Science Club Management Methods: August 27, 2018
August 27, 2018
I think I have spotted another example of HSSCM in action. Navigate to “Tech Workers Say Poor Leadership Is Number One Cause for Burnout.” I noted from this headline that the peer pressure, meeting expectations of customers, and a desire to do a good job were not mentioned.
I learned these factors were in play:
Number one is “poor leadership and unclear directory.” That strikes me as low. Only about one fifth of those in the sample perceived the management team as lousy. But somewhere along the line, I learned at if 15 percent of a group is disgruntled, that group is well on its way to destabilizing a team and maybe the company itself.
I noted that toxic culture affected 17.5 percent of those in the pool were negatively affected by a toxic culture. In my high school science club, I recall one person asking my best friend who obtained a PhD from Cornell University, “Didn’t get the top score on this week’s test, did you?” Sensitive observation, eh.
The survey report presents additional findings. But I was not sure what the relationship between burnout and a list of big name companies was. Perhaps these are the outfits that those in the sample perceive as having poor leadership.
My conclusion is that HSSCM methods are indeed a “thing.” I will open a file. Who knows? Perhaps HSSCM is The Peter Principle for the mobile, distracted generation.
Stephen E Arnold, August 27, 2018
High School Science Club Management in Action, 8-25-18 Edition
August 25, 2018
I love it when high school science club management methods become news. Let me run down a handful of examples I noted on Saturday, August 25, 2018. Toss out those old MBA course notes. A new world has arrived:
Reflective decision making: Elon Musk no longer wants to take Tesla private. Agility is as important as self driving vehicles which work. Decision was announced via a Twitter message. Source: CTV News
Assessing obstacles: Google faces search and auto obstacles in China. Google’s 2010 China continue to ripple. Source: New York Times
Independent thinking: Reddit allegedly ignored disinformation alerts from Reddit employees. Source: NBC News and Facebook and Google follow suit. Source: Tom’s Hardware
Job satisfaction: Google wizard discovers that “happiness is within you.” Money, fancy cars, being smart will not deliver happiness. Age of the Google wizard: 51. Therefore, decisions made prior to realizing that happiness is within appear to have produced unhappiness. Deep thinking. Source: CNBC
Who will emerge as the Peter Drucker for the Silicon Valley era of management?
Stephen E Arnold, August 25, 2018
Google and Its Management Challenge: Not a Bug, a Feature
August 20, 2018
I read “China and the Moral Dilemma at Google.” The write up does a reasonable job of explaining why Google seems to be struggling with staff management. I highlighted several observations made in the article.
First, a statement attributed to Human Rights Watch senior internet researcher Cynthia Wong:
“Google wants to organize the world’s information; Facebook wants to connect everyone,” Wong said. “I think the engineers really do believe in those missions, and that accounts for some of the difference in how Silicon Valley reacts than, say, the oil sector.”
Second, I circled:
Google has led with this strong culture, and now has its own employees calling it on hypocrisy,” Attributed to Ann Skeet, senior director or leadership ethics at Santa Clara University.
Net net: Millennia perceive the right to know more about their work and how that work will be used. Google and other technology have to adapt to workers who want to decide about whether or not they work on certain projects. The management problem is baked into the organization it seems.
Stephen E Arnold, August 20, 2018
More Administrative Action from Facebook
August 20, 2018
Rarely do we get a report from the front lines of the war on social spying and fake news. However, recently a story appeared that showcased Facebook’s heavy-handed tactics up close and personal. The article appeared in Gizmodo, titled: “Facebook Wanted to Kill This Investigative Tool.”
The story is about how one designer at Gizmodo tried creating a program that collected data on Facebook, trying to determine what they used their data farms for. It did not go well and the social media giant attempted to gain access to the offending account almost instantly.
“We argued that we weren’t seeking access to users’ accounts or collecting any information from them; we had just given users a tool to log into their own accounts on their own behalf, to collect information they wanted collected, which was then stored on their own computers. Facebook disagreed and escalated the conversation to their head of policy for Facebook’s Platform…”
News such as this has been slowly leaking its way into the mainstream. In short, Facebook has been attempting to crack down on offenders, but in the process might be going a little too far—this is not unlike overcorrecting a car while skidding on ice. Wall Street is more than a little worried they won’t pull out of this wreck, but some experts say it’s all just growing pains.
We think this could be another example of management decisions fueled by high school science club thinking.
Patrick Roland, August 20, 2018
High School Science Club Management: In the Dark with Tweets
August 18, 2018
I read what I found to be a somewhat bittersweet description of today’s Google management trajectory. The article is worth your time and has the title “The Tweets That Stopped Google in Its Tracks.” I think this is the title. That in itself throws some water on the idea that a reader should know a title, the source, the date, and the author in that order. No more. Now it seems to be “provide your email address,” the title in smallish letters, the date, the title of the online publication in giant letter, and then the author. Yeah, disruptive.
The write up, despite its free form approach to the MLA and University of Chicago style suggestions, makes this point:
employees noticed that executives’ words were being transcribed in real time by the New York Times’ Kate Conger, who had a source inside [the Google company meeting].
The Google approach to this issue of leaking was interesting and definitely by the high school science club management handbook.
A Googler allegedly said:
#^!* you.
Outstanding.
One senior Googler explained that Google’s creating a search engine custom crafted to meet Chinese guidelines was “exploratory.”
Allegedly one of the founders of Google was not in the loop on the Chinese search system designed to get Google a piece of the large Chinese online market. I circled this statement:
Brin said he had only recently become aware of Dragonfly. On one level, this would seem to strain credulity: Brin’s upbringing in the Soviet Union shaped his views on censorship and informed the company’s decision to exit the Chinese market in 2010. Launching an initiative to re-enter China without Brin’s express approval would seem to be a firing offense, even if Google is now a subsidiary of Alphabet and operating with less direct oversight. (Counterpoint: this is Sergey Brin we’re talking about! One of the world’s most eccentric billionaires. Yesterday he described Dragonfly as a “kerfuffle.” If you told me Brin had recently delegated all of his decision-making authority to a stack of pancakes, I would believe it.)
Let’s assume that these statements are accurate.
What I took from the information provided in the Get Revue write up was:
- The notion of appropriate behavior in a company meeting is different from what was expected of me when I worked at Halliburton Nuclear and Booz, Allen & Hamilton. Although my colleagues were smart, maybe Google quality, discourse was civilized.
- I cannot recall a time when I worked at these firms when information from a confidential company meeting was disseminated outside of the company as quickly as humanly possible. Neither Halliburton nor Booz, Allen was a utopia, but there was an understanding of what was acceptable and what was not with regard to company information.
- I cannot recall a time when my boss at Halliburton or my boss at Booz, Allen was “surprised” by a major activity kept from him. Both of my superiors made it part of their job to know what was going on via established communication meetings, formal and informal meetings, and by wandering around and asking people what occupied their attention at that time. Mr. Brin may be checking out or is in the process of being checked out.
I will have to hunt around for the revised edition of the High School Science Club Management Handbook. I am definitely out of touch with how business works when a company pays an individual to perform work identified by the company as important. Also, who is in charge? Maybe employees are? Maybe management has segregated managers to those in the know and those outside the fence?
Worth monitoring.
Stephen E Arnold, August 18, 2018
Challenges to High School Science Club Management Methods
August 17, 2018
High school science club management methods involve individuals who often perceive other students as less capable. The result is an “I know better” mindset. When applied on a canvas somewhat larger than a public high school, the consequences are often fascinating.
I am confident that high school science club management methods are indeed effective. But it is useful to look at two recent examples which suggest that the confidence of the deciders may be greater than the benefit to the non-deciders.
The first example concerns Google. The company has had some employee pushback about its work on US government projects. I learned when I read “Google Employees Protest Secret Work on Censored Search Engine for China.” The newspaper of record at least around 42nd Street and Park Avenue said:
Hundreds of Google employees, upset at the company’s decision to secretly build a censored version of its search engine for China, have signed a letter demanding more transparency to understand the ethical consequences of their work. In the letter, which was obtained by The New York Times, employees wrote that the project and Google’s apparent willingness to abide by China’s censorship requirements “raise urgent moral and ethical issues.” They added, “Currently we do not have the information required to make ethically-informed decisions about our work, our projects, and our employment.”
High school management methods have created an interesting workplace problem: Employees want to pick and choose what the company does to generate revenue. Publicly traded companies have to generate revenue and a profit.
How will Google’s management deal with the apparent desire of senior management to make revenue headway in China as its employees appear to want to tell management what’s okay and what’s not okay. I assume that high school science club management methods will rise to this challenge.
The second example is provided by the article “Twitter Company Email Addresses Why It’s #BreakingMyTwitter.” Twitter management is making decisions which seem to illustrate the power of “I know better than you” what’s an appropriate course of action. Twitter has made unilateral changes which appear to have put developers and users in a sticky patch of asphalt. Plus, management has taken an oddly parental approach to the Alex Jones content problem.
I learned from the article:
It’s hard to be a fan of Twitter right now. The company is sticking up for conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, when nearly all other platforms have given him the boot, it’s overrun with bots, and now it’s breaking users’ favorite third-party Twitter clients like Tweetbot and Twitterific by shutting off APIs these apps relied on. Worse still, is that Twitter isn’t taking full responsibility for its decisions.
My takeaway is that high school management methods are more interesting than the dry and dusty notions of Peter Drucker or the old school consultants at the once untarnished blue chip consulting firms like McKinsey & Company and Booz, Allen type operations.
Business school curricula may need an update.
Stephen E Arnold, August 17, 2018
A View of the Google Employee Resistance Movement
August 5, 2018
I read “Googlers Bristle at Censoring Search for China.” The main idea is that Google is experiencing “widespread employee anger.” Call me old fashioned, but I thought that when a person accepted a job for money and benefits, part of the deal was to work on tasks one’s boss handed out. The write up states:
Google was scurrying to stop leaks and quell outrage inside the company over what had been a stealth project prior to a report this week by news website The Intercept.
I like the “scurrying” metaphor.
Unnamed sources allegedly said:
“Everyone’s access to documents got turned off, and is being turned on [on a] document-by-document basis,” a source told the news site. “There’s been total radio silence from leadership, which is making a lot of people upset and scared. … Our internal meme site and Google Plus are full of talk, and people are a.n.g.r.y.”
The write up reveals that Google has 700 employees in three offices in China.
Is it possible for China to direct its attention to these employees. Monitoring might communicate a hint that finding work at another company might be a good idea?
Of course, here in rural Kentucky, it seems possible, maybe likely.
Net net: Google has a couple of challenges to which to respond: Management and getting a chunk of what may be one of the largest markets in the world.
No big deal for an online advertising company selling Loon balloons and waiting for money to roll in from an investment in baby Segways.
But what about employee resistance? What about some actual sources?
Stephen E Arnold, August 5, 2018
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