Power is everywhere, senior/junior developer, father/son. The question is how that power is used?
A mantra I try to have is the mindset. The example is when I am coach, if I think the coachee have a lot of problems, and will never solve those, that will affect the conversation. If I have the mindset that the coachee has indefinite potential and can be or do anything, that will have a totally different effect. The trick is to make this real, and I can only say that practice is a good way. CEO may have a overall responsibility for layouts, if the culture is that everybody has a part of that responsibility, maybe the pain can be shared.
"Boss/employee. Coach/player. Officer/soldier. Each of these relationships is based on a power differential."
What if we have just lost the initial reason? What if those relationships were originally based on respect and thriving for experience and excellence? Power differential, in that case, would be something like a side effect. So maybe, with the help of time and institutionalisation of relationships, the internal reason of thriving for excellence faded away and only the visible wrapping of power differentials remained?
You might be interested in the book Everybody Matters. It’s about a company that, among other things, faced an economic downturn without layoffs. One of the strategies they used to avoid layoffs was temporary across the board pay cuts. Including the CEO (who wrote the book).
I got another comment telling the story of across-the-board cuts. The company fell apart. Everyone agreed to the cuts. For everyone else. All the good people left.
Makes me wonder what else was going on at that company.
I think you have it exactly right here. I also think that the CEOs that claim they take responsibility think they really are doing that, even though they are not also taking pay cuts, etc.
What they mean - I think - is simply that they won’t blame anybody else for the failure. So there’s that, weak sauce though it is.
I suppose that's something. "Mistakes were made", "It's the economy", those would be worse. But they just made decisions that caused pain. If they aren't seen to experience pain, how can they expect to continue to lead? How can I as an IC be expected to continue to follow?
What I finally realized is that's not a good enough answer. There's a social contract. If the powerful don't keep their end of the bargain, the disadvantaged can't be expected to keep theirs. There's a reason for Boxing Day.
Power is everywhere, senior/junior developer, father/son. The question is how that power is used?
A mantra I try to have is the mindset. The example is when I am coach, if I think the coachee have a lot of problems, and will never solve those, that will affect the conversation. If I have the mindset that the coachee has indefinite potential and can be or do anything, that will have a totally different effect. The trick is to make this real, and I can only say that practice is a good way. CEO may have a overall responsibility for layouts, if the culture is that everybody has a part of that responsibility, maybe the pain can be shared.
"Boss/employee. Coach/player. Officer/soldier. Each of these relationships is based on a power differential."
What if we have just lost the initial reason? What if those relationships were originally based on respect and thriving for experience and excellence? Power differential, in that case, would be something like a side effect. So maybe, with the help of time and institutionalisation of relationships, the internal reason of thriving for excellence faded away and only the visible wrapping of power differentials remained?
You might be interested in the book Everybody Matters. It’s about a company that, among other things, faced an economic downturn without layoffs. One of the strategies they used to avoid layoffs was temporary across the board pay cuts. Including the CEO (who wrote the book).
I got another comment telling the story of across-the-board cuts. The company fell apart. Everyone agreed to the cuts. For everyone else. All the good people left.
Makes me wonder what else was going on at that company.
Back when I was an outsourcing lawyer, we had a mantra that "risk goes with control"
I think you have it exactly right here. I also think that the CEOs that claim they take responsibility think they really are doing that, even though they are not also taking pay cuts, etc.
What they mean - I think - is simply that they won’t blame anybody else for the failure. So there’s that, weak sauce though it is.
I suppose that's something. "Mistakes were made", "It's the economy", those would be worse. But they just made decisions that caused pain. If they aren't seen to experience pain, how can they expect to continue to lead? How can I as an IC be expected to continue to follow?
Maybe they like being able to blame someone, and it feels like a real sacrifice to say they won’t? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
🤣😬
As an IC at the short end of the power differential, maybe you have fewer options and just have to suck it up :-(
What I finally realized is that's not a good enough answer. There's a social contract. If the powerful don't keep their end of the bargain, the disadvantaged can't be expected to keep theirs. There's a reason for Boxing Day.