How a Radical Shift to "Self-Management" Left Zappos Reeling

Re:How a Radical Shift to "Self-Management" Left Zappos Reeling by sremani on Monday March 07, 2016 @11:55AM (#11239891)

Why is Self-Organization such a bad thing? Why are we hitting it over and over, esp. in the traditional offices where people are spending time in busy-ness instead of business productivity. I swear, 90% of traditional workers work 2 hours of their 8 hour day and middle management is lucky to be 50% right or worse, parrot what ever the megalomaniac who works higher in the hierarchy says. What is really Zappos doing, at least unlike many people in SV they do not claim to put a dent in the Universe. They are SouthWest on steroids, where employee happiness is central to the mission. Even if Zappos fails in its mission, there would be great lesson. I would love to work in a Halocracy, it will have its downsides, and people pretending to be busy and important does not seem to be one of them.

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Re:How a Radical Shift to "Self-Management" Left Zappos Reeling by ergothus on Monday March 07, 2016 @12:03PM (#11239940)

From the outside, I think a lot is demonstrated by comparing Valve and Zappos

Namely, Valve just did it, Zappos made a big deal about doing it

( I know that Zappos consulted Valve about their organization, at least according to a friend that works at Valve, but no idea what Zappos took from that consultation )

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Re:How a Radical Shift to "Self-Management" Left Zappos Reeling by aetherson on Monday March 07, 2016 @05:42PM (#11242343)

In all fairness, Zappos has about 5x the number of employees as Valve, according to a quick Google. That's the kind of thing that matters a lot.

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Re:How a Radical Shift to "Self-Management" Left Zappos Reeling by officialchicken on Monday March 07, 2016 @03:36PM (#11241418)

And valve's handbook is short, 37 pages of common sense English, cover and blank pages, and some great full and half page illustrations in a pdf [1]. It seems Zappos requires a translator, proprietary HR software, and at least one consultant along with whatever they call training.

[1] http://www.valvesoftware.com/company/Valve_Handbook_LowRes.p...

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Re:How a Radical Shift to "Self-Management" Left Zappos Reeling by kjdal2001 on Monday March 07, 2016 @01:05PM (#11240355)

I didn't get the impression that this article was overly critical of self-organization. Zappos seems to have had some struggles in transition, but the article still seems to end on a cautiously optimistic tone.

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Re:How a Radical Shift to "Self-Management" Left Zappos Reeling by raverbashing on Monday March 07, 2016 @12:10PM (#11239984)

> Why is Self-Organization such a bad thing?

My guess: the bystander effect

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Re:How a Radical Shift to "Self-Management" Left Zappos Reeling by sremani on Monday March 07, 2016 @12:24PM (#11240072)

As long as Zappos is a profit making organization, the case against Halocracy does not have teeth.

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Re:How a Radical Shift to "Self-Management" Left Zappos Reeling by ghaff on Monday March 07, 2016 @12:33PM (#11240155)

I have no opinion on Zappos specifically. But I've seen lots of dysfunctional organizations doing a lot of stupid things that were profitable--until they weren't. Profitability is one indicator that a company is doing things mostly right (probably particularly in the case of something like a retail business that isn't highly differentiated). But it's not really evidence.

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Re:How a Radical Shift to "Self-Management" Left Zappos Reeling by minimaxir on Monday March 07, 2016 @01:00PM (#11240321)

That logic does not follow. One could argue that Zappos could be making more money with a traditional org structure.

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Re:How a Radical Shift to "Self-Management" Left Zappos Reeling by TheOtherHobbes on Monday March 07, 2016 @03:24PM (#11241338)

One could also argue that Zappos would be making less money with a traditional org structure.

Both would be baseless opinions. It's damn near impossible to compare like for like here.

I'd file the idea under "interesting", but I'm not going to be rushing to send Zappos my business card because there are creepy and inappropriate overtones - not least is the insistence that Work is Family[tm].

But... I think it would be definitely a good thing if more corps experimented like this, so that "business culture" actually meant something identifiable, and there was a lot more corporate diversity, with a much wider variety of management structures and personnel styles.

Then if you didn't like a culture, you could avoid a corp. It would be easy.

The problem now is that a lot of business culture is implied, and the rules - which are at least as strong as those used in holacracy - are unspoken. Sometimes they're deliberately misleading.

I don't think this particular solution has much hope of transcending office politics. But I still think it's a more interesting culture than anything offered by (say) HP, Oracle, or IBM.

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Re:How a Radical Shift to "Self-Management" Left Zappos Reeling by maxxxxx on Monday March 07, 2016 @02:09PM (#11240815)

Amazon works quite well but from whatever I hear their work environment is not much fun. A profitable company can be a bad workplace. At least for the lower ranks.

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Re:How a Radical Shift to "Self-Management" Left Zappos Reeling by st3v3r on Monday March 07, 2016 @12:43PM (#11240216)

I don't know if one can really say that.

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Re:How a Radical Shift to "Self-Management" Left Zappos Reeling by jpadkins on Monday March 07, 2016 @01:26PM (#11240503)

If you read / believe in Teal, profit making isn't the sole function of Teal organizations.

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