I don't know what that specific practice is, and I think I really really don't want to know.
If you want to make a culture fit, you have to break a few eggs.
Though I do agree that people will tolerate more stupid things from their employer when they are younger. If they are at such a transitional phase of life and people that surround them demonstrate that something is normal, it will be easier to accept.
People not understanding statistics doesn't mean there are not some dominant traits in each group, even if they are not shared by all members of the group -- nor that it is patronizing to mention them (as if someone making a general statement about a group outcome is patronizing if they don't describe exactly what each and every individual involved in that group would be like and do).
... Such as?
Btw, the issue isn't really "the tendencies 22 year old men" so much as it is people hiring for friends and drinking buddies instead of hiring for employees and colleagues
For one, a less competitive/macho culture, less booze friendly, less nerf guns, less nerdy references, -- on the other hand more agreeable collaboration, more petty antagonisms, etc.
Those are from empirical experiences working in a few XX and XY heavy environments.
But psychologists and social scientists have also long studied group dynamics in mens vs womens teams...
>Btw, the issue isn't really "the tendencies 22 year old men" so much as it is people hiring for friends and drinking buddies instead of hiring for employees and colleagues
Sure, but in startups and smaller companies in particular people also hire to match their idea of cool lifestyle, not just seeking employees and colleagues to maximize professional performance...
(Heck, they might even think that professional performance is secondary, and a 10x programmer that doesn't fit the culture will bring everybody down)
If we are going down the researched stereotypical road, a group of 22 year old women has have more bullying, more social conflict, isolation tactics, and passive aggressiveness.
But do we really need to define group traits by gender if one is a few percent higher in competitiveness, other in bullying, and third in what kind of team building exercise that management think is suitable for their team? It all sound very stereotypical way of thinking about hiring procedures.
If we take a quick look at Sweden, there is this government department called Swedish Public Employment Service. A company sends in a list of requirements and they help to pick out suitable applicants. Seems like a good solution to the lifestyle hiring problem.
Yes, if those percents affect group dynamics, and push towards one or the other direction (which happens).
It's an effective strategy to point out "don't say this about this selection of people if you aren't willing to start saying similarly about its opposite."
I.e. one might not realize a blanket statement about the habits of 22 year old men is incorrect/untenable until someone points asks one to do the same for women, at which case for whatever reason cultural training or mechanisms for avoiding prejudice kick in.
I don't see someone trying to be offended - I see someone challenging a baseless assumption about an arbitrarily defined group of humans. No matter how you draw those lines in your selection criteria, you're going to get it wrong for a not-insignificant group of that selection, so why bother? Just don't make such blanket statements.
Because group dynamics are not about getting it right for any member of a group -- in fact you can get predictions wrong for all members of the group and still be right in their overall behavior.
You can "get it wrong for a not-insignificant group of that selection" and still be right for the overall group behavior.
Likewise, you can get lifestyle/beliefs/etc wrong for "a not-insignificant group" of people in the bible belt, but you can still make accurate statements with predictive power for the area as a whole...
More likely we'd turn it into the ultimate LAN party environment or something.
I'm allowed to react to external input however I choose, and allowed to voice my emotions regarding such input.
Why say a reductive statement about all young men if you don't have to? Being annoying is a choice.
Everyone stands around in a circle and one person drops down on the floor in a plank to talk? Maybe it's just me but I'd have a hard time taking this seriously.
https://twitter.com/search?f=images&vertical=default&q=push%...
Actually I found a more recent tweet depicting the actual practice, which has since been deleted. For the record, it was the same photo that appears in https://medium.com/@william.liu/daily-plank-meeting-732456e6... , a post that advises (!) this practice.
If I am quiet in a meeting when I have a contribution to make--and make no mistake, I'm not speaking up regardless of my fitness level--my employer suffers, not me. He suffers again when his messed up culture inevitably causes me to find another employer.
See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plank_(exercise)
Good core exercise, probably inappropriate for meetings.
It is generally difficult to hold that position in proper form for long periods of time (or at least your muscles start to ache)
It never ceases to amaze me that businesses do this kind of thing (and many more besides) and still succeed. The induced drag from from stupid management practices is not that different from using crappy technology.
Vital for any meeting, but so often forgotten. So many meetings with nebulous goals and zero takeaways.
"Jim", the CEO said to the manager after that incident, "you're a good person, so we want you to stay here. But if we lose another seven figures because the right hand doesn't know what the left hand is doing on your staff again, it's over."
But there are such better ways of solving that problem!!! Yes, probably, but we have to know that's a problem we're trying to solve.
This is the dumbest thing I've ever heard. Do you get to talk over someone out of turn by doing a harder plank variation?
I kind of wish you hadn't said this. Somewhere someone is reading this and thinking it's actually not a bad idea.
Most standups I've participated in (four orgs now) have been ICs giving daily status reports for the benefit of the manager in the room. People making up silly rules to hurry through the thing (like, say, "we all have to stand for this meeting") makes more sense in that context.
Is this punishment for having standup? Fine, let's get rid of it. Instead, let's have a team meeting over coffee for 15min every morning where we discuss our challenges from yesterday, and what we think we'll do today, and anything keeping us from working.
I’ve inherited teams where everyone needs to stand during standup, or worse, where they do the push-up/plank thing if you want to speak. It shouldn’t take a great manager to realize these actions are exclusionary and have nothing to do with their job. Yes, I've gotten pushback from teams when I've told them to stop doing it during "their standup", but that's something we need to do as leaders.
Likewise for meetings, if you’re holding a meeting and people are standing or sitting on the floor, ask yourself, why are they there, how should they participate, and what should they take out of a meeting. It’s unlikely they’ll be able to meet those goals in the physical space you’ve secured. As the person running the meeting, it's your job to change the location rather than drumming on because it two weeks to schedule the meeting.
Great managers think about these things ahead of time rather than setting up exclusionary environments.