Imagine a company with open borders—not the chaotic kind where anyone can waltz in and loot the corporate treasury, but the libertarian version: Any manager can hire whoever they want, as long as it fits their budget.
Jordan Rubin sent this my way and I love this post! I've been interested in very similar ideas for a while. I'm curious if you're familiar with any of Kegan's work or have thoughts about it? For we example, his book An Everyone Culture which explores the idea of Deliberately Developmental Organizations. I guess the goal of creating such an organization is to reduce the incentive for shirking.
One thing I don’t understand is why more big corporations don’t give more compensation in the form of company shares, at all levels of the company. Even if low level workers only impact a tiny fraction of the company’s chance of success, it still makes them feel like they are working for themselves in some way when they perform well, aligning sentiment with the company. Maybe the problem is too many people live paycheck to paycheck?
I'd expect it to be positive for morale and sentiment but if you hold total compensation constant, equity trades off against cash comp. (which is probably what you meant as well?)
In teams that can jointly pull an important lever (even where individual contributions are hard to monitor), giving everyone equity comp or outcome based comp is probably corrective to natural tendency to shirk.
Have you read managerial dilemmas by Gary Miller? Highly recommend..It's more substantive that the title lets on.
(lol i see it's 41$ on Amazon and no longer available on thriftbooks, happy to pass you a copy next time you're in nyc).
You capture the role of culture as a 'binding' ingresdient that holds the firm together really well. I would argue that the role of culture gores beyong this & that when it's designed to be fit for purpose, it becomes part of the firm's operating system & contributes directly to success. And this remains important even when this hypothetical manager is hiring 'agents' vs regular employees. Would love to hear your take on culture in hybrid workplaces to see if we mostly agree or not. https://rajeshachanta.substack.com/p/the-dark-matter-of-organizations
Talk of culture is a tactic that companies use to trick you into thinking that you're doing something meaningful in a purely transactional relationship.
Jordan Rubin sent this my way and I love this post! I've been interested in very similar ideas for a while. I'm curious if you're familiar with any of Kegan's work or have thoughts about it? For we example, his book An Everyone Culture which explores the idea of Deliberately Developmental Organizations. I guess the goal of creating such an organization is to reduce the incentive for shirking.
My ideas on this topic were mostly shaped by reading The Evolution of Cooperation (Axelrod) and Managerial Dilemmas (Gary Miller)..
will check out Kegan's work
Ohh interesting, I haven't read these! Will check them out!
Just went through your newsletter. We should chat!
Yeah I'm down to chat whenever! Please email me at varun [at] doubleascent [dot] com?
you are describing a cult
indeed..
One thing I don’t understand is why more big corporations don’t give more compensation in the form of company shares, at all levels of the company. Even if low level workers only impact a tiny fraction of the company’s chance of success, it still makes them feel like they are working for themselves in some way when they perform well, aligning sentiment with the company. Maybe the problem is too many people live paycheck to paycheck?
I'd expect it to be positive for morale and sentiment but if you hold total compensation constant, equity trades off against cash comp. (which is probably what you meant as well?)
In teams that can jointly pull an important lever (even where individual contributions are hard to monitor), giving everyone equity comp or outcome based comp is probably corrective to natural tendency to shirk.
Have you read managerial dilemmas by Gary Miller? Highly recommend..It's more substantive that the title lets on.
(lol i see it's 41$ on Amazon and no longer available on thriftbooks, happy to pass you a copy next time you're in nyc).
You capture the role of culture as a 'binding' ingresdient that holds the firm together really well. I would argue that the role of culture gores beyong this & that when it's designed to be fit for purpose, it becomes part of the firm's operating system & contributes directly to success. And this remains important even when this hypothetical manager is hiring 'agents' vs regular employees. Would love to hear your take on culture in hybrid workplaces to see if we mostly agree or not. https://rajeshachanta.substack.com/p/the-dark-matter-of-organizations
Talk of culture is a tactic that companies use to trick you into thinking that you're doing something meaningful in a purely transactional relationship.