What is the difference between corporate wage pressure and a lunch money bully?

[bilby]

Far better to report a figure that looks good, and to expend some effort on ensuring that you have an excuse for any "errors" that will deflect blame onto a subordinate, in the unlikely event that someone decides to audit your reports.

Wow. That’s even more cynical than my view. Our reporting HAD to be accurate, top to bottom, because we were positioning the Company for sale; no prospective buyer was going to take our word for anything. One mantra we impressed upon managers was “run fast with bad news”. Sweeping it under the carpet was never done more than once, f’ya know what I mean.

A corporation is an environment. It evolves denizens that are most fit to survive, and while 'being honest' might be selected for in a small environment in which lies are both easily detected and easily traced to their sources, as the environment gains size and complexity, the selection pressure for 'being an effective (ie difficult to detect) liar'and 'being able to deflect blame' rapidly overwhelms the selection pressure for 'being honest'.

Honesty is explicitly harmful to those that exhibit it, as soon as there's a dishonest agent anywhere above them in the hierarchy; Whereas being an effective liar or blame deflector has no downside in any environment.

The only way to survive in a large corporation ecosystem is either to work in a hierarchy that contains no effective liars and blame throwers; Or to adapt to the environment by becoming one yourself.

An honest corporation is an unstable state, and will readily collapse into dishonesty; A dishonest corporation is in a self-sustaining state, where honest employees are eliminated, marginalised, or ignored automatically.

Evolution doesn't do 'nice'.

 

[rousseau]

Far better to report a figure that looks good, and to expend some effort on ensuring that you have an excuse for any "errors" that will deflect blame onto a subordinate, in the unlikely event that someone decides to audit your reports.

Wow. That’s even more cynical than my view. Our reporting HAD to be accurate, top to bottom, because we were positioning the Company for sale; no prospective buyer was going to take our word for anything. One mantra we impressed upon managers was “run fast with bad news”. Sweeping it under the carpet was never done more than once, f’ya know what I mean.

A corporation is an environment. It evolves denizens that are most fit to survive, and while 'being honest' might be selected for in a small environment in which lies are both easily detected and easily traced to their sources, as the environment gains size and complexity, the selection pressure for 'being an effective (ie difficult to detect) liar'and 'being able to deflect blame' rapidly overwhelms the selection pressure for 'being honest'.

Honesty is explicitly harmful to those that exhibit it, as soon as there's a dishonest agent anywhere above them in the hierarchy; Whereas being an effective liar or blame deflector has no downside in any environment.

The only way to survive in a large corporation ecosystem is either to work in a hierarchy that contains no effective liars and blame throwers; Or to adapt to the environment by becoming one yourself.

An honest corporation is an unstable state, and will readily collapse into dishonesty; A dishonest corporation is in a self-sustaining state, where honest employees are eliminated, marginalised, or ignored automatically.

Evolution doesn't do 'nice'.

I've experimented with enough cultures that I've managed to land somewhere where honesty is mostly the standard. Granted, we're not for-profit, have a largely small, horizontal structure, and most people are in it for a defined benefit pension, so it's a bit of a culture of character.

Your description fits a few other places I've worked at to a tee, both of which have reputations for being awful places to work and high turn-over. But I think anywhere one works is going to have unspoken rules, and it pays to know them.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Another factor here: People tend to move around.

Make a decision that saves your department $1M now, but will cost $10M 10 years down the road? That cost is someone else's problem, the savings now will improve your position.

That's why I would like to see a salary cap, above which you can only be paid in stock which is delivered down the road. Your income is tied to the long-term fate of the company, short-sighted decisions become a bad idea. Obviously, there are situations where this won't work (stock is closely held, stock doesn't even exist) but it would help. Bonuses are salary. Stock options would be forbidden, they would have to be replaced with actual stock.

 

[Elixir]

Far better to report a figure that looks good, and to expend some effort on ensuring that you have an excuse for any "errors" that will deflect blame onto a subordinate, in the unlikely event that someone decides to audit your reports.

Wow. That’s even more cynical than my view. Our reporting HAD to be accurate, top to bottom, because we were positioning the Company for sale; no prospective buyer was going to take our word for anything. One mantra we impressed upon managers was “run fast with bad news”. Sweeping it under the carpet was never done more than once, f’ya know what I mean.

A corporation is an environment. It evolves denizens that are most fit to survive, and while 'being honest' might be selected for in a small environment in which lies are both easily detected and easily traced to their sources, as the environment gains size and complexity, the selection pressure for 'being an effective (ie difficult to detect) liar'and 'being able to deflect blame' rapidly overwhelms the selection pressure for 'being honest'.

Honesty is explicitly harmful to those that exhibit it, as soon as there's a dishonest agent anywhere above them in the hierarchy; Whereas being an effective liar or blame deflector has no downside in any environment.

The only way to survive in a large corporation ecosystem is either to work in a hierarchy that contains no effective liars and blame throwers; Or to adapt to the environment by becoming one yourself.

An honest corporation is an unstable state, and will readily collapse into dishonesty; A dishonest corporation is in a self-sustaining state, where honest employees are eliminated, marginalised, or ignored automatically.

Evolution doesn't do 'nice'.

I've experimented with enough cultures that I've managed to land somewhere where honesty is mostly the standard. Granted, we're not for-profit, have a largely small, horizontal structure, and most people are in it for a defined benefit pension, so it's a bit of a culture of character.

Your description fits a few other places I've worked at to a tee, both of which have reputations for being awful places to work and high turn-over. But I think anywhere one works is going to have unspoken rules, and it pays to know them.

Good for you Rousseau; it takes some serious self control to elevate the emotional/ethical quality of the work environment over other concerns.
The only solution I've ever found to deal with it, is to stick to startups. Bilby seems to be right on point, given what I've seen happen when a big Corp (or even VC) takes over.

 

[rousseau]

Far better to report a figure that looks good, and to expend some effort on ensuring that you have an excuse for any "errors" that will deflect blame onto a subordinate, in the unlikely event that someone decides to audit your reports.

Wow. That’s even more cynical than my view. Our reporting HAD to be accurate, top to bottom, because we were positioning the Company for sale; no prospective buyer was going to take our word for anything. One mantra we impressed upon managers was “run fast with bad news”. Sweeping it under the carpet was never done more than once, f’ya know what I mean.

A corporation is an environment. It evolves denizens that are most fit to survive, and while 'being honest' might be selected for in a small environment in which lies are both easily detected and easily traced to their sources, as the environment gains size and complexity, the selection pressure for 'being an effective (ie difficult to detect) liar'and 'being able to deflect blame' rapidly overwhelms the selection pressure for 'being honest'.

Honesty is explicitly harmful to those that exhibit it, as soon as there's a dishonest agent anywhere above them in the hierarchy; Whereas being an effective liar or blame deflector has no downside in any environment.

The only way to survive in a large corporation ecosystem is either to work in a hierarchy that contains no effective liars and blame throwers; Or to adapt to the environment by becoming one yourself.

An honest corporation is an unstable state, and will readily collapse into dishonesty; A dishonest corporation is in a self-sustaining state, where honest employees are eliminated, marginalised, or ignored automatically.

Evolution doesn't do 'nice'.

I've experimented with enough cultures that I've managed to land somewhere where honesty is mostly the standard. Granted, we're not for-profit, have a largely small, horizontal structure, and most people are in it for a defined benefit pension, so it's a bit of a culture of character.

Your description fits a few other places I've worked at to a tee, both of which have reputations for being awful places to work and high turn-over. But I think anywhere one works is going to have unspoken rules, and it pays to know them.

Good for you Rousseau; it takes some serious self control to elevate the emotional/ethical quality of the work environment over other concerns.
The only solution I've ever found to deal with it, is to stick to startups. Bilby seems to be right on point, given what I've seen happen when a big Corp (or even VC) takes over.

Being a high school teacher was a good lesson for me in liking what I do, and where I work. I heard the advice when I was young, but didn't understand it until I was working in a role that I had absolutely no capacity for.

I don't disagree with Bilby but I'd frame it a bit differently. In a big corp many people largely want to be honest and have a positive impact, but after a certain point they have no means to actually affect anything. They become cogs in the wheel, so to speak, acting out their role in the only feasible way they can (which is self-interest). The company is so big, and they're so many levels down that they're functionally powerless.

Looking back at my time at 3M, I actually have some level of sympathy for my boss. He was a nice guy who tried to do us favours, but at the end of the day he was at the whims of his superiors. And he was put into the role right around the time he was starting a family, so got stuck at the org. Now the company just throws him around into whatever banal leadership role of the day, and forces him to oversee contract workers.