Your Company Is Not a Family

http://blogs.hbr.org/2014/06/your-company-is-not-a-family/

by ghosh • 12 years ago

115 48 12 years ago

blogs.hbr.org

Jdfmiller• 12 years ago

The fact that they didn't include a quote or captioned photo from Michael Scott is a missed opportunity.

guard-of-terra• 12 years ago

These comparsions are meaningless. Your real family might not be a family in the rainbows and unicorns sense.

On the other hand, your company might be quite like a family in Lannister sense.

eli_gottlieb• 12 years ago

In general, your company should not be a family in the sense that they have the right to demand your help whenever and wherever. With a company, there is a contract and limits.

Besides which, you're lucky if you have a tiny handful of people in the entire world with whom things are "in the rainbows and unicorns sense". Rainbows and unicorns actually takes a whole lot of hard work at making interpersonal relations work well.

PavlovsCat• 12 years ago

With a company, there is a contract and limits.

To be fair, this is true for people, too, they're just unwritten. Family to me is kinda like a very very close friend; I might expect more support, and give more support, but there is still no outright demanding stuff, and there are limits.

But I still don't think a company should be like a family, because I think the whole human race should be like a family :P We can still rib on each other, and compete, but to outright snatch up as much as we can to the detriment of everybody else, results in a swift but friendly smack by grandma. I wish I could coat it in academic enough words though so such a proposal might fly here; I know it's not realistic in the short and medium term, but I would consider it a worthwhile long term ideal.

marvin• 12 years ago

Rainbows and unicorns actually takes a whole lot of hard work at making interpersonal relations work well

This is an important point, which I'm surprised that it's necessary to emphasize. I have plenty of rainbows and unicorns in my life, but they will evaporate in a couple of years if I start doing 60-hour workweeks and prioritize my career above everything else.

coldtea2• 12 years ago

Your real family might not be a family in the rainbows and unicorns sense.

No, but we use metaphors for their common sense interpretation (the average normal/loving family in this case).

dingdingdang• 12 years ago

While the article tries it really only manages to scratch the surface of the iceberg when it comes to the, generally epic, failure of company structures to provide a meaningful environment in which human beings can thrive as whole beings.

The idea of the "sports team" is not functional - the limited human interactions necessary within an artificially established playing field will NEVER mirror the real world challenges a company, and the people within it, faces. Sure that artificial playing field allows an easy "team" mentality but this "team" will never work against real-life challenges.

scribu• 12 years ago

A sports team faces many real challenges besides the artificial challenges on the field: many months of training before a big playoff, which involves individual player discipline, extensive interaction with the coach and the other players, interaction with the press etc.

Where the comparison breaks down, I think, is that the activity of individual employees in a company (especially a big one) isn't nearly as visible as the activity of an athlete. Therefore, there's less incentive to be a "team player", since it won't necessarily help you get a better job at a different company.

cjf42• 12 years ago

Limited human interaction?

Team sports primarily consists of human interaction. You practice with your team, have meetings with the coaching staff, film sessions, team meals, travel together, team training sessions, and that's before you even set foot on the field or court.

And the leadership and communication skills are directly transferable and valuable to a business setting. The business unit as a sports team idea is a bit tired and cliche at this point because it's been a comparison made for at least 50 years.

But that speaks to the cliche's validity. David Foster Wallace wrote in Infinite Jest "cliches earned their status as cliches because they were so obviously true."

Cthulhu_• 12 years ago

Aaaaa full-screen popup! Can we start adding popup warnings to submissions like this?

adwf2• 12 years ago

Using sports metaphors is a particularly bad way to go about it in this instance. The average young NFL player is only expecting a career lasting about 5 years, maybe 10 for exceptional guys; The average young office worker is looking for 40 years.

If you were fired as frequently as players get traded in NFL, we'd be living hellish careers!

walshemj2• 12 years ago

And a lot of pro sports players have fixed contracts can't imagine a firm wanting to continuing to pay some one for 5 years when their job becomes redundant.

arethuza4• 12 years ago

But isn't that the point they are trying to make - that sports teams can be effective despite have very high rates of staff turnover because everyone has realistic expectations of the employer-employee relationship?

XorNot• 12 years ago

In careers which last, at most, 5-10 years. Not 40.

vkjv3• 12 years ago

And salaries well above the norm.

netcan2• 12 years ago

But this expectation is a natural fit for what they're doing. Playing in the NFL is their life's ambition. It is their life's income. It's their life's glory. You can't just decide that your company should be like that because you would like that kind of dedication and that kind of HR policy.

Does success at these team companies mean anything comparable to what it does fro an NFL player? Is it the pinnacle of their career? The players on a sports team get a lot of glory from their success. They're also in a naturally competitive environment. They want the team to win as much as management of the team does.

overgard• 12 years ago

I think the point is, if you set proper expectations in the relationship you can have a cohesive team even if it's known that some people aren't going to be there forever.

maaku• 12 years ago

I change jobs as frequently as players get traded in NFL. Welcome to the new economy.

CmonDev• 12 years ago

Here in UK guys who change jobs most often get the most money: contractors.

forgottenpass• 12 years ago

Using sports metaphors is a particularly bad way to go about it in this instance.

It's not one-to-one but I think you're overemphasizing both career length as a fatal flaw to the metaphor and the strictness of the comparison the author is trying to draw.

It's a sensible metaphor for the limited points the author wants to make, then he hedges to prevent pushing the metaphor past breaking so I can't point out we don't have office cheerleaders.

In this sense, a business is far more like a sports team than a family.

Of course, a professional sports team isn’t a perfect analog to your business.

adwf2• 12 years ago

I think I objected less to the length of the career, and more to the reason why the career is so short. In sports, you are very physically limited, you eventually hit your physical peak and then get replaced by someone younger and faster. The reason that the players are OK with this is because they get paid an absolute ton of money and can quite possibly retire after those 5-10 years.

In business this isn't really the case. Of course, there are a few developers who will get embedded in their particular way of thinking and may end up antiquating themselves out of a job. But in general most people carry on learning, or promote into management or another aspect of business.

Essentially, there are a lot of good reasons to be treating employees like long term prospects.

Another one that springs to mind is the concept of intrinsic versus extrinsic motivation. We're constantly told that people are more motivated and do better work when they are intrinsincally motivated, rather than extrinsically. Yet, if you are treating your workers like disposable commodities; or if you as an employee are hopping from job to job every year; Where's the intrinsic motivation? If you're working at a job for 10 years or more, now I can believe that you will be motivated to see the company succeed. That your goals and the companies goals are aligned, because a significant proportion of your life and the companies life are intertwined.

Just like family.

N.B. Of course, if you don't expect your startup to be around in 3 years time - whether acquired or bust - then by all means go for the sports analogy. But I think in the wider business world, it'd be a mistake.

cjf42• 12 years ago

NFL players are rarely traded.

brudgers2• 12 years ago

Using American sports teams is a particularly bad example because the draft system typical in American sports means athletes are not free to choose among employers [1]. In addition, American sports teams tend to be massively subsidized in the form of stadium and infrastructure funding from the public till.

It's even worse as a metaphor for American companies because the typical office worker isn't under contract let alone a union negotiated one.[2]

[1] Ok, maybe the 'no poach' collusion among tech industry titans makes it a little better for that sector.

[2] Where the American professional sports metaphor does fit a bit is in its tendency toward non-investment in youth development - i.e. on the job training - which in the American sports model is subsidized from the public till in the form of scholastic sports in local high schools and public universities. Elsewhere in the world, professional sports teams tend to provide elite training to children and teenagers under a model similar to that of Angel Investing. A few big winners pay for all the false positives.

walshemj2• 12 years ago

I know business schools are looked down on by the "proper" parts of the Host UNI but winningest FFS this is the HBR not the back page of the Sun.

Doesn't exactly show Harvard in a good light that one of their publications uses such god awful English.

Kiro• 12 years ago

So just because it's not exactly 100% like a family you're not allowed to draw a comparison?

mrestko• 12 years ago

The problem is that the way family relationships are different from all other relationships (namely that they are lifelong) is the exact way in which a business is unlike a family.

afarrell• 12 years ago

Familial relationships are also unchosen, unlike relationships in companies.

coldtea2• 12 years ago

Your Company Is Not a Family

Really? But I want to believe the paternalistic BS by my bosses (who'd fire me at the first chance of reduced profit margins without a second thought), and fill the empty whole in the center of my life with some purpose based on my job.

brudgers2• 12 years ago

A typical company is no more a professional sports team than it's Ward, Wally, June, and the Beaver. More likely it's the sports team equivalent of a 2am domestic dispute call to the trailer park on Cops - leadership is running a win at all costs T-ball team.

The sports metaphor doesn't change the fact theyre cutting people for their obsession with ponies.

smegmalife• 12 years ago

Lots of companies are different. There are some that are more like sports teams, and some that are like families, and heck, some actually are families.

This article does nothing but debate semantics. Every metaphor breaks down at some point, so I don't see the need to debate which works the best.

vkjv3• 12 years ago

#1 reason a company is not a family. You do (or don't do things) for your family despite personal loss because it is good for the whole. That is something most people do not do for their company, nor should they.

csbrooks• 12 years ago

If you want every one of your employees to be a "superstar", just pay them millions a year, and the sports metaphor is a great fit.

Otherwise, sometimes you gotta work with what you've got. In real life, you can't just let everyone go who isn't a superstar, unless people are tripping over themselves to get a spot at your company.

jordan0day2• 12 years ago

It's certainly not a family, but a "team" probably isn't right, either.

If you company wants to use a sports team metaphor, that's fine, but just remember that many professional sports have players unions and guaranteed contracts.

Oh, what's that? Not such a big fan of the sports team metaphor now?

moron4hire2• 12 years ago

They also tend to make tradition-based rather than evidence-based decisions. How many times have you heard, "hiring so-and-so just (made|didn't make) good football-sense"? Superstition is extremely strong in sports franchises.

gdilla• 12 years ago

However, the 'moneyball' way is pretty widespread these days, even outside of baseball.

jordan0day2• 12 years ago

I think you could successfully make the argument that most hiring decisions are probably done like that.

Of course, I would imagine there's a lot fewer metrics available for hiring for most non-athlete positions, so "moneyball" might be a bit tougher for off-the-field jobs.

moron4hire2• 12 years ago

How about we just stop saying a company is like-a-family or like-a-team or like-a-band or like-an-anything-that-isn't-a-company? Companies are companies. They are their own distinct thing.

netcan2• 12 years ago

There are analogies and then there are analogies.

One very common type is of the talk is cheap variety. Management can declare their company to be a team or a family or an enchanted kingdom. They read about it in Harvard Review. Like a mission statement or a slogan , these thing only mean something when you put your money (literally and figuratively) where your mouth is. Most don't.

The second type is a half hearted analogy. The company really intends to be like a team, a family or a special forces unit. But, the cost to really making that mean a lot is high. You can make the business somewhat family like or team like relatively cheaply and inform your company culture, but there are going to be countess cases where the cost is high. FO employees to really buy into it, they need to accept this costs. Most don't. What they have is rhetoric and a certain amount of investment into team building. Fair enough, but not what this article is decribing

The type of team like environment the article is describing doesn't come cheap? You need to have good feedback & measurement mechanisms for performance on the team level. You need success and failure to be very well compensated for and it needs to be based on team performance. Are you compensating success well enough that members of the team will want to see the poorest performers periodically replaced?

A professional sports team is an exceptional environment. The people there are high achievers and they are ambitious. They are the 1%, most hardworking and talented. They get a lot of money and a lot of glory. They're in 'once in a hundred lifetimes' state of mind. Can your company offer that? Is 5 years of success on you "team" the pinnacle of a career? Are they making more now than they ever will be? Will these be the glory years they relive?

Functions with very straightforward feedback, like sales tend to develop these dynamics with the right compensation structure. A small startup with only a handful of high equity employees can develop this culture naturally. Trying to artificially create it elsewhere is hard. I also suspect it's near impossible a group with over 50 or so people.

It's easy to say this stuff. Does Netflix really put this into practice? Does anyone?

Your Company Is Not a Family

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