This is Kommon People — the newsletter from Kommon which highlights stories about people, organisations, technology and business which will make you a better manager. If you like it and want more like it in your inbox, consider subscribing.
In this issue, we highlight the one thing that’s missing from all this recent advice on how to approach performance reviews (spoiler: it’s the money). We also reflect on Google’s controversial firing of a lead AI ethics researcher, the Economist blundering its way to some good points in an article on remote work, and give an update on how we’re thinking about building out our one-on-one meeting feature.
As always you can let us know what you think, just email us at newsletter@inkommon.com
We know measuring performance over 2020 is difficult. But for many companies whose financial year aligns with the calendar year, December will still feature a series of review meetings that generally speaking, no-one wants to have. This has led to a lot of articles being published on how best to approach performance reviews.
This article isn’t one of those.
We just wanted to mention that a lot of this (otherwise very good) guidance often fails to address the elephant in the room which is waiting to smash up your developmental feedback session: compensation. We offer some quick tips on how to prevent this from happening.
In case you haven’t been following the story, last Wednesday, Dr Timnit Gebru, a well-respected AI ethics researcher at Google, tweeted that she had been fired by the company. Google claims that she wasn’t willing to follow the proper review process for publishing a paper. However, as many have pointed out, this seems a thin reason for summarily dismissing a star researcher.
Especially one who the company was in a dispute with over how to publish a paper which examined ethical issues to do with Google’s AI technology. And one who was an outspoken voice on issues of diversity, equity and inclusion within the company (including a highly critical public email).
Her dismissal means the exclusion of a prominent Black female researcher from an influential AI ethics program at one of the world’s most powerful companies at a time when issues of representation in tech have never been more acute. Unsurprisingly, mainstream media outlets are investigating (NYT, Washington Post, Bloomberg) or you can follow Dr Gebru on Twitter.
Whilst we could discuss the implications of marginalising voices in the development of AI technology, we’ll stay in our lane of people and management (way more exciting). Because even from here, there’s plenty worth noting:
The DEI OKRs that we don’t know where they come from (and are never met anyways), the random discussions, the “we need more mentorship” rather than “we need to stop the toxic environments that hinder us from progressing” the constant fighting and education at your cost, they don’t matter. Because there is zero accountability. There is no incentive to hire 39% women: your life gets worse when you start advocating for underrepresented people, you start making the other leaders upset when they don’t want to give you good ratings during calibration.
This week our attention was caught by an Economist article with the title ‘How the Pandemic is Forcing Managers to work harder’. Twitter’s reaction suggested they didn’t quite the tone right...
In trying to make a point about manager’s work being more challenging, the author compared their role with the ‘benefits’ accruing to individuals (working from home opportunities) and companies (lower costs). However, they left little mention for the fact that many workers have certainly felt little ‘benefit’ from the pandemic, and in some cases have born the costs which companies have been able to cut (equipment, office space etc). It’s a solid lesson in how not to address this topic in front of your workforce.
It’s also a shame, because the part on managers is quite revealing. It quotes a report from the Chartered Management Institute (CMI), a British professional body, which found that of 2,300 surveyed:
Nearly half of senior executives thought they were engaging employees more in decision-making since the pandemic, but only 27% of employees agreed.
It’s a good reminder that even if you think you’re over-communicating as a manager whilst working remotely, it still might not be enough for your team. Worth checking in with them.
It also found that ‘48% of British staff from minority ethnic backgrounds thought that workplace culture had got better during the crisis, against 34% of all employees,’ suggesting that there were serious issues with traditional office cultures before. Worth thinking about over the next 12 months as companies look to ‘normalize’ office environments.
We speak a lot about how managers don’t get the help they need because not enough people admit it’s hard to do, which discourages others from asking for support.
For those who don’t know Emmett Shear, he’s the founder and CEO of Twitch, the world’s leading live streaming platform for gamers. Twitch was acquired by Amazon in 2014 and by one estimate is worth about $15 billion. Recently he was asked what he did poorly in the early days of the company. His first response:
“What we did poorly was manage anyone… I’ve already done this before but I’d like apologise again to the people who had to report to me when I was getting started because boy did I not know what I was doing.”
See, it’s hard.
At the moment, we’re talking about one-on-one meetings. They’re a key component of a manager’s relationship with their team members, and we want to do whatever we can to make them as valuable as possible for everyone.
Interestingly, our customer research suggested most of you are having these meetings (a good start!). So our focus is making sure that when you’re in the room/zoom, both parties get the most out of them. This has meant thinking through:
If you have any thoughts on this that you feel we should know, then now is the time!
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