1. Could you expand more on the practical details of how decision making by consensus worked? Eg if I want to buy a $1m machine, how many people and which people do I convince that this makes economic sense? Who can actually sign off on the purchase?
2. How did incentive based compensation work for employees whose work could not directly be tied to the bottom line? For example, legal and compliance staff sometimes prevent profit making activity that is deemed as risky - making these functions prime candidates for internal monopolies that drag down the performance of other groups. Or recruiters whose natural incentives revolve around number of people hired rather than efficiency.
3. How is economic decision making enforced? What stops a middle manager from acting out of self-interest and expanding his own headcount or project scope to increase his own importance at the expense of company economics? Even if there is some consensus required, it’s probably not hard to convince a few friends with fanciful projections. Is this mostly a camaraderie / honor system thing?
If you feel like these are the wrong questions and are somehow missing the point - let me know! Sounds like Creo pulled off something special and I’m sure there is lots to learn.
1. Could you expand more on the practical details of how decision making by consensus worked? Eg if I want to buy a $1m machine, how many people and which people do I convince that this makes economic sense? Who can actually sign off on the purchase?
2. How did incentive based compensation work for employees whose work could not directly be tied to the bottom line? For example, legal and compliance staff sometimes prevent profit making activity that is deemed as risky - making these functions prime candidates for internal monopolies that drag down the performance of other groups. Or recruiters whose natural incentives revolve around number of people hired rather than efficiency.
3. How is economic decision making enforced? What stops a middle manager from acting out of self-interest and expanding his own headcount or project scope to increase his own importance at the expense of company economics? Even if there is some consensus required, it’s probably not hard to convince a few friends with fanciful projections. Is this mostly a camaraderie / honor system thing?
If you feel like these are the wrong questions and are somehow missing the point - let me know! Sounds like Creo pulled off something special and I’m sure there is lots to learn.