Yeah, I knew I was going to find this: Sorry to seems the party pooper, but that's not healthy at all. I had an experience like that. No thanks, not anymore. Especially because even if "everyone...
Yeah, I knew I was going to find this:
As with other studios, the threat of burnout looms heavy at Motion Twin too, but it’s exacerbated by the burden of responsibility that everybody carries. “Because everyone is responsible for many things at Motion Twin, your brain usually keeps ‘working at Motion Twin’ when you come back home everyday,” said Bénard.
Sorry to seems the party pooper, but that's not healthy at all.
I had an experience like that. No thanks, not anymore. Especially because even if "everyone is the same" this means that the most charismatic/old employee will still have more weight, just not officially, which is even worse until you decide to get into the internal politics of the company.
Sorry, talking from experience, this is the worst possible configuration for the health (mental and physical) of the employees.
It sounds like the open office plan but with organizational hierarchy. Looks good, sounds good, is tough in practice. I wonder though if it's just hard because we're all used to having hierarchy....
It sounds like the open office plan but with organizational hierarchy. Looks good, sounds good, is tough in practice.
I wonder though if it's just hard because we're all used to having hierarchy. If that was the system you started with, maybe it would work better?
It seems like this system doesn't scale well, which makes sense. For a small enough group of people where communication remains relatively simple I think it'll be good.
It seems like this system doesn't scale well, which makes sense. For a small enough group of people where communication remains relatively simple I think it'll be good.
It would scale in the same way as a typical hierarchy; division along departments or geography or some other criteria, or just form a new company and share resources and treat it like a network of...
It would scale in the same way as a typical hierarchy; division along departments or geography or some other criteria, or just form a new company and share resources and treat it like a network of flat organizations.
Open source projects seem to provide a model for scaling.
I don't know but as I said, I highly doubt that this structure is really the full democracy that is presented in the article. If it is, I'd like to see the turnover of that studio because there is...
I don't know but as I said, I highly doubt that this structure is really the full democracy that is presented in the article.
If it is, I'd like to see the turnover of that studio because there is no team management and there must be a very strong pack mentality.
If you get burned out in an environment like that, nobody will notice until the time in which you already reached your point of no return. Then you either take a long holiday and take it easy when you come back (that judging by their approach "bring the office at home" is not possible) or you quit.
If your vision for the product developed does not align with the majority, you're going to be always the guy which ideas are being scrapped. Nice feeling right?
In that case, ironically, your ideas have more chance to be listened to if you worked in a traditional heriarchial structure because you simply interact with your manager and if it's a good manager, it'll bring your ideas up the chain and value your suggestion. I know we're talking hipotetically and ideally here but it's not like the article is instead presenting a realistic picture of this other structure instead.
I'm not going to cheerlead for them, but that's acceptable to me. It's slightly more democratic and that's a step in the right direction and should be celebrated. I like the way you think though,...
highly doubt that this structure is really the full democracy that is presented in the article.
I'm not going to cheerlead for them, but that's acceptable to me. It's slightly more democratic and that's a step in the right direction and should be celebrated.
I like the way you think though, there should be some more checks and balances for burnout and for dealing with group/pack mentality which can sink a company if the ideas/strategy start to optimize for a local maximum.
If your vision for the product developed does not align with the majority, you're going to be always the guy which ideas are being scrapped. Nice feeling right?
This is why I've been suspecting that the model organization is temporary and allows people to move from project to project and to propose new projects easily. Similar to forking projects in open source or free association in anarchist terms. There shouldn't be a penalty for having different ideas.
But it doesn't. Open office plan doesn't look or sound good either. At the end of the day someone has to be available to make a call or break a tie. That person gets chosen for some reason -...
Looks good, sounds good
But it doesn't. Open office plan doesn't look or sound good either.
I wonder though if it's just hard because we're all used to having hierarchy.
At the end of the day someone has to be available to make a call or break a tie. That person gets chosen for some reason - seniority, experience, etc.
Even in a "no bosses" environment, something like this will naturally arise.
I suspect that may be the case. Most people don't have much experience in conducting meetings or in consensus and the only equality/democracy/liberty they may encounter is going to the polls to...
I suspect that may be the case. Most people don't have much experience in conducting meetings or in consensus and the only equality/democracy/liberty they may encounter is going to the polls to cast a vote, if that.
That's the case if you're at a startup or have equity of any sort. And in general, for programming we have this issue anywhere. I've thought about linked lists in college while on a subway, and...
“Because everyone is responsible for many things at Motion Twin, your brain usually keeps ‘working at Motion Twin’ when you come back home everyday,” said Bénard.
That's the case if you're at a startup or have equity of any sort. And in general, for programming we have this issue anywhere. I've thought about linked lists in college while on a subway, and while in the industry I've thought about optimizing some caching in Django or Rails or JavaScript at random moments.
the most charismatic/old employee will still have more weight, just not officially, which is even worse until you decide to get into the internal politics of the company.
That's the same anywhere.
Honestly, speaking as a leftist, and more specifically as an anarchist, we're going to see a transition phase where people navigate these challenges. Not all work has to be like this. This is just the small steps to get to a better future. Right now, "better" looks like equal salary + bonuses and equal say in the company's strategy. The next step is making sure people aren't burning out and are sticking 40 hr work weeks and then the step after that is cutting it down to 30 hours or 20 hours. Become so automated that the only time you're working ridiculously hard is when there's a real significant effort required.
You're confusing "bad business owners" with "small business owners". I worked for both, sometimes they overlap, sometimes not. Also, even if I would agree with you, it's not like I said "this is...
You're confusing "bad business owners" with "small business owners". I worked for both, sometimes they overlap, sometimes not.
Also, even if I would agree with you, it's not like I said "this is worst than a traditional structure". I said, it's not "cool" as it's tried to be depicted.
Just to elaborate a bit more:
In practice what this kind of structure enable, is having no one responsible for its own team because "hey, everyone is a the manager and the subordinate of itself".
To make an example of what this structure lead to: Imagine there is someone who can withstand working non-stop, even when at home (because you never just stop thinking about work, right?) for weeks and who cannot because it suffer from burnout earlier.
The guy who cannot could either not notice it by itself because it's inspired by who can or is afraid to be seen as "less involved" than others.
The end result is that is no one fault if someone suddenly quits because couldn't take it anymore.
I'm not saying that Motion Twin is lying in that interview and it's hell working there. I'm saying that it's not all roses as it's being depicted in the article.
Later in the article they talk about taking steps to avoid burnout though. They'll just send people home if they're getting burnt out because "it's obviously better to lose a few work hours than a...
Later in the article they talk about taking steps to avoid burnout though. They'll just send people home if they're getting burnt out because "it's obviously better to lose a few work hours than a colleague."
If no one is actually in charge of overseeing anyone else, what is going to happens is that "burnout" is going to be noticed when it happens. And no way that you "cure" a burnout employee by...
If no one is actually in charge of overseeing anyone else, what is going to happens is that "burnout" is going to be noticed when it happens. And no way that you "cure" a burnout employee by having him go home a couple hours before, for that day.
Have you participated in a labor cooperative? My perception is that they are rare in the U.S outside of agriculture. I came across the following company when I was researching worker-owned...
Have you participated in a labor cooperative? My perception is that they are rare in the U.S outside of agriculture.
I came across the following company when I was researching worker-owned cooperatives that are in my industry. This was the first substantial result but I haven't found very many others:
I also found a detailed survey of the business from 2011. It seems like the key to their success is in their vetting process (relatively extensive, involves some sort of probationary period).
This case study illustrates the unique organizational structures and dynamic governance mechanisms that are possible in a worker cooperative, and the way that these structures shape decision-making in a demanding market context.
"I also found a detailed survey of the business from 2011. It seems like the key to their success is in their vetting process (relatively extensive, involves some sort of probationary period)." I...
"I also found a detailed survey of the business from 2011. It seems like the key to their success is in their vetting process (relatively extensive, involves some sort of probationary period)."
I feel like it may be a similar situation for Motion Twin. I've experienced working for highly driven companies with 10-15 person staffs and they certainly weren't afraid to let people go who didn't fit and this is especially easy to do/notice if you keep the team size small enough.
You then tend to end up with a group that is passionate about the overall product vision and I think it creates a situation where a more flat structure could work.
I come from italy where cooperative are common enough (there is also an internation level cooperative there called simply CooP). I personally have had experience directly with a cooperative...
I come from italy where cooperative are common enough (there is also an internation level cooperative there called simply CooP).
I personally have had experience directly with a cooperative working in the agricultural/floreal market as well (not working in it, one of my ex girlfriend's family was part of one and I got involved for some time just to help them with IT stuff).
The main difference is that usually is several business owners join together and form a cooperative of individual business owners. The decision making become "shared" and democratic only on a larger scale, not on the daily operation in which every individual business owners deal with its own employee in the traditional way.
It's no different from being a corporation in which the board members actually have their hands in the ground as well, instead of just talking about money.
On a related topic, there were a number of articles last week covering an ex-Valve employee that had been tweeting a ton of complaints about an "unidentified self-organizing company" that a lot of...
On a related topic, there were a number of articles last week covering an ex-Valve employee that had been tweeting a ton of complaints about an "unidentified self-organizing company" that a lot of people recognized as obviously being Valve. Here's one example: https://www.pcgamer.com/ex-valve-employee-describes-ruthless-industry-politics/
Yeah what's funny is that you can find similar politics at so many hierarchical companies; just take a look at Glassdoor. Even at a small startup that's in a growth phase can be ruthless, so I...
Yeah what's funny is that you can find similar politics at so many hierarchical companies; just take a look at Glassdoor. Even at a small startup that's in a growth phase can be ruthless, so I feel like this is orthogonal to whether the org is flat or hierarchical.
Glad they're at least trying something new. I have my doubts but I could see it being a bit freeing not always having to scramble up the corporate ladder to ensure your next pay raise, promotion...
Glad they're at least trying something new.
I have my doubts but I could see it being a bit freeing not always having to scramble up the corporate ladder to ensure your next pay raise, promotion etc. You all sink or swim, everyone benefits equally if the product does well with less internal fighting over higher positions. As stated in the article I think this is waaaayyy more feasible in a very small organization.
On the other hand you could end up seeing quite a bit of animosity between co-workers if you have some people thinking they contribute more than others.
That's the value of free association; they're free to leave or free to work on something else outside of work. Maybe it's just me, I've accepted that each person is valuable, no matter how small...
On the other hand you could end up seeing quite a bit of animosity between co-workers if you have some people thinking they contribute more than others.
That's the value of free association; they're free to leave or free to work on something else outside of work.
Maybe it's just me, I've accepted that each person is valuable, no matter how small their contribution is. If they're actively harming the project and getting paid for it? Well, that's a different story.
"Maybe it's just me, I've accepted that each person is valuable, no matter how small their contribution is." I would personally have trouble with this. I agree that each person is generally...
"Maybe it's just me, I've accepted that each person is valuable, no matter how small their contribution is."
I would personally have trouble with this. I agree that each person is generally valuable but some people are going to do a better job than others when it comes to certain jobs/projects. Which means there could be differences in how valuable or useful they are in their role.
In the end this is a business and they are trying to make money on a product. If you have a team of people that do not contribute much "value" to the product but are more than happy to hang out and collect a pay cheque you may end up having a more difficult time shipping a quality product. I still feel strong hiring practices and letting people go who just aren't working out could help alleviate this situation.
Agreed; it depends on the purpose and on their mission. In this case, they're a business trying to be more effective by being more egalitarian. At a higher level, we need a network organization...
In the end this is a business and they are trying to make money on a product
Agreed; it depends on the purpose and on their mission. In this case, they're a business trying to be more effective by being more egalitarian.
At a higher level, we need a network organization that supports various egalitarian efforts like this so that "each person is valuable, no matter how small their contribution is".
That's why I referenced open source as an organizational model; there's the level of the project where code/docs are the tangible way to contribute and they have to meet a certain minimum quality. But at the higher level, you have tutorials, guides, books, conferences, meetups, artwork, UI design and other things that require a different skillset and the minimum quality can be much lower.
If the mission of the game studio expands to include "and support other tech or game studios who also have the no-bosses-equal-pay model" then the larger project can accept more and varied levels of contributions.
I still feel strong hiring practices and letting people go who just aren't working out could help alleviate this situation.
Free association is nice like that; just because you're letting someone go for this particular product, doesn't mean they can't contribute in some small way on a project that they feel passionately about (like in the open source development model).
Yeah, I knew I was going to find this:
Sorry to seems the party pooper, but that's not healthy at all.
I had an experience like that. No thanks, not anymore. Especially because even if "everyone is the same" this means that the most charismatic/old employee will still have more weight, just not officially, which is even worse until you decide to get into the internal politics of the company.
Sorry, talking from experience, this is the worst possible configuration for the health (mental and physical) of the employees.
It sounds like the open office plan but with organizational hierarchy. Looks good, sounds good, is tough in practice.
I wonder though if it's just hard because we're all used to having hierarchy. If that was the system you started with, maybe it would work better?
It seems like this system doesn't scale well, which makes sense. For a small enough group of people where communication remains relatively simple I think it'll be good.
It would scale in the same way as a typical hierarchy; division along departments or geography or some other criteria, or just form a new company and share resources and treat it like a network of flat organizations.
Open source projects seem to provide a model for scaling.
I don't know but as I said, I highly doubt that this structure is really the full democracy that is presented in the article.
If it is, I'd like to see the turnover of that studio because there is no team management and there must be a very strong pack mentality.
If you get burned out in an environment like that, nobody will notice until the time in which you already reached your point of no return. Then you either take a long holiday and take it easy when you come back (that judging by their approach "bring the office at home" is not possible) or you quit.
If your vision for the product developed does not align with the majority, you're going to be always the guy which ideas are being scrapped. Nice feeling right?
In that case, ironically, your ideas have more chance to be listened to if you worked in a traditional heriarchial structure because you simply interact with your manager and if it's a good manager, it'll bring your ideas up the chain and value your suggestion. I know we're talking hipotetically and ideally here but it's not like the article is instead presenting a realistic picture of this other structure instead.
I'm not going to cheerlead for them, but that's acceptable to me. It's slightly more democratic and that's a step in the right direction and should be celebrated.
I like the way you think though, there should be some more checks and balances for burnout and for dealing with group/pack mentality which can sink a company if the ideas/strategy start to optimize for a local maximum.
This is why I've been suspecting that the model organization is temporary and allows people to move from project to project and to propose new projects easily. Similar to forking projects in open source or free association in anarchist terms. There shouldn't be a penalty for having different ideas.
But it doesn't. Open office plan doesn't look or sound good either.
At the end of the day someone has to be available to make a call or break a tie. That person gets chosen for some reason - seniority, experience, etc.
Even in a "no bosses" environment, something like this will naturally arise.
I suspect that may be the case. Most people don't have much experience in conducting meetings or in consensus and the only equality/democracy/liberty they may encounter is going to the polls to cast a vote, if that.
That's the case if you're at a startup or have equity of any sort. And in general, for programming we have this issue anywhere. I've thought about linked lists in college while on a subway, and while in the industry I've thought about optimizing some caching in Django or Rails or JavaScript at random moments.
That's the same anywhere.
Honestly, speaking as a leftist, and more specifically as an anarchist, we're going to see a transition phase where people navigate these challenges. Not all work has to be like this. This is just the small steps to get to a better future. Right now, "better" looks like equal salary + bonuses and equal say in the company's strategy. The next step is making sure people aren't burning out and are sticking 40 hr work weeks and then the step after that is cutting it down to 30 hours or 20 hours. Become so automated that the only time you're working ridiculously hard is when there's a real significant effort required.
That is pretty much the mindset of every small business owner though, so what makes it more unhealthy in this case?
You're confusing "bad business owners" with "small business owners". I worked for both, sometimes they overlap, sometimes not.
Also, even if I would agree with you, it's not like I said "this is worst than a traditional structure". I said, it's not "cool" as it's tried to be depicted.
Just to elaborate a bit more:
In practice what this kind of structure enable, is having no one responsible for its own team because "hey, everyone is a the manager and the subordinate of itself".
To make an example of what this structure lead to: Imagine there is someone who can withstand working non-stop, even when at home (because you never just stop thinking about work, right?) for weeks and who cannot because it suffer from burnout earlier.
The guy who cannot could either not notice it by itself because it's inspired by who can or is afraid to be seen as "less involved" than others.
The end result is that is no one fault if someone suddenly quits because couldn't take it anymore.
I'm not saying that Motion Twin is lying in that interview and it's hell working there. I'm saying that it's not all roses as it's being depicted in the article.
Later in the article they talk about taking steps to avoid burnout though. They'll just send people home if they're getting burnt out because "it's obviously better to lose a few work hours than a colleague."
If no one is actually in charge of overseeing anyone else, what is going to happens is that "burnout" is going to be noticed when it happens. And no way that you "cure" a burnout employee by having him go home a couple hours before, for that day.
Have you participated in a labor cooperative? My perception is that they are rare in the U.S outside of agriculture.
I came across the following company when I was researching worker-owned cooperatives that are in my industry. This was the first substantial result but I haven't found very many others:
http://www.isthmuseng.com/company/worker-owned-cooperative/
I also found a detailed survey of the business from 2011. It seems like the key to their success is in their vetting process (relatively extensive, involves some sort of probationary period).
http://www.uwcc.wisc.edu/pdf/Staff%20Papers/Staff%20Paper%209.pdf
"I also found a detailed survey of the business from 2011. It seems like the key to their success is in their vetting process (relatively extensive, involves some sort of probationary period)."
I feel like it may be a similar situation for Motion Twin. I've experienced working for highly driven companies with 10-15 person staffs and they certainly weren't afraid to let people go who didn't fit and this is especially easy to do/notice if you keep the team size small enough.
You then tend to end up with a group that is passionate about the overall product vision and I think it creates a situation where a more flat structure could work.
I come from italy where cooperative are common enough (there is also an internation level cooperative there called simply CooP).
I personally have had experience directly with a cooperative working in the agricultural/floreal market as well (not working in it, one of my ex girlfriend's family was part of one and I got involved for some time just to help them with IT stuff).
The main difference is that usually is several business owners join together and form a cooperative of individual business owners. The decision making become "shared" and democratic only on a larger scale, not on the daily operation in which every individual business owners deal with its own employee in the traditional way.
It's no different from being a corporation in which the board members actually have their hands in the ground as well, instead of just talking about money.
On a related topic, there were a number of articles last week covering an ex-Valve employee that had been tweeting a ton of complaints about an "unidentified self-organizing company" that a lot of people recognized as obviously being Valve. Here's one example: https://www.pcgamer.com/ex-valve-employee-describes-ruthless-industry-politics/
Yeah what's funny is that you can find similar politics at so many hierarchical companies; just take a look at Glassdoor. Even at a small startup that's in a growth phase can be ruthless, so I feel like this is orthogonal to whether the org is flat or hierarchical.
Glad they're at least trying something new.
I have my doubts but I could see it being a bit freeing not always having to scramble up the corporate ladder to ensure your next pay raise, promotion etc. You all sink or swim, everyone benefits equally if the product does well with less internal fighting over higher positions. As stated in the article I think this is waaaayyy more feasible in a very small organization.
On the other hand you could end up seeing quite a bit of animosity between co-workers if you have some people thinking they contribute more than others.
That's the value of free association; they're free to leave or free to work on something else outside of work.
Maybe it's just me, I've accepted that each person is valuable, no matter how small their contribution is. If they're actively harming the project and getting paid for it? Well, that's a different story.
"Maybe it's just me, I've accepted that each person is valuable, no matter how small their contribution is."
I would personally have trouble with this. I agree that each person is generally valuable but some people are going to do a better job than others when it comes to certain jobs/projects. Which means there could be differences in how valuable or useful they are in their role.
In the end this is a business and they are trying to make money on a product. If you have a team of people that do not contribute much "value" to the product but are more than happy to hang out and collect a pay cheque you may end up having a more difficult time shipping a quality product. I still feel strong hiring practices and letting people go who just aren't working out could help alleviate this situation.
Agreed; it depends on the purpose and on their mission. In this case, they're a business trying to be more effective by being more egalitarian.
At a higher level, we need a network organization that supports various egalitarian efforts like this so that "each person is valuable, no matter how small their contribution is".
That's why I referenced open source as an organizational model; there's the level of the project where code/docs are the tangible way to contribute and they have to meet a certain minimum quality. But at the higher level, you have tutorials, guides, books, conferences, meetups, artwork, UI design and other things that require a different skillset and the minimum quality can be much lower.
If the mission of the game studio expands to include "and support other tech or game studios who also have the no-bosses-equal-pay model" then the larger project can accept more and varied levels of contributions.
Free association is nice like that; just because you're letting someone go for this particular product, doesn't mean they can't contribute in some small way on a project that they feel passionately about (like in the open source development model).