Retired Amazon VP Shares Why Reorgs Happen And Why The True Reason Is ALWAYS Hidden

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  • Опубликовано: 26 дек 2024

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  • @goatofdeath
    @goatofdeath 11 месяцев назад +28

    When I worked at a big tech company many years ago, my particular sub-team got an award specifically for teamwork. It came with a little statue with our name on it and our team name. In that exact same meeting in which they presented us the awards, they announced a reorg and presented the new org chart. In that org chart literally every single one of us were split up and sent to a different sub-team. It was beyond ridiculous and was the most direct, in the face Dilbert moment I've ever experienced personally. How do you recognize and award a team specifically for teamwork, and decide that the immediate "solution" to that is to split them all up? That was definitely the beginning of the end for me. And I let their golden handcuffs keep me there way longer than I should have before I peaced out for my own sanity.

  • @onelaststop
    @onelaststop 11 месяцев назад +124

    The issue with leadership meeting 12% and not 30% is that their strategy and decision did not work, but they get a free pass while the people that did execute are fired. The workers do not have control of the failed strategy, and have may even tried to get leadership to listen to them

    • @lemao7010
      @lemao7010 11 месяцев назад +4

      Nah, the leaders are the first to lose their jobs

    • @brianzmek7272
      @brianzmek7272 11 месяцев назад

      ​@@lemao7010counter point Chris Cox Synthya Williams Dec2023 Wizards of the Coast layoffs.

    • @TotallyFred
      @TotallyFred 11 месяцев назад +8

      one leader leaves with a massive severance package and hundreds of employees leave with peanuts.

    • @xxxxxxxxxx02
      @xxxxxxxxxx02 11 месяцев назад +2

      You can always change company if you don’t like the leadership, or start your own company and be the leader yourself.
      People of course will not do this, as it’s much more comfy to be “the worker”.

    • @TotallyFred
      @TotallyFred 11 месяцев назад +3

      ​@@xxxxxxxxxx02 This is a misinformed false choice. You can also climb the ladder and be a better leader. There is not one leader in a company; there is a whole hierarchy of them, and these layers are full of people having reached their maximum level of incompetence.
      Many people start in a good company, and end up over time in a crappy company, because too many wrong leaders (plural) made it there. Interference from the board is one such frequent reason; pretty sure this should be investigated by the SEC, btw.
      Finally, companies need employees just as they need leaders - many leaders couldn't do the job of the employees. I am poised to be in one that recognizes both (so far), but I do see the occasional crappy leader and they do a lot of damage.
      So yeah. It's not all about just leaving or wanting to "be the chief", you see...

  • @rddavies
    @rddavies 11 месяцев назад +102

    The fallacy on all this is that "leadership" has it all "figured out" ie that such and such move makes sense since they have perfect information. In my experience that's often not the case. Everyone is in their own way flailing. Management not excluded.

    • @addanametocontinue
      @addanametocontinue 11 месяцев назад +1

      Managers likely flailing more than ICs. At least with ICs, you generally just need to do the technical work. Managers deal less with technical work and with business challenges, where the answer isn't always as clear as 1 + 1 = 2.

    • @Martinit0
      @Martinit0 11 месяцев назад +7

      It's a misconception to believe that management has perfect information or that mgmt believes they have perfect information. In a big corp I worked for the management ladder was explicitly scaled (also) in the extent to which a manager could function (make correct decisions) with INCOMPLETE information, i.e. the higher up you were the more it was expected that you can function with incomplete information (instead of throwing up your arms). Only the lowest level employees are given the comfort of working in an environment of (relatively) complete information (the limit being they are told exactly what to do).

  • @srujangulla9519
    @srujangulla9519 11 месяцев назад +12

    Excellent video.. please have more senior VP's and directors to shed some light on behind the scenes. Great job 👏

  • @xuover
    @xuover 11 месяцев назад +7

    If there was a way to give a thousand 👍 I would. Most informative & actionable 8m55s this year. Over a nugget a minute of gems

  • @hemantkl007
    @hemantkl007 10 месяцев назад +1

    In smaller companies generally you get to know why something is happening and who is responsible for the same while on the other side the large organisations have to save their face and they can never reveal the true reasoning behind any decision they are are taking. Yes they are also at fault most of the times since they are NOT GOD but humans, but they cant accept it.

  • @rmdashrfv
    @rmdashrfv 11 месяцев назад +53

    0:51 Rahul / Ethan: The problem is rarely this. This is a red herring as far as I'm concerned. The real problem seems much more often to be rooted in a lack of transparency, or at the start of a project leadership says "the goal of this project is to do x", so when the team builds out x ... yes they are upset and feel like they were misled or someone did some political dealings in secret meetings.
    If someone started the project with "We need to get clicks up by 30%" and then 2 months later it's at 12%, people would at least be able to gauge their standing, but leaders don't communicate like that and are rarely the ones held accountable for it.

    • @user-kg1od9es5d
      @user-kg1od9es5d 11 месяцев назад +16

      well the real problem begins with seeing engineers etc as technical folks and putting them in that box. Rather, if they were involved in actually understanding to a deep level - what needs to be solved, who its for etc. Then you may actually get a different set of solutions being discussed that enable goal/metric to be realised.

    • @rmdashrfv
      @rmdashrfv 11 месяцев назад +11

      @@user-kg1od9es5d Yeah exactly. They silo off people from the actual discussions that matter, don't tell them shit, and then emerge from a long ass senior manager meeting one day like "Hey I know you can't see everything we've intentionally hid from you, but if you could you would understand. It has nothing to do with you meeting the goals and me deciding that's not the goal while you weren't in the room"

  • @hamhouke
    @hamhouke 11 месяцев назад +1

    “The right business outcome” never means the long term benefit of the employee or even the company. It, increasingly, means the quarterly earnings result. They treat people like consumables. Company loyalty is expected to flow only one way, fanatically towards the company. But what do we know? All these masters of the universe who hold the capital and power to destroy your life on a whim without even knowing your name, who you cannot elect, or even criticize surely know better. They must, because we have made them gods of our society.

  • @fredturk6447
    @fredturk6447 11 месяцев назад +2

    Yep, management had a reason, but look at all the companies that died because management did not understand their business and focused on short term profit instead of long term viability. Boeing is a recent example where they sold off part of their core business to create Spirit Aero systems. That’s going well. They destroyed their safety culture to push the development of the max 9, that went well. They also moved their management away from the factory further isolating from their core business. Sure management makes changes for a reason, but often management lives in its own bubble not understanding the full ramifications of its changes. Communication is critical and if things happen for no apparent reason it’s rather clear that communication between workers and management has failed in both directions. Really successful leaders walk to “factory floor” and talk to workers on a regular basis. It’s management 101 yet so many CEOs don’t do that. Too busy, too important!

  • @khanhlong89
    @khanhlong89 11 месяцев назад +14

    The comment on resources flowing to rising manager and vice versa is spot on. I've seen it many times - truth.

    • @user-kg1od9es5d
      @user-kg1od9es5d 11 месяцев назад +1

      its obvious... resources come with risk and trust. folks who are running high-er priority projects with a high chance of success will be gifted resources. Very simple.

  • @CaptTerrific
    @CaptTerrific 11 месяцев назад +3

    5:58 I'm not a developer, i work in consulting... but I find it completely baffling that a director could join a team and not 1) do a full inventory of their projects, 2) communicate their goals to the team, and 3) ensure projects align to goals. Forgive my ignorance of this industry, but what else are the directors doing all day?

    • @Unclefire
      @Unclefire 11 месяцев назад +3

      They're kissing ass above them and figuring out who they can trust below them. They're going to have their own power dynamics with peers. In some/many cases they're alsolooking to bring in their own trusted folks from prior jobs so they have folks they can trust/get the job done.
      They might not/probably not looking 2 levels down except to maybe look for the stars there. You come into a big org especially, it has momentum and often already has things it has to maintain/do. You're trying to keep the lights on, steer the ship in the right direction, THEN figure out if you need to course correct.

    • @CaptTerrific
      @CaptTerrific 11 месяцев назад

      @@Unclefire Sounds like the entire incentive structure for the director level is out of whack. Imagine if they could deploy their people well :/

    • @Unclefire
      @Unclefire 11 месяцев назад

      @@CaptTerrific In my company (and prior) the goals are macro level enough for tech that things don't really change much. Hell, we're near the end of Jan I haven't seen anything on goals for this year yet. And we have to write self-appraisals in OCT. So you're dealing with finding out cascaded goals in like March? Mid-years are in June, then year end in Oct.

  • @SeaSasquatch384
    @SeaSasquatch384 11 месяцев назад +7

    Nice interview. Real talk

  • @pamfan221
    @pamfan221 11 месяцев назад +10

    Very insightful video! Warrants more views for sure in this climate of reorg-layoffs.

  • @carbon-structure
    @carbon-structure 11 месяцев назад +17

    "spending more time with family" also very often means the person viewed their work as an uphill battle and chose happiness over trying to fix a broken and dysfunctional company where they were unfortunately the smartest person in the room.

    • @RecklessFables
      @RecklessFables 11 месяцев назад

      Whatever the circumstances, they needed that person gone sooner than later

  • @justliberty4072
    @justliberty4072 11 месяцев назад +1

    Why do reorgs happen? Sometimes it is just because a manager wants to be seen to be doing something. For example, if the previous manager was moved because the org was under-performing and the new manager judges that the performance has bottomed, then they will do a re-org so that they have something to point to to say that the increase in performance was due to them. It would have recovered if they did nothing, but that is not so easy to talk about or put on a written performance review.

  • @carsonl941
    @carsonl941 11 месяцев назад +2

    Why do all people in high places look exactly like that guy

  • @andre-le-bone-aparte
    @andre-le-bone-aparte 11 месяцев назад +9

    48 Laws Of Power! -- Devs are fighting the power structure of corporate desires. A good example is how Sundar Pichai (CEO, GOOGLE) rose to power as a technical person by understanding the politics of the business. - AND played the politics game against Marissa Mayer to be the CEO of Google.

  • @Denverian
    @Denverian 11 месяцев назад +1

    just do know that managers ALSO shuffle subordinantes among them. Unlucky manager either gets a risky subordinante or worse yet, stuck with one.

  • @juancarlosvaleron4850
    @juancarlosvaleron4850 11 месяцев назад +1

    Well, if your manager has changed some mature companies have this policy of excluding you from the ratings. It is called too new to rate something that goes both ways in the employee-supervisor relationship. Frankly it is a simple problem to solve but the amount of money the tech folks get paid vs. mature companies is sometimes lopsided which makes it hard not to get a ranking curve in. So, in reality that everyone must get rated. I almost joined Google and also Amazon but the interviewers were so torrid I backed not having a good feeling. That great gut feeling has served me well in my career.

  • @max-sixty
    @max-sixty 11 месяцев назад +2

    He's wrong about defamation - defamation requires a false statement of fact. "I didn't think he performed well enough" is an opinion.
    Even if there's any ambiguity there, true statements are also protected. So stating "He received a below expectations rating" is also protected.

    • @goatofdeath
      @goatofdeath 11 месяцев назад

      Agreed, but it's still probably much safer to not say anything remotely close to baiting the lawsuit in the first place. Sucks, because it does diminish internal cohesion and is part of why many people trust very little of what management says. And the risk of lawsuit should be low, so overall I would still agree with you, that the risk of suit is worth the honesty and transparency to the team as a whole, even if some members may disagree with management's assessment.

    • @Unclefire
      @Unclefire 11 месяцев назад

      It's not worth the headache of a law suit, the costs involved and potential payout. Everybody knows the euphemism and more often than not already know said person should be shown the door (unless it is sudden and said person was escorted out the door b/c of fraud etc.)
      Firing somebody usually involves a ton of paperwork and justification (execs excluded to some extent). And often, as he said, not meeting a goal can be b/c you were setup to fail, the goal was unrealistic/to agressive, etc. The goal might be specific (maybe, if you're lucky), but the reason you didn't meet it can be very subjective.

  • @alfrede.newman1838
    @alfrede.newman1838 11 месяцев назад +3

    Awesome information sharing and it never hurts if more people in business with career ambitions listen to this even though they may already understand the internal org 'metabolic dynamics'. Not saying this is a good way to manage a large business in the tech world, but it sounds like an honest explanation. What would be even more interesting is some discussion on what you need to watch out for in large US Corps (before you get stuck in a death march) such as teams with the same manager who has literally been in the same job (with a few title changes) for 10 plus years.

  • @SirMo
    @SirMo 11 месяцев назад

    I worked for a company once where I had changed 16 managers in 2 years. The whole company was shrinking and they had let go of a lot of people. For some reason I never got laid off (even though I was hoping I would get laid off, since I was entitled to some severance).

  • @chan90s
    @chan90s 11 месяцев назад +2

    I've been in such places. You're not given the projects that best fit the skills and something that could make money for the org. When things go south, you're the first one to be cut for not meeting the business objectives. You've to play the politics to get the high visibility projects

  • @wahoobeans
    @wahoobeans 11 месяцев назад +12

    if we just got rid of the middle managers and actually just put people to work, then I wonder if it would reduce the amount of corporate games for everyone in the workplace environment

    • @OhBoy-zy5bc
      @OhBoy-zy5bc 11 месяцев назад +4

      I’m not going to say get rid of middle managers but I think you’re right because middle managers got taken out of the picture during Covid and metrics for a lot of people went up… so who really needs them to be around?

    • @JeffCaplan313
      @JeffCaplan313 11 месяцев назад

      Their job is to make us want them.

    • @getdealtwithquick
      @getdealtwithquick 11 месяцев назад +2

      Good luck finding senior managers who are actually willing and able to properly operationalize most of what they're dumping on their teams, especially if they're outside hires.

  • @ocyogi
    @ocyogi 11 месяцев назад +1

    New chief information officer brings in their friends from college, fraternities and elsewhere. Rearrange the deck chairs on the ship. Hope for the best for a few years, then move onto the next company and make more money. Rinse wash repeat.

  • @younesmdarhrialaoui643
    @younesmdarhrialaoui643 11 месяцев назад +6

    lol. So basically what he's saying is: "I've made a mistake. You need to own up to it."

  • @BlindintheDark
    @BlindintheDark 11 месяцев назад +1

    We had 3 reorgs in 1 year at Amazon, complete management incompetence.

  • @chan90s
    @chan90s 11 месяцев назад +4

    I think every project should also come up with worst case outcomes list and the strategies to mitigate those

  • @jasonhoman6525
    @jasonhoman6525 11 месяцев назад +5

    Knowing what to do if you know resources aren’t flowing to your team and your manager is mid is tough. I mean obviously, switch teams, but that is much easier said than done.

    • @jasonhoman6525
      @jasonhoman6525 11 месяцев назад +3

      I’ve been in an obvious situation where my project was useless but I couldn’t figure out how to reposition myself within the company and next thing I’m laid off. I wish I would’ve handled things better but I genuinely couldn’t figure out the politics of the situation. It sucked

    • @Martinit0
      @Martinit0 11 месяцев назад

      @@jasonhoman6525 Yes, that sucks. If you see it coming it's probably wise to take SOME action. Maintain the initiative, i.e. look for another job instead of waiting to be fired (in which case you obv. have to scramble and find a new job in a short amount of time).

  • @justliberty4072
    @justliberty4072 11 месяцев назад +1

    I had 9 managers in 5 years at a non-tech company.

  • @CliffordFajardo
    @CliffordFajardo 11 месяцев назад

    Really awesome & to the point video; no bs, love it.

  • @AlanW
    @AlanW 11 месяцев назад

    Sounds like the re-org problem is also a lack of transparency from leadership making ICs feel out of sorts.

  • @gardnmi
    @gardnmi 11 месяцев назад +3

    Eventually, you have to refactor.

  • @Wiintb
    @Wiintb 10 месяцев назад +2

    Quick question.
    Did Amazon want you to spend more time with your family?
    😜

  • @ajt_2023
    @ajt_2023 11 месяцев назад +6

    This is great, is there a full interview?

    • @joinTaro
      @joinTaro  11 месяцев назад +1

      yes! Available in Taro: www.jointaro.com/lesson/Kut0pv10VLPmgaorAaki/lessons-from-the-top-managing-and-growing-800-people-ethan-evans/

    • @pnkbrn
      @pnkbrn 3 месяца назад

      @@joinTarofor the cheap price of $69!

  • @brodobroggins
    @brodobroggins 11 месяцев назад

    Awesome interview

  • @Drenmii
    @Drenmii 11 месяцев назад +3

    Never go full corporate.

    • @OhBoy-zy5bc
      @OhBoy-zy5bc 11 месяцев назад

      Once you go full corporate, you can never go back.

    • @Drenmii
      @Drenmii 11 месяцев назад

      @@geocam2 All you need to do is shed any honesty and personal integrity you may have before you join. But think about it. You can live a "relaxed lifestyle" if you don't need those things.

    • @Drenmii
      @Drenmii 11 месяцев назад

      @@geocam2Competent and incorruptible or clueless. Time will tell.

  • @adam872
    @adam872 11 месяцев назад

    Some good real talk in that video.

  • @sygad1
    @sygad1 11 месяцев назад

    Pretty sure we shipped a solution to mid-year manager changes at Amazon

  • @adammorra3813
    @adammorra3813 11 месяцев назад +1

    This is gold

  • @TheRealTommyR
    @TheRealTommyR 11 месяцев назад

    Great Q&A

  • @TheRealBeady
    @TheRealBeady 11 месяцев назад +6

    @1:05 you are too quick to frame this as naive engineers, when the non-negligible answer is leaders make ignorant decisions and are disconnected from the needs of both their customers and their associates

    • @Unclefire
      @Unclefire 11 месяцев назад

      Yeah, exactly. While it's true that some/many engineers at lower levels don't see or understand the big picture (which they should be educated on this). Many of us know full well what the major goals/strategies are. and the reorgs are often just bullshit to make it seem like the new person is actually doing something.
      To some extent is shows some arrogance of VP level people thinking they know more than they actually do.

  • @sethland
    @sethland 11 месяцев назад

    I had these very same questions!

  • @Soso-km8er
    @Soso-km8er 11 месяцев назад

    „We‘ll do re-org because you didn’t meet my goal.“ „Why didn’t you communicate the goals and enable informed tech people to make decisions instead of setting arbitrary deadlines?“ „Nah, rather have some of you lose the job every now and then instead of me.“

  • @krishnaharsha2122
    @krishnaharsha2122 11 месяцев назад

    I was wondering whether team Taro could have differential pricing for different geographies. Your content is good but is not affordable for those startups who are out of US and cant afford this pricing

    • @joinTaro
      @joinTaro  11 месяцев назад

      Send us an email with your linkedin + background at help@jointaro.com, and we'll help you out.

  • @flashoflight8160
    @flashoflight8160 10 месяцев назад

    So the conclusion is if someone gets fired even in a mass firing, it's most likely he was incompetent AND didn't have the political connections to save his job.

  • @jksmithiii
    @jksmithiii 11 месяцев назад +3

    Simple...garbage in garbage out. The delivery teams don't have the bandwidth to create/track all the details including business outcomes. The effort to the left of them in the value stream should determine that. Likewise, this interview is telling, as it confirms that leadership is in their own bubble so they don't ask the right questions, like "where's my line of sight?" Or, "I have statuses 1-5 on the big board, what statuses do you have?" This interview smells so much of how leadership are not involved in organizational delivery systems and the fact that they must have a direct role in those delivery systems. The management stuff takes care of itself with a good delivery system. The rest of that motivating managers to do this or that is legacy, outdated corporate waste. So much so that middle managers are hired to do unnecessary jobs just because leadership thinks they need more managers to manage and "motivate." I've consulted for multiple F250s, and see this same mediocre leadership crap over and over.

  • @baboon_baboon_baboon
    @baboon_baboon_baboon 11 месяцев назад +39

    This guy has that bullshit fraud energy.

    • @user-kg1od9es5d
      @user-kg1od9es5d 11 месяцев назад +5

      thats most ppl in life dude...

    • @pamfan221
      @pamfan221 11 месяцев назад +4

      What did he say that sounded like BS to you?

    • @wahoobeans
      @wahoobeans 11 месяцев назад +1

      BS is “corporate speak”.

    • @kavip132
      @kavip132 11 месяцев назад +5

      Hmm not so much, he was as candid as someone can be in a public form without telling on his employer. Also his last comment about emp rating is a good insight

    • @ericjmorey
      @ericjmorey 11 месяцев назад

      ​@@pamfan221 The legal opinion about defamation. And no mention of severance agreements. He's full of it.

  • @ascoaptwwasmqx2840
    @ascoaptwwasmqx2840 11 месяцев назад +6

    We want to fire you or the team without getting into any trouble, how can we do it? Think about it... 🤣

  • @dr_flunks
    @dr_flunks 11 месяцев назад

    leadership runs out of things to do, and reorgs create a facade of progress for themselves to take comfort in. at least this is so with Ed Link

  • @hirenpatel6118
    @hirenpatel6118 10 месяцев назад

    What about the direction chosen by the leadership to go there? If you had a goal to grow user base by 30%, created a whole product to make it happen. However you got 15%, whose fault is it? You as a leader fucked up.