Yes, I think that is where Mozilla as Meritocracy can break down. I don't think it's the same if someone is hired into a leadership role from outside. You might have lots of skills, but you still won't know why some things work for Mozilla and why we don't do other things. I think the skills you bring in will give you an advantage in terms of reaching that respected leadership position quickly.
Schrep is a really great example. He didn't just jump in with his own skills and his own way of doing things. He did a really great job of trusting the people already in place and seeing where his skills could best be put to use. Not only was he hired into a leadership position, he still took some time to earn respect and show his merit as a leader. This is slightly different than if we simply accept people's merit as transferable and follow "their way" right away. Which really isn't meritocracy at all, but a normal hierarchy if we're hiring people into leadership roles. From what I've seen it always works out better to have that initial period before the new leader starts making changes. Not only to make sure they don't throw out the good with the bad, but to also have real trust that the new way is better. I think another flaw currently is that employees de facto become leaders. Do we have any examples where there are paid team members but the leader is a volunteer? I'm curious about other stats where the leaders came up through the community vs outside hires. How many outside hires are leading community members that pre-existed them? We can't just hire in skills that the community isn't developing. We need to figure out how to share those skills the same way we share dev skills. On Wed, Sep 19, 2012 at 9:59 AM, Sheeri Cabral <[email protected]> wrote: > > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "David Bruant" <[email protected]> > > But as said Henri Sivonen: "I think Mozilla would give a more truthful > picture of its decision making if it didn't describe itself as a > meritocracy." > > Maybe that instead of "meritocracy" we need to find (or create?) a > better wording that takes meritocracy into account, but is descriptive > of how we make our community stronger and more diverse (being > representative of the world not necessarily being a end-goal) by making > some choice through other criterion than (internal) merit. > --------- > > I think that we're talking about "Mozilla is a meritocracy" but we're > taking the phrase out of context. When I did a web search for "Mozilla > meritocracy" this was the first page I got - > http://www.mozilla.org/about/roles.html: > > "The Mozilla project is governed by a virtual management team made up of > experts from various parts of the community. Some people with leadership > roles are employed to work on Mozilla and others are not. Leadership roles > are granted based on how active an individual is within the community as > well as the quality and nature of his or her contributions. This > meritocracy is a resilient and effective way to guide our global community." > > The point of "meritocracy" is as opposed to "only employers can be > leaders". This context does not make the claim that Mozilla is 100% based > on merit, and I think the discussion we've been having indicates that's not > what we'd want, anyway. The point of Mozilla being a meritocracy is in the > context of "who are our leaders?" and those are based on activity, quality > and nature of contributions, whether those contributions are code or more > "soft" skills like leadership. > > -Sheeri > _______________________________________________ > governance mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.mozilla.org/listinfo/governance > _______________________________________________ governance mailing list [email protected] https://lists.mozilla.org/listinfo/governance
