I have been letting Lila's mail stew in my brain for a little while, and I am going to respond now having had time to think it over.
I apologize in advance for the length. There are three main sections to my analysis and argument, and then some concluding points and implications. First - the good. I believe most here should agree that the Wikipedia movement, communities, projects all have had and have today major challenges. An immense good is done by what we have all communally built, but there are things wrong we haven't fixed. Lila's ED statement lays out a subset of the total problems, effectively briefly explains her reasoning on why they are problematic, and forms a vision statement for engaging with fixing them. It's a vision statement and a call to action, and contains the kind of leadership we need. One can quibble about the set of problems to focus on or priorities, long and short term goals. I am sure people will. But the Foundation needs a leadership vision like this. It can evolve over time, but we should think in these terms. Second - I want to focus now on this section to explain what I see as having gone wrong. Quoting Lila: > In practice this means I demanded that we set standards for staff > communication with our community to be professional and respectful. It > meant transitioning people, shutting down pet projects, promoting some but > not others, demanding goals and results to get funding. This level of > change is necessary to set up our organization to address the challenges of > the next decade. > > > All of this means stepping away from our comfort zones to create capacity > for building programs and technologies that will support us in the future. > It is a demanding and difficult task to perform an organizational change at > this scale and speed. For context: I am an IT industry technical consultant in the San Francisco Bay Area with well over 20 years experience and 18 of those consulting. I have literally seen the insides of 100 organizations big and small. Many of those organizations were broken or failing, and needed serious reform to succeed. I've seen and participated in a number of restructurings, including helping plan some. These things are sometimes necessary. One phrase I see used quite often is "sometimes we need to break a few eggs." For those who are not native american english speakers, this is referring to the need to move beyond shifting things around into breaking things apart, letting people go who may not fit in the new plan, stopping things outright, etc. The eggs - people, projects, structures, policies, assumptions - need to partly go away - be broken - in order to reform. Lila's vision here clearly calls the change campaign out as having explicitly intended to break eggs. It further suggests strongly that this was the Board of Trustees' intention in hiring her, and that they agreed with breaking those eggs. These types of reforms are at times necessary. I do not know from the outside whether they were necessary for successful at the WMF, but for now I agree this may well have been necessary and proper. Some of those affected may disagree; I don't seek to diminish that discussion but for now am putting it aside. We come now to what I think went wrong with this change that I agree may have needed to happen. Broken eggs type major organizational changes are launched with varying degrees of planning and vision and coordination beforehand. I have seen such launched, in process, or the aftereffects across the range of initial planning and communications from none at all at one extreme to clearly envisioned, planned, communicated, and executed at the other. Lila here and now communicated a clear vision for what was intended and why, and the intention to "break eggs" to do it. I had not previously seen anything like this, or even a good suggestion of this. Nobody I know of in the community seems to have seen or guessed at it. From the comments we are seeing, a lot of current and ex Foundation staff do not seem to have seen it. Nobody has yet admitted they had seen it, after Lila's post. I don't know how well it was understood before/during by more senior staff / leadership staff, the Board, or laid out this clearly and coherently in Lila's head. There are undoubtedly a range of answers to those questions depending on who you ask and what time period we ask about. I will bound the extremes of credible answers with "clearly articulated and communicated at high levels, including commitment to change by breaking eggs", or at the other extreme "this was not clearly envisioned or articulated or communicated at high levels beforehand." I want to emphasize this: Either the senior leadership launched a major broken eggs extent reform without communicating what was happening to major community and staff stakeholders on purpose, or by accident, or somewhere in between with mixed consequences of both. I have seen these happen in industry and noncommercial organizations. The lack of communications to stakeholders has not necessarily made reforms fail, though it has rarely helped. If you care about success of the changes, what happened is not best practice, but not a sign in and of itself of failure. In terms of judging success, while there are cracks all over, I don't see that the reform has failed or is likely to. For the sake of the argument I am assuming it will succeed, and moving on. Third - and finally - I want to explain why I think this is now evidently a disaster for the overall Wikimedia movement as a whole. Lila said this in part: > In practice this means I demanded that we set standards for staff > communication with our community to be professional and respectful. I agree with this. It's a good statement. If's arguable we should hold all staff and the Board to it. That said, I have a hard time reconciling that statement with having launched a major broken eggs extent reform without communicating what was happening to major community and staff stakeholders either on purpose or by accident. There was, on purpose or by accident (or varying degrees of both) a fundamental gap in professionalism and respect in communicating the launch of the reform effort. Beyond that, the consequences of doing so are magnified by the nature of the Wikimedia movement. I have been trying to think of an example organization which would be more negatively affected by having done that. I haven't found one yet. The nature of the wide diverse community, tensions between the Community and Foundation, Community and Ops, and Engineering; ED and Staff; ED and Community; even the Community and Board. All of these relationships are necessary for the movement to succeed. All are fundamentally and deeply challenged by the nature of this gaffe. It would help untangle this situation to get the historical perspectives and intentions of everyone here. Board members (current and past), Lila, other senior leaders, I urge you to publicly lay out what you were thinking and trying to do early on and more recently. However, as far as I can see it regardless of which way those explanations go, the final implications are clear to me. I don't know that the movement as a whole can trust a Board or ED who would have either accidentally or on purpose launched this degree of changes in secret and without communicating. Other organizations whose leadership did this have better odds. THIS organization, as a whole, is now broken rather severely by how you executed the probably necessary and hopefully successful reform. To the Board: If the Board at the time knew and concurred - I think every board member involved needs to consider how this can possibly be reconciled with trust within the movement, and ultimately whether further service on the board is in the best interests of the movement or Foundation. If the Board did not understand the nature of the change, I think every board member needs to consider whether their ability to manage and provide guidance and oversight of major organizational changes is adequate for the needs of the organization now and in the future. And ultimately whether further service on the board is in the best interests of the movement or Foundation. To Lila: I assume good faith. I agree with your vision. I do not understand why this was not just made public prior to initiation of reforms, or once they started. I am concerned and skeptical that you can now lead the Foundation, in this wider Wikimedia movement, regardless of what that answer is. This pains me especially because of the quality and on-target focus of the vision you expressed. I am very sorry to come to this conclusion. But I don't know how you can lead here if you launched into breaking a bunch of THESE eggs in secret as opposed to openly, whether it was on purpose and preplanned or evolved into that without planning and communicating it through. It might well work at dot-com companies, but not I think here. I believe the ED position requires someone who would have known that. I am glad you posted that vision statement. It both provides a vision and template the movement and Foundation should move towards. I hope it is a successful legacy. George William Herbert Sent from my iPhone > On Feb 21, 2016, at 4:22 PM, Lila Tretikov <l...@wikimedia.org> wrote: > > Why we’ve changed > > > I want to address some of the many questions that are coming up in this > forum. From the general to the very concrete, they all touch on the fact > that many things about the WMF have been changing. We are in the thick of > transformation, and you all have the right to know more about how and why > this is occurring. This is not a statement of strategy, which will come out > of the community consultation next week. This is the ED’s perspective only. > > > After 15 years since the birth of Wikipedia, the WMF needs to rethink > itself to ensure our editor work expands into the next decade. Recently we > kicked-off some initiatives to this end, including aligning community > support functions, focus on mobile and innovative technology, seeding the > Wikimedia Endowment, re-organizing our internal structure, exploring > partnerships and focusing on the most critical aspects of our mission: > community and technology. We started this transformation, but as we move > forward we are facing a crisis that is rooted in our choice of direction. > > > The choice in front the WMF is that of our core identity. Our mission can > be served in many ways, but we cannot do them all. We could either fully > focus on building our content and educational programs. Or we can get great > at technology as the force multiplier for our movement. I believe the the > former belongs to our volunteers and affiliates and that the role of the > WMF is in providing global support and coordination of this work. I believe > in -- and the board hired me to -- focus on the latter. To transform our > organization into a high-tech NGO, focused on the needs of our editors and > readers and rapidly moving to update our aged technology to support those > needs. To this end we have made many significant changes. But the challenge > in front of us is hard to underestimate: technology moves faster than any > other field and meeting expectations of editors and readers will require > undistracted focus. > > > What changed? > > > When Jimmy started Wikipedia, the early editors took a century-old > encyclopedia page and allowed anyone to create or edit its content. At the > time when creating knowledge was still limited to the chosen few, openly > collaborating online gave us power to create and update knowledge at a much > faster rate than anyone else. This was our innovation. > > > As we matured, we encountered two fundamental, existential challenges. One > is of our own doing: driving away those who would otherwise join our > mission through complex policies, confusing user experiences, and a caustic > community culture. The other is external and is emerging from our own value > of freely licensed content: Many companies copy our knowledge into their > own databases and present it inside their interfaces. While this supports > wider dissemination, it also separates our readers from our community. > Wikipedia > is more than the raw content, repurposed by anyone as they like. It is a > platform for knowledge and learning, but if we don't meet the needs of > users, we will lose them and ultimately fail in our mission. > > > Meanwhile, in the last 15 years revolutionary changes have taken hold. The > rate of knowledge creation around the world is unprecedented and is increasing > exponentially <http://qpmf.com/the-book/welcome-to-hyper-innovation/>. User > interfaces are becoming more adaptive to how users learn. This means we > have a huge opportunity to accelerate human understanding. But to do so > requires some significant change in technology and community interaction. > > > So let’s begin with technology: Many at the WMF and in our community > believe that we should not be a high-tech organization. I believe we > should. With over half of our staff fully committed to delivering product > and technology, it is already our primary vehicle for impacting our mission > and our community. In fact we constantly see additional technology needs > emerging from our Community department to help amplify theirs and our > community work. > > > What do we need to do in light of the changes I described above? We need to > focus on increasing productivity of our editors and bringing more readers > to Wikipedia (directly on mobile, and from 3rd party reusers back to our > sites). > > > When we started, the open knowledge on Wikipedia was a large piece of the > internet. Today, we have an opportunity to be the door into the whole > ecosystem of open knowledge by: > > > > - > > scaling knowledge (by building smart editing tools that structurally > connect open sources) > - > > expanding the entry point to knowledge (by improving our search portal) > > > There are many ways to alleviate the manual burdens of compiling and > maintaining knowledge currently taken on by our editing community, while > quickly expanding new editing. We made significant strides this year with > our first steps to leverage artificial intelligence > <http://blog.wikimedia.org/2015/11/30/artificial-intelligence-x-ray-specs/> > to remove grunt work from editing. But that is just a start. Connecting > sources through structured data would go much further and allow our editors > to easily choose the best media for their article and for our readers to > recieve content at their depth of understanding or language comprehension. > > > Wikipedia is the trusted place where people learn. Early indicators show > that if we choose to improve the search function more people will use our > site. We are seeing early results in use of Wikipedia in our A/B testing of > search > <https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4a/First_Portal_Test.pdf> > , but we have a long way to go. We want people to come directly to our > sites -- and be known as the destination for learning -- so that eventually > we can bring our readers into our editing community. And without community > support none of this will be remotely possible. > > > Which brings me to the community. Over time the WMF has grown, with an > opportunity of becoming a complementary, mutually empowering partner with > the community. We need each other and we share one focus: humanity. > Reaching and sharing with people across the world is our common goal. > > > In the past year we managed -- for the first time since 2007 -- to finally > stem the editor decline. But that will not be enough. We need to find ways > to re-open and embrace new members instead of the hazing we conduct at > least in some parts of the site today. We must treat each other with > kindness and respect. Technology is not the main reasons for rampant new > editor attrition. It is how we talk to each other that makes all the > difference. > > > Without tackling these issues we artificially limit our growth and > scalability. And we will continue to reject those whose ideas are new or > different, the most vulnerable members of our community. In this, the > Gender Gap is the “canary in the coal mine”. Women are the first to leave > contentious and aggressive environments and are less likely to remain when > they encounter it. They are less likely to run in elections because of rude > and aggressive treatment. Yet in editor surveys and in our latest strategy > consultation, Gender Gap has been considered a low priority. I disagree. > > > Over the past two years I have actively pushed funding to improve > anti-harassment, child protection and safety programs; work in these areas > is ongoing. We are actively exploring some tangible approaches that -- I > hope -- will turn into concrete outcomes > <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Harassment_workshop>. In the latest > research this year the number of female editors shown some growth. > > > What does this mean for the WMF? > > > In the past 18 months -- and thanks to hard work of the people at the WMF > and our community supporters -- we have made significant structural > changes. We have organized around two core areas: technology and community. > We have made changes with an eye on improving our relationships between the > volunteer community, the chapters and the WMF, including the creation of > structures that should vastly improve the WMF's responsiveness to > volunteers. We began adopting best industry practices in the organization, > such as setting and measuring goals and KPIs. We’ve given managers a lot of > responsibilities and demanded results. We’ve asked for adjustment in > attitude towards work, our responsibilities and professional relationships. > We prioritised impact and performance so that we can provide more value to > our communities and the world. > > > This has not been easy. > > > In practice this means I demanded that we set standards for staff > communication with our community to be professional and respectful. It > meant transitioning people, shutting down pet projects, promoting some but > not others, demanding goals and results to get funding. This level of > change is necessary to set up our organization to address the challenges of > the next decade. > > > All of this means stepping away from our comfort zones to create capacity > for building programs and technologies that will support us in the future. > It is a demanding and difficult task to perform an organizational change at > this scale and speed. > > > I believe that in order to successfully serve our community and humanity, > the WMF has deliver best-of class technology and professional support for > community. This will ensure we are delivering significant impact to > volunteer editors and opening avenues for new types of contributions. This > requires that we choose the route of technical excellence for the WMF with > support and encouragement from our community partners. Without this > empowerment, the WMF will not succeed. > > > The world is not standing still. It will not wait for us to finish our > internal battles and struggles. Time is our most precious commodity. > > > Lila > _______________________________________________ > Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines > New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, > <mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe> _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>
