Now, I agree with Oliver's points but I disagree they apply to the entire organization, and I have proof. I also objectively think there's much more reason for optimism than pessimism. I'm open to being proven wrong or told that I have an Authority Voice and I just don't understand, I really am, I think if someone like me who's thought about this extensively doesn't get it we have a real problem and my optimism should check its privilege.
*how we treat people, **what empathy we have, and* *how we value empathy*. Disclosure: I was treated very poorly in my past work life. I was forced to work an average of 70 hours per week for 32 months, without overtime for most of it, and was denied any vacation during that time (a superior punched me in the chest at one particular low point). In a different situation I had to organize a strike to obtain overtime payment for my 30+ hours and my friend's 50+ hours of *continuous* work with *no sleep*. My point is, when I got this opportunity to work at WMF, I was extremely clear that I was looking for a place where I was treated decently. My first few months here were rocky, I got unknowingly tangled up in some political struggles. But over time, I'm really proud of what my team has accomplished and the fun, empathetic, distributed, and fair way we run things. We take turns presenting at quarterly reviews, try to achieve consensus, consider each others' welfare, it's really great. So I'm trying to say that we're proof it's possible to have this kind of environment at WMF. I admit I've never thought about this beyond the now comfortable walls of my team, but I am really deeply sad now that I have poked my head outside. The fact that so many people I feel really close to are leaving... it just feels like a big opportunity lost. We could have made this place amazing to work at, together. Instead we seem to be conquered individually by enemies that some of us have defeated. how we pay attention to *organisational hiring*. We're bad at this. We get lucky sometimes, and sometimes we get lucky to hire *amazing* people like Nuria who really know what they're doing and help us hire well. So we need to get better, and we do that by paying really close attention to those who obviously know better. *how we promote*. I'm against promotions personally, I don't want or need the recognition, power, or change in work type. But some people do, and I don't for the *life* of me understand why this is such a taboo touchy scary topic full of drama and elevated emotion. My 2c: if you want a promotion - make a case for it. Say, I've been here for this and this time, I feel like I add this and this value, if I was promoted, I feel like this would align better with my opinion of myself and the value I provide while also benefiting the organization in such and such way. You'll get public support if the argument makes sense, and you'll get private hopefully sensitive messages if not. And, if you get something else, like intimidation, pain, reprimand, etc. then I *personally* have your back. And I'll call on the many friends I have that share my feelings on this. There's a way to be appropriate, transparent, and fair here. And a way to drown out biased voices through the wisdom of our especially wise crowd. Use that, don't fight your battles in silence and complain about the results of problems that the rest of us don't even have a chance to help with. Full disclosure, Oliver, I spoke up on your behalf several times, and I thought you received fairer treatment as a result, but I now consider myself an idiot because we should have had this conversation in the open. It's sad to lose you, but I'm very happy for you and your next adventures, and thankful for this last gift you give us, the opportunity to have this conversation. On Wed, Feb 24, 2016 at 3:27 PM, Andrew Bogott <abog...@wikimedia.org> wrote: > Thanks for this email, Oliver, it's fantastic! Since I'm one of the > people who says 'flat' and 'flatter' a lot, I feel compelled to respond, > though I run the risk of painting an already-perfect lily. > > One of the first essays we read in the Flat Org group was 'The Tyranny of > Structurelessness'[1] which makes a similar point to Oliver's, and I think > it's one that everyone is wise to remember. The question that I seek an > answer to is not "How can we smash hierarchy?" It is, rather, "How can an > institution be less reliant on the competence and benevolence of a small > number of people, and less vulnerable to malice or incompetence on the part > of a small number of people?" In my experience, traditional top-down > management systems are highly vulnerable because they're great at > magnifying whims and mistakes. > > I'm pretty sure that it's possible to have structure without having a > rigid power-based hierarchy. To some extent, that's what democracy is, or > at least what it seeks to be. It's definitely what Wikipedia seeks to be. > I hope that someday the WMF joins Wikipedia and the other projects in their > weird adventure of anarchist/collectivist/self-organizing weirdness. Not > because I want the Foundation to be governed more like Wikipedia, but > because I want Wikipedia _and_ the Foundation to be governed better, and I > think there are lessons we can learn together. > > -Andrew > (Top-posting to prevent scroll-wheel-related RSI) > > > [1] http://www.jofreeman.com/joreen/tyranny.htm > > > > > On 2/24/16 12:34 PM, Oliver Keyes wrote: > >> I would like to clarify a fairly major premise of this conversation: >> namely, the comment I made that Yuri quoted in the very first message. >> >> When I say that the hierarchical organisation of the Foundation is >> something that is preventing us from doing better, I was not thinking >> of how we develop software. Indeed, I suspect that peoples' tendency >> to bring things constantly back to "does it improve the measurable >> speed at which we right code" is symptomatic of the problematic >> dynamics here. What I was thinking about was how we pay attention to >> organisational hiring, to how we promote, to how we treat people, what >> empathy we have and how we value empathy. >> >> I have consistently found the Foundation to lag in all of these >> regards. It is not good at making sure that the recognition of >> employees is fair and treated equitably (be that who gets called out >> in presentations, who gets given opportunities, or who gets raises). >> It is not good at making sure that how we hire is fair. It is not good >> at making sure that concerns of employees are given weight. All too >> often the people marginalised by our approaches are the people >> marginalised outside the Foundation, as well; women, people in >> "non-technical" roles, people in roles that we code as "support work" >> (and guess what tends to correlate with a role being coded as support >> work?) All too often the work marginalised by our approaches is the >> work that Doesn't Product Code (again: guess who tends to do the heavy >> lifting on things like organisational health and process and >> structure?) >> >> As an organisation I have found the Foundation overly rigid and >> resistant to the most conservative change around these problems; >> particularly I think of efforts to improve unintentional bias in our >> job descriptions. Basically, unless you as an employee go out and do >> the damn work yourself, for free, with 0 recognition of the emotional >> and temporal cost of that work, it doesn't get done. The organisation >> as a whole is not interested. >> >> Switching to a flat organisational structure does not, in any way, >> solve for this problem. In fact, in some way it makes it worse, >> because it makes us *think* that we have solved for the systemic and >> hierarchical power dynamics that make it difficult for low-level or >> marginalised people to get things done, or people doing marginalised >> work to get things done, when we have only shifted them. >> >> To pick on someone, I pick Trevor (sorry Trevor. For reference this is >> an entirely hypothetical example and Trevor is lovely): Trevor's voice >> is given a lot more weight in the organisation than mine. Trevor has a >> lot more influence than I do. Trevor has a lot more influence than >> most WMFers do! >> >> Crucially: this *isn't because he's management*. This was the case >> even *before* he was management. Because: >> >> 1. He's been here a really really long time and so knows everyone. >> 2. He's an Engineer, and we give engineers more weight and cachet than >> we do, say, administrative staff or people in "support" roles, even >> though those people are both as-smart and have an equal interest in >> the organisation's success; >> 3. His background matches what we strongly correlate with Authority >> Voices. >> >> If we switch to a flat organisational structure where nobody has a >> title, or..whatever, all of these things will still be true. We will >> switch pronounce systemic biases or uneven power dynamics Done, and we >> will have achieved something that's actually worse than not doing >> anything at all. Because now, we still *have* all those problems, we >> just think we're done and don't have to put any work in and can't talk >> about it, and nobody has the responsibility for continuing to fix >> things. >> >> The Foundation I would return to is not an organisation with a flat >> structure. In fact, it could be an organisation that looks a lot like >> this one, because I don't believe reporting lines or titles have as >> much of an impact on dynamics as we think they do. What *does* have an >> impact is how we recognise the value of emotional labour, how we >> recognise our implicit biases and advantages, and how honest we are >> with each other: not just in terms of what we *say* but in terms of >> how we *listen*. In other words, the litmus test for me is: what >> happens when the socially and politically weakest person in the >> organisation has an idea? >> >> Anyway; I don't particularly want to go into a long drawn-out >> conversation, just correct the initial, fundamental misunderstanding. >> Hopefully I've provided a bit of food for thought along with that. >> >> On Wed, Feb 24, 2016 at 3:50 AM, Pau Giner <pgi...@wikimedia.org> wrote: >> >>> If I remember correctly, I think that's how the Content Translation >>>> project >>>> started -- it was someone's personal project, which got more people and >>>> attention because it's a great idea and showed real success. >>>> >>> >>> That is not accurate. I think Content Translation is a good example of >>> bottom-up and design-driven project, though. >>> >>> The Language team identified that users frequently were asking for better >>> support for translating Wikipedia articles, and decided to learn from >>> existing translators (and their heavily manual efforts) without a >>> predefined idea of how the solution would look like. After many >>> iterations >>> of design, prototyping and research the team started building the tool >>> iteratively and driven by user behaviour (based on metrics and more user >>> research). I wrote a more detailed piece about this some time ago if >>> anyone >>> is interested in more details: >>> http://pauginer.com/post/116536135010/the-design-of-content-translation >>> >>> So while this project didn't came from top-down roadmap, it was also not >>> a >>> solo "cowboy-style" personal project. >>> I definitely think it followed a good pattern for more projects to >>> consider. >>> >>> Pau >>> >>> >>> On Wed, Feb 24, 2016 at 4:40 AM, Andrew Lih <andrew....@gmail.com> >>> wrote: >>> >>> On Tue, Feb 23, 2016 at 7:53 PM, Yuri Astrakhan < >>>> yastrak...@wikimedia.org> >>>> wrote: >>>> >>>> And that got me thinking. WMF, an organization that was built with the >>>>> >>>> open >>>> >>>>> and community-driven principles - why have we became the classic >>>>> example >>>>> >>>> of >>>> >>>>> a corporate multi-level hierarchy? Should we mimic a living organism >>>>> >>>> rather >>>> >>>>> than a human-built pyramid? >>>>> >>>>> This may sound naive and wishful, but could we have a more flat and >>>>> flexible team structure, where instead of having large teams with >>>>> sub-teams, we would have small self-forming teams "by interest". For >>>>> example, someone decides to dedicate their 20% to building support for >>>>> storing 3D models in wiki. >>>>> >>>> >>>> So glad to see this being discussed in the open with smart folks like >>>> Brion, Dario, et al. >>>> >>>> 3D support would be most welcome – we’re in a holding pattern with >>>> Smithsonian 3D GLAM projects in DC because of that shortcoming in >>>> Commons. >>>> It was never known whether anyone was paying attention or going to put >>>> 3D >>>> on the radar screen. (https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T3790) >>>> >>>> At my keynote talk at Wikiconference USA, I said one of the things WMF >>>> “must do” is multimedia and interactivity. Your work on the interactive >>>> graph is a great step. Brion, myself and others have been working on >>>> collaborative video. Brion’s ogv.js work is a great example of >>>> skunkworks >>>> type projects having a huge impact. >>>> >>>> And if 3D is given a priority, the three areas would be a great >>>> collective >>>> step towards Wikipedia continuing its revolutionary work. Best of all, >>>> they >>>> would be technologies developed in service of content and community >>>> needs, >>>> and not simply created for tech’s sake. >>>> >>>> An organism reacts to the change of its environment by redistributing >>>> >>>>> resources to the more problematic areas. Would small, flexible, and >>>>> more >>>>> focused teams achieve that better? >>>>> >>>>> Yes, and in a recent meeting you mentioned Bell Labs as a model. As >>>> someone >>>> who worked there, it’s a very good ideal to shoot for. >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Discovery/2016-02-16_Discussing_Knowledge_Engine_with_Lila >>>> >>>> Thanks for opening up this discussion. >>>> -Andrew >>>> _______________________________________________ >>>> 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> >>>> >>>> >>> >>> -- >>> Pau Giner >>> Senior User Experience Designer >>> Wikimedia Foundation >>> _______________________________________________ >>> 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> >> > > > _______________________________________________ > 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>
