If you go to a cocktail party where everyone is a stranger, the conversation is dull and stiff. You make small talk about the weather, sports, TV shows, etc. You shy away from serious conversations and controversial opinions.
A small, intimate dinner party among old friends is a different story, though. There are genuinely interesting conversations and heated debates. At the end of the night, you feel like you actually got something out of it.
Hire a ton of people rapidly and a “strangers at a cocktail party” problem is exactly what you end up with. There are always new faces around so everyone is unfailingly polite. Everyone tries to avoid any conflict or drama. No one says, “This idea sucks.” People appease instead of challenge.
And that appeasement is what gets companies into trouble. You need to be able to tell people when they’re full of crap. If that doesn’t happen, you start churning out something that doesn’t offend anyone but also doesn’t make anyone fall in love.
You need an environment where everyone feels safe enough to be honest when things get tough. You need to know how far you can push someone. You need to know what someone really means when they say something.
If you have to hire, hire slowly. It’s the only way to avoid winding up at a cocktail party of strangers.
Tyson Caly
on 20 Jul 09Fantastic analogy. Spot on.
Jim
on 20 Jul 09I think that can be true as long as you’re very selective about the people you invite.
Joe
on 20 Jul 09I guess you’re right on the money if the host sucks and doesn’t know how to invite funny or interesting people.
spudart
on 20 Jul 09Good points. The stranger cocktail party situation can be quite vanilla, some with with all new coworkers. One of the things to help in situations like this is to ask interesting questions. While at a cocktail party, pop out a “If you had a billion pennies, what would you do with them—without spending them.” Yes, it sounds stupid. Yes, it sounds lame. Yes, you may get some weird looks, but it helps to loosen things up and head things in a direction where it’s not about sports/tv/weather.
The same approach also applies to work. I like to keep in mind one question I ask people during the week. Whenever I’m in an elevator with someone, or walking down the hall, or waiting for a meeting to start, I ask the conversation starter. One thing I do avoid doing is letting people know that it’s my question of the week. Once something gets a name like that, it’s a lot easier for people to dismiss. “Oh this is just Matt’s silly question of the week.”
Brad Schafer
on 20 Jul 09Again.. great stuff from a model company.
I’ve been resisting VC funding for entirely the same reason.
I feel VC funding is like injecting Steriods into a child.
Sure the child may grow fast, but is it healthy for the organism?
If you don’t know what your value is (what people really value about your company) then how does the VC money and that altered ‘disposition’ help?
It’s like adding people to the party that you didn’t even want to come.
I agree with your statement. People need to be told the truth. Leaders throughout history have valued contrary opinions (perhaps just not in public).
Great stuff….
J Carey
on 20 Jul 09While I don’t disagree with your ideas about being honest and forthright in the face of management, I also think there is tremendous value in hiring in clusters.
We’ve had great success bringing 2-3 people on board at the same time. It fosters a cohort-like approach to problems and learning. Where one person might be reluctant to ask a “dumb question” about a particular process or muddle through poorly documented code, a group of new hires—thrust into the same situation and armed with different strengths and mental models—tends to come together as a team to tackle problems and fill in for each other’s initial gaps; they also often cohere well over time too because of their shared history within the organization. Investments in basic things like training are reduced too.
I am not suggesting going out and hiring 50 people tomorrow, but if you hire in clusters, rather than one-by-one, these intangible benefits may result.
Nils Davis
on 20 Jul 09I actually find at cocktail parties that it’s the people I don’t already know with whom I have the most interesting, challenging, and far-ranging conversations. As Joe points out above, this only happens if your host is good at inviting people.
I’d argue it might be easier to let yourself go with someone you don’t know, and aren’t likely to see again, than with someone you have to see everyday, starting tomorrow.
Steve
on 20 Jul 09Sounds like #2 from the “five dysfunctions” – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Five_Dysfunctions_of_a_Team
Zach
on 20 Jul 09We circumvent this problem by intentionally hiring people who are (sort of) assholes.
spudart
on 20 Jul 09lol. i love zach’s comment.
Kyle Fox
on 20 Jul 09People get comfortable with one another over time. If you hired 4 new people at the same time they would start off as “strangers at a cocktail party” but would gradually get comfortable with each other and existing employees (assuming enough interaction between employees occurs).
I don’t think hiring slowly is the only way to avoid winding up at a cocktail party of strangers. Sure, it might take a while for 15 new employees to get comfy with everyone, but it won’t take any longer than hiring 15 people one at a time.
EH
on 20 Jul 09As someone who tends toward “this idea sucks,” I would like to vote for Zach to be President of the Business World for the day.
Kyle: Yes, it will indeed take longer. If you hire 15 at once, people might connect with five of those and ignore the rest. If you hire one at a time, that person gets assimilated (for lack of a friendlier term) before the next is hired. 2-3 at a time is fine, too, but going from 5 to 20 to 40 in big chunks can result in a lot of professional distance between coworkers (if and) as they remain effectively strangers.
Kevin Milden
on 20 Jul 09Great post. When people don’t know each other very well they tend not to want to rock the boat or speak up as much.
I would only add that you should try to get 100% out of everyone you have before adding more people. Most people can do more than one job. Usually people are only putting in 20 hours of productivity a week when it should be more like 40.
Hire good people. Only who you need. Don’t create random positions just because you really think you may need someone some day. Waste of money.
Ben Mc
on 20 Jul 09I must be strange to work with because I’ll always speak up if an idea sucks, even if I’m the new guy. (I’ll also mention if an ideas great of course)
Just to play devils advocate, if you hire quickly, everyone is a stranger and they will set the tone, otherwise, in a slow-hire situation, the new guy will just start to blend in with the tone set by the old-timers and their original ideas and thoughts will die as they try to fit in.
Ted P
on 20 Jul 09I disagree: dinner parties with only close friends are often pretty dull. The best dinner parties (and companies) are those that have a mix of familiar people and new people. Dinner parties with only close friends lead to group-think and self-congratulatory, predictable outcomes… but you guys at 37 Signals wouldn’t know about that! Just kidding, although I think a mix of familiar and fresh perspectives make for the best environments.
Andrew Ingram
on 20 Jul 09http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forming-storming-norming-performing
The initial stage you’re talking about is called ‘Forming’. Unfortunately, I’ve never reached the all important 3rd and 4th stages which means I find my work to be very exhausting. But I’m finding it was useful to be taught about these things at university, the awareness of the 4 stages is invaluable.
The problem with many companies is that the turnover of staff is too high to allow teams to progress beyond the first two stages (which can take years). Companies that treat staff members as easily replaceable tend to never experience the quality of teamwork that drives real success.
Lee
on 21 Jul 09Smells like a new chapter of the book.
Tathagata
on 21 Jul 09Good analogy. Also great counter comments. The idea of course, as with everything else is to strike a balance. ‘Hire slowly’, is a relative term and depends on the number of people you currently have. Also depends on the kind of people you hire and the kind of people you already have, and the kind of product you work on and the kind of problems you solve. I think that there are so many factors involved here, that you will tend to get lost and make a mistake if you try to hire fast.
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Philipp Mueller
on 21 Jul 09I disagree.
a. you could hire fast, but hire through social networks (the Alex Samuels approach: http://blogs.harvardbusiness.org/cs/2009/07/hire_smarter_with_social_media.html)
b. culture is a big driver (and under-represented in your argument): A group of Finnish friends would not talk more at dinner than your cocktail party workers.
c. strategic identity management makes a bigger difference than the hiring rate (who are we? how do we work? how do we feedback?) can overcome the issue.
d. the dialectics of enlightenment 2.0 argument: as we are moving from read-only to read-write worlds, we are able to be authentic faster.
Paulo A Ferreira
on 21 Jul 09You can also analyze this related to mergers and acquisitions, even fusions within the same group.
Luke
on 21 Jul 09Why the concern with needing to be able to tell people that they’re “full of crap” or that their idea “sucks”?
I’ve encountered lots of not-so-good ideas in my professional life, but very few of them have been so awful as to necessitate a “your idea sucks and you’re full of crap” response. If someone feels they need to respond this way often, they’re probably either working with a lot of morons, or they’re just an asshole.
Rahul
on 21 Jul 09What a great post. Thanks.
Martial
on 21 Jul 09Culture matters. Too many new people at once challenges culture. Sometimes this can be a good thing. But be careful.
I’ve watched several friends go through mergers that destroyed what was good about both companies. The over politeness to strangers aspect contributed to the erosion of values. The smoothing out of rough edges and fear of conflict reduces all ideas to a bland, passionless consensus. An organization can survive this, but it won’t be any fun to work there.
I’ve watched one friend deal with several mergers by taking on the role of the classic hostess. He is not shy about asking pointed questions, but has a completely non-threatening manner. He learns enough about people to set them at ease and then he puts people together, sharing just enough biography, and asks them to build something cool. He checks back in from time to time to see how things are going. He mixes up the seating, so to speak, to create new nodes or adds new people to existing nodes. It is safe to say that most of the people in his company are not even aware that this is happening.
One of his strategies happens to be actual dinner parties.
Israel
on 21 Jul 09In my opinion creating a safe environment for honest feedback, in general, is essential for company success.
In all the companies I worked for, management got what they wanted to hear instead of the truth. That was key to failures.
Sukh
on 21 Jul 09Well written; well said.
satch
on 22 Jul 09a-frickin’-men … small, slowly acquired team is the only way to go.
ACW
on 22 Jul 09I’d add that a cocktail party full of mean-spirited jerks will be much less conductive to conversation (meaningful or otherwise) than a party of kinder, humbler guests.
I agree with previous comments that a party of strangers does not necessarily imply stagnant conversation – rather that who the strangers are and the atmosphere of the party will predict their cohesion.
JMcC
on 22 Jul 09How bout dinner parties within the cocktail party. As someone caught in a rapid-hire shotgun wedding/startup a few years ago, I am now wary of entrepreneurs with acres of VC cash… they don’t by nature care about people, and they will not create a “safe zone.” So, even if you were hired to be creative, crazy, or just the least bit interesting, you can’t be—especially in the flat org chart system entrepreneurs seem to buy into so big. All you can do is keep a seat warm. Maybe the only way that particular startup could have survived to open its doors is if someone had said, “hey this is a big job, let’s get small internal teams (dinner parties) really tightly together and maybe the bigger whole (cocktail bash) has a chance.”
Malcolm Evans
on 27 Jul 09Hi, these are strong and insightful observations: in our experience these are typical of this company and its people, which is an exemplar of an approach to corporate culture which is both practical and cerebral. I want to add an extra comment or two to this fine analogy which hones attention down into the issue of corporate culture disruption. We have two particular active concepts relevant in this crucial area. The first is “Changemania”, where the disruption can be from forever latching onto the trendy next-new-thing, rather than seeking succes through doing the right things well within a context more of community. The second is that we drive all our own corporate culture work off a sense of Community, Contribution & Recognition – the innate human need for participation in supportive and productive social units. In this sense we are viewing corporate culture as analagous to self-reproducing tribal bonding. So, whether its stockades or cocktail parties, I’d agree that simply expecting anyone and everyone to click, gel and kick ass from cold is hopelessly naive – great corporate culture needs constant and careful attention to its enabling conditions.
This discussion is closed.