It must be tough for a young executive to get up in front of the group and outline your new strategy to great excitement only to get an email from the dinobaby saying basically "Yeah, your idea was tried once in the 70's and a couple times in the 80's and it doesn't work. Here's several book references that go into great length why your idea seems like a good one on the surface, but really is one of the worst ideas that people keep coming up with"
I experienced both sides of this in five years at a company in hypergrowth.
In year 1, I was determined to accomplish X and ignored the skeptical comments of some colleagues who'd been at the company longer than me. I failed and wasted some time. In years 4 and 5, new colleagues were determined to accomplish X and ignored my skeptical comments.
It is a matter of kind though. One kind is realism, the other is cynicism. Optimists often lump the two together but they are different things.
If the laws of physics or information theory prevent something, by all means be a wet blanket. Loudly and often
If cultural turf wars in the company prevent something, often the New Guy can succeed where others have failed. If they fall flat enough they can join the Cynics Club with the rest of you, but telling them they will fail just cements your notion of what can and can't be done. Being repeatedly asked the same question by different people at different times and using different phrasing does occasionally get people to reflect on their assumptions. It is in my experience worth letting them invest the time and energy into the attempt. They're new, what's really the opportunity cost of letting them 'waste time on a lost cause'?
It must also be tough for younger executives who are stuck with the idea that someone 40, 50, 60 or 70 is "old", near extinction, and so on.
These are the individuals who are dinosaurs. and they are dinosaurs for being incapable of realizing that employment ages are getting extended due to longer, healthy and vital lifetimes.
This is one of the crises of our time. That is the wholesale reevaluation of what work and careers are, how long they last, the effect on traditional workplaces, and so on. These companies are discriminating out of ignorance and because there is a ground-swell of pressure from younger generations to "move out" older workers so there's room for them to move up.
Shorter work weeks and flatter organizational structures can play a role in remediating some of these issues. But 21st century "life" reality seminars are critical - more so than the dross of diversity trainings.
I would consider someone a moron if they cited something tried in the 70s and provided no contemplation for why circumstances may have changed over the past 50 years. That is just not a real answer. It might be correct, but that is absolutely unacceptable team behavior.
I'd also be pretty pissed if someone tried to dump book references on me if it's their job to be the expert on that subject. My gut reaction to that sentiment is that this person is going to refuse to actually discuss content.
This hypothetical dinobaby is immediately one of my least favorite people.
I mean, if you're the one coming up with the strategy, and someone else says "yeah, that's been tried a few times and never worked", I think it is then on you to explain why This Time Things Will Be Different!
Part of that is saying "this has been tried several times and it has failed". As in, you shouldn't try this unless you know why it failed before and why it will be different this time. That isn't on someone else to figure out for you, unless you want to task them with figuring it out for you I guess.
Honestly, if I worked for someone who got angry and called someone a moron immediately for questioning their new strategy I'd be looking for another job. Nothing is worth dealing with that kind of person.
> Part of that is saying "this has been tried several times and it has failed"
Of course
> As in, you shouldn't try this unless you know why it failed before and why it will be different this time.
Also correct
> That isn't on someone else to figure out for you, unless you want to task them with figuring it out for you I guess.
No, completely wrong. You're in a meeting. Collaborate. You are nothing but a huge detriment if you just voice your opinion, put your head down, and smugly say "told ya so" if they do it and it doesn't work. It is on the team collectively to solve problems together and you get 0 points for being right in retrospect.
<Drop book references with further context and justifications for why your case falls right in line with those discussed in the literature, like an expert in the field would be expected to do>
I mean, don't get pissed because it's been tried before, and no one will let you recultivate low hanging fruit to pick anymore. The fact more people are not well read on this type of stuff, is mind boggling.
Even more mind boggling is people being upset about someone directing them away from the pit of misery, wailing, and gnashing teeth.
While I can appreciate the complaint about 'assigning homework', we do in fact have epicycles of trying old ideas out again. What's important is to look at whether the constraints have changed at all. Certain software architectures excel when the ratio of CPU to memory to network to storage is just so, and those inequalities shift around depending on what the state of the art is in computing at the moment. Some new breakthrough may temporarily put us back into the same situation we were in in 1996 and so all of those ideas get retreaded. What has generally happened is however is that there are stable states that tend to repeat, and so some ideas are a reasonable default, and others are context sensitive and may need to be backed out if for instance the storage people get tired of being shown up by the networking people and introduce something with 1/5th the latency of the previous solution.
But too often it's just a pendulum swing between two competing options that are both painful, and familiarity breeds contempt. Those glorious moments at the bottom of the pendulum swing are the only time we have any peace. If 1 of something is awful, 100 of them is probably awful too. 3 might be wonderful, but half the team steamrolls right past it without stopping to look around.
Where the technology treadmill concerns new languages and tools, it's in the interest of young people for there to be upheaval because from their perspective, they have a level playing field if we are using a tool that is 2 years old. They also haven't experienced the heartbreak of pouring too much of yourself into a doomed technology and so they are willing to rathole on just about anything. That 'cynicism' they see might just be someone with an advanced case of Same Shit, Different Day. "This didn't work the last three times," is offered on its own merits, but some people put a lot more thought behind it. It could mean "don't try new things just because they're new" or it could mean, "the new thing has not solved any of the problems that killed it the last three times." I think if you mean the latter, it's partly on you that you get lumped in with the former, because you could chose to invest 10% more effort into your reply and sound less like a naysayer. But honestly it's exhausting chasing after kids every time they pick up something new and put it immediately in their proverbial mouth.
> What's important is to look at whether the constraints have changed at all.
Right. Discuss it. That's my whole point. Maybe they haven't changed. Maybe you are correct and you are completely correct to aggressively fight the idea. That's fine. But if you don't engage people on the team you're not a useful team member.
Saying I saw this in the 70s and it didn't work is the least impressive argument possible, and frankly is just begging for ageist biases. It looks like you haven't considered that things might have changed. If I tried last week, I would still emphasize the reasons why it didn't work rather than when it didn't work.
Everyone here needs to watch the AMC series "Halt and Catch Fire". Find it somewhere streaming. You'll be surprised and how similar things remain across technological epics.
I’ve had IBM recruiters reach out to me. Each time I reference these age discrimination lawsuits as the reason I refuse to consider them. Why should I join a company that is going to actively try to get rid of me in a few years. Good luck getting experienced hire to return your calls now.
Even people who grew up in the digital age (say, 25 and younger), not everyone understands that the internet can be permanent, and that deleting on your computer doesn’t mean it’s deleted server side.
More like a few reddit moderators got exec roles in IBM to help it implement the new digital and social vision in the era of blockchain management. Once IBM gets blockchain enough, those execs will move on to greener pastures.
I suspect there is a good amount of projection happening. They view themselves as old, overpaid, not doing enough work, lacking creativity and ability to engage with the “digital” community. So they assume that is true for everyone under them and took drastic measures to “fix” the problem.
It would be interesting to see who exactly sent those emails. Will they publicly stand by those words and defend them?
Curiously, this criteria didn't apply to Ginni, Sam and the like.
Also, it seemed so weird to me that IBM's primary goal had to be to pump share value to $200 by selling whatever they could sell, with the sole long term advantage was for the very same managers who held share options, and were close to retirement.
Funny...when the real dino and baby (is not understanding it's surrounding fully) is IBM itself...once more IBM shows complete lack of self-reflection.
one the one hand. it is age discrimination on the other hand there are winds of change and the truth is unless your hip to the climate you will and probably should be replaced because business is going in a different direction and the customers are different.
How many people had their parents work at a company for along time? that would be bad advice to give to a kid now a days.
If you like things the way they are and believe the new stuff is wrong well thats politics and you better be good at arguing your case. some cases the dinos actually win. i know young people are getting hip to right to repair which was a given back in the day when things were simpler so sometimes old ideas are refreshed. other times like (on prem) kinda died off and cloud is the way most people are going (i remember aruging with a freind in 2011 about using aws and he thought it was the dumbest thing but here were are with most stuff in the cloud now)
There is a difference between "you're over 40, get out" and "you don't understand how to do this job in the current tech landscape, get out." One is age discrimination and is illegal. One is smart business.
As for "here were are with most stuff in the cloud now" that is 100% a function of what industry you're in. Healthcare, banking (consumer and investment), security, very little of that is in the cloud and they're huge industries controlling hundreds of billions of dollars a year.
This is very typical of IBM, you can find lawsuits going back decades. When you get near retirement age they either fire you for performance or relocate your position to a third world country and only pay local wages. In the US it is very difficult to bring an age discrimination lawsuit, if you do so anyway, and if you are successful, they simply don’t pay the judgement. Start to Google the subject and you’ll find all sorts of mailing lists, web sites, and support groups.
