Examining the Top from the Bottom

**to be edited

There’s no solutions, only trade offs.

And when it comes to the bottom of the corporate ladder, the people who crank the lever of the well oiled machine, there’s an interesting phenomenon that comes into play.

Companies are willing to trade off a high redundancy rate for a higher revenue or profit margin whatever else profitability metric of their liking.

I wanted to know why that is however. Luckily, I did 4 years of economics, so I elaborated some data and with the use of some elaborate tools, I came to the elaborate chart below.

But before I get to it, reminder that we are talking about low to mid level employees which often means the B-Team, with B-Players.

A-players mean those high-agency employees who take actions, act fast and bold. They move the needle. Therefore the B-players are those players who do just what’s required. They have some autonomy but not so much..

Okay here the chart on what’s happening in the corporate world.

Companies compensate their workers for their time and not their output. That gives rise to unmotivated workers who will do do just whats required for the job.

(Here The term “low” means Just barely enough or moderately. It’s not actually low by most standards, but it is sub optimal to what it could potentially be.)

I got to experience this first hand - New job, third day in and my colleague explained to me that he spent 2 days writing roughly the email to each client in his portfolio.

I inquire, why didn’t you try to find a tool to improve that process? Did you hear about mail merge?

He did not hear about mail merge. I also have no idea how to use this tool, but I know that I am 2 YouTube tutorials (likely by an Indian guy whom I barely understand the accent) away from figuring it out.

I could drastically improve this process if I were to gave it some time and efforts.

“It is what it is. Maybe management will send us better tools in the future”

It’s not that particular task and it’s boring nature that was bothering me, it was the “Why aren’t we trying to make things more efficient”

Why is the default speed an old grandma on the road?

Employees do not care because that have no reason to. It didn’t matter much if they were able to optimise things, because they will just a get a new task to do in that time they save and they will sit at that desk for the same 8 hrs but just a little more mentally strained.

There are no incentives for improvement. The mediocre yearly performance bonus just isn’t enough to cut it.

It’s not all the fault of The Big Corp though. That’s why it’s a cycle and not a one way flowchart. Sometimes the starting point are the unmotivated workers whom because of their already passive nature are not expected and therefore not incentivised to improve their process.

THE FUTURE

I am paraphrasing Shaan Puri from MFM here - One way to find a business idea is to figure out what’s the abuse people have been putting up with. Whats an absolutely shitty service or product that we have just learnt to accept as the norms.

Why do I have to wave at a yellow car to hope I can get back home, Uber was born and now you can track exactly where your taxi is, how much it’ll cost and more.

My prediction is that something similar will happen with the corporate world.

Someone will take note of the abuse that is commonly accepted and new alternatives will emerge. Of course big corps will be the slowest at adapting to that change. But it will come.

I have heard of recent companies that are completely output focused. Somedays have a lot of overtime and some other if youre done with your tasks at 12pm, well then you can go the fuck home, what are you running the clock for - its not a football match.

CONCL

You got lost in all that writing, yeah me too.

Let’s wrap it up.

My point is - Big Corps do not chase talent. They hire a bunch of people and whoever sticks sticks. They’ve standardised their process enough that they just need man power to crank the machine.

Even though it is a steam machine from the 90’s.

Why are we using this old machine? Well, because no one cares enough. Very few people on top of the hierarchy are motivated by output.

Should they try to upgrade the machine? It doesn’t really matter to them, they’re doing just enough to stay afloat - and because they’re a damn cargo ship they will stay afloat with minimal efforts.

Just a few global directives, more duplication of their process in emerging tech hubs and voila, we are smooth sailing.

If you’re an employee I’ll tell you the same thing my former manager told me when I asked “Why is the upper management a hardass” - No one is irreplaceable here

Damien