Who Watches the Watchmen?

Talking exec productivity & oversight (not a Zach Snyder post)

👉26% of employees don’t trust their CEO.

👉Employees who felt trusted were 2X as productive as those who didn’t. 

👉Employees who don’t feel trusted are 2.2x more likely to look for a new job.

I pulled these stats from Bruce Daisley’s “Make Work Better” newsletter, here. (He in turn pulled them from studies from places like Personio and Slack. All of his stuff is data driven. I highly recommend following him.)

Last night I went to a networking event. I spoke to a couple people with nightmare stories about e-micromanagement. Both were remote. Both were in results-driven roles (sales and recruiting, respectively). And both were proven producers. 

Yet their firms insisted on using tracking software to collect data on their every move. Not just up time on the computers, but how many websites they visit (to ensure they’re hitting their “client research” quota.) 

One left that job. The other is starting to actively look. Shocker.

The real question I have: what the f*ck do these execs do all day that they have time to review everyone’s browsing history?

Results can be measured. Every job can be tied back to some number. 

If a team member hits that number? The sheer act of micromanagement by a leader is useless busy work. (At a significantly higher cost to the company than the individual contributor level.)

Tldr: I love workplace irony.

James Hornick

Partner at Hirewell. #3 Ranked Sarcastic Commenter on LinkedIn.