Re: [Wikimedia-l] Qualities for the next long-term WMF executive director

2016-03-07 Thread Pine W
Related to this thread: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/28/magazine/what-google-learned-from-its-quest-to-build-the-perfect-team.html In particular: "Psychological safety is ‘‘a sense of confidence that the team will not embarrass, reject or punish someone for speaking up,’’ Edmondson wrote in a st

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Qualities for the next long-term WMF executive director

2016-03-07 Thread Oliver Keyes
On Mon, Mar 7, 2016 at 9:52 PM, Pine W wrote: > On Mon, Mar 7, 2016 at 4:05 PM, Oliver Keyes wrote: > >> On Mon, Mar 7, 2016 at 1:57 PM, Pine W wrote: >> > Employees have some rights too, including the right to organize and the >> > right to quit. Good employees quitting may be a sign of problem

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Qualities for the next long-term WMF executive director

2016-03-07 Thread Pine W
On Mon, Mar 7, 2016 at 4:05 PM, Oliver Keyes wrote: > On Mon, Mar 7, 2016 at 1:57 PM, Pine W wrote: > > Employees have some rights too, including the right to organize and the > > right to quit. Good employees quitting may be a sign of problems with > > management. > > > > In WMF's case, many of

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Qualities for the next long-term WMF executive director

2016-03-07 Thread Oliver Keyes
On Mon, Mar 7, 2016 at 1:57 PM, Pine W wrote: > Employees have some rights too, including the right to organize and the > right to quit. Good employees quitting may be a sign of problems with > management. > > In WMF's case, many of the staff have plenty of employment options outside > of WMF, whi

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Qualities for the next long-term WMF executive director

2016-03-07 Thread Guillaume Paumier
Hi, Le lundi 7 mars 2016, 13:40:20 Brion Vibber a écrit : > > Third, what happens when the "unicorn" retires and we transition again? > > I think we're going to need to think harder about structural remedies: > communications channels, reporting infrastructures, "escape valves" for > miscommunic

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Qualities for the next long-term WMF executive director

2016-03-07 Thread Brion Vibber
I do feel the need to warn against making a checklist of good qualities for potential candidates... First, a lot of these things are hard to interview for. If you ask someone if they support their employees and give them clear goals, they're probably going to say "yes". To find out if they consist

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Qualities for the next long-term WMF executive director

2016-03-07 Thread Pine W
Employees have some rights too, including the right to organize and the right to quit. Good employees quitting may be a sign of problems with management. In WMF's case, many of the staff have plenty of employment options outside of WMF, which is all the more reason to select a WMF ED who has good

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Qualities for the next long-term WMF executive director

2016-03-07 Thread Oliver Keyes
On Mon, Mar 7, 2016 at 2:42 AM, Keegan Peterzell wrote: > On Mon, Mar 7, 2016 at 1:21 AM, Pine W wrote: > >> If the research results about qualities of effective managers have been >> generally consistent for 30 years, then I wonder why so many managers in so >> many organizations today have medi

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Qualities for the next long-term WMF executive director

2016-03-06 Thread Keegan Peterzell
On Mon, Mar 7, 2016 at 1:21 AM, Pine W wrote: > If the research results about qualities of effective managers have been > generally consistent for 30 years, then I wonder why so many managers in so > many organizations today have mediocre skills in those areas. > ​I'd hazard a guess that it's be

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Qualities for the next long-term WMF executive director

2016-03-06 Thread Pine W
If the research results about qualities of effective managers have been generally consistent for 30 years, then I wonder why so many managers in so many organizations today have mediocre skills in those areas. I also wonder, in WMF's case, what can be done to ensure that the next ED is robustly sk

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Qualities for the next long-term WMF executive director

2016-03-06 Thread Risker
Well, the traits mentioned in the BI article are so commonplace in management literature (I can remember studying basically that same list almost 30 years ago) that they're kind of like mom and apple pie. There's a bit less emphasis on command and control, and a bit more human interest emphasis, b

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Qualities for the next long-term WMF executive director

2016-03-06 Thread Pine W
On the topic of researching what makes someone a successful CEO (as opposed to a manager who may or may not be a CEO), it's interesting that the resources that I've found on the Internet tend to describe current trends in management fads (which aren't particularly helpful in our situation, IMO) and

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Qualities for the next long-term WMF executive director

2016-03-06 Thread Greg Grossmeier
> Food for thought: > > http://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-best-managers-exhibit-these-7-behaviors-2016-1 I think that is great food for thought for managers of teams, definitely. I'm not sure it applies to managers of managers or executives; only because those positions weren't a part of