I had an interesting discussion today with an old friend who’s currently in an MBA program. We were chatting about our relative experiences, and how I had been frustrated that in my previous position as a programmer I had felt held back due to the lack of meritocracy. In retrospect, I have a greater appreciation of the company’s position — there’s obviously politics involved that push back; people who have been waiting in line, the practice of gradual (percentage based on your current salary) increase in salary, and other unfortunate but understandable forces. I then commented “interestingly, EA is a meritocracy”. His response was surprising to me:
“That’s not surprising. In my experience with large institutions, they have the ability to create the structure needed to foster meritocracy. A small company, however, is more ad hoc.”
I had always believed that large organizations were more prone to “waiting you turn” due to the inevitable hierarchy and increased politics. It had never occured to me that the resources would allow you to be better at creating an environment that championed achievement — I took it for granted that they would have to use the resources to try and simulate a smaller studio.
On a side note, I’ve been reading The Age of Turbulence by Alan Greenspan. It’s not light reading, but I would recommend it to anyone looking to gain insight into how the US economy works. It’s certainly prompted me to reconsider how I approach certain aspects of business.
You know what I think it is - I think there’s a certain level of anonymity in large organizations as you’re climbing the ladder that lets you make lateral moves. If you stay in one department (silo) within that organization then yes, things move according to seniority. When you move from department to department, you can ladder up into a better position because you’re unknown to the people in that department. It’s almost like switching to a job in another company. You’re not going to even necessarily be in the same building as your old co-workers. That can really work to your advantage if you need to move up based on your skills, not your seniority.
Aaron — that’s an excellent observation. I also think that size gives you another advantage in what roles your staff can grow into. For example, at EA they not only have “Programmer”, and “Lead Programmer”, but every Software Engineer is ranked — such as “SE1″ to “SE3″.
This of course has its own set of problems, but I believe it at least addresses the issue of how employees can grow without displacing others.
News
Meritocracy
Date: 29th December 2007
I had an interesting discussion today with an old friend who’s currently in an MBA program. We were chatting about our relative experiences, and how I had been frustrated that in my previous position as a programmer I had felt held back due to the lack of meritocracy. In retrospect, I have a greater appreciation of the company’s position — there’s obviously politics involved that push back; people who have been waiting in line, the practice of gradual (percentage based on your current salary) increase in salary, and other unfortunate but understandable forces. I then commented “interestingly, EA is a meritocracy”. His response was surprising to me:
I had always believed that large organizations were more prone to “waiting you turn” due to the inevitable hierarchy and increased politics. It had never occured to me that the resources would allow you to be better at creating an environment that championed achievement — I took it for granted that they would have to use the resources to try and simulate a smaller studio.
On a side note, I’ve been reading The Age of Turbulence by Alan Greenspan. It’s not light reading, but I would recommend it to anyone looking to gain insight into how the US economy works. It’s certainly prompted me to reconsider how I approach certain aspects of business.
Categories: Business, EA, meritocracy
Comments:
Comment by: Aaron Cruikshank
January 10th, 2008 at 11:34 pm
You know what I think it is - I think there’s a certain level of anonymity in large organizations as you’re climbing the ladder that lets you make lateral moves. If you stay in one department (silo) within that organization then yes, things move according to seniority. When you move from department to department, you can ladder up into a better position because you’re unknown to the people in that department. It’s almost like switching to a job in another company. You’re not going to even necessarily be in the same building as your old co-workers. That can really work to your advantage if you need to move up based on your skills, not your seniority.
Comment by: Jamie
January 13th, 2008 at 6:17 pm
Aaron — that’s an excellent observation. I also think that size gives you another advantage in what roles your staff can grow into. For example, at EA they not only have “Programmer”, and “Lead Programmer”, but every Software Engineer is ranked — such as “SE1″ to “SE3″.
This of course has its own set of problems, but I believe it at least addresses the issue of how employees can grow without displacing others.
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