alt Hacker NewsEveryone knows this to some extent. 'Good atmosphere' and 'good community'. it's true that these things are great for productivity. But the question is, once you try to measure them, do they actually get better?
People aren't stupid. They can tell the difference between genuine communication and small talk, and there's a gap between field work and theory.
In practice, people usually trust someone who's 'reliable,' but management discourse believes that these things can be quantified, modeled, reported, and managed. Honestly, I see that as a religion.
What exactly is a 'good atmosphere'? Survey scores? Team comparisons? Manager evaluations? This is exactly Goodhart's law. The moment a measurement becomes a target, the thing you originally wanted to measure becomes distorted.
That's why I think the idea that productivity can be measured and exists in human relationships is an illusion.
And honestly, I think pushing everything toward productivity actually makes things worse.
Of course, you might think differently. Maybe discovering better metrics, better values, and better modeling could change things. I think that's possible. But I'm not sure if it's actually achievable.
Productivity is important, even if the immaterial aspects that contribute to it can’t be precisely measured.
Productivity is the reason that only 2% the population works in agriculture and the only way we can afford to maintain a space station.
Of course there are MBA grifters who are pumping out articles about how you can measure and optimize human relationships and of course, most of these are bunk. But that doesn’t mean that productivity doesn’t exist or isn’t useful or isn’t worth thinking about how to optimize.