On Mon, Feb 22, 2016 at 5:03 AM, George Herbert george.herbert@gmail.com wrote:
Lila's vision here clearly calls the change campaign out as having explicitly intended to break eggs.
It further suggests strongly that this was the Board of Trustees' intention in hiring her, and that they agreed with breaking those eggs.
Since you bring it up, and ask for the perspective of past trustees -- as one of the people who helped hired Lila, I did so because I found much of how she thought about technology, contribution and open knowledge compelling -- some of which is stated in her mail above -- and I hoped that she'd have the right combination of openness and boldness to help lead us. I also thought she had the right foundation of skills and values to do the work in our weird, complex environment.
The Board's initial task for her, as it might have been for any new ED, was to learn the organization, continue with the usual running of the organization, and to work with us and Wikimedia as a whole to develop a strategy for the future. We expected and supported her focusing on technology, given what a big piece of the organization this is and her own background; and we supported explorations into the organization's culture and how it could improve.
I've heard a few conspiracy theories about how the board must have intended to clean house with Lila's hire. From my perspective, that was not the case. We hoped of course that Lila would help the organization improve -- but I am thinking of improvements like speeding up development and reducing drama around software rollouts, goals that I don't think would either come as a surprise to anyone or are particularly controversial.
That does not mean I was surprised that some staff left, especially in the first few months after she was hired. People do leave in a leadership transition, for many reasons. And I also was not surprised by the possibility that Lila might create a different style of working environment at the Foundation, which would lead others to leave later. I am surprised and saddened however by this current crisis (and the last few months leading up to it). According to many people, things seem to have gone quite badly in terms of communication, giving guidance and developing organizational consensus around strategy. Those problems are general problems of execution and management, and that is deeply unfortunate.
best, Phoebe