On Sun, Feb 21, 2016 at 11:14 PM, rupert THURNER rupert.thurner@gmail.com wrote:
brion,
there is 10'000 km between you and me so i only read mails on this list. would you mind detailing what you expect from your CEO to trigger "she benefits me"?
I'd say these would help a lot:
* articulate a vision for her leadership term that is aligned with the stated mission of the Wikimedia Foundation * communicate with staff to understand what we do for the mission & what we believe we can do further, and to help us maximize our ability to achieve great things * foster a positive, creative work environment where staff can do that without burning out * communicate with our broader community of editors, volunteers, chapter organizers, readers, educators, developers, students, photographers, videographers, copyeditors, researchers, etc about what they need to maximize their contributions to the mission and how Wikimedia Foundation and its staff can help achieve that
I don't believe these have been achieved during Lila's tenure.
This thread is the closest to a leadership vision that I've seen, and it comes after months of private complaints, some intervention from the board, an employee engagement survey that indicated very low confidence in senior leadership's ability to convey a strategy, and finally weeks of open complaints from staff that communication is bad, morale is bad, and strategy is missing. We've seen some public strategy consultation, but that's been recent (after the November board meeting) and there remain concerns as to how open and consultative the process is.
As for the work environment, I believe I've made clear that I don't think it's super great, and we're losing valuable staff rapidly due to that and will likely continue to lose more.
I'm glad that some people outside the organization reportedly feel that communication between them and the Foundation has improved, but internally many staff do not feel they have been communicated with clearly. We've spent so long talking about things like the 'Knowledge Engine' project origins because we never got straightforward answers about what direction things were moving in...
-- brion