Food for thought:
http://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-best-managers-exhibit-these-7-behavi...
Looking forward to further discussions in the weeks and months ahead,
Pine
<quote name="Pine W" date="2016-03-06" time="19:19:20 -0800">
Food for thought:
http://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-best-managers-exhibit-these-7-behavi...
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 this investigation.
Greg
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/or traits of people who have been promoted to CEO (which are not necessarily synonymous with traits that make someone *successful *as a CEO).
My hunch is that traits of successful CEOs may vary a bit depending on the nature of the organization. Some skills are likely to be similar (such as communication, accounting, business law, and market research) while others may be quite different (for example, the CEO of General Motors probably needs to have a different reservoir of industry-specific knowledge than the CEO of the Humane Society.) Also, the mentalities of organizations can be quite different, for example the CEO of Microsoft is probably very interested in growing market share for a wide array of existing product lines, while the chief executive of a specialty pharmaceutical research company may be far more focused on R&D for a small batch of high-risk, high-potential products that have yet to come to market.
Narrowing the focus to the more specific case of the WMF CEO, it seems to me that the skills listed in the BI article are a good place to start. We might also be interested in mission alignment, cultural fit, knowledge of the legal and fundraising landscapes, and familiarity with open source technologies that WMF uses. As others have mentioned, the CEO and the CTO are distinct roles; it seems to me that if we get a solid CTO then we can de-emphasize the the technical skills in the CEO search and focus on the wide array of other skills that would be valuable for the CEO.
Pine
mama
On Sun, Mar 6, 2016 at 7:49 PM, Greg Grossmeier greg@wikimedia.org wrote:
<quote name="Pine W" date="2016-03-06" time="19:19:20 -0800"> > 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 this investigation.
Greg
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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, but these supposedly effective traits have been set down on paper for over a generation now. There's nothing new in what Facebook finds makes an effective manager. And more particularly, what's talked about in that article is so generic it could apply equally to a factory, a commercial enterprise, or a non-profit.
It strikes me that the key question the Board needs to think about is whether they want a manager, a leader or a visionary.
Risker/Anne
On 7 March 2016 at 01:48, Pine W wiki.pine@gmail.com wrote:
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/or traits of people who have been promoted to CEO (which are not necessarily synonymous with traits that make someone *successful *as a CEO).
My hunch is that traits of successful CEOs may vary a bit depending on the nature of the organization. Some skills are likely to be similar (such as communication, accounting, business law, and market research) while others may be quite different (for example, the CEO of General Motors probably needs to have a different reservoir of industry-specific knowledge than the CEO of the Humane Society.) Also, the mentalities of organizations can be quite different, for example the CEO of Microsoft is probably very interested in growing market share for a wide array of existing product lines, while the chief executive of a specialty pharmaceutical research company may be far more focused on R&D for a small batch of high-risk, high-potential products that have yet to come to market.
Narrowing the focus to the more specific case of the WMF CEO, it seems to me that the skills listed in the BI article are a good place to start. We might also be interested in mission alignment, cultural fit, knowledge of the legal and fundraising landscapes, and familiarity with open source technologies that WMF uses. As others have mentioned, the CEO and the CTO are distinct roles; it seems to me that if we get a solid CTO then we can de-emphasize the the technical skills in the CEO search and focus on the wide array of other skills that would be valuable for the CEO.
Pine
mama
On Sun, Mar 6, 2016 at 7:49 PM, Greg Grossmeier greg@wikimedia.org wrote:
<quote name="Pine W" date="2016-03-06" time="19:19:20 -0800"> > Food for thought: > >
http://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-best-managers-exhibit-these-7-behavi...
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 this investigation.
Greg
-- | Greg Grossmeier GPG: B2FA 27B1 F7EB D327 6B8E | | identi.ca: @greg A18D 1138 8E47 FAC8 1C7D |
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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 skilled in those areas.
Pine
On Mon, Mar 7, 2016 at 1:21 AM, Pine W wiki.pine@gmail.com 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 because there are more management positions - many, many more - out there in the world then there are stellar managers.
I also wonder, in WMF's case, what can be done to ensure that the next ED is robustly skilled in those areas.
This is a good question, hopefully this will be documented during the search.
On Mon, Mar 7, 2016 at 2:42 AM, Keegan Peterzell keegan.wiki@gmail.com wrote:
On Mon, Mar 7, 2016 at 1:21 AM, Pine W wiki.pine@gmail.com 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 because there are more management positions - many, many more - out there in the world then there are stellar managers.
Agreed. I also suspect it's a question of power dynamics; namely, a senior manager is much more able to be bad at their job than an employee first because there are so few good managers that poor quality is the norm, but second because if you have a manager who is terrible, particularly in a non-profit environment, the impact tends to be felt by their employees - i.e. the people with the least power in the situation to do anything about the problem. An incompetent employee, on the other hand, hurts their managers, who do have that power.
I also wonder, in WMF's case, what can be done to ensure that the next ED is robustly skilled in those areas.
This is a good question, hopefully this will be documented during the search.
-- ~Keegan
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Keegan
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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 people management skills in addition to a wide array of other skills.
Pine
On Mon, Mar 7, 2016 at 1:57 PM, Pine W wiki.pine@gmail.com 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, which is all the more reason to select a WMF ED who has good people management skills in addition to a wide array of other skills.
I'm sorry, but that's simply not true. I'm highlighting this not to be harsh but to correct a pretty serious misunderstanding with the nature of the WMF's employee base, one which I think is partially responsible for a lack of proper understanding of precisely how scary, stressful and frankly amazing the dissent over the last 12 months has been.
Take the number of WMF employees. Pretty much all of them are good, smart, qualified people for the work they do, so clearly they could get awesome jobs elsewhere, right?
Now, split out all the non-engineers. Our programme and education and grants teams are fantastic; so are our administrative teams. But their prospects aren't as great as those for engineers simply for the reason that there is literally an entire industry, one of the few ones with continuous growth, built on the existence and recruitment of engineers. It's a lot harder to get a new job if you're outside that group.
So now we've got engineers. Still a pretty big chunk of the organisation. Cool! Now remove anyone on a H1B visa. See, if you're on a H1B and you quit, you're instantaneously no longer in the country legally. Ditto if you're fired. The only way around it is to convince a second employer to hire you, and file to transfer the petition over, while still _at_ the first employer. Otherwise, bzzt. You quit, you were fired, either way, get out of our country please.
So that's US-citizen or resident engineers left. Let's scrap from that people outside the default stereotype of engineers as 20-something people without dependants. If you're someone who does have dependants or responsibilities - children, a partner not working, elderly relatives - well that makes finding a new job a lot harder. Not only do you have less energy and time in which to do it, because you're looking after these people, you have to find a job that's as flexible on when you work your 40 hours as the WMF is, otherwise you risk running into some serious collisions with your out-of-work duties. And heaven forfend if you're *having* a kid or have serious medical conditions because not only do you have to deal with that, any gap in employment is potentially financially crippling since you're now without medical insurance.
Okay! So: "many of the staff have plenty of employment options outside of WMF". And by that we mean: employees who are US citizens or residents, have no dependants or serious medical issues, and work in an engineering-centric role, have plenty of employment options outside of WMF. Which is, in practice, like: Mikhail. Mikhail has plenty of employment opportunities. Congrats to Mikhail.
The rest of us? Various amounts of "seriously boned". I know staff who did not speak up because they were scared of losing medical coverage or, worse, being forced out of the country, if dissent was reacted to with firings. I know people who did speak up *despite* being subject to these risks. This perception that many staff have many viable and good options they can just jump to if stuff gets bad glosses over the fact that, actually, the vast majority don't. The fact they chose to do something even in those conditions is amazing.
The idea that we have a "right to quit" is not a justification for selecting an ED with empathy and sympathy and a soul. The idea that there might be turnover is not a justification either. The justification is that it would be hideously unethical for us to appoint people we know or suspect might make living people miserable. It is not a practical question, it is a *principle* question. And if we have to justify our principles with retention rates, they're no longer principles.
Pine _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
On Mon, Mar 7, 2016 at 4:05 PM, Oliver Keyes ironholds@gmail.com wrote:
On Mon, Mar 7, 2016 at 1:57 PM, Pine W wiki.pine@gmail.com 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, which is all the more reason to select a WMF ED who has good
people
management skills in addition to a wide array of other skills.
I'm sorry, but that's simply not true. I'm highlighting this not to be harsh but to correct a pretty serious misunderstanding with the nature of the WMF's employee base, one which I think is partially responsible for a lack of proper understanding of precisely how scary, stressful and frankly amazing the dissent over the last 12 months has been.
Take the number of WMF employees. Pretty much all of them are good, smart, qualified people for the work they do, so clearly they could get awesome jobs elsewhere, right?
Now, split out all the non-engineers. Our programme and education and grants teams are fantastic; so are our administrative teams. But their prospects aren't as great as those for engineers simply for the reason that there is literally an entire industry, one of the few ones with continuous growth, built on the existence and recruitment of engineers. It's a lot harder to get a new job if you're outside that group.
Perhaps I'm more of an optimist when it comes to job prospects for non-engineers because I happen to live a short distance from the Gates Foundation and a few months ago I looked over their job postings. It seemed to me that quite a few people in WMF's Community department would be good fit at Gates. I also believe that the US Government, school districts, and UN agencies would be interested in some of the people who work in the WMF Community Department. I'm not saying that I *want* WMFers to leave, just saying that I'm more of an optimist that people from the Community team could indeed find jobs elsewhere that are aligned with their skill sets.
So now we've got engineers. Still a pretty big chunk of the organisation. Cool! Now remove anyone on a H1B visa. See, if you're on a H1B and you quit, you're instantaneously no longer in the country legally. Ditto if you're fired. The only way around it is to convince a second employer to hire you, and file to transfer the petition over, while still _at_ the first employer. Otherwise, bzzt. You quit, you were fired, either way, get out of our country please.
That is indeed a problem. While I suppose that my statement remains correct that H1B engineers can get jobs elsewhere, it's certainly a big downside if they're effectively deported before that happens when they'd rather stay in the US.
So that's US-citizen or resident engineers left. Let's scrap from that people outside the default stereotype of engineers as 20-something people without dependants. If you're someone who does have dependants or responsibilities - children, a partner not working, elderly relatives - well that makes finding a new job a lot harder. Not only do you have less energy and time in which to do it, because you're looking after these people, you have to find a job that's as flexible on when you work your 40 hours as the WMF is, otherwise you risk running into some serious collisions with your out-of-work duties. And heaven forfend if you're *having* a kid or have serious medical conditions because not only do you have to deal with that, any gap in employment is potentially financially crippling since you're now without medical insurance.
My understanding is that outside of the 24/7 work environment at startups, particularly in large and now-old tech companies like Microsoft and Google, work-life balance is an aspect that those companies try to support and to a degree they use it as a recruiting incentive.
Okay! So: "many of the staff have plenty of employment options outside of WMF". And by that we mean: employees who are US citizens or residents, have no dependants or serious medical issues, and work in an engineering-centric role, have plenty of employment options outside of WMF. Which is, in practice, like: Mikhail. Mikhail has plenty of employment opportunities. Congrats to Mikhail.
The rest of us? Various amounts of "seriously boned". I know staff who did not speak up because they were scared of losing medical coverage or, worse, being forced out of the country, if dissent was reacted to with firings. I know people who did speak up *despite* being subject to these risks. This perception that many staff have many viable and good options they can just jump to if stuff gets bad glosses over the fact that, actually, the vast majority don't. The fact they chose to do something even in those conditions is amazing.
As I pointed out on Lila's talk page, my understanding is that employees have a legal right to speak up in some circumstances. My impression as a non-lawyer is is that some actions of Lila's may have exposed WMF to civil liability for potential violations of employment law, and were IMO ill-advised from the standpoint of good management practices. (I welcome rebuttals from anyone who has facts to the contrary; I make that statement only as a guess based on the limited but troubling information that I have). The actions of staff who tried to make their concerns heard are commendable, and I hope that staff members will find a way to recognize other staff for their integrity.
The idea that we have a "right to quit" is not a justification for selecting an ED with empathy and sympathy and a soul. The idea that there might be turnover is not a justification either. The justification is that it would be hideously unethical for us to appoint people we know or suspect might make living people miserable. It is not a practical question, it is a *principle* question. And if we have to justify our principles with retention rates, they're no longer principles.
I think that we agree. Personally I had some off-list conversations with Lila that led me to believe that she had good intentions, and I certainly hope that no on felt that she lacked empathy. In any case, for the next ED, I hope that people skills will be carefully considered as a part of the hiring process.
To emphasize this point, I'll pile on to comments that others have said that it's impossible for one person to have enough knowledge about everything to be a one-person show. A team effort is required, and to recruit that team and facilitate that team's functioning well, people skills are a necessity.
Pine
On Mon, Mar 7, 2016 at 9:52 PM, Pine W wiki.pine@gmail.com wrote:
On Mon, Mar 7, 2016 at 4:05 PM, Oliver Keyes ironholds@gmail.com wrote:
On Mon, Mar 7, 2016 at 1:57 PM, Pine W wiki.pine@gmail.com 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, which is all the more reason to select a WMF ED who has good
people
management skills in addition to a wide array of other skills.
I'm sorry, but that's simply not true. I'm highlighting this not to be harsh but to correct a pretty serious misunderstanding with the nature of the WMF's employee base, one which I think is partially responsible for a lack of proper understanding of precisely how scary, stressful and frankly amazing the dissent over the last 12 months has been.
Take the number of WMF employees. Pretty much all of them are good, smart, qualified people for the work they do, so clearly they could get awesome jobs elsewhere, right?
Now, split out all the non-engineers. Our programme and education and grants teams are fantastic; so are our administrative teams. But their prospects aren't as great as those for engineers simply for the reason that there is literally an entire industry, one of the few ones with continuous growth, built on the existence and recruitment of engineers. It's a lot harder to get a new job if you're outside that group.
Perhaps I'm more of an optimist when it comes to job prospects for non-engineers because I happen to live a short distance from the Gates Foundation and a few months ago I looked over their job postings. It seemed to me that quite a few people in WMF's Community department would be good fit at Gates. I also believe that the US Government, school districts, and UN agencies would be interested in some of the people who work in the WMF Community Department. I'm not saying that I *want* WMFers to leave, just saying that I'm more of an optimist that people from the Community team could indeed find jobs elsewhere that are aligned with their skill sets.
The US Government only employs citizens in civil service rules; a great executive order that one was. And, yes, I suspect the proximity of a single non-profit may be a bias.
So now we've got engineers. Still a pretty big chunk of the organisation. Cool! Now remove anyone on a H1B visa. See, if you're on a H1B and you quit, you're instantaneously no longer in the country legally. Ditto if you're fired. The only way around it is to convince a second employer to hire you, and file to transfer the petition over, while still _at_ the first employer. Otherwise, bzzt. You quit, you were fired, either way, get out of our country please.
That is indeed a problem. While I suppose that my statement remains correct that H1B engineers can get jobs elsewhere, it's certainly a big downside if they're effectively deported before that happens when they'd rather stay in the US.
I'm glad we're in agreement that being deported from the United States and potentially banned from returning depending on how it happens is "a big downside".
So that's US-citizen or resident engineers left. Let's scrap from that people outside the default stereotype of engineers as 20-something people without dependants. If you're someone who does have dependants or responsibilities - children, a partner not working, elderly relatives - well that makes finding a new job a lot harder. Not only do you have less energy and time in which to do it, because you're looking after these people, you have to find a job that's as flexible on when you work your 40 hours as the WMF is, otherwise you risk running into some serious collisions with your out-of-work duties. And heaven forfend if you're *having* a kid or have serious medical conditions because not only do you have to deal with that, any gap in employment is potentially financially crippling since you're now without medical insurance.
My understanding is that outside of the 24/7 work environment at startups, particularly in large and now-old tech companies like Microsoft and Google, work-life balance is an aspect that those companies try to support and to a degree they use it as a recruiting incentive.
You'd be shocked, actually. Google, for example, used to do a pretty good job around childcare - then they decided it was too expensive and so why bother?
Google and Microsoft are both sort of ground zero for the "keep em penned" kind of benefits: a system where any service that can be provided on-site, is, because that way you never have to leave. This is very distinct from what I'm talking about, which is flexible time up and including temporary or permanent remote working.
Okay! So: "many of the staff have plenty of employment options outside of WMF". And by that we mean: employees who are US citizens or residents, have no dependants or serious medical issues, and work in an engineering-centric role, have plenty of employment options outside of WMF. Which is, in practice, like: Mikhail. Mikhail has plenty of employment opportunities. Congrats to Mikhail.
The rest of us? Various amounts of "seriously boned". I know staff who did not speak up because they were scared of losing medical coverage or, worse, being forced out of the country, if dissent was reacted to with firings. I know people who did speak up *despite* being subject to these risks. This perception that many staff have many viable and good options they can just jump to if stuff gets bad glosses over the fact that, actually, the vast majority don't. The fact they chose to do something even in those conditions is amazing.
As I pointed out on Lila's talk page, my understanding is that employees have a legal right to speak up in some circumstances. My impression as a non-lawyer is is that some actions of Lila's may have exposed WMF to civil liability for potential violations of employment law, and were IMO ill-advised from the standpoint of good management practices. (I welcome rebuttals from anyone who has facts to the contrary; I make that statement only as a guess based on the limited but troubling information that I have). The actions of staff who tried to make their concerns heard are commendable, and I hope that staff members will find a way to recognize other staff for their integrity.
The idea that we have a "right to quit" is not a justification for selecting an ED with empathy and sympathy and a soul. The idea that there might be turnover is not a justification either. The justification is that it would be hideously unethical for us to appoint people we know or suspect might make living people miserable. It is not a practical question, it is a *principle* question. And if we have to justify our principles with retention rates, they're no longer principles.
I think that we agree. Personally I had some off-list conversations with Lila that led me to believe that she had good intentions, and I certainly hope that no on felt that she lacked empathy. In any case, for the next ED, I hope that people skills will be carefully considered as a part of the hiring process.
I certainly concur that Lila had good intentions. I also hope that people skills are considered for the next ED.
To emphasize this point, I'll pile on to comments that others have said that it's impossible for one person to have enough knowledge about everything to be a one-person show. A team effort is required, and to recruit that team and facilitate that team's functioning well, people skills are a necessity.
Pine _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Related to this thread: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/28/magazine/what-google-learned-from-its-ques...
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 study published in 1999. ‘‘It describes a team climate characterized by interpersonal trust and mutual respect in which people are comfortable being themselves.’’
and
"But Google’s data indicated that psychological safety, more than anything else, was critical to making a team work."
Pine
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 consistently can/do in your sort of work environment, you'd rather need to interview the people they've been supporting & managing for a while and ask them how *they* feel.
Second, we're never going to find a "unicorn" who is all things to all people. Real people are imperfect, and real situations are complex.
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 miscommunications or squashed communications in the reporting chain, etc.
In government we call these sorts of things "checks and balances", and we want them in place both when we like the people being elected into office and when we are deeply distrustful of them.
I don't advocate huge changes done quickly, but I strongly advocate making some small steps in the short term; at a minimum, quickly establishing the promised ombudsperson role to provide an alternate channel for reporting problems in the regular reporting chain would go a long way to restoring trust lost in November-February.
-- brion
On Sun, Mar 6, 2016 at 7:19 PM, Pine W wiki.pine@gmail.com wrote:
Food for thought:
http://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-best-managers-exhibit-these-7-behavi...
Looking forward to further discussions in the weeks and months ahead,
Pine _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
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 miscommunications or squashed communications in the reporting chain, etc.
I agree. I think it's going to be critical for us to rebuild the organization in a way that is more resilient to the shortcomings of any single individual.
This reminds me of this quote: "As a leader, your goal should always be to build structures and processes that don't depend on you and ideally don't need you."
It's from an article I shared with Lila and Boryana in December due to the context then:
http://firstround.com/review/the-keys-to-scaling-yourself-as-a-technology-le...
These were my thoughts on the topic back then:
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I think a key point here is that the key to an efficient and resilient organization is distributed processes and documentation. The article notably mentions Conway's Law, whose application is unusual in the context of the WMF.
The law states that organizations model their products after their own structures and processes. Because the WMF was created /after/ its products, the opposite happened: the WMF modeled itself after the open, collaborative wiki model, and stayed that way for a while. During that initial period, there was little conflict between the WMF and our communities.
As the WMF grew and professionalized, we started drifting from that model. The risk of alienating our values and identity (and as a consequence our communities) was identified early on.
At Sue Gardner's request, the theme of the 2010 all-staff meeting was "How do we grow our organization but stay who we are" (paraphrased). One of the all- staff exercises was to "list the things we cherish"; One prominent item on this list was "The Casey Browns of this world" ( https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:WMF_All-staff_meeting_2010_-_Things_... ), after the name of one of our most engaged volunteers involved in many support functions for the WMF. I found this so insightful that I took that picture :)
Despite that early caution, we /have/ more or less abandoned the wiki model gradually (due to many different factors), and I see this reflected in the results of the Engagement survey.
I feel that many of the issues the organization is facing right now (both internally, and externally with our communities) are related to this conflict between our original model and the one we've drifted towards.
My impression, based on my personal experience and 6 years of being at the WMF, is that the most successful WMF initiatives have been those led by people who followed the wiki model as closely as possible (regardless of whether they were originally hired from the communities). I'm happy to discuss this further and share my experience in this area, if you're interested.
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