Facebook is one of the hottest tech companies in the world — but if they want to stay on top, it’s all about structure.
Everyone likes to complain about work – even employees of the hottest tech companies in the business. Business Insider recently published a list of “22 Awful Things About Working At Facebook,” which reveals that, despite Facebook’s famously high compensation, solid perks and name-brand status, the people still have plenty of gripes.
What’s even more interesting is that all of those gripes come down to the same thing: Structure, structure, structure.
“You’re part of a large company trying to act like a small one,” says one employee.
There are thousands of people at Facebook now, yet the kind of communication and infrastructure that would empower such a huge team of people to effectively make decisions and work together sometimes goes lacking.
“We’re growing so fast,” says another employee, “and have never emphasized organization, polish or stability.”
This leads to teams being overlooked, people making important decisions – sometimes not even decisions they’re empowered to make – without putting others in the loop, and a sometimes frustrating lack of information, training, and feedback.
One of the great things about the tech world is how it’s overthrown traditional business hierarchies in favor of free, open, collaborative work environments. Yet truly agile creativity is enabled by putting people on the same team, and establishing group accountability, information-sharing, and stable performance metrics.
Scaling the creative, open team-based approach of an early startup so that it can still work for a tech giant is a challenging task. It requires great leaders who are supremely skilled in managing and motivating their teams. Facebook may still struggle with this from time to time – but, if they want to be the world-conquering force they’re poised to become, they’ll figure out how to create a structure that enables a truly free flow of information and teamwork. After all, this is what social tech was built to do.
Photo Credit: by CC Master OSM 2011