Detonate

CHAPTER 10Embrace Impermanence: Org Charts and Career Paths Are Past Their Sell‐By Date

Some companies are well known for their incredible generosity to their employees. It often happens in the background without fanfare, but it is an important part of creating a familial culture and a low turnover rate. At one company that we worked with, for example, one employee was helping a friend adopt a child in Kazakhstan; the organization made sure that she had a satellite phone in case of an emergency.

The company was also very generous with 401(k) matching, so people stuck around for a long time. Take “Bev” (a pseudonym). We're not exactly sure when she started, but in the early 2000s, she had been in her job for several decades, managing billing. Because of the vagaries of building laws for private organizations, somehow Bev got away with smoking in her office. On the basis of the degree of yellow on the ceiling, Bev must have been in her office for at least 20 years. The stench of cigarette smoke was overwhelming. Papers were spread everywhere, and an old‐fashioned calculator with a paper roll occupied part of the desk.

Bev was pleasant, but there was no question of who was in charge. Bev was. She spoke with a heavy smoker's voice. She had a process she had been running for a long time, and nobody was going to get in the way to do things differently. People used to joke about how they'd get around to changing the billing and layout function once Bev retired.

The business world ...