Microsoft manager Adam Orth has joined the ranks of those fired after some poorly thought out comments found their way onto the Reddit discussion boards. The firing of Orth illustrates a weakness in the management of tech firms.
Orth’s firing follows the “forked dongle” affair where two developers lost their jobs over sexist comments at an industry conference.
What’s notable in all these firings is how Playhaven, SendGrid and Microsoft’s management all summarily fired their employees for what at worse could be described as a ‘lapse of judgement’.
One of the conceits of modern management is that risk can be eliminated, the mark of a poor manager is to act quickly to get rid of anything that could potentially be a risk.
These tech companies are good illustrations of this – neither Adam Orth, Adria Richards or the Playhaven developer deserved to lose their jobs over this, all it required was an apology and commitment to be more careful about what they post on the public internet in future.
All of us, including the sensitive and incompetent firing managers, have something on the internet that could embarrass us or our employers. In an era where people are quick to take offense, it’s easy for something taken out of context to spin out of control.
That’s a risk beyond the control of middle managers at software companies.
Hiding from risks or attempting to purge them is not the way to run an organisation. Strong, good managers can do better than that.
Management manual image by Ulrik through SXC.hu