Happy Thursday,
Before doing anything else, you should subscribe to Lars Schmidt’s newsletter, he has moved into Substack again, and his stuff is always worth reading.
(If you haven't done so already, that is.)
And if you haven’t already subscribed to FullStack HR - join the like-minded people who receive this newsletter weekly.
I'd also like to thank everyone who reached out after the "How to do performance management 2022" - I appreciate the thoughts and feedback around this!
And last but not at all least, there are still a couple of hours left to win a free "Future of HR"-keynote. Some companies have had their whole HR team enter the contest… 👀
This week's newsletter will be slightly different than other newsletters. Or perhaps not, after all. My newsletter reflects where my head is at, and this week it's been all over the place, and for the first time in ages, I struggled with what to write.
Not because I don't have an opinion over how Elon has handled the whole Twitter debacle, it's just been hard to sort the thoughts and what to make out of it. It's all been developing so fast.
But here goes nothing.
My relationship with Twitter has been on and off since I started tweeting in 2009. How much I tweeted is fortunately no longer disclosed but let's say this: I've tweeted a lot, and I have Twitter to thank for much, which makes it even harder not to pay attention.
I'm not going to touch upon the twists and turns leading up to Musk now owning Twitter; a million pieces are written about it. This is a good one, should you want to read about it.
Instead, let's focus on what he's done as a leader since he declared that he is the Chief Twitt and that we all should let that sink in.
(As much as I love a good meme, this is, well..yeah.. no, I don't k…I have no words.)
Fired 50% of Twitter's staff.
Realizing that he needed some of the people, he fired and asked them back.
Fired people for speaking their minds in a Slack channel.
Eric Frohnhoefer @ 🏡@EricFrohnhoeferJust woke up to the news that more Tweeps were summarily fired last night. At this rate no one will be left to run Twitter.2:43 PM · Nov 15, 20223.32K Reposts · 47.7K LikesElon Musk@elonmusk@unusual_whales I would like to apologize for firing these geniuses. Their immense talent will no doubt be of great use elsewhere.5:24 PM · Nov 15, 202219K Reposts · 283K LikesFired an engineer in public (in a tweet, which is now deleted, but the engineer got fired.)
Sent an email around Twitter 2.0 - demanding long hours and high intensity from workers.
It's mindboggling that this has happened in less than three weeks.
And these are only some of the public changes that have happened that relate to employees and leadership. And while I disagree with the decisions taken, it's impossible not to watch and read about everything happening.
Usually, here's where I would write something about what we could learn from all of this. I am trying to find a positive angle on what's happening. After all, I'm a "the glass is always half-full" type of person. But it's damn impossible to find that here.
Sure, Elon Musk is very clear and deliberate about what type of company he is now building. If you've been reading FullStack HR, you know I like clarity. He is not sugarcoating anything. What you see is what you get.
But even if this works, whatever that means, is this the kind of organization we want to build? Is this how we'd like companies to be run? The leadership we want?
No matter how I twist and turn this and try to look at it from different angles, I always end up with a solid and firm no on these questions. One can only speculate about how this will end, but this is far from over, and I guess we’ll have to wait and see where things will land.
What’s your view on this?
Join me in the FullStack HR chat!
This is a chat in the Substack app that I set up exclusively for my subscribers — kind of like a group chat or live hangout. I’ll post short prompts, thoughts, and updates that come my way, and you can jump into the discussion.
To join our chat, you’ll need to download the Substack app (messages are sent via the app, not email). Turn on push notifications so you don’t miss a chance to join the conversation as it happens.
How to get started
Download the app by clicking this link or the button below. Chat is only on iOS for now, but chat is coming to the Android app soon.
Open the app and tap the Chat icon. It looks like two bubbles in the bottom bar, and you’ll see a row for my chat inside.
That’s it! Jump into my thread to say hi, and if you have any issues, check out Substack’s FAQ.
Join me there and let’s continue the discussion around the moves Elon Musk does with Twitter.
Thanks for the kind recommendation, Johannes! 🙏🏼