On 8/1/05 at 4:47 PM +0200, Eliot Lear wrote:
Pete Resnick wrote:
I personally would like to see more people get experience on the
IESG and get some IESG brain cells back into the community before
they're completely burned out, so I kind of like the proposal.
Why discourage the NOMCOM from picking the best person for the job?
First of all, it's naive to think that comparing incumbents to
newcomers ends you up "picking the best person for the job". There's
the "devil you know" effect: People are much more inclined to pick
someone who they know (even if they have known faults) over people
who are unknown quantities because you can rather gather enough
information to convince yourself that the new person *is* the best
person for the job. In fact, I've seen ample evidence (not conclusive
information since NomCom negotiations are confidential) that NomComs
will pick people who have demonstrable problems being ADs on the
grounds that they couldn't convince themselves someone else was
better.
Second, we have the problem of people who *are* the best person for
the job not even applying solely on the grounds that they don't want
to challenge the incumbent (i.e., "the Jeff Schiller effect"). We
have a pool of people in the IETF that is large and deep with
ability. If incumbents re-upping causes us not to be able to use that
pool, that's WORSE for the IETF. I think we'd get more people who
were qualified to jump in if they knew that the likelihood was low
for 2+ term folks to get re-upped.
Finally, by dint of human nature, NomComs don't always select the
best person for the job. On the not-so-great side, sometimes there
are feelings of loyalty involved or people are put into positions
because other positions (to which they were better suited) were not
open. But more importantly, being "best" is not a binary quality:
Sometimes there is someone who is "best", but for reasons of
leadership development might be passed over for someone who is less
optimal, but there are hopes that eventually they will be best. I
think it is a good thing for the NomCom to be encouraged out of
falling into natural human patterns of re-upping people and getting
some fresh blood into the leadership.
It's easy for the IESG members to get back into the community before
they're completely burned out: don't reup.
Nonsense. All sorts of personal feelings (felling that stepping down
is some sort of failure, feelings of "needing to do the right thing
for the IETF", and even less positive things like career implications
or pride in being in the leadership) can cause people to do things
that are not in the best interest of the community, even if their
intentions are good. I can point to several examples (which I won't
publicly) of people who were way passed burned out who, for whatever
internal reasons, continued to stay on despite diminishing returns.
I don't see that the IESG will improve simply with new blood
Again, it's not just about "improving the IESG" (though I do think
new blood is usually a pretty good thing). It's about leadership
development. It's about giving the NomCom a reasonable way out of
some pretty natural but problematic decision making patterns. And
it's about getting experienced people who've been on the IESG back
onto the front lines where I honestly think they'll do more good than
they do now.
and what I do see is an attempt to fix a vague problem by spraying
bullets indiscriminately.
I don't see any of the above as "vague problems".
Call them guidelines or preferences or what-have-you, if we write
them down it will take a very strong NOMCOM to say, "Really, Bert
Wijnen is the man for the job" (for example).
Yup.
pr
--
Pete Resnick <http://www.qualcomm.com/~presnick/>
QUALCOMM Incorporated - Direct phone: (858)651-4478, Fax: (858)651-1102
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