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Ask HN: What mistakes in your experience do the people you manage keep making?

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Re: Ask HN: What mistakes in your experience do the people you manage keep making?

#11

Post by tunetine »

doug1001 wrote: post #6
luckydude wrote: post #4

Being stupid about compensation was a pattern when I was managing. Want people to be happy? Give them no benefits, no health care, no 401K, no bonuses, and plow all of that into salary. People would rather have bragging rights about how much they make. Doesn't matter if you point out that they get a bigger package when the employer pays the health care (if the employee pays then they pay with after tax money). It is…

In a decade or so, when they are scanning their investment portfolio and see their fat 401(k) or they are expecting their second child, they'll (quite justifiably) thank you, ex post, but at the moment, they probably just think you're a cheap bastard and/or that you're trying to screw them over somehow. no good deed goes unpunished--sigh

This might speak to the cost of education. When you're so far in debt, you don't think twice about not putting money into a 401k, health care you don't need, etc because of crippling student loans.

Re: Ask HN: What mistakes in your experience do the people you manage keep making?

#12

Post by jwilliams »

If people you manage are consistently making the same mistakes... I think that reflects back on the manager more than the individuals.

Thinking more broadly - I think a very positive behavior in employees is actively seeking and integrating feedback. Many people have a mindset where feedback comes to them. Being proactive on this front can be be really transformative.

Re: Ask HN: What mistakes in your experience do the people you manage keep making?

#13

Post by segmondy »

The one that I've seen and mostly righted is them thinking that the direction of their career is my or the companies responsibilities. It's not, but I still drive them and advocate for them to grow on behalf of the company. I tell them that if they find themselves in a different environment, they might find a company or manager that cares about them and their growth. They must find ways to be self driven and drive their growth and keep learning. Learning only during projects is not enough, one must step ahead of the pack or get left behind.

Re: Ask HN: What mistakes in your experience do the people you manage keep making?

#14

Post by quickthrower2 »

segmondy wrote: post #13

The one that I've seen and mostly righted is them thinking that the direction of their career is my or the companies responsibilities. It's not, but I still drive them and advocate for them to grow on behalf of the company. I tell them that if they find themselves in a different environment, they might find a company or manager that cares about them and their growth. They must find ways to be self driven and drive th…

It's also their responsibility to leave for a better opportunity if they can't advance their career at their current job. It's the manager's responsibility to try to retain good talent.

Re: Ask HN: What mistakes in your experience do the people you manage keep making?

#16

Post by luckydude »

faet wrote: post #10
luckydude wrote: post #4

Being stupid about compensation was a pattern when I was managing. Want people to be happy? Give them no benefits, no health care, no 401K, no bonuses, and plow all of that into salary. People would rather have bragging rights about how much they make. Doesn't matter if you point out that they get a bigger package when the employer pays the health care (if the employee pays then they pay with after tax money). It is…

I have a friend who took a 1099 job over a W2 job because "they offered more money". I tried to explain that because he is now paying a higher payroll tax he's earning less per hour than the other job. He doesn't get it though. "The other company was offering X. This one is offering 5% more." He also doesn't have PTO, 401k, or medical insurance.

Yeah, this is exactly the sort of thing I was talking about. How can you be a brilliant engineer and make this sort of mistake?

I was trying to hire a very senior guy from Sun and we didn't get him because our salary offer was lower than Sun's but the package was better than Sun's. This guy was a distinguished engineer (equal to a director in the management track). We wanted him for VP of engineering, he was smart, good people person, got stuff done. But couldn't add up all the things in a package.

Just weird.

Re: Ask HN: What mistakes in your experience do the people you manage keep making?

#17

Post by mattbrewsbytes »

This one will be harder since you have had to manage people to get some anecdotes. Its much easier (and fun) to poke fun at management. I used to manage people, doing SW engineering now and enjoying the "freedom".

* Assuming that the I (as a mgr) am in charge of their career. As a manager I can coach you but you have to have some sort of goal other than "be employed". Take some initiative.

* Thinking that pure technical merit of an idea will magically sell it to me (manager) and above.

* Under estimating the effort to get something complete.

* Not talking to people. If you go back n forth a couple times via email or chat and can't resolve something, talk in person. Before you complain to me about another person or team, please have at least talked to them first.

Re: Ask HN: What mistakes in your experience do the people you manage keep making?

#18

Post by danreed07 »

I read a few comments on the other thread. So much of the output fall's on management's shoulder to clarify, motivate, and inspire.

Thinking over my stint at running a few teams, so long as we hired well, there was literally nothing I could complain about, but there were infinitely many more shortcomings I could see in myself.

Re: Ask HN: What mistakes in your experience do the people you manage keep making?

#19

Post by Jugurtha »

luckydude wrote: post #16
faet wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a friend who took a 1099 job over a W2 job because "they offered more money". I tried to explain that because he is now paying a higher payroll tax he's earning less per hour than the other job. He doesn't get it though. "The other company was offering X. This one is offering 5% more." He also doesn't have PTO, 401k, or medical insurance.

Yeah, this is exactly the sort of thing I was talking about. How can you be a brilliant engineer and make this sort of mistake? I was trying to hire a very senior guy from Sun and we didn't get him because our salary offer was lower than Sun's but the package was better than Sun's. This guy was a distinguished engineer (equal to a director in the management track). We wanted him for VP of engineering, he was smart, g…

This is interesting. Can this be thought of as the flip side of matt_s' second point[0]:

>Thinking that pure technical merit of an idea will magically sell it to me (manager) and above.

This, being the flip side, can be formulated as:

"Thinking that pure managerial merit of an idea will magically sell it to me (managéè)[1] and below/lateral".

I'm at my first job. Every time I'm asked to make a presentation I invariably ask: "Who's the audience?". I'm an Electronics Engineer by training, so my eliciting question came because I think of "impedance matching", an expression that's often used but seldom appreciated for what it really is. The first sentence of the Wikipedia entry is clear and concise:

> In electronics, impedance matching is the practice of designing the input impedance of an electrical load or the output impedance of its corresponding signal source to maximize the power transfer or minimize signal reflection from the load.

Controlling the input impedance of the load (my interlocutor) is out of my control as far as I know. Controlling the output impedance of the source (me) is within my control, so this is where I start. It's also wonderful that doing this effort reveals gaping holes in my implementation sometimes.

What's your opinion on that? (that's it the flip side of the same problem of an Engineer who complains management doesn't "get it", as someone who's been in both roles)

[0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15047382

[1]: Not an actual word but I just love how content written in English uses French words with accents in all the wrong places. In case you're wondering about the order, I didn't use èé because it looks like an angry frowning dude and I aimed for dumbfounded, which is exactly what éè looks like.

Re: Ask HN: What mistakes in your experience do the people you manage keep making?

#20

Post by luckydude »

Jugurtha wrote: post #19
luckydude wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, this is exactly the sort of thing I was talking about. How can you be a brilliant engineer and make this sort of mistake? I was trying to hire a very senior guy from Sun and we didn't get him because our salary offer was lower than Sun's but the package was better than Sun's. This guy was a distinguished engineer (equal to a director in the management track). We wanted him for VP of engineering, he was smart, g…

This is interesting. Can this be thought of as the flip side of matt_s' second point[0]: > Thinking that pure technical merit of an idea will magically sell it to me (manager) and above. This, being the flip side, can be formulated as: " Thinking that pure managerial merit of an idea will magically sell it to me (managéè)[1] and below/lateral ". I'm at my first job. Every time I'm asked to make a presentation I invar…

I use the phrase "that's an impedance mismatch" all the time. Software guy who has done some hardware stuff. I use it in the context of humans: "Sending $ENGINEER to do that job is an impedance mismatch, they'll screw it up". Stuff like that. Love that phrase, might be misusing it, still love it.

On "is it the flip side of the same problem of an Engineer who complains management doesn't get it" I'm not seeing it. I mean, maybe, but management usually gets it in my experience. It's a much more rare event to see a manager not understand all of the costs of doing something, that's a big part of their job. So maybe it's the flip side but it's just not that common (in my experience, I've had mostly good managers).

Here's maybe why I don't see it: I see good engineers screw up on the money stuff all the time, it's very common. I very rarely see good managers "not get it". In the engineer, it's like a blind spot, it's not because they are stupid. When managers don't get it it is usually a sign they aren't a good manager. So to be the flip side, you'd have to have good managers not getting it and I believe that's uncommon.

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