Ask HN: How do you manage your manager? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: How do you manage your manager?

#101

Post by eastbayjake » Fri, Jun 15, 2018, 2:30 PM UTC

nilkn wrote: post #39

You've jumped all the way to trying to micromanage your boss, which is inherently a politically explosive undertaking, but where you actually should be is just asking much more straightforward questions: why don't they want you to give the talk? Maybe they're trying to sabotage your career progress, but maybe there are legitimate concerns about the content of the talk (e.g., exposing secret sauce internal methods to…

Yes, most commenters here are missing a legitimate concern about sharing confidential information in a public forum. If the talk is "How we do X at Y Inc" there's a legitimate concern; if the talk is "Learning to Love CSS in JS" then the manager may have ulterior motives.

My advice to OP: ask to walk through your presentation deck with your manager, both to get feedback and buy-in. Managers will be more invested in your success if they feel invested in what you're doing. (Suggestion: offer to plug your company's job openings with your manager's contact info.)

Re: Ask HN: How do you manage your manager?

#102

Post by doglover7869 » Fri, Jun 15, 2018, 2:32 PM UTC

confiscate wrote: post #6

slededit wrote: post #4

If you focus on this at the point where you aren't getting what you want its too late. You need to build a relationship of trust before you ask for an exception or special request (in the eye of the manager not you). Your manager should know the following: - That if there is a problem you will always come to him/her first not try and work around him - That he can count on you to do what needs to be done. You will go…

agree. Especially with #3 "understand what boss wants" From the way OP phrased the question, it sounded like the OP felt the manager "owed" the OP. As in, OP feels going to the conference is a must, "a given", a "constitutional right", and that the manager "wronged" him by not letting him go. It's a very childish way of viewing the world. As in, I deserve to go to Disneyland. My mom won't let me, so I will now get a…

If the OP really wants to give a talk is because they are seeking for some kind of recognition or ego booster. This sounds very self centered and narcisistic.

Re: Ask HN: How do you manage your manager?

#103

Post by OliverJones » Fri, Jun 15, 2018, 2:32 PM UTC

Everybody has a time constant. That's the time it takes for them to accept a new or challenging idea. Figure out your manager's time constant.

If you say, "I'm giving a public talk" (or "We should move from Azure to AWS", or "We need a better defect tracking system" or whatever), it's human nature to resist. It's new. It's change.

Entrepreneurs often have long time constants. It's necessary for them to be stubborn, and stubbornness is generally a good personality trait when doing difficult things.

So, don't expect your manager to agree right away to your new idea. Give her at least her time constant to think it over.

How do you do this? It depends on the manager's work style. If she diligently reads stuff you send her, pitch your idea in email in the middle of the afternoon, so she can think about it overnight.

If he communicates verbally, ask for some time and pitch your idea in person.

WHATEVER YOU DO, don't expect "(facepalm) Hey, you're right. Good idea!" during your pitch. It takes a while.

Now, some managers will come to you after their time constant elapses and say "I have an idea!" and recite your idea. You have to accept this.

Re: Ask HN: How do you manage your manager?

#104

Post by dpark » Fri, Jun 15, 2018, 2:39 PM UTC

raducu wrote: post #89

dpark wrote: post #2

Why were you asked to not give the talks? Context is everything. Are you asking for the company to pay but the travel/training budget is insufficient? Sell your boss on why this is valuable to the company and why the budget should be expanded or funded some other way. Does your manager not think you’re good enough to be giving the talk? Your options are probably to prove him/her wrong, get a better manager, or live w…

OP did not tell us how his manager justified his refusal, BUT because of the way he formulated his question and my personal life experience, I'm very much inclined to believe that the manager simply gave not or bullshit/generic reasons as to why he won't let OP give the talk. That the most common situation is the manager is a shitty person who realises that if by any minute chance OP's talk somehow hurt the company t…

> the most common situation is the manager is a shitty person

You don’t know nearly enough about the situation to say this. Most managers are not shitty people.

Re: Ask HN: How do you manage your manager?

#105

Post by turc1656 » Fri, Jun 15, 2018, 2:39 PM UTC

mseebach wrote: post #69

greggarious wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> OP feels going to the conference is a must, "a given", a "constitutional right", and that the manager "wronged" him by not letting him go. It's a very childish way of viewing the world. OP's employer does not own them - they have a right to a private life. While they certainly could not want OP identifying themselves as an agent of their employer when giving a talk, OP is entitled to use their free time / vacation…

OP isn't perfectly unambiguous on the subject, but it's an industry conference, and since asking the manager is a thing, I think it's fair to assume that it's a work conference and that the manager actually has a legitimate say in this - participants in industry conferences are typically identified as representing their company.

Exactly my thoughts. If this to be done during normal work hours when this person would normally be in the office and working (almost certainly the case), then the manager would definitely need to approve this, especially since there is usually a cost associated with attending. If the employee is willing to pay themselves, that still leaves the issue of that time being utilized for non-approved activity during work hours. If the employee decides to take that day off and use their personal time they can certainly attend on their own dime, but the employer can still stipulate that they are explicitly not to represent the company at that event and not introduce themselves as an employee of the company. I don't know what the employer's reasons would be for this, but if that was their desire they are certainly allowed to choose who represents them and when.

Re: Ask HN: How do you manage your manager?

#106

Post by KirinDave » Fri, Jun 15, 2018, 2:40 PM UTC

confiscate wrote: post #6

slededit wrote: post #4

If you focus on this at the point where you aren't getting what you want its too late. You need to build a relationship of trust before you ask for an exception or special request (in the eye of the manager not you). Your manager should know the following: - That if there is a problem you will always come to him/her first not try and work around him - That he can count on you to do what needs to be done. You will go…

agree. Especially with #3 "understand what boss wants" From the way OP phrased the question, it sounded like the OP felt the manager "owed" the OP. As in, OP feels going to the conference is a must, "a given", a "constitutional right", and that the manager "wronged" him by not letting him go. It's a very childish way of viewing the world. As in, I deserve to go to Disneyland. My mom won't let me, so I will now get a…

> As in, OP feels going to the conference is a must, "a given", a "constitutional right", and that the manager "wronged" him by not letting him go.

Well, free assembly and association are in fact corrolary to "free speech."

If an employee wants to go speak at a conference and the manager says, "Don't" then one of two things are happening:

0. The employer is abusive and undeserving.

1. The manager is attempting to take credit for the employee's work and should be called out.

There really aren't other scenarios; there's no valid reason to attempt to sabotage someone's career arc.

> OP focuses on himself, on what he wants. There is no mention in the question of what the manager wants. It screams "me me me"

Well evidently the manager in question isn't going to help the OP with their career, so someone's gotta do that. When a company aligns its interests with the career growth of their employees, then its a win-win. If it's pitched as an adversarial relationship, then there will be a winner and a loser. I cannot imagine why a good manager or intelligently run company would encourage such an adversarial relationship; it'll cause massive turnover.

Re: Ask HN: How do you manage your manager?

#107

Post by KirinDave » Fri, Jun 15, 2018, 2:42 PM UTC

tomerv wrote: post #78

AllegedAlec wrote: post #55

I think a lot of advice here implicitly assumes the following: 1: You are invested in the company in a serious way. 2: Your company is invested in you and wishes the best for you. However, I think those are quite optimistic assumptions. There's a inherent tension between what you want and what the company wants. The company wants to invest into you the minimum required to both keeping you as an employee as well as al…

> you need to find out what your manager's motivation is from keeping you from such events and based on that formulate a strategy for dealing with him/her. That's a pretty adverserial approach. Why not understand the manager's motivation and then work with him/her? The "adverserial-ness" is also apperant in the possible causes you raised for the manager's decision (he's a company man / he's taking advantage of the fa…

> That's a pretty adverserial approach. Why not understand the manager's motivation and then work with him/her?

That we are here suggests a critical disconnect with the manager already, so that's already failed.

Re: Ask HN: How do you manage your manager?

#108

Post by hagurganus » Fri, Jun 15, 2018, 2:50 PM UTC

dagw wrote: post #51

slededit wrote: post #4

If you focus on this at the point where you aren't getting what you want its too late. You need to build a relationship of trust before you ask for an exception or special request (in the eye of the manager not you). Your manager should know the following: - That if there is a problem you will always come to him/her first not try and work around him - That he can count on you to do what needs to be done. You will go…

That he can count on you to do what needs to be done. You will go out of your way for her. If you've ever said "this isn't my job" then you will have only an adversarial relationship. True to the extent that it is actually related to your job in a larger sense and doing so won't adversely affect your ability to do your 'real' job. Many managers will just keeping adding more and more responsibilities to their 'best' w…

> That being said there are better ways of phrasing it than "this isn't my job". Saying something along the lines of "if I do that I won't have time to finish X by next Tuesday as I promised. It might be worth checking with Dave and his team if they have someone who can work on it. Otherwise I'll be happy to do it, as long as you're OK with pushing X back a week".

Your whole comment was spot-on, but this part in particular resonated with me.

Over my relatively short career, there have been waves of being overloaded and then feeling like I had a handle on things. Whenever it’s been the latter, I can usually trace it back to being consistent with giving folks the simple cause and effect of what they’re asking of me. It helps that I happen to enjoy basically all the work (even remotely) relevant to my role, so when someone asks me for something (for perhaps the 10th time that day), I kindly say that I’d be more than happy to do that “..but this is what that will mean for the first 9 things you asked me for today..”.

I’ve found this to be an organic, effective way of filtering out priorities from background noise without creating that alienation between you and your boss/coworkers that was mentioned further up.

Re: Ask HN: How do you manage your manager?

#109

Post by turc1656 » Fri, Jun 15, 2018, 2:51 PM UTC

raducu wrote: post #89

dpark wrote: post #2

Why were you asked to not give the talks? Context is everything. Are you asking for the company to pay but the travel/training budget is insufficient? Sell your boss on why this is valuable to the company and why the budget should be expanded or funded some other way. Does your manager not think you’re good enough to be giving the talk? Your options are probably to prove him/her wrong, get a better manager, or live w…

OP did not tell us how his manager justified his refusal, BUT because of the way he formulated his question and my personal life experience, I'm very much inclined to believe that the manager simply gave not or bullshit/generic reasons as to why he won't let OP give the talk. That the most common situation is the manager is a shitty person who realises that if by any minute chance OP's talk somehow hurt the company t…

Why would the manager be a shitty person if they saw no upside for the company, possible downside, and decided against that action? If we were talking about a decision that didn't involve another human being and their desires, I suspect you might find this decision-making logic acceptable.

Perhaps you could explain why if there is no chance for the company to gain anything but a non-zero risk of the company's status, position, brand value, etc. being damaged, why is this a bad decision and the manager a "very shitty human being"?

Re: Ask HN: How do you manage your manager?

#110

Post by hrktb » Fri, Jun 15, 2018, 2:52 PM UTC

tomerv wrote: post #78

AllegedAlec wrote: post #55

I think a lot of advice here implicitly assumes the following: 1: You are invested in the company in a serious way. 2: Your company is invested in you and wishes the best for you. However, I think those are quite optimistic assumptions. There's a inherent tension between what you want and what the company wants. The company wants to invest into you the minimum required to both keeping you as an employee as well as al…

> you need to find out what your manager's motivation is from keeping you from such events and based on that formulate a strategy for dealing with him/her. That's a pretty adverserial approach. Why not understand the manager's motivation and then work with him/her? The "adverserial-ness" is also apperant in the possible causes you raised for the manager's decision (he's a company man / he's taking advantage of the fa…

TBF a manager that tried to get approval but got refused usually won’t reject the original request without explaination.

It’s poisonning the relation with the managee, so if it’s by mistake or from good intent, it’s such a bad move that maybe it’s best to not expect them to have a positive impact going further.

If it’s just some misunderstanding, there is a clear communication problem anyway, so situation would still be dire.