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Ask HN: How do you manage your manager?

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

#71

Post by vfc1 »

You don't. As long as you work for someone else, that type of situations will always occur, to a larger or lesser degree.

As long as you work under someone else's supervision, you will never have the freedom to do whatever you want, like for example give a conference talk or a million other things.

I'm sure it's not only the conference talk, right? There are other things. Instead of investing so much time trying to navigate the relation with your manager and always ending up in situations like this, I suggest trying to use that same energy and effort and dedicate to try and find a way to become your own boss.

You will then have the freedom to do whatever you want each and every single day, and won't have to spend all that time and energy constantly convincing someone of things that are often for their own good.

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

#73

Post by deepaksurti »

Set up a weekly goal setting session between you and your manager.

Keep crisp feedback loop going on towards the goals you mutually set.

Balance out the business needs and engineering implementation, aka manage tech debt.

Own your products and work with your manager to improve those both externally/internally.

Commit, Deliver; Repeat

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

#74

Post by repsak »

vfc1 wrote: post #71

You don't. As long as you work for someone else, that type of situations will always occur, to a larger or lesser degree. As long as you work under someone else's supervision, you will never have the freedom to do whatever you want, like for example give a conference talk or a million other things. I'm sure it's not only the conference talk, right? There are other things. Instead of investing so much time trying to n…

This is quite childish advice. Is this your solution all disagreements?

"You will then have the freedom to do whatever you want each and every single day, and won't have to spend all that time and energy constantly convincing someone of things that are often for their own good."

I wish!

Constantly convincing someone of things that are often for their own good is basically the definition of what you do when working for yourself, or should I say when your working for you clients/trying to acquire new clients.

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

#75

Post by vonmoltke »

greggarious wrote: post #14
confiscate wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> 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…

My employer claims ownership over all IP I produce. I can't give a talk on anything without clearing it first (though my manager would generally not be involved if it was not related to anything we do or use at work).

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

#76

Post by codingdave »

werber wrote: post #68

Follow the org chart up past your manager to get what you want

This works if, and only if, your 2nd line supervisor thinks your boss is incompetent. Otherwise, he'll literally just send you back to the boss with directions to "Handle this." And in the process, you have ticked off your boss, and given a bad impression to the 2nd line boss.

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

#77

Post by johnminter »

dominotw wrote: post #7

> I am asking this because I was recently asked by my manager not to give talks in really difficult to get in industry events, despite of getting an acceptance. Curious, were you told why? Seems really strange.

I am not at all surprised. In many (most?) corporate environments, all your work product belongs to the corporation and management decides whether the benefits to the company outway risks. To get approval for conference talks I always had to first get approval from my direct management and then from the corporate clearance department. I worked in our analytical science division, so I also needed approval from the management of our client divisions to speak about my work on their projects. We even had editors who had to approve all abstracts, articles, and slides.

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

#78

Post by tomerv »

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 fact that you're agreeable / he doesn't want you to work elsewhere). There can be other reasons, even with a manager that's 100% on your side. For example, maybe he worked hard to get approval for you to go to that conference, even fought his supervisors, but at the end he lost? That's why the best advice is to ask him to explain the decision, and not to come to the conversation with any assumptions.

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

#79

Post by EvanAnderson »

repsak wrote: post #74
vfc1 wrote: post #71

You don't. As long as you work for someone else, that type of situations will always occur, to a larger or lesser degree. As long as you work under someone else's supervision, you will never have the freedom to do whatever you want, like for example give a conference talk or a million other things. I'm sure it's not only the conference talk, right? There are other things. Instead of investing so much time trying to n…

This is quite childish advice. Is this your solution all disagreements? "You will then have the freedom to do whatever you want each and every single day, and won't have to spend all that time and energy constantly convincing someone of things that are often for their own good." I wish! Constantly convincing someone of things that are often for their own good is basically the definition of what you do when working fo…

I enjoy the give-and-take that comes with trying to guide a Customer toward what I perceive to be their best interests. Doing that with multiple Customers in parallel means that I have victories and defeats. That's heartening and engaging to me. I would find it very demoralizing to continue to engage that way with a single party over and over again. I found it that way back in the "bad old days" when I was an employee, and I'm certain I'd find it that way again.

When I talk about being self-employed I like to say that I traded having a single "boss" for multiple "bosses"-- one or more from each Customer. One thing that I've really enjoyed, to that end, is being able to cut my losses with a given Customer if the situation becomes untenable. That option wasn't so easy when I was an employee. An employer, in most of the US at least, has the freedom to be fickle at any time for arbitrary reasons. Being self-employed, to my mind, helps to level that playing field.

Being an employee amounts to running a business with a single Customer. If that Customer leaves you've suddenly got a business with no Customers. New Customer acquisition costs are very high (especially in the employer-provided health insurance world of US employment) and Customer loyalty can be very low. It's a precarious situation to me, not one I'd ever want to be in again, and not one I'd counsel someone to put themselves into.

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

#80

Post by AznHisoka »

dagw wrote: post #57
frisco wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's true as long as they're not talking about their work at the conference. I assume they would be?

What does talking "about their work" actually entail?. I use Cython to do parts of my job. I've given talks about using Cython, drawing on experiences and knowledge gained while doing my job. Was that talking about work?

The most interesting talks in conferences usually are case studies or explain how X was successfully used in a pratical project. It might be hard for OP to give such a talk unless he talked about his personal projects only.

If he is just giving a generic talk about lessons learned without explaining the intricate war stories, thats a dull talk. Those are commodities.

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