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Leave Work Unassigned and See Who Steps Forward

mountaingoatsoftware.com

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Re: Leave Work Unassigned and See Who Steps Forward

#91

Post by jenshoop »

lostcolony wrote: post #76
ap22213 wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This advice and the advice of the parent are both very useful, in my experiences. One thing I would add is to make sure you love working for your boss. If you don't love working for your boss, get a new boss.

This. So much this. The actual work, while important, is of less importance than your manager. Yes, find interesting work, but prioritize them, and consider outright declining them, if the manager does not seem like someone you can work with and can trust to be dealt fairly by.

Agreed. There was a crazy study that showed that 75% of American workers identify their boss as the worst and most stressful part of their job and that 60% of US workers would take a new boss over a pay raise.

But you're at such a disadvantage when interviewing -- how do you vet your potential manager? And when your financial welfare is on the line, would you really pass up an opportunity on this count alone?

Re: Leave Work Unassigned and See Who Steps Forward

#92

Post by lostcolony »

jenshoop wrote: post #91
lostcolony wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This. So much this. The actual work, while important, is of less importance than your manager. Yes, find interesting work, but prioritize them, and consider outright declining them, if the manager does not seem like someone you can work with and can trust to be dealt fairly by.

Agreed. There was a crazy study that showed that 75% of American workers identify their boss as the worst and most stressful part of their job and that 60% of US workers would take a new boss over a pay raise. But you're at such a disadvantage when interviewing -- how do you vet your potential manager? And when your financial welfare is on the line, would you really pass up an opportunity on this count alone?

Yeah, it's hard. But it's worth keeping in the forefront of your mind. When interviewing, make sure you've met everyone above you you'll actually have to interact with. When contemplating a job change, keep that in the forefront of your mind, and make decisions accordingly. I know I could have avoided one disastrous job I took had I done so (while missing out on none of the good ones)

Re: Leave Work Unassigned and See Who Steps Forward

#93

Post by nlawalker »

happywolf wrote: post #28

This practice can easily be abused or/and cause unintented consequences. For example, once employees know this is a short cut for promotion, they will focus a lot of their energy and attention to find 'the void' and try to fill it, or act like they can fill it, thus neglecting the real work that need to be done. In fact, this could be a cultural issue where everybody tries to act like taking a lead (usually by blanke…

I see this all the time, and I call it "organizational priority inversion."

Not only is the real execution/critical work boring, but management often doesn't really understand it or how to measure the effectiveness and contributions of people that are spending their time on it, so they make a blanket assumption that everyone is performing at a satisfactory level ("we only hire the best") and turn to other metrics that are simpler to understand and measure. It's much easier to count how many "organizational initiatives" Bob helped to launch, how many informational lunchtime talks he gave and the number of important meetings he made an influential remark at than it is to judge how much wasted time and aggravation his poor designs and implementations generated, and as a result, the work that Bob was actually hired to do (quickly dismissed as his "day job" by his manager during performance reviews) becomes the worst use of his time. As Bob realizes this, his reputation improves even more because he spends less time on his work - obviously someone putting his thumbprint on so many initiatives and decisions must be a key player, and it would be a waste to have such a person spending his time "in the trenches."

In an organization that conflates influence with effectiveness, it doesn't matter what you're influencing others to do, only that you do it often and well.

Re: Leave Work Unassigned and See Who Steps Forward

#95

Post by collyw »

crusso wrote: post #71
d23 wrote: post #20

> Companies don't need to go so far as the well-known Google 20 percent time A bit of a digression here. I love that people think the idea that letting employees spend a measly 20% of their time deciding what they should be working on is somehow an extreme idea. What portion of your typical day would you honestly say is devoted to solid, in-the-flow work? After all the meeting, context switches, random interruptions,…

If little hobby skunkworks 6 hour projects actually made much money then that would be the norm. The reality is that the things that people and companies are willing to pay for often take a great deal more time and dedication. Also, they often involve work that's a hell of a lot less interesting. Even the projects that are fun to start often become boring drudgery during the long haul of making a product that someone…

The point was that conventional work structure, in offices, with lots of meetings and other distractions that are mostly irrelevant are a huge productivity killer.

Re: Leave Work Unassigned and See Who Steps Forward

#96

Post by crusso »

collyw wrote: post #95
crusso wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If little hobby skunkworks 6 hour projects actually made much money then that would be the norm. The reality is that the things that people and companies are willing to pay for often take a great deal more time and dedication. Also, they often involve work that's a hell of a lot less interesting. Even the projects that are fun to start often become boring drudgery during the long haul of making a product that someone…

The point was that conventional work structure, in offices, with lots of meetings and other distractions that are mostly irrelevant are a huge productivity killer.

I don't disagree that there is a lot of inefficiency and counterproductivity in a conventional office - but the gp was offering up an example of how his hack session with his roommate proved something about how we "should" be working.

Like many complicated systems, it's easy to criticize the conventional office and offer microcosm-scale anecdotal counter-examples - but quite another thing to create something effectively comparable.

I love thinking about new ways to work. I work remotely and am always experimenting with ways to be effective from a distance... but I find that getting people's butts in chairs in the same office, and coordinating with a few boring meetings is surprisingly necessary.

Re: Leave Work Unassigned and See Who Steps Forward

#97

Post by hwstar »

Getting a promotion to a good position requires all of the following:

1. The company must be growing non-linearly and be strong financially. 2. You must have enough value to the company where if you leave you'll be difficult to replace. 3. Management prefers to promote from within.

If any one of these is missing, then the positions offered as promotions will be sub-optimal.

#1 seems to be in short supply across a large swath of industries, and is the main driver for lack of promotions offered these days.

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