I think it's probably a bit like Uncanny Valley this one; it goes from no understanding at all, slowly to increasing understanding but just before you get to "boss can do my job" you have "boss knows enough to be dangerous and counter productive"...
Employees are happier when led by people with deep expertise
31–40 of 247 posts
Re: Employees are happier when led by people with deep expertise
#32Earlier quoted context omitted.
Another phenomenon is the development of management as a science. People can end up in positions of oversight where they have a deficient understanding of the tasks people below them are performing. Study of management and processes is not without merit, and the rants against MBAs can be one dimensional by not recognizing the benefits. But if that was all that it took, then the economy wouldn't "waste" medical doctor…
I think that is true, although people have been doing MBAs for a much longer time than the tech boom has been around for: e.g. doing an MBA was viable a route into Finance since at least the 80s. Though MBAs have certainly been growing in popularity over the past few years.
I think that longevity is why people can feel so bitter about it. It has become strongly embedded in a lot of corporate cultures where management can find itself in a homogeneous bubble. This can serve to limit mobility of non-management level workers who could excel if provided the opportunity to take on managerial functions, which means that is lost economic potential.
It's not constant across the board, as there are plenty of IT companies that seem to be doing a decent job at promoting engineers. But then I read a lot of people here talking about "up or out" views of engineers who are above a certain age. It's complicated.
Re: Employees are happier when led by people with deep expertise
#33This is very interesting, and rings true on many levels. For one, it takes a certain level of competence to be able to differentiate between good and bad work. If your boss can't tell the difference between the two, workers will be rewarded/punished/promoted/fired based on some other metrics, which are likely to be unfair or even arbitrary. Another, is that bosses and managers are responsible for providing guidance.…
There is nothing more demotivating than realizing that the person in charge of making technical decisions has no idea what he is talking about. You have no authority to make good decisions or hope of explaining things to willfully ignorant management. All you can do is quietly implement their stupidity and hope to avoid the fallout.
Re: Employees are happier when led by people with deep expertise
#34I actually think you get more respect if your boss (or his nephew) can't do your job.
At my last offfice job the programmers doing graphics/OpenGL stuff got way more respect than the web developers.
Re: Employees are happier when led by people with deep expertise
#35The most surprising part about this to me is that this matters at the top. Sure, for a middle manager it makes sense that it matters quite a bit. I'm pretty surprised that it matters much at the top, though. If Elon Musk decided to head a major grocery chain I wouldn't stop to consider whether his lack of experience in retail groceries mattered much. But maybe it does? Really interesting to see the analogy extend to…
>> Professional sports teams, even successful ones, are almost universally run (coaches, GMs, etc.) by people who didn't play at a high level.
About 20% of the coaches in the NFL have played in the NFL.
However, what makes a person a great player doesn't make them a great coach. Usually the best players are insanely gifted at the physical level.
Re: Employees are happier when led by people with deep expertise
#36>The benefit of having a highly competent boss is easily the largest positive influence on a typical worker’s level of job satisfaction This is one of those great discoveries that is hardly surprising and makes you wonder why it hadn't be seen before. Honestly some of my worst work experiences were getting jerked around by a superior who completely failed to understand the work required to do my job.
This is one of those great discoveries that is hardly surprising and makes you wonder why it hadn't be seen before. Well, the traditional view of "management" is that it's a distinct job from "doing". Therefore, so the thinking goes, there is a distinct difference in skillsets, and thus the manager should be good at the managing bit, and the doer should be good at the doing bit. The reality is that in order to effect…
>The reality is that in order to effectively manage, you have to understand what the doers are actually doing.
There is an important distinction. An effective manager should understand the general process and what can be time sinks, but they don't have to understand extremely specific details of what each worker is working on at any given time. For example, a manager of a software team doesn't need to understand the idioms of the programming language used by the team or even be that effective of a programmer. Some of my best managers have been ex-software devs that understood architecture, requirements distillation, etc really well but wrote the ugliest code you would ever see. :)
Re: Employees are happier when led by people with deep expertise
#37Is it really about whether your boss can do your job or not, or whether your boss thinks your job is difficult or not?
Re: Employees are happier when led by people with deep expertise
#38The most surprising part about this to me is that this matters at the top. Sure, for a middle manager it makes sense that it matters quite a bit. I'm pretty surprised that it matters much at the top, though. If Elon Musk decided to head a major grocery chain I wouldn't stop to consider whether his lack of experience in retail groceries mattered much. But maybe it does? Really interesting to see the analogy extend to…
Did Elon Musk have a lot of experience in self-driving cars or space rockets before Tesla?
Elon musk already proved his rigor and discipline with coding the zip2 product. It is in no way match to the rigour in management. So he gets lot of respect with other tech guys. Where as it's hard to take order from a manager who has never build anything.
Re: Employees are happier when led by people with deep expertise
#39The most surprising part about this to me is that this matters at the top. Sure, for a middle manager it makes sense that it matters quite a bit. I'm pretty surprised that it matters much at the top, though. If Elon Musk decided to head a major grocery chain I wouldn't stop to consider whether his lack of experience in retail groceries mattered much. But maybe it does? Really interesting to see the analogy extend to…
But those lower level players still have strong knowledge of how to play, and probably tried just as hard as some top level players. They're not going to suddenly announce that they put some numbers in a spreadsheet and figured out that a 5 second 60 yard dash would guarantee victory, so it's time to start training for it.
In technical fields it's not uncommon for managers to ask people to do things that are literally impossible.
Re: Employees are happier when led by people with deep expertise
#40So does this mean 'professional managers' are the root of most unhappiness at work? Certainly that's been my experience. A company that doesn't hire MBAs is one I want to work for.
Me too