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What's with HN editors changing the title on this one from the actual title of the article ("If Your Boss Could Do Your Job, You’re More Likely to Be Happy at Work") to " Employees are far happier when led by people with deep expertise"? The original title was far more descriptive.
>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.
Just because some dudes in suits or some bureaucracy academic had not talked about it yet it doesn't mean it's now been "discovered", don't fall for this trap. Everyone's who's experienced a virtuous workplace also "discovered" this as it's a self-evident truth(when it happens). How many times will we "discover" human nature again? Depending on psychologists, economists, administrators and business gurus, infinite ti…
Everyone understands these things fundamentally, but they pretend like they don't because we've set up a farcical structure and told them to play along or lose their well-being.
It's obvious that everyone wants a leader who has been in substantially similar shoes and done an acceptable job. That's the only way to have the credibility to boss someone around. That HBR pretends this instinctive truth is a revelation is typical of the haughtiness that makes people hate the bourgeoisie.
Humans are evolved to stay in fixed family units that expand only by marriage and child birth and contract only by death. The permanence afforded there allows humans to cooperate while also behaving naturally. The survival benefits of remaining in the tribe easily surpass emotional/personal benefits that could be had by fracturing off. There is no credible fear that expressing your feelings or otherwise behaving naturally will get you fired from your tribe.
It turns out people are quite fickle, and that if circumstances don't compel them to work together, lots of things get broken quickly. The modern corporation is a poor stand-in for the tribe.
What's with HN editors changing the title on this one from the actual title of the article ("If Your Boss Could Do Your Job, You’re More Likely to Be Happy at Work") to " Employees are far happier when led by people with deep expertise"? The original title was far more descriptive.
"Using these three measures of supervisor competence, we found that employees are far happier when they are led by people with deep expertise in the core activity of the business."
Things were swell. It was an extremely positive environment.
But I got demoted 7 or so months later simply because the other managers hated me. I didn't talk about charts showing increased amount of tickets per sprint resolved, about increased productivity, about how to make people more efficient via some BS measures that never really work (except maybe in a Chinese factory or in a pyramid-scheme marketing organization?). I knew how to make my people efficient and I was doing it. On the managerial meetings I was bored to tears and eventually I just told everybody in the room (including the CEO) -- "People. Why are we here on this meeting? I only see this as an excuse for everybody to congratulate themselves on how awesome you are. Speaking of which (at this point I pointed at 2 other managers) the only thing you ever managed to do was impede me by imposing waiting in inter-team communication for weeks while your devs are telling me they are idle and have nothing to do -- and you're also criticising my managerial techniques no matter the fact that in this 150+ people organization my team is the only one not behind schedule". Or something like that.
Needless to say, I got demoted -- and left the place -- shortly after.
Thinking of it 8 years later, I'd absolutely do the same but I'd use even more brutal language.
Management needs less BS. It doesn't deserve its current breed of slackers who licked bottoms most of their conscious lives to get to such a position and then they figured they'll unofficially retire at 40 while officially leeching salaries into their 60s (read: show up at the job but practially do nothing).
As any human system, inertia and credentialism are a huge problem. This has to change.
I skimmed the comments and didn't see the following perspective so thought I would add it: one thing that makes it great for me to work with people with deep expertise is the ability to learn amazing things. I am willing to put up with a lot of 'management personality/quirks' if it comes with learning that is invaluable. I believe people who work with 'interesting' (sometimes abusive) chefs such as Gordon Ramsay may…
Nothing more annoying than an incompetent co-worker or boss. I don't think you're alone in that regard. If someone is competent that means I can trust them to do the right thing. If they're incompetent it's a crapshoot and causes unnecessary stress. I guess that is not necessarily the same as deep expertise but it's hard to imagine someone with expertise who is also incompetent in that domain.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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. Actually it is not. One of the best bosses I ever had had no clue what I was doing. He was smart enough to admit that he didn't know how to do my job. He was excellent at his job though: figuring out who were good people and removing roadblocks from their way. He identified a few good programmers to do the…
For revolutionary products (truly revolutionary) the big picture person may be crucial.
The other dimensions, like detecting bullshit, help team members overcome insecurities, have courage to make impopular decisions, these are orthogonal but very important too, I think.
This 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.
Maybe it's simply a question of different semantics, but I've never worked at a place where my boss was in charge of making technical decisions. That is always done by whatever senior engineer is in charge of that particular project.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I've had bosses who couldn't do my job but trusted me and didn't get in my way and gave me the exact environment I needed to work in. Those were the best work experiences I ever had. It's the bosses who can do my job I have to worry about, they feel like they need to get involved with it and that hurts my job satisfaction. I need a boss with complementary skills to mine, not the skills I already have. People have all…
That would be great, as long as the employee is motivated and smart enough to do great work, else it would be difficult for the manager to gauge employee's quality of contribution.
I skimmed the comments and didn't see the following perspective so thought I would add it: one thing that makes it great for me to work with people with deep expertise is the ability to learn amazing things. I am willing to put up with a lot of 'management personality/quirks' if it comes with learning that is invaluable. I believe people who work with 'interesting' (sometimes abusive) chefs such as Gordon Ramsay may…