Tech workers say poor leadership is number one cause for burnout • Hacker News Board

Re: Tech workers say poor leadership is number one cause for burnout

#61

Post by vladgiverts » Mon, Aug 27, 2018, 3:09 PM UTC

vinceguidry wrote: post #57

shadowsun7 wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This opinion is nice but not actionable. That means that it is less useful if you are in the role of an employer, wanting to reduce burnout in your org. See my comment below for actual mental models you can use to prevent burnout in your organisation.[1] I personally find JD-R more useful, because it prescribes a model of 'jobs demands outstripping job resources', which then implies that you as manager can seek ways…

In absence of leadership, the tool firms use to solve coordination problems is management. A leader from this perspective is simply a better manager. Better at all the tasks of coordinating human activity, reading when people are feeling down, better at inspiring them, better at breaking apart complex tasks into routine ones that the ICs can more easily understand. But leaders are practically impossible to reliably h…

I agree that leadership isn’t “teachable” in the same sense that a skill or piece of knowledge is. But it can be supported and cultivated. It’s what I do for a living as a leadership coach. I don’t actually instruct anyone how to lead, but rather give them them the opportunity to discover it for themselves. I’ve seen pretty meaningful shifts for people on the timescale of 3-6 months.

Re: Tech workers say poor leadership is number one cause for burnout

#62

Post by crispyambulance » Mon, Aug 27, 2018, 3:11 PM UTC

CommanderData wrote: post #54

The five keys to a successful team based on Google research. https://www.inc.com/michael-schneider/google-thought-they-kn... "Google’s “Project Artistotle” investigates why some teams work better than others. Its analysis shows that the combination of individuals making up the group is unimportant. Instead, a team’s “group norms” – its “traditions, behavioral standards and unwritten rules” – are essential to how well…

    > But imagine a different setting. A situation in which everyone is safe to take risks, voice their opinions, and ask judgment-free questions. A culture where managers provide air cover and create safe zones so employees can let down their guard. That's psychological safety.

That's all really nice, but it does conflict with #1 and #2. Being able to "take risks" means that sometimes there's failure and consequences that lead to projects NOT getting done on time, NOT meeting expectations.

Also, there's a fine line between having members with "well-defined roles" and silo-ed divisions where people literally don't talk other teams unless there's a "hand-off" (yep, people still use that word). On the other hand, to have a really good team, you need folks that will actually listen to outsiders who might not be formally or organizationally qualified. You need people that will jump in and do stuff even when it's "not their job".

I am all in favor of the intent of these rules, but applying them takes a level of nuance that the vast majority of organizations simply can't pull off. That's OK.

Re: Tech workers say poor leadership is number one cause for burnout

#63

Post by bittcto » Mon, Aug 27, 2018, 3:12 PM UTC

kabdib wrote: post #59

I left my last job largely because of this. Exec-levels couldn't decide on a technical direction for the next big version of a major consumer product, then chose a very bad strategy, which took nearly a year to change to something sane. Well, at least less crazy. Meanwhile, the competition is not stupid and is not crazy and is not waiting for us to get our act together. Suddenly we have a year to do the thing that th…

I believe they hire those “lunatics” because it’s believed that engineers can’t understand business.

As an engineer that has started businesses this is BS.

It’s really easy to learn business skills, sales and marketing are not difficult, finance is laughably easy.

But so long as the companies are being formed to sell equity to VCs you will see them led by frat boys who the VC frat boys recognize... and they will abuse engineers.

My solution- stop working for anyone who isn’t technically competent or at least recognizes engineering needs enough to get out of the way and support being efficient.

Re: Tech workers say poor leadership is number one cause for burnout

#64

Post by seanf » Mon, Aug 27, 2018, 3:17 PM UTC

bittcto wrote: post #60

The cause is that “leadership” is generally people who don’t understand technology, and the solution is to stop hiring such incompetence. No car company would allow a CEO who doesn’t understand how cars work, let alone one who has no respect for those who design cars. But most tech companies are lead by tech illiterate MBA types who disdain engineers, and so engineers are managed by people who don’t understand engine…

Amazon is getting close to a $1T market cap which makes this look more like an argument for hiring non-technical managers. You didn't provide any examples of poor management by the prison guard or DMV manager, other than some jealously about salary. Other than the bad feelings, did they get results?

When Bezos went ballistic the day before Thanksgiving, did you still fix the bug in time? If not, did it really negatively affect the bottom line? Did whatever you instead had to work on in October help the bottom line more than the Thanksgiving bug?

Re: Tech workers say poor leadership is number one cause for burnout

#65

Post by bittcto » Mon, Aug 27, 2018, 3:17 PM UTC

imglorp wrote: post #39

titzer wrote: post #37

Number one by a hair. 23% leadership vs. 19% overwork. Interesting to see the per-company breakdown. I wonder about the sample size. Blind seems like a promising avenue for getting sentiment analysis inside of companies, but there is a pretty serious sampling bias, as many who sign up for Blind might already be feeling disillusioned.

Overwork is also leadership: they're setting the unrealistic schedules and they're communicating expectations that people meet are supposed to meet these schedules. By contrast there are other places where management goes around at quitting time and throws everyone out.

I’ve seen many software companies where for months on end each week more than a weeks worth of new work is added to the product, without changing the deadline, because “management” keeps deciding therecare new features that are critical and they can be just slipped right in.

If you tell them they are going to increase the time it takes or lower quality, you’re “not cooperative” or “not a team player”....or they tell you they will take the quality hit... but when there are any problems in the delivered product it’s the teams fault, of course.

Re: Tech workers say poor leadership is number one cause for burnout

#66

Post by blindwatchmaker » Mon, Aug 27, 2018, 3:22 PM UTC

seanf wrote: post #64

bittcto wrote: post #60

The cause is that “leadership” is generally people who don’t understand technology, and the solution is to stop hiring such incompetence. No car company would allow a CEO who doesn’t understand how cars work, let alone one who has no respect for those who design cars. But most tech companies are lead by tech illiterate MBA types who disdain engineers, and so engineers are managed by people who don’t understand engine…

Amazon is getting close to a $1T market cap which makes this look more like an argument for hiring non-technical managers. You didn't provide any examples of poor management by the prison guard or DMV manager, other than some jealously about salary. Other than the bad feelings, did they get results? When Bezos went ballistic the day before Thanksgiving, did you still fix the bug in time? If not, did it really negativ…

> When Bezos went ballistic the day before Thanksgiving, did you still fix the bug in time?

This is the kind of line of thinking often pursued by poor managers.

Re: Tech workers say poor leadership is number one cause for burnout

#67

Post by ganoushoreilly » Mon, Aug 27, 2018, 3:27 PM UTC

bittcto wrote: post #63

kabdib wrote: post #59

I left my last job largely because of this. Exec-levels couldn't decide on a technical direction for the next big version of a major consumer product, then chose a very bad strategy, which took nearly a year to change to something sane. Well, at least less crazy. Meanwhile, the competition is not stupid and is not crazy and is not waiting for us to get our act together. Suddenly we have a year to do the thing that th…

I believe they hire those “lunatics” because it’s believed that engineers can’t understand business. As an engineer that has started businesses this is BS. It’s really easy to learn business skills, sales and marketing are not difficult, finance is laughably easy. But so long as the companies are being formed to sell equity to VCs you will see them led by frat boys who the VC frat boys recognize... and they will abus…

I half agree, the reality is sales is a tradecraft honed over time. If it were as easy as implied, many more of the Tech founders here on HN would have had their businesses succeed. The truth of the matter is, the us vs them mentality is just as damaging as one side being arrogant. The only way for a good team to work is for each to recognize strengths and weaknesses and for leadership to keep things level headed.

Re: Tech workers say poor leadership is number one cause for burnout

#68

Post by zoomablemind » Mon, Aug 27, 2018, 3:45 PM UTC

padolsey wrote: post #45

shadowsun7 wrote: post #30

This is a woefully inadequate article, and a woefully inadequate survey. So what if 'poor leadership' is the number one cause for burnout? That insight isn't useful. As an employee, I'd like to figure out how to avoid burnout. And as a employer, I'm not sure how to reduce burnout — get better leadership? How do I do that? But it turns out there are good ideas we can try that may be found in the academic literature. C…

Thank you for writing this all up. I found this all really interesting but one question remains: what should we do when we have burnout? It's easy enough to say "just employ one of your coping mechanisms" but presumably there are real resentments underlying the situation? I guess this is the crux really. Is burnout merely an arbitrary expression of exhaustion and overwork, which carries thoughts and resentments that…

The resentment may come from mismatch between personal and job goals. It could be anything, projects, salary, bosses, colleagues. It may be clear from the beginning, or pop mid-course.

With no resolution to the mismatch, it leads to self-repression of the resentment, then to cynicism, and indeed it saps away emotional energy to manage this.

So, it's important to be aware of how the job vs personal goals match. Making the job expectation known to the superiors may as well help keeping the balance. Btw, brown-nosing is a form of negotiation, sure it's not the only way.

Otherwise the burn-out will be more self-inflicted. Also, there're cases that may have no practical ways to balance (culture fit). In this case setting to oneself a limited time-frame to attempt finding the balance (improving the job goals). Then declare 'mission accomplished' and move on (taking the side of personal goals).

Low and time-wasteful work-load (9-5) may as much lead to burn-out as the sweatshop slavery kind. But both environments have those that would flourish there.

Re: Tech workers say poor leadership is number one cause for burnout

#69

Post by smhinsey » Mon, Aug 27, 2018, 3:55 PM UTC

blindwatchmaker wrote: post #66

seanf wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amazon is getting close to a $1T market cap which makes this look more like an argument for hiring non-technical managers. You didn't provide any examples of poor management by the prison guard or DMV manager, other than some jealously about salary. Other than the bad feelings, did they get results? When Bezos went ballistic the day before Thanksgiving, did you still fix the bug in time? If not, did it really negativ…

> When Bezos went ballistic the day before Thanksgiving, did you still fix the bug in time? This is the kind of line of thinking often pursued by poor managers.

Yeah, I think there is a certain mindset for whom "going ballistic" seems like a smart power move that you can use to get results, but in day to day reality, I see it as the ultimate failure to maintain control over the situation. Guys like Bezos can get away with it, but that doesn't make it smart.

Re: Tech workers say poor leadership is number one cause for burnout

#70

Post by blindwatchmaker » Mon, Aug 27, 2018, 4:12 PM UTC

smhinsey wrote: post #69

blindwatchmaker wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> When Bezos went ballistic the day before Thanksgiving, did you still fix the bug in time? This is the kind of line of thinking often pursued by poor managers.

Yeah, I think there is a certain mindset for whom "going ballistic" seems like a smart power move that you can use to get results, but in day to day reality, I see it as the ultimate failure to maintain control over the situation. Guys like Bezos can get away with it, but that doesn't make it smart.

It's not even the going ballistic part that gets me, but the sequence of events. Management refused to allocate the time to fix tech debt/bugs, this decision comes back to bite them in the ass, GP takes the typical tack that tries to deflect blame away from shitty management decisions.

"Could you, the devs, have fixed this bug under severe time pressure just before a critical sales period instead of when you first identified it?" -> if yes, no problem. Spiritus sancti, management is absolved of their sins.