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Design Patterns for Managing Up

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Re: Design Patterns for Managing Up

#11

Post by User23 »

dl92 wrote: post #10
User23 wrote: post #8

My favorite managing up pattern is the Feynman estimation technique. During the Manhattan project he and others were asked to report on what they would be discovering in the next quarter. Since they were doing groundbreaking work nobody had a clue how to answer and this caused the researchers a great deal of stress. Then they realized they could just hold back 3 months worth of results and “estimate” the discoveries…

Strikes me as a method that would work very well in a world before business analytics audits and KPIs.

Just need a management consultant to give it a clever name like "superscalar project management" and some powerpoint slides and you're good to go.

Re: Design Patterns for Managing Up

#12

Post by yeahitslikethat »

motohagiography wrote: post #3

Concise articulation, and valuable. My comment is that this is happy-path advice. Corporate culture has changed to where instead of handling conflict according to principle (e.g. Harvard negotiation project, getting to yes, principled negotiations etc), today people are trained to out-passive each other, and marshal political campaigns to isolate opposition. (salience, political survival, working the ref, etc.) The m…

You're higher up the food chain than the audience of that article. Just keep doing your job better than they do their job and vent to allies behind closed doors.

There's a guy on our team who does #1 one in the article ALL the time. NNP who slows the team by 25% probably.

No one knows how to make him stop. Everyone is politely tapping on his fishbowl and it hasn't worked yet for like months.

Re: Design Patterns for Managing Up

#13

Post by yeahitslikethat »

dpweb wrote: post #9
motohagiography wrote: post #3

Concise articulation, and valuable. My comment is that this is happy-path advice. Corporate culture has changed to where instead of handling conflict according to principle (e.g. Harvard negotiation project, getting to yes, principled negotiations etc), today people are trained to out-passive each other, and marshal political campaigns to isolate opposition. (salience, political survival, working the ref, etc.) The m…

Usually the technologist is not even in the room with the business leaders. Your manager or their manager is. You want to be (and be seen as) valuable. You have to depend on your manager to vouch for you. If you have a complete asshole political or whatever manager, you must find another job. Don’t bother swimming against the tide. But its a whole other language that business leaders speak. Different etiquette. At le…

Not caring if they fire you but wanting to stay and make life better for your coworkers everyday is the place to be if you can find it.

Re: Design Patterns for Managing Up

#14

Post by yeahitslikethat »

PaulHoule wrote: post #4
motohagiography wrote: post #3

Concise articulation, and valuable. My comment is that this is happy-path advice. Corporate culture has changed to where instead of handling conflict according to principle (e.g. Harvard negotiation project, getting to yes, principled negotiations etc), today people are trained to out-passive each other, and marshal political campaigns to isolate opposition. (salience, political survival, working the ref, etc.) The m…

Sometimes when the "knives are out" you can't win or why would you want to?

We, the bold and productive, have to stand up to that kind of stuff. Else they by attrition.

Re: Design Patterns for Managing Up

#15

Post by rainlab »

User23 wrote: post #8

My favorite managing up pattern is the Feynman estimation technique. During the Manhattan project he and others were asked to report on what they would be discovering in the next quarter. Since they were doing groundbreaking work nobody had a clue how to answer and this caused the researchers a great deal of stress. Then they realized they could just hold back 3 months worth of results and “estimate” the discoveries…

Do you have a source for this (maybe an autobiography or some blog article)? I'd love to read more on the story leading up to him deciding to go with this strategy.

Re: Design Patterns for Managing Up

#16

Post by User23 »

rainlab wrote: post #15
User23 wrote: post #8

My favorite managing up pattern is the Feynman estimation technique. During the Manhattan project he and others were asked to report on what they would be discovering in the next quarter. Since they were doing groundbreaking work nobody had a clue how to answer and this caused the researchers a great deal of stress. Then they realized they could just hold back 3 months worth of results and “estimate” the discoveries…

Do you have a source for this (maybe an autobiography or some blog article)? I'd love to read more on the story leading up to him deciding to go with this strategy.

I don't recall the exact book. It was one of the collections of anecdotes. Maybe, Surely You're Joking Mr Feynman? Otherwise What Do You Care What Other People Think? or The Pleasure of Finding Things Out.

Re: Design Patterns for Managing Up

#19

Post by dyu »

User23 wrote: post #8

My favorite managing up pattern is the Feynman estimation technique. During the Manhattan project he and others were asked to report on what they would be discovering in the next quarter. Since they were doing groundbreaking work nobody had a clue how to answer and this caused the researchers a great deal of stress. Then they realized they could just hold back 3 months worth of results and “estimate” the discoveries…

Also used in research grant proposals

Re: Design Patterns for Managing Up

#20

Post by thesumofall »

I believe the better approach to #1 is to:

- say that you’re not sure

- articulate an hypothesis of what it might be to the best of your knowledge (it's likely you’re going to be 80% right)

- propose to launch an effort / work stream / project to figure it out

In many cases managers are just happy with an 80% answer and will reject to waste efforts to dive deeper. Managers can deal with uncertainty and with situations where the 80% answer is wrong. What they typically don’t like is being stalled

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