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A study finds that bosses can be useful but also sneaky

economist.com

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Re: A study finds that bosses can be useful but also sneaky

#41

Post by golergka »

Ancalagon wrote: post #40
magashna wrote: post #12

Sure, but a good manager is the one who's sneaky on your behalf. Telling stakeholders a longer timeline than necessary, boosting your accomplishments so you get a raise, taking the bullet from execs, those are all kinda sneaky but I sure as hell respected the managers who did that for stuff for me. The manager you don't want throws you under the bus, over promises and demands crunch, takes the credit for your work. E…

Honest question, which of the two kinds of managers are the ones that get promoted more often?

Depends on the health of the organization.

Re: A study finds that bosses can be useful but also sneaky

#42

Post by Hokusai »

magashna wrote: post #12

Sure, but a good manager is the one who's sneaky on your behalf. Telling stakeholders a longer timeline than necessary, boosting your accomplishments so you get a raise, taking the bullet from execs, those are all kinda sneaky but I sure as hell respected the managers who did that for stuff for me. The manager you don't want throws you under the bus, over promises and demands crunch, takes the credit for your work. E…

> Telling stakeholders a longer timeline than necessary

I understand what you mean, but this only creates a escalation problem. Everybody has to lie to get anything done. So, it is impossible to know if the decisions taken in the company are reasonable or not.

I guess that this behavior makes sense if everybody up the ladder are themselves lying.

> taking the bullet from execs

I guess that this is part of the same type of company. Where execs punish mistakes, like if mistakes were not part of your job. I have seen such companies driven by fear and the irony of it is that everybody is unhappy and mistakes are repeated again and again as the goal is just o hide them not to learn from it.

> The manager you don't want throws you under the bus, over promises and demands crunch, takes the credit for your work. Equally sneaky, but selfish.

I guess that this is the manager that ends being promoted to be an exec and creates a new cycle of unreason, pain and lack of productivity.

Re: A study finds that bosses can be useful but also sneaky

#43

Post by 1_player »

I've recently landed in a managerial role. If there's one thing I've learned is that your primary role is to shelter the people under you from all the shit that's coming from above (like that famous comic of the birds on a pole pooping on the ones at the bottom.)

If your boss asks to deliver an _unreasonable request_ by tomorrow, your job is not to make sure it's delivered on time, your job is to say "No."

Might seem obvious but very few managers I've worked under learned that lesson, that's the reason managers are seen as being useless. A good manager promotes a healthy workplace.

I haven't kept up with it, but I used to read https://randsinrepose.com — some interesting insight from a software engineering manager.

Re: A study finds that bosses can be useful but also sneaky

#44

Post by jl2718 »

mzanchi wrote: post #39
k__ wrote: post #2

People often talk about the extemes. Managers or no managers. Why can't we have something in-between? Like, instead of a manager, we have a team assistant. Someone who does burocracy and orga, but hasn't any power and the power is exercied in some way by all of the team members. This would remove the "if all do it no one does it" problem and still prevent single people decisions.

This has been in my mind recently. I am head of development at a startup and have something like 30 direct reports. I don't want to be doing this job for a long time, and am maneuvering the team structure to make myself redundant with the following actions: - I am trying to convince the execs and HR to increase pay transparency and to reward people who want to progress in their careers as engineers more than those wh…

This solution sums up the problem. When you have many of those dev leads, the least capable among them will be promoted to be their leader. This is human nature in group formation.

Re: A study finds that bosses can be useful but also sneaky

#45

Post by magashna »

Hokusai wrote: post #42
magashna wrote: post #12

Sure, but a good manager is the one who's sneaky on your behalf. Telling stakeholders a longer timeline than necessary, boosting your accomplishments so you get a raise, taking the bullet from execs, those are all kinda sneaky but I sure as hell respected the managers who did that for stuff for me. The manager you don't want throws you under the bus, over promises and demands crunch, takes the credit for your work. E…

> Telling stakeholders a longer timeline than necessary I understand what you mean, but this only creates a escalation problem. Everybody has to lie to get anything done. So, it is impossible to know if the decisions taken in the company are reasonable or not. I guess that this behavior makes sense if everybody up the ladder are themselves lying. > taking the bullet from execs I guess that this is part of the same ty…

Most companies are not that perfect unicorn. I worked at a Berkshire Hathaway company and was constantly going to war with upper management over bullshit. My direct manager was a saint, and while the company was doing well, I can't deny it seemed everyone hated it there. I'm happy at a much smaller company.

Re: A study finds that bosses can be useful but also sneaky

#46

Post by jl2718 »

k__ wrote: post #18
codingdave wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They are even less useful without power. If managers are getting things done by wielding their authority from the org chart, odds are they aren't great leaders to begin with. In most organizations, leaders arise naturally, and they don't always match the org chart. Wise managers let those people shine, and help them succeed. Then the informal leaders help the team succeed, and the manager gets what they want becaus…

"leaders arise naturally, and they don't always match the org chart. Wise managers let those people shine" Two points I see here. 1. managers are placed above the real leaders artificially 2. leaders arise without any formal process The first point is what systems like Holocracy want to eliminate. The second point is what Holocracy leads to, some people following leaders and nobody really knows who that leader is. My…

RE: hidden leader wreaking havoc ...

Humans tend to fear competence more than incompetence. It’s the same cognitive bias as loss aversion.

Re: A study finds that bosses can be useful but also sneaky

#47

Post by nilkn »

cgarvis wrote: post #32
k__ wrote: post #2

People often talk about the extemes. Managers or no managers. Why can't we have something in-between? Like, instead of a manager, we have a team assistant. Someone who does burocracy and orga, but hasn't any power and the power is exercied in some way by all of the team members. This would remove the "if all do it no one does it" problem and still prevent single people decisions.

At Slalom _build[1], we have People Managers and Team Leads. Your people manager stays with you as you transition from project to project. They never have more than six direct reports. They are the person that handles all the bureaucracy for you and helping you through the org. Your team lead is sometimes a people manager but probably not yours. They change based on the project you are on and are responsible for it's…

This is the organization of the company I work at. Overall I've learned through experience that this decoupled structure is nice in theory and it's useful to have as an option, but it should actually be avoided in practice if at all possible. A developer can end up in a situation where their boss (people manager) really doesn't know about or understand their day-to-day work at all, and then their team lead may be vying for authority over the team with a project manager and product owner, all of whom report in different organizations and have different motivations and incentives.

Re: A study finds that bosses can be useful but also sneaky

#48

Post by ShteiLoups »

k__ wrote: post #2

People often talk about the extemes. Managers or no managers. Why can't we have something in-between? Like, instead of a manager, we have a team assistant. Someone who does burocracy and orga, but hasn't any power and the power is exercied in some way by all of the team members. This would remove the "if all do it no one does it" problem and still prevent single people decisions.

Well that's just what a manager should be doing. Their job is to ensure everyone else can work. Quite literally a "production assistant". They should deal with all the BS that workers don't want to, so they can get to the real work. Which is the main flaw in promoting workers to management, as they're two entirely different sets of skills.

There's a post on joelonsoftware about this, and I think it constitutes most of the first few chapters of the book peopleware.

Re: A study finds that bosses can be useful but also sneaky

#49

Post by k__ »

ShteiLoups wrote: post #48
k__ wrote: post #2

People often talk about the extemes. Managers or no managers. Why can't we have something in-between? Like, instead of a manager, we have a team assistant. Someone who does burocracy and orga, but hasn't any power and the power is exercied in some way by all of the team members. This would remove the "if all do it no one does it" problem and still prevent single people decisions.

Well that's just what a manager should be doing. Their job is to ensure everyone else can work. Quite literally a "production assistant". They should deal with all the BS that workers don't want to, so they can get to the real work. Which is the main flaw in promoting workers to management, as they're two entirely different sets of skills. There's a post on joelonsoftware about this, and I think it constitutes most o…

Well, you aren't wrong.

In my opinion the problem is just that managers are seen as people in positions of power, this needs to go away.

Creating a new role with new naming would get rid of all the baggage.

Re: A study finds that bosses can be useful but also sneaky

#50

Post by [deleted] »

1_player wrote: post #43

I've recently landed in a managerial role. If there's one thing I've learned is that your primary role is to shelter the people under you from all the shit that's coming from above (like that famous comic of the birds on a pole pooping on the ones at the bottom.) If your boss asks to deliver an _unreasonable request_ by tomorrow, your job is not to make sure it's delivered on time, your job is to say "No." Might seem…

[deleted]
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