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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

#51

Post by nilkn »

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…

30 direct reports is an astonishing number, and it makes me feel like you're either onto something brilliant or are crazy and this structure is going to crash and burn once things get really complicated and fast-paced. I suppose it depends on how routine a lot of the work is. You'd be spending a minimum of 15 hours a week just on 1:1s, but I could see that being as high as 20 or 30 hours; 15 is already two full days out of the week. That is, unless you just don't do 1:1s at all, which seems incredibly risky long-term.

Given a six-month check-in and annual review once a year for each report, you'd have a total of 60 such events a year, meaning you'd have at least one annual review or six-month check-in every single week. You'd have to keep up with the unique performance characteristics of 30 different people in order to conduct these reviews in any reasonably useful and professional way that actually encourages real growth. If there's any sort of interpersonal conflict or unexpected project complexity, this could easily burn through enough of your time that you'd have to blow off nearly 30 people in the meantime.

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

#52

Post by nickthemagicman »

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.

Yeah odd. I've always looked at my manager as a glorified very intelligent secretary. At least the ones who aren't tandem managers/engineers/

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

#53

Post by Scarblac »

stunt wrote: post #19
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…

> If managers are getting things done by wielding their authority from the org chart, odds are they aren't great leaders to begin with. Agree. If an organisation has power distance between managers and others, perhaps they have more fundamental problems to begin with. By power I meant the privileges and rights that comes with their responsiblities and tasks. A simple example would be rights to ask for more resources…

At my workplace the organisation is pretty flat (director of IT services is officially the only one above ~25 devs and ops people, and he's busy with sales and long term strategy).

I miss having more people with official power when discussions go on and on without reaching a conclusion, and when there is work that everybody agrees needs doing but nobody wants to do.

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

#54

Post by purple_ducks »

PopeDotNinja wrote: post #38
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…

If you ever have a manager who jokes about being a horrible manner with some weird sense of pride during an interview, don't take the job. I learned the hard way.

I went against my gut feeling and took a job at a I left that job 2 years ago after ~8 months. Mentally fucked me up and it took a long time to recover from the ineptitude and incompetence in that company.

I looked at their glassdoor reviews and the same complaint and comments me & co-workers made when we left 2 years ago are still repeating with people who are joining and leaving today.

Never again going against my gut feeling.

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

#55

Post by PragmaticPulp »

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.

> 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.

I worked at a company that tried this, more or less. It worked well for a few months, until the bad apple employees realized that managers had no power to correct their bad behavior. Then it become a free for all.

Counterintuitively, it created far more bureaucracy than ever before as people started hoarding information, refusing to grant access to shared resources, claiming others' work as their own, and other selfish behaviors.

Bureaucracy is largely reflected through managers, but this experience taught me that bureaucracy isn't necessarily created by the managers. The power structures will organically assemble themselves as people compete for what they think are limited opportunities for raises, promotion, and advancement.

Having healthy management in place to deal with formalized and visible bureaucracy is much better than letting the bureaucracy grow organically in the shadows while pretending it doesn't exist.

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

#57

Post by PopeDotNinja »

purple_ducks wrote: post #54
PopeDotNinja wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you ever have a manager who jokes about being a horrible manner with some weird sense of pride during an interview, don't take the job. I learned the hard way.

I went against my gut feeling and took a job at a I left that job 2 years ago after ~8 months. Mentally fucked me up and it took a long time to recover from the ineptitude and incompetence in that company. I looked at their glassdoor reviews and the same complaint and comments me & co-workers made when we left 2 years ago are still repeating with people who are joining and leaving today. Never again going against my…

I hear ya, and I hope you're doing better now. Working for don't-wannabe manager was not a pleasant experience for me. It took me a good couple months to decompress after that.

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

#58

Post by lonelappde »

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.

That's a project manager or scrum master.

It's hard to find a good one because execs don't like the idea of ICs having assistants, which is one of the perks that execs use to make themselves look better by getting credit for someone else's work without spending their own salary on it.

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

#59

Post by [deleted] »

codingdave wrote: post #7
stunt wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Someone who does burocracy and orga, but hasn't any power They are even less useful without power. Problem is most of the managers are junior in their position. They don't have leadership experience. Often just got a promotion and come up from a different background and only have a few years of experience on management position. Or, they have some experience at different scale. So when they start on a bigger organi…

> 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…

[deleted]

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

#60

Post by Terr_ »

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…

> escalation

Old but relevant: https://www.dilbert.com/strip/1995-01-22

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