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Unlike Babies, the Best Managers Come with Instructions

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Re: Unlike Babies, the Best Managers Come with Instructions

#61

Post by lacker »

exactchange wrote: post #35

Unpopular opinion: In Silicon Valley, people managers can easily be a waste of time and money, and can cause unnecessary drama on your team. Think about the kind of so-called developer who would rather manage people than write code. We still need founders, executives, directors, advisors, etc. don't get me wrong. But has anyone ever come across an engineering manager worth their salt? Why did we start deploying peopl…

I certainly have met engineering managers worth their salt.

The best place to observe the need for management is in teams like, 20 relatively inexperienced engineers, all reporting to a single manager. I have never seen a team like this that is operating at 100% of the engineers’ capabilities. People end up wasting time on disagreements, building things that end up not needed, jumping from emergency to emergency, not using best practices, all sorts of things.

If you find a good manager and split those people into two teams of 10 engineers, that change will make that team much more productive.

Re: Unlike Babies, the Best Managers Come with Instructions

#62

Post by freedomben »

nlh wrote: post #22

To build on what another commenter said, the idea of manager READMEs made perfect sense when they started out a few years ago - here are my quirks, here’s how I operate, etc. The problem is they’ve turned into something that justifies bad behavior more often than not. So many of them have this undercurrent of “I’m an asshole - don’t take it personally!” which is just totally not OK. The solution isn’t to proudly broa…

Very much agree with your analysis here. It's like many, many good ideas that have come up in SV (agile/scrum, OKRs, etc), when looked at as a useful tool for the individual that should be utilized on an individualized basis, they are incredibly useful. When made standard and forced into use-cases and personality types they don't work for, they can be mediocre or even counter-productive. They will also be used in ways not entirely desired, such as for self-promotion, self-justification, gaming things, etc. Managers also tend to get overly prescriptive about how to use the tool (usually a sentence that starts with, "here's how we do $TOOL at $COMPANY" is often heading there).

I've used OKRs, Kanban/agile and many other tools for me at an individual level and loved them. I've had the exact same tools at companies become a waste of time, a point of contention, and only be a "value add" for management.

Re: Unlike Babies, the Best Managers Come with Instructions

#63

Post by joshuamorton »

dchichkov wrote: post #58
mharroun wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Without (competent) engineering leadership. - Whos going to push back and sales and marketing for harassing you directly or taking direct blame for failures? - Who will represent the engineering team in leadship meetings to make sure policies/decisions are made with their needs in mind? - Who's going to fight for your raises and promotions? - Who's going to make sure that there is budget for what engineering needs to…

The examples that you've given are political (represent, push back, take blame, fight), except for the example of keeping records (which is management). Managements role, technical leadership role and politician role are different roles. The required skill sets and experience are different. The outcome of grabbing a wrong role is usually poor. Not confusing politician, technical leader and manager roles is probably a…

I'm curious what a non-political people manager role would look like. IME, people managers are almost solely political: they mediate conflict and make strategic long term decisions based on conflicting priorities.

Re: Unlike Babies, the Best Managers Come with Instructions

#64

Post by joshuamorton »

nostrademons wrote: post #28
rgoulter wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've probably seen 'subordinate' used in the same contexts. 'managee' is awful but is at least analogous to 'employer/employee'.

"Subordinate" seems even worse to me. That institutionalizes the power differential and the idea that managers are "above" their direct reports.

But they are. Like, my manager and I have a good relationship that is usually highly collaborative, but at the end of the day, I'm judged based on doing the things he wants me to do. Why shouldn't we recognize the power differential? It clearly exists.

Re: Unlike Babies, the Best Managers Come with Instructions

#65

Post by nostrademons »

joshuamorton wrote: post #64
nostrademons wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Subordinate" seems even worse to me. That institutionalizes the power differential and the idea that managers are "above" their direct reports.

But they are. Like, my manager and I have a good relationship that is usually highly collaborative, but at the end of the day, I'm judged based on doing the things he wants me to do. Why shouldn't we recognize the power differential? It clearly exists.

So I've had perhaps unusual work experience in that when I've worked for other companies it's been either small startups or Google in its engineer-driven growth phase and the rest of my working life has been on my own startups, but I've found that the best managers think of themselves as facilitators. Their job is to ensure that 1) you're working on projects where your success will lead to the company's success; 2) you're happy; 3) your successes are visible to their management so you get promoted and 4) you don't have any roadblocks in your way. That and to handle the various nitty-gritty administrativa like managing vacation time; family emergencies; conflicts between team members; and performance management.

In companies where management has to explicitly direct the activity of their employees, something has gone seriously wrong. Either the company is not working on something useful to the market and so management is trying to motivate employees to do something pointless anyway; or the company's vision & strategy hasn't been successfully communicated by the CEO so that everybody knows where they fit in; or a manager on a power-trip was promoted into the position; or my values don't align with the company's and I'd be better off elsewhere. In any of those cases the answer is to leave (or if it's my company, fix the problems before hiring more people) and find a company that there's actually a reason to work for. You have one career and there are ~20 million businesses in America to work for (and you can always start your own if no suitable one exists); make it count.

Re: Unlike Babies, the Best Managers Come with Instructions

#66

Post by stlark »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #14

Manager READMEs start out with good intentions, but every example I've seen is flawed for multiple reasons: 1) It's manager-centric. Why would you give employees a guide to their manager when you could give them an "Employee README" that is focused on the new employee? When I join a company, I want to know what's expected of me so I can succeed. If the company delivers this in a form of a manager README then I'll sti…

There's a great blog post that I found by Camille Fournier that touches on things that you've mentioned https://medium.com/@skamille/i-hate-manager-readmes-20a0dd9a..., but I think something of note is at the end on how it can be used as a self-exercise for the manager.

tl;dr, Manager README's are more for the manager than the direct report. It's a great exercise in introspection if kept private and not used as something codified for employees to follow.

Re: Unlike Babies, the Best Managers Come with Instructions

#67

Post by joshuamorton »

nostrademons wrote: post #65
joshuamorton wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But they are. Like, my manager and I have a good relationship that is usually highly collaborative, but at the end of the day, I'm judged based on doing the things he wants me to do. Why shouldn't we recognize the power differential? It clearly exists.

So I've had perhaps unusual work experience in that when I've worked for other companies it's been either small startups or Google in its engineer-driven growth phase and the rest of my working life has been on my own startups, but I've found that the best managers think of themselves as facilitators. Their job is to ensure that 1) you're working on projects where your success will lead to the company's success; 2) y…

I don't really disagree with this, but I don't think it addresses my point.

When values are in alignment, the power imbalance shouldn't matter much. But when there are disagreements within the team, the manager is the one who defines the rules of conflict resolution, or in extreme cases decides the result.

When values are out of alignment vertically the report is left with 3 options: adapt, escalate further, or leave.

The person you escalate to has more power, otherwise it would be pointless to escalate to them. Ignoring that fact seems silly.

Re: Unlike Babies, the Best Managers Come with Instructions

#68

Post by exactchange »

mharroun wrote: post #53
exactchange wrote: post #35

Unpopular opinion: In Silicon Valley, people managers can easily be a waste of time and money, and can cause unnecessary drama on your team. Think about the kind of so-called developer who would rather manage people than write code. We still need founders, executives, directors, advisors, etc. don't get me wrong. But has anyone ever come across an engineering manager worth their salt? Why did we start deploying peopl…

Without (competent) engineering leadership. - Whos going to push back and sales and marketing for harassing you directly or taking direct blame for failures? - Who will represent the engineering team in leadship meetings to make sure policies/decisions are made with their needs in mind? - Who's going to fight for your raises and promotions? - Who's going to make sure that there is budget for what engineering needs to…

Here are the other sides of that coin, to balance out your utopian vision of management:

- Who has the unchecked authority to blame others for their mistakes?

- Who will take direct credit for the work of others?

- Who's going to write a bad performance review of someone they don't like that much?

It goes both ways!

Re: Unlike Babies, the Best Managers Come with Instructions

#69

Post by mharroun »

exactchange wrote: post #68
mharroun wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Without (competent) engineering leadership. - Whos going to push back and sales and marketing for harassing you directly or taking direct blame for failures? - Who will represent the engineering team in leadship meetings to make sure policies/decisions are made with their needs in mind? - Who's going to fight for your raises and promotions? - Who's going to make sure that there is budget for what engineering needs to…

Here are the other sides of that coin, to balance out your utopian vision of management: - Who has the unchecked authority to blame others for their mistakes? - Who will take direct credit for the work of others? - Who's going to write a bad performance review of someone they don't like that much? It goes both ways!

Easy to answer >Who has the unchecked authority to blame others for their mistakes?

No one, its done by committee and/or senior leadership, the team/department with no seat at the table is always at a disadvantage.

>Who will take direct credit for the work of others?

A managers job is to distribute credit and shield blame/failure. This may sound generic but its true... a managers true strength/power/greatness or what ever other BS comes from the strength of their reports. Its extremely short sited to not pass on credit and grow those under you.

>Who's going to write a bad performance review of someone they don't like that much?

A good manager tries to be very objective and doesn't bring personal opinion into reviewing performance. I have had people who I did not like personally who i brought though multiple jobs... good managers respect effective people not people they can get a drink with after work.

Re: Unlike Babies, the Best Managers Come with Instructions

#70

Post by mharroun »

dchichkov wrote: post #58
mharroun wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Without (competent) engineering leadership. - Whos going to push back and sales and marketing for harassing you directly or taking direct blame for failures? - Who will represent the engineering team in leadship meetings to make sure policies/decisions are made with their needs in mind? - Who's going to fight for your raises and promotions? - Who's going to make sure that there is budget for what engineering needs to…

The examples that you've given are political (represent, push back, take blame, fight), except for the example of keeping records (which is management). Managements role, technical leadership role and politician role are different roles. The required skill sets and experience are different. The outcome of grabbing a wrong role is usually poor. Not confusing politician, technical leader and manager roles is probably a…

Management is full of politics... sorry but its true. A true leader must have all the skills needed to properly benefit and support the team.

You look at my examples as negatives... its the wrong way to look at it... thoes other managers of other departments? Are the bad people? No... but they have a job and responsibility to represent their departments and do from their point of view whats best for their team and the company.

I feel like there is a segment of workers in engineering has this weird self damaging hatred for leaders/managers other departments do not have... then thoes same people get pissed when they dont have a leader and their department is glossed over because no one represents them when/where some of the most important decisions are made.

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