41–50 of 144 posts
In larger organisations the main criteria I've noticed for people being promoted is that they want to be promoted and spend most of their time sucking up senior managers - actual performance in their current role frequently has nothing to do with it.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It is even worse. For companies without SME tracks, SMEs find themselves getting almost no raises or comp despite contributing to more and more revenue and/or important/complex work. Then you see stupid things happen, like they find need for and hire 2 or 3 people just so they can justify a 5% raise. Then they find need for and hire more people to justify another 10% raise. Suddenly you have a company with many FTEs…
What does SME, FTE and IC mean?
Yeah, I have been a manager. Acronyms, acronyms, everywhere!
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It is even worse. For companies without SME tracks, SMEs find themselves getting almost no raises or comp despite contributing to more and more revenue and/or important/complex work. Then you see stupid things happen, like they find need for and hire 2 or 3 people just so they can justify a 5% raise. Then they find need for and hire more people to justify another 10% raise. Suddenly you have a company with many FTEs…
What does SME, FTE and IC mean?
I don’t agree with anything in this article. Incompetent managers get promoted because the things they are competent at are not the things their employees want them to be competent at. There is a dichotomy between traits that get people promoted at large companies and traits that make a good manager from the perspective of subordinates. Those traits only sometimes overlap. Thus the whole argument is predicated on a f…
AKA growing the company. This seems like an accomplishment that is very worthy of reward/promotion based on the requirements of ownership (shareholders) and senior management.
How many times do people who are good at their jobs get promoted just because there isnt anywhere else to go? You cant make any more money at the level you are without switching companies so you get stuck going into management. I got promoted to being a manager of a small group just because there wasn't anyone else to do it and I am completely incompetent as a manager of people. I don't enjoy it and didn't ask for it…
> I got promoted to being a manager of a small group just because there wasn't anyone else to do it and I am completely incompetent as a manager of people. I could also easily see someone in that situation, and fully aware of it, accept the promotion purely to avoid getting managed by whoever would be the next in line.
I've also been asked to take on work in engineering because it needed doing and no one better was available.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I dont think I understood or appreciated how unpleasant being a manager is. I like working and doing actual work. What does "incompetent" even mean. Dealing with personnel issues or actually doing valuable work? You get pulled away from doing things of value by having to deal with the interpersonal things that you don't want to do. But you have to do them because people are people. As a result, some of those same peo…
Yeah, most days I am therapist/coach/mom, and while I think I'm actually pretty decent at it, it's not what I want to be doing. It's emotionally exhausting and rarely rewarding.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I dont think I understood or appreciated how unpleasant being a manager is. I like working and doing actual work. What does "incompetent" even mean. Dealing with personnel issues or actually doing valuable work? You get pulled away from doing things of value by having to deal with the interpersonal things that you don't want to do. But you have to do them because people are people. As a result, some of those same peo…
Yeah, most days I am therapist/coach/mom, and while I think I'm actually pretty decent at it, it's not what I want to be doing. It's emotionally exhausting and rarely rewarding.
I don’t agree with anything in this article. Incompetent managers get promoted because the things they are competent at are not the things their employees want them to be competent at. There is a dichotomy between traits that get people promoted at large companies and traits that make a good manager from the perspective of subordinates. Those traits only sometimes overlap. Thus the whole argument is predicated on a f…
You have managed to say a complete truism by simply redefining the word. Edit: "politics, self-promotion, networking, choosing the right (high-visibility) things to work on, taking credit, delivering new revenue and/or new marketable shiny products/services, having the right senior leadership mentors/wing-people." Are these your definitions of competence?
I don’t agree with anything in this article. Incompetent managers get promoted because the things they are competent at are not the things their employees want them to be competent at. There is a dichotomy between traits that get people promoted at large companies and traits that make a good manager from the perspective of subordinates. Those traits only sometimes overlap. Thus the whole argument is predicated on a f…
The reason I ask is that it would seem that natural selection would take over, and if a management style that employees feel good about actually helps the company thrive, then those companies that promote "bad" managers would go out of business and be replaced by ones that promote "good" management style.