Employees are happier when led by people with deep expertise (2016)
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Re: Employees are happier when led by people with deep expertise (2016)
#2I was personally taught by the store manager of a supermarket how to sweep the floor and of course that built respect for him and the organization. (e.g. he knew how to do every little task like sweep the floor, cut meat in the deli, bake bread, etc.)
The (now retied) director of the art museum at Cornell could be seen out in his suit passing out pamphlets for an exhibition together with students promoting clubs and concerts.
Go to the exhibition and he'll personally give a talk about the art that will help you appreciate anything from a suit of Samurai armor to Mark Lombardi's conspiracy diagrams. It's nice to see the top guy, who performs like a top guy, doing the simple work.
Re: Employees are happier when led by people with deep expertise (2016)
#3"If Your Boss Could Do Your Job"
Anecdote: in one of the law firms whole departments were sent to LWOP due COVID-19 and department heads had to do all the work themselves. They found out that they are perfectly capable of singlehandedly doing the job of the whole department.
My take: if your boss can do your job, you're not needed.
Re: Employees are happier when led by people with deep expertise (2016)
#4I don't mind if my boss can't do my job. I mind if my boss can't do my job AND tells me how I should do it.
The major difference there is one is support and tracking, the other is just incompetent in all areas if management.
Re: Employees are happier when led by people with deep expertise (2016)
#5On the other hand, if your boss thinks he can do your job (and do it even better than you), while in fact he can't – you will get the worst nightmare.
Re: Employees are happier when led by people with deep expertise (2016)
#6"If Your Boss Could Do Your Job" Anecdote: in one of the law firms whole departments were sent to LWOP due COVID-19 and department heads had to do all the work themselves. They found out that they are perfectly capable of singlehandedly doing the job of the whole department. My take: if your boss can do your job, you're not needed.
It’s hard to see this happening with the rate structures that most firms use. Clients don’t want to pay partner level rates for junior associate work.
Re: Employees are happier when led by people with deep expertise (2016)
#7"If Your Boss Could Do Your Job" Anecdote: in one of the law firms whole departments were sent to LWOP due COVID-19 and department heads had to do all the work themselves. They found out that they are perfectly capable of singlehandedly doing the job of the whole department. My take: if your boss can do your job, you're not needed.
Then that boss is failing to scale his/her team properly. It's not really a point of pride if one person can singlehandedly replace all their reports, imo.
Re: Employees are happier when led by people with deep expertise (2016)
#8"If Your Boss Could Do Your Job" Anecdote: in one of the law firms whole departments were sent to LWOP due COVID-19 and department heads had to do all the work themselves. They found out that they are perfectly capable of singlehandedly doing the job of the whole department. My take: if your boss can do your job, you're not needed.
> My take: if your boss can do your job, you're not needed.
If your boss can do your work, has the time to do your work (eg there isn't enough work), the work doesn't need to be done in parallel, and can do similar quality work, and is willing to do that work, you're not needed.
That's the takeaway, without oversimplification, which makes sense.
Re: Employees are happier when led by people with deep expertise (2016)
#9"If Your Boss Could Do Your Job" Anecdote: in one of the law firms whole departments were sent to LWOP due COVID-19 and department heads had to do all the work themselves. They found out that they are perfectly capable of singlehandedly doing the job of the whole department. My take: if your boss can do your job, you're not needed.
Seems like those department heads are bad at scaling up their department's services to adequately utilize the resources at their disposal. They're probably arrogant pricks who make everything flow through them anyway, meaning they're the bottleneck that caused the slowdown in the first place.
Re: Employees are happier when led by people with deep expertise (2016)
#10Plenty of previous discussion here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13481218