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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)

#131

Post by skohan »

_y5hn wrote: post #127
chasd00 wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it's the opposite really, a good manager is rare because being a good manager is very very hard and takes an enormous amount of both study and experience. Being a good manager is like being a therapist for a dozen people with deadlines on mental health. The soft skills required cannot be acquired from reading the documentation.

When the work is managed well there's never need for escalations, defusing, death marches and therapy.

But I think the parent comment's point is that this can be a very challenging job. A good manager's task is to absorb the chaos of the outside world, and give the team a calm, structured workflow. It's easy to see where a manager is failing, but if they're doing their job right their work is invisible.

Re: Employees are happier when led by people with deep expertise (2016)

#134

Post by ska »

s17n wrote: post #107
lamp_book wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It sounds like you're saying that top-tier engineers are not generally qualified in terms of non-technical requirements, and I don't know that this assertion is justified. I see this sentiment or implication that technical skills and people skills are somehow mutually exclusive often, even on here which is crazy. I think this stems from some broader trope that people are "balanced" like RPG characters or something,…

> The reality is that people who achieve in one area are more likely to achieve in others. Aptitude is in general going to be either uncorrelated or positively correlated across different areas, but time invested is going to be negatively correlated. Hence the stereotype of nerds with poor social skills: building social skills takes time and effort, and time and effort spent on building those skills is time and effor…

> But you're not going to find too many organizations staffed entirely by those people.

The number you are looking for here is zero, at least for organizations of any size. With a bunch of luck and money you can put a small team together like this; otherwise they are just too scarce.

Re: Employees are happier when led by people with deep expertise (2016)

#135

Post by cwkoss »

In Japanese, 'Jyozu', the word for "good at doing ___", is the same as the word for "likes to do ___". I think the idea that these two distinct English concepts are in fact the same is very interesting.

Perhaps a significant effect is that people with deep expertise tend to be much more passionate about their job, because without passion they could not have developed deep expertise.

Re: Employees are happier when led by people with deep expertise (2016)

#137

Post by AbrahamParangi »

lamp_book wrote: post #80
skohan wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> probably not top 5-10%, because they also cared about the non-technical requirements that a good manager needs to cover It sounds like you're saying that top-tier engineers are not generally qualified in terms of non-technical requirements, and I don't know that this assertion is justified. From my perspective, as a relatively new technical manager who also spent years as an engineer working with technical managers…

> It sounds like you're saying that top-tier engineers are not generally qualified in terms of non-technical requirements, and I don't know that this assertion is justified. I see this sentiment or implication that technical skills and people skills are somehow mutually exclusive often, even on here which is crazy. I think this stems from some broader trope that people are "balanced" like RPG characters or something,…

While aptitude correlates with aptitude, at a given level of accomplishment they may be anti-correlated due to Berkson's paradox[1].

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berkson%27s_paradox

Re: Employees are happier when led by people with deep expertise (2016)

#138

Post by Spooky23 »

It’s fairly obvious but surprising coming from HBR.

If you’re in a leadership position, you generally get there by being a subject matter expert, a professional manager (ie money person) or an attorney.

Being able to walk a mile in someone’s shoes means a lot.

Re: Employees are happier when led by people with deep expertise (2016)

#139

Post by nicoburns »

lamp_book wrote: post #118
s17n wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The reality is that people who achieve in one area are more likely to achieve in others. Aptitude is in general going to be either uncorrelated or positively correlated across different areas, but time invested is going to be negatively correlated. Hence the stereotype of nerds with poor social skills: building social skills takes time and effort, and time and effort spent on building those skills is time and effor…

Yes, you make some good points here but I would argue that in most organizations that skills that make for effective engineering are aligned well with those required for managing. At a certain point, reinvesting into programming ability sees diminishing returns and ROI on e.g. mentorship, task planning and delegation out-paces improvement in technical skills dramatically. Of course, this is not universal and there ar…

> At a certain point, reinvesting into programming ability sees diminishing returns and ROI on e.g. mentorship, task planning and delegation out-paces improvement in technical skills dramatically.

True, but this may not be seen as relevant to the individual if they enjoy engineering more than those other things.

Re: Employees are happier when led by people with deep expertise (2016)

#140

Post by samvher »

datavirtue wrote: post #117
TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They might. But it could easily take a few years, during which time they'll very likely be a mediocre to poor manager. Expecting someone with five years of engineering experience to become an effective manager overnight - often with no training or mentorship at all - makes as much sense as expecting an intern to operate at the same level as a senior on Day 1. Even really smart people with multiple talents need more o…

Hopefully it is never an overnight switch and the engineer's career goals are respected. Any non-shite company is going to have engineers taking on leadership responsibilities at various levels they are comfortable with before turning them full loose. In some companies, like Gore Industries, and other employee owned entities the engineers and operations people organically select their own supervisors by consensus and…

That sounds fantastic, I wished it was easy to find places like that.
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