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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)

#161

Post by jrockway »

hinkley wrote: post #141
jrockway wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I've learned anything from watching the Senate, it's that 51/49 doesn't drive forward progress. Those 49 will do everything in their power to undermine the 51. If you find your team deadlocked on decisions and you think the way forward is to find a tie-breaking vote, I have bad news for you.

Work is not a democracy but some difficult decisions have to be. I think a lot of the time the arrow points the other way. A boss who can’t or won’t make decisions when pushed to do so also creates an environment where deciding is difficult. Often all it takes is a qualitative comment that one could mistake for leadership, and the guy who won’t be accountable for any decisions is not leading anybody.

Yeah. Making a decision is the first step, but the life of the decision after it's made is vitally important. You can look at Congress getting stuff passed with split votes, but you can also see the other side digging in to undermine the decision. The Affordable Care Act is an example; it passed, it was implemented, but the Republicans are in court every month with a new challenge.

I think you want to aim for consensus building that doesn't have half of the stakeholders spending 100% of their time to get your decision reversed, basically. Maybe it's impossible to build a consensus, and you have to act. That's the value in the tie-breaking vote, and that's what Congress does. But we shouldn't try to model getting things done at work as an epic battle between Blue and Red. That level of polarization is toxic. Maybe Congress can't fix that problem, because they represent 328,000,000 people, but we can aim for something better in a smaller group.

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

#162

Post by ozzy6009 »

Xenophon (c. 430 – 354 BC):

1. “Leaders must always set the highest standard. In a summer campaign, leaders must always endure their share of the sun and the heat and, in winter, the cold and the frost. In all labors, leaders must prove tireless if they want to enjoy the trust of their followers.”

2. "There is small risk a general will be regarded with contempt by those he leads, if, whatever he may have to preach, he shows himself best able to perform."

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

#163

Post by A4ET8a8uTh0 »

random314 wrote: post #61
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…

Very often when folks describe the ideal manager, they are describing themselves.

My first reaction was to disagree, but then I tried to remember the embodiment of 'not-ideal' manager and, in my mind at least, they are basically everything I am not, or at least not want to be.

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

#164

Post by w0mbat »

I think there is actually a U-shaped curve here.

Working for an expert engineer is fun because their expectations are in line with reality, and they don't compel you to solve problems in stupid ways or in the wrong order, because they know how things should work. In any case they understand when to help and when to delegate to you.

Working for a bad engineer is the worst. They criticize smart or elegant solutions because they differ from the stupid way they would have done it. They try to dictate how everything is done because they think they know how, when all they really know is how to fuck things up.

Working for a smart person from a completely different discipline is fun. Say if you are programming CGI special effects for a movie director. They have respect for your different expertise and defer to you when needed. They find joy in your work because to them it's a kind of magic. They don't tell you to solve problems in stupid ways or the wrong order because it's not their area. It's fun that they request impossible tasks sometimes, because working out how to get close to the impossible dream they are imagining is how you get to do your best most innovative work.

Working for a inexperienced person from a different field is also fun. Although they don't know much, they know that, and won't dictate how your job should be done. They will still have appreciation of your expertise. They probably have unrealistic ideas about how long things take, and what is possible, but as long as they are willing to be guided, the project can still turn out OK. Their lack of knowledge of what's possible or how things normally work often leads them to come up with crazy new ideas, and working out how to make those real is my favorite thing.

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

#165

Post by jonas21 »

thesimon wrote: post #147
jonas21 wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If someone figured out how to be a good engineer, they can probably figure out how to be a good manager, too, if they wanted. The "if they wanted" part is key. It's hard to become extremely good at something unless you really enjoy doing it. I'd imagine that most people who are top engineers would rather be doing engineering than anything else. If you make them a manager, they're going to enjoy that less and not be…

> I'd imagine that most people who are top engineers would rather be doing engineering than anything else. Really? I love software development, but I don't think just churning out random CRUD software based on some specs is very interesting. A lot nicer to solve problems of your customers, see how the product makes them happier and think about ways to improve their user experience. Somehow I assumed that's how others…

If the top engineers at your company are churning out random CRUD software from specs, you may want to reconsider where you're working.

Good engineering is about understanding the problems of your customers, designing software that solves these problems, and improving their user experience.

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

#166

Post by seppin »

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,…

> > The reality is that people who achieve in one area are more likely to achieve in others.

This mentality is why we asked Elon Musk what he thought about COVID, and paid attention to what he said like it meant something.

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1240754657263144960

The Halo Effect is particularly bad in SV.

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

#167

Post by skohan »

jonas21 wrote: post #108
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,…

> If someone figured out how to be a good engineer, they can probably figure out how to be a good manager, too, if they wanted. The "if they wanted" part is key. It's hard to become extremely good at something unless you really enjoy doing it. I'd imagine that most people who are top engineers would rather be doing engineering than anything else. If you make them a manager, they're going to enjoy that less and not be…

The cool part about being a technical manager is that you can expand the scale of what you are capable of. So for instance if you ever had an idea like "if only I had infinite time and infinite energy I would do X", you can build a team which has the tools to provide that.

If your goal is to have an impact, you have to be lucky to do this as an engineer. There has to be a structure around you which converts your work into value. As a manager it's much more reliable that you can be the person to create that structure.

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

#169

Post by skohan »

Der_Einzige wrote: post #151
random314 wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Very often when folks describe the ideal manager, they are describing themselves.

Yes, and that's why worker self-management is the proposal one sees from any form of politics that doesn't care for managers -> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Workers%27_self-management To be honest, I would love to work for a place that implements self management even half hartedly. My understanding is that Valve is like that. Valve may not make things on the schedule that people want them to - but no one can deny th…

My perception is that valve has suffered some negative experiences due to bad actors interacting with its radically libertarian labour practices. I don't have insider knowledge, so I could be wrong, but this is the sense I have gotten reading articles over the years about how the IP for VR was handled for instance

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

#170

Post by cwyers »

skohan wrote: post #43
skeeter2020 wrote: post #24

I think the conclusions miss the mark slightly and focus on a symptom of good bosses: they care about tasks from a state of understanding what is required to do them well, they have empathy for the challenges, and respect for the talent in completing them. Obviously the easiest way to get to this perspective is to experience it first-hand, hence the correlation between those who could do the job and being good manage…

> 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…

Even if two traits are positively correlated, they can end up looking negatively correlated when you are selecting on those traits:

https://twitter.com/page_eco/status/1373266475230789633

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