Why Fair Bosses Fall Behind • Hacker News Board

Re: Why Fair Bosses Fall Behind

#21

Post by mh_ » Sun, Jul 03, 2011, 11:39 PM UTC

j_baker wrote: post #13

axiom wrote: post #4

I've had 3 kinds of bosses: 1. Hardass who pushes everyone to the limit, tends to micro-manage, frequently overrules consensus with his own views. 2. Total pushover who agrees with everything. Constantly seeks consensus and rule by democracy, never pushes anyone and just tries to be everyone's friend. 3. Somewhere in between the two above. Seeks consensus and lets people make mistakes in order to help them learn. Som…

The thing about #1 is that they probably aren't trying to help the company succeed. It's more likely that they're trying to take the company for a ride to meet their own ends. Any success they have is only going to be in the short term and only in the interests of posturing. Steve Jobs and Bill Gates can get away with this because their companies by and large are theirs. While #2 isn't a very effective leader, their…

Also: > Great leaders are like surfers riding a big wave. > It's easy to get distracted by the surfer and forget that the wave is really the important part.

Erm.. no.. The same wave rolls in for everyone. It's the skilled, hardworking (sometimes lucky) surfer who makes it a world class ride..

Re: Why Fair Bosses Fall Behind

#22

Post by stayjin » Sun, Jul 03, 2011, 11:42 PM UTC

Last year I've been working on an unconventional idea of mine: After a project at which I was the project manager, I get into a project managed by someone else, as a team member. This has several advantages: -It gives me perspective: manager is a function, not a position or a personality obsession. -I get to see things from the other side regularly: sometimes I find that in the previous project I was managing I have been unreasonable. -I lead by example: people become very motivated when they see me coding or testing ( as a bonus, I get to keep my coding skills sharp :-)

Of course, this is Japan and one can still get the credit for doing work behind the scene but I think it is an interesting idea to hack the "soft boss-hard boss" paradigm

Re: Why Fair Bosses Fall Behind

#23

Post by jerf » Mon, Jul 04, 2011, 12:13 AM UTC

j_baker wrote: post #13

axiom wrote: post #4

I've had 3 kinds of bosses: 1. Hardass who pushes everyone to the limit, tends to micro-manage, frequently overrules consensus with his own views. 2. Total pushover who agrees with everything. Constantly seeks consensus and rule by democracy, never pushes anyone and just tries to be everyone's friend. 3. Somewhere in between the two above. Seeks consensus and lets people make mistakes in order to help them learn. Som…

The thing about #1 is that they probably aren't trying to help the company succeed. It's more likely that they're trying to take the company for a ride to meet their own ends. Any success they have is only going to be in the short term and only in the interests of posturing. Steve Jobs and Bill Gates can get away with this because their companies by and large are theirs. While #2 isn't a very effective leader, their…

"Great leaders are like surfers riding a big wave. It's easy to get distracted by the surfer and forget that the wave is really the important part."

I used to think that. I've recanted. I'm still not 100% sure why leaders are so important, but the evidence I've personally seen over the years is pretty clear.

My best guesses are some combination of:

1. It is true that the performance of a team is given an upper bound by both the quality of the team and the quality of the leadership, but people tend to badly underestimate how much quality and talent there is in the world. The average person is above average in some significant way. I would agree world-class results require a world-class team, but I think in general, for a given "random" [1] selection of team and task, it's a rare time when the core problem is a true lack of talent. Don't get me wrong, I'm sure it happens, but I've never personally witnessed it in 15 years. Whereas, I've personally witnessed many teams failing to live up to their obvious potential because of bad leadership. So, in a sort of mathematical sense it is true that neither leadership nor team talent is more important, in practice, leadership is the thing for which demand is much higher than supply, not team talent.

2. It is true the team is who provides the day-to-day progress on a problem, but it's generally the leadership making a lot of little decisions that add up over time; little words that affect morale, small key decisions that affect efficiency by a few percent, that little bit of vision-from-experience that avoids blowing a few days on a bad path, the careful selection of problems to personally take on. It adds up to a lot, and especially when the leadership is blowing these little calls consistently, no team is good enough to undo the damage... especially when the leadership actively prevents it!

I do agree that it's important not to fetishize leadership and never to forget the team gets much credit too, but over the years my estimation of the importance of true leadership has been going consistently up, not down.

[1]: By "random" I don't literally mean five people uniformly randomly chosen from everybody on planet Earth, but something more like, go out to a random company and get a random team working on some problem, and it is unlikely that the most pressing problem the team has is a raw lack of talent to complete the assigned task. Again, totally non-zero of course.

Re: Why Fair Bosses Fall Behind

#24

Post by razzmataz » Mon, Jul 04, 2011, 1:00 AM UTC

larsberg wrote: post #18

j_baker wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thing about #1 is that they probably aren't trying to help the company succeed. It's more likely that they're trying to take the company for a ride to meet their own ends. Any success they have is only going to be in the short term and only in the interests of posturing. Steve Jobs and Bill Gates can get away with this because their companies by and large are theirs. While #2 isn't a very effective leader, their…

> their heart is usually at least in the right place I've normally seen that people in role #2 are just not prepared for the hard conversations that come with being a manager. Sometimes, you have to call people out on poor or below-potential performance. If you do, I've found that most people will either pick up the pace or quit. If you don't, well... things get bad. The unfortunate chaps in role #2 leave poor perfor…

I've seen type #1 managers alienate top notch developers due to a lack of being able take constructive criticism, and in general not knowing jack about software development. I've seen fantastic people who were canned due to minor technical disagreements with management while poor performers were left around to cause damage in addition to poisoning moral. I've seen people get the "we expect you to be doing X, Y, and Z at your level, none of which you are" talk, and when they those folks leave, everything falls apart, because either the expectations were bogus, or it really was a personal issue with the boss and the person in question. I've seen junior developers (with talent and potential) languish because they were given zero guidance, yet expected to perform at the level of a senior dev by a type #1 manager without any expectations being presented.

I really don't think you can group managers into these two distinct camps. Maybe you need to have an axis or two extra for rating things like technical competence and interpersonal skills...

Re: Why Fair Bosses Fall Behind

#25

Post by Duff » Mon, Jul 04, 2011, 1:22 AM UTC

axiom wrote: post #4

I've had 3 kinds of bosses: 1. Hardass who pushes everyone to the limit, tends to micro-manage, frequently overrules consensus with his own views. 2. Total pushover who agrees with everything. Constantly seeks consensus and rule by democracy, never pushes anyone and just tries to be everyone's friend. 3. Somewhere in between the two above. Seeks consensus and lets people make mistakes in order to help them learn. Som…

Your example #1 is a destructive narcissist. #2 is a Laissez-faire type in an inappropriate situation.

Corporate cultures tend to produce explicit or cultural incentives that encourage particular leadership styles. Government is a great example -- senior leadership in the bureaucracy tends to attract various types of narcissists (ie political appointees). Mid-level managers tend to be incented to avoid risk at any cost. (ie. don't rock the boat)

Re: Why Fair Bosses Fall Behind

#26

Post by Duff » Mon, Jul 04, 2011, 1:28 AM UTC

fedd wrote: post #11

nate23342 wrote: post #6

This does not take into account the company they work for. Bosses at a company that pay 40% more than average have more options that bosses that work at companies that pay 10% less than average.

to make people work for 10% less than average is a real managerial art. they use irrelevant motivations (like 'are you a man', 'you gave a word'), deceive people, flatter, promote jerks to make tension in the team and so forth. and even make some bullshit (rarely good things, i think) done. at least what i see here in my city/country. it's easy to have power based on money, but sometimes not that efficient, they thin…

You're describing a bully.

As long as compensation is enough to afford whatever you need to live, bullying is generally the worst motivator. Employees learn quickly that they can produce just enough to not get fired -- then they do so.

Re: Why Fair Bosses Fall Behind

#27

Post by larsberg » Mon, Jul 04, 2011, 1:38 AM UTC

razzmataz wrote: post #24

larsberg wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> their heart is usually at least in the right place I've normally seen that people in role #2 are just not prepared for the hard conversations that come with being a manager. Sometimes, you have to call people out on poor or below-potential performance. If you do, I've found that most people will either pick up the pace or quit. If you don't, well... things get bad. The unfortunate chaps in role #2 leave poor perfor…

I've seen type #1 managers alienate top notch developers due to a lack of being able take constructive criticism, and in general not knowing jack about software development. I've seen fantastic people who were canned due to minor technical disagreements with management while poor performers were left around to cause damage in addition to poisoning moral. I've seen people get the "we expect you to be doing X, Y, and Z…

That's certainly true, and I apologize if I made it seem like I was encouraging type #1, in particular the "tends to micro-manage, frequently overrules consensus with his own views." Micro-managing your reports is a sign that you're either working on the wrong problems, your organization has span of control issues (i.e. you only have three directs), or you've got too many extremely junior/new-college hires who aren't yet capable of independent work. And if you need to overrule consensus, you failed to be clear about what success would be measured against when you delegated. These are pretty basic issues, but shops can certainly get them wrong.

I guess, if nothing else, I'd argue that managers need training. I'm of course biased, but the training they provided at MSFT, particularly at the manager-of-managers level, was just fantastic. I only wish it had been available to people lower on the hierarchy so they could have learned about these mistakes as their scope grew and not after it had!

Re: Why Fair Bosses Fall Behind

#28

Post by frankwiles » Mon, Jul 04, 2011, 1:47 AM UTC

These types of studies are flawed in that they assume the same technique works with different people in different situations. The best managers, bosses, founders, etc realize you have to treat different people and situations differently, it's constant adaptation to the situation at hand. Doing that is hard and more art than science.

Re: Why Fair Bosses Fall Behind

#29

Post by jamesbkel » Mon, Jul 04, 2011, 1:56 AM UTC

jerf wrote: post #23

j_baker wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thing about #1 is that they probably aren't trying to help the company succeed. It's more likely that they're trying to take the company for a ride to meet their own ends. Any success they have is only going to be in the short term and only in the interests of posturing. Steve Jobs and Bill Gates can get away with this because their companies by and large are theirs. While #2 isn't a very effective leader, their…

"Great leaders are like surfers riding a big wave. It's easy to get distracted by the surfer and forget that the wave is really the important part." I used to think that. I've recanted. I'm still not 100% sure why leaders are so important, but the evidence I've personally seen over the years is pretty clear. My best guesses are some combination of: 1. It is true that the performance of a team is given an upper bound…

>"I do agree that it's important not to fetishize leadership and never to forget the team gets much credit too, but over the years my estimation of the importance of true leadership has been going consistently up, not down."

Agreed. I've worked with some great teams, but if there's not clear leadership (and specifically, good communication) things fall apart. I understand that certain decisions need to be made by the founders, but when there is no good communication and they are pivoting like an elementary school basketball player, it doesn't turn out well.

Re: Why Fair Bosses Fall Behind

#30

Post by SoftwareMaven » Mon, Jul 04, 2011, 2:37 AM UTC

The first time I managed a team, I learned a critical lesson: a managem must manage upwards and sideways as well as down.

I had a great team and I busted my butt for them. They had better hardware than other teams, were better educated (conferences and working with others in the company besides engineering), and had more fun doing their job.

Mostly, this was able to happen because I asked my boss. but due to my sibling managers not being willing to ask, a lot of hostility grew between other teams and me.

Instead of addressing that, i said "F it" and kept focusing on my team. By the time I figured out I shouldn't have done that, it really was too late. Seven years busting my butt to make a project successful under very bad conditions with reasonable success, and I leave with few people who know what I accomplished, how i did it or anything, but instead, they have overall negative feelings towards me.

In short, if you are a manager, you're job is much more than just the people on your team. Don't forget it.