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Why Fair Bosses Fall Behind

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Re: Why Fair Bosses Fall Behind

#31

Post by dkarl »

SoftwareMaven wrote: post #30

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 sibl…

Your peers might have been asking for better equipment and a bigger training budget and getting turned down. They wouldn't have admitted it, because it would have made them look weak, and it would explain their resentment toward you and their lack of appreciation for the results you got.

Re: Why Fair Bosses Fall Behind

#32

Post by skarayan »

SoftwareMaven wrote: post #30

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 sibl…

I've had a similar experience. While I had a good relationship with my team, other managers (that worked for my manager), and the business, I had a very poor relationship with the infrastructure team.

If you have worked in an Enterprise, you realize that nearly all deployments have to go through the infrastructure team including DBAs, Unix/Windows teams, and Network.

Instead of trying to work with them, I tried to bypass them at every opportunity. I wanted to get things done faster, but in the long term everything became an uphill battle.

Now I realize that part of being a good manager is also being a good team player with everyone involved. Instead of trying to bypass them, I should have communicated better to come up with mutually benficial solution.

Re: Why Fair Bosses Fall Behind

#33

Post by SoftwareMaven »

skarayan wrote: post #32
SoftwareMaven wrote: post #30

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 sibl…

I've had a similar experience. While I had a good relationship with my team, other managers (that worked for my manager), and the business, I had a very poor relationship with the infrastructure team. If you have worked in an Enterprise, you realize that nearly all deployments have to go through the infrastructure team including DBAs, Unix/Windows teams, and Network. Instead of trying to work with them, I tried to by…

Ouch! You tried to bypass infrastructure? That isn't going to go well! :)

I know the feeling, though. I had a different position that had me strattelling the line between dev and ops. I reported to the dev side, but my team really need to control the servers we were deploying to because ops expected push-button deployments and didn't know much beyond Oracle.

That was the most painful position I've ever been in. It was also the position that ultimately pushed me away from development. Of course, now I'm leading a startup, so if code needs to be written, I'm slinging code. :)

Re: Why Fair Bosses Fall Behind

#34

Post by skarayan »

SoftwareMaven wrote: post #33
skarayan wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've had a similar experience. While I had a good relationship with my team, other managers (that worked for my manager), and the business, I had a very poor relationship with the infrastructure team. If you have worked in an Enterprise, you realize that nearly all deployments have to go through the infrastructure team including DBAs, Unix/Windows teams, and Network. Instead of trying to work with them, I tried to by…

Ouch! You tried to bypass infrastructure? That isn't going to go well! :) I know the feeling, though. I had a different position that had me strattelling the line between dev and ops. I reported to the dev side, but my team really need to control the servers we were deploying to because ops expected push-button deployments and didn't know much beyond Oracle. That was the most painful position I've ever been in. It wa…

There were some severe problems with our infrastructure team, I felt like I had no choice but to bypass them. I also felt that they should treat me as their client, much like I treated the business. It didn't go very well. :)

Things go way faster in a startup -- really the pinnacle of productivity.

Re: Why Fair Bosses Fall Behind

#35

Post by zwieback »

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…

I think there are so many number #1s because if they succeed both the boss and team get rewarded and if they fail the boss gets most of the blame. #2s are not really needed because the consensus decision really doesn't need to be managed at all. #3s tend to get pushed in one direction or the other and end up as #1 or #2.

Re: Why Fair Bosses Fall Behind

#36

Post by wslh »

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…

(1) works when you have a constant pool of input and puts "natural selection" to work. If you're Google or Apple you have more DNA to test.

If you're not the top company and you don't pay good salaries people will drop.

The most reasonable option is obviously the balance in (3).

Re: Why Fair Bosses Fall Behind

#37

Post by kenjackson »

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…

in practice, leadership is the thing for which demand is much higher than supply, not team talent.

I'm not sure I buy that. I don't have strong evidence against it, but its a gut based on experience. What I've tended to see is that great leaders tend not to be able to replicate their success. But talented people/teams tend to be succesfull, regardless of the leader.

To put it another way, a great leader, moved to a new team often is not a success. In fact, when they are, it is usually somewhat unusual. A great talent moved to a new team is rarely not a success. And when they aren't is somewhat unusual.

And what I've found is that the great leaders who can replicate success are those with huge personalities that draw in great talent. Or their reputation from their first success gives them considerable leverage to use in new ventures.

For example, look at pro basketball coaches. Getting a great head coach almost never drastically changes the record of a team the following year or years, more than chance would. But getting a great player almost always increases a team's record. What a great coach does though is bring in top talent -- but usually slowly, given it has to be done via free agency.

Jobs could go anywhere and get top talent. His ability to lead is also his ability to recruit. I'm not saying he doesn't bring other things to the table, but I'd say that a good percentage of it is recruiting.

Let me put it another way... given two choices, what would you take:

1) Steve Jobs's mind transplanted to some average mid-level manager at HP. No one know him as Jobs, but he would have Jobs's managerial chops.

or

2) Steve Jobs body and name, but his mind replaced with some mid-level manager at Apple (who of course is aware of the fact that he needs to keep up the charade of being Jobs).

There's a reason why entreprenuers who are successful, but when they leave their domain (go into a completely new field) are no more successful in future endeavors than anyone else. The second hit borrows greatly from the fact that people recognize you have already hit it out the park once.

Re: Why Fair Bosses Fall Behind

#39

Post by yxhuvud »

uast23 wrote: post #14

This almost sounds like a comparison between growth of China and India, where China just gets the things done when it needs to while India lags behind trying to gather people's consensus; and I believe that neither of them are correct. Reasons are pretty simple. If you are a bully, things are bound to fall apart sooner or later while if you are a total pushover, you don't even own what you are doing. I have seen both…

Number 4 has a big caveat in that it requires really good communication skills to make certain everyone understand what the purpose and use case of the product is.

Re: Why Fair Bosses Fall Behind

#40

Post by Dylan16807 »

I don't follow the logic in the examples at all.

First, we have a comparison between the assertive McKinnell and the respectful Katen. But there is no mention of 'fairness' to be found.

Then we have a study of students that found that ruder people seemed to be more powerful, but I can't figure out how that relates at all to wanting to give more power to less fair people.

I'm not going so far as to say the conclusion is wrong, just that this particular article seems to provide no evidence for it.

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