61–70 of 92 posts
It also means they find you very valuable.
A good thing to highlight are all the things that could go wrong + associated costs to company and what you’re actively doing to manage those problems.
That’ll give them pause.
I'm sorry, but I can't connect the dots in that story. 1) He did great (like, there's actual metrics mentioned) 2) Others wanted a different direction (even though he did great?) and didn't tell him 3) They excluded him from meetings 4) They fired him 5) He blamed not "re-centering" himself In the notes, he mentions that one of his later decisions (splitting engineering) was a bad choice. So isn't that the core of it…
Mainly it sounds like a failure to connect with everyone else and read the room. This is "getting kicked out of the tribe" 101 and people are normally very sensitive to this. But as a new leader it's hard to understand all your status relationships (and that the happiness of the people under you on the org chart affects the happiness of the people listed above you). You can disagree with everyone else, you can be ove…
I don't know if the isolation happened suddenly or gradually. I realized it all at once, but by the time I did, it had been happening for so long I don't know how it started. Somehow people stopped telling me what was going on and stopped consulting me on new decisions. I am the last person to find out about anything. One part of their existing pathology is a background churn of unilateral, unannounced, shuffling-the-deck-chairs "improvements" that cause a lot of errors and interruptions without making a worthwhile difference, but this is different. Even the changes that are formally talked about are talked about without me.
I know that leadership has my back (they came into the picture more recently and can see that the team is underperforming) and they are planning changes that include me, but other than management, which is detached from day-to-day work, I'm on an island. Reading between the lines, I think I was brought in to try to fix the team, but without any management authority (and management not involved day-to-day) and with the team just ignoring my ideas and trying to assimilate me into their way of doing things, I have accomplished almost nothing on that score. Meanwhile, my social isolation is such that I can't stand to stick around much longer. I am going to go somewhere where I can be part of a team again.
EDIT: Reading the article through fully, I think I should learn from his characterization of "swagger" (though I don't think the word is quite right.) When I wasn't listened to after repeated attempts to make the same point with the people who needed to hear it, I shouldn't have stopped talking. I should have kept saying the same thing whenever it was warranted. I should have talked louder. I should have taken my points to venues that included a larger audience than just the people who needed to act on them. I should have pressured management to put their weight behind me. I didn't do these things because I didn't want to be an asshole, and I didn't want to alienate people, and maybe because I was afraid of inviting open aggression against myself, but I should have been prepared to stand up to that. Why was I avoiding confrontation instead of inviting it? Maybe because I wasn't confident in my ability to argue my points in the face of hostility, but if that's the case, I should be practicing it more, not avoiding it.
If confidence is failing you, think about the work your grandad did to make a living. ( Mine used to toil away on 3 acres of land for his entire life.)
> [6] Fortunately, the company agreed to provide COBRA which would cover our insurance costs for the delivery. This is so crazy and why employer based insurance cannot be a safety net in the case you end up needing an expensive treatment while also losing your job.
On the flip side, I've worked with junior and mid-level developers who want to have the entire context of every executive decision, and worse want to second-guess and judge those decisions rather than implement the feature or fix the bug they were told to.
I think more information is almost always better, but sometimes you just need to get your work done. Titles are a very rough and arbitrary way of trying to draw those boundaries between what you're supposed to decide, what you're supposed to influence, and what you're supposed to accept.
I appreciate the honesty of the post. For myself, I don’t think having “swagger” is particularly constructive. Ego is a mind-killer. It is selling smoke. I’m quite good at what I do. In some things, I am very good; but at many, many other things, I still have a lot to learn, and in other areas, it’s best I stay out of the kitchen, entirely. In the areas in which I excel, I often exude great confidence, which is somet…
I think you might be misunderstanding ego.
That's like saying, "The engine in your car is bad." It's not good or bad, it's a part of your car. Ego is part of the triad of the Freudian model of the human mind.
When people use ego the way you are using it, they are usually referring to a narcissistic personality disorder. Instead, cognitive behavioral therapists will refer to "ego strength". Which is important for healthy functioning.
"Ego strength" is what the author is referring to. It is how we act assertively, instead of aggressively (bad) or passive-aggressively (also bad). This is a widespread confusion on HN, people think being assertive is the same as being aggressive, or being a narcissist.
A person with low ego strength will act in a passive-aggressive way rather than be forthcoming, they will allow their boundaries to be ignored. Ego strength is how we hang on to ourselves.
Ego strength is critical for a mental well-being. That is what this article is about.
From more of an engineering standpoint, those meetings with the COO seemed like textbook knowledge transfer to me, except the context (that the subject was not made aware of the nature of this event and his upcoming firing) reflects really bad on this company’s management. It reads as if the upper management treated the employee as a highly unpredictable individual who would undermine the company out of spite. They m…
On the other hand it could have been the COO trying to give Kevin a chance to show he's on board with the product direction, and the whiteboarding showed otherwise. Who knows?
Kevin I am sorry but you are not the one that is fault at here. There are several red flags but most noticably your ex firm lacks accountability. You shouldn't be hired with an impulsive decision, there shouldn't be closed doors decision making andyou should not be blamed because you executed the decisions made without your input. And getting fired after a whiteboard session with no heads up? Even though he knew he i…
Likewise, barging into meetings like a metaphorical Koolaid Man or Cosmo Kramer is not going to win alignment in a Leadership meeting.
That whole situation was no win for the author and is an unrealistic standard to set, especially if the company grows.
I appreciate the honesty of the post. For myself, I don’t think having “swagger” is particularly constructive. Ego is a mind-killer. It is selling smoke. I’m quite good at what I do. In some things, I am very good; but at many, many other things, I still have a lot to learn, and in other areas, it’s best I stay out of the kitchen, entirely. In the areas in which I excel, I often exude great confidence, which is somet…
I appreciate the honesty of the post. For myself, I don’t think having “swagger” is particularly constructive. Ego is a mind-killer. It is selling smoke. I’m quite good at what I do. In some things, I am very good; but at many, many other things, I still have a lot to learn, and in other areas, it’s best I stay out of the kitchen, entirely. In the areas in which I excel, I often exude great confidence, which is somet…
> Ego is a mind-killer. It is selling smoke. I think you might be misunderstanding ego. That's like saying, "The engine in your car is bad." It's not good or bad, it's a part of your car. Ego is part of the triad of the Freudian model of the human mind. When people use ego the way you are using it, they are usually referring to a narcissistic personality disorder. Instead, cognitive behavioral therapists will refer t…
Flexible people can either be door stops or assertive, and which they are has to do with how much they think of their own opinions and abilities.
Strength doesn't have to mean rigid, and there are multiple neuroses depending on which mix you're discussing. 'Ego-strength' suggests one dimension which IMO simply muddies the waters.