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Manager's Handbook (2020)

themanagershandbook.com

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Re: Manager's Handbook (2020)

#31

Post by usrn »

bee_rider wrote: post #30
thenerdhead wrote: post #11

I went through half of it. I think it has promise, but not really sure I would call it a handbook. Some things are just strange to me: > A senior employee comes to you with a competitive offer in hand, asking for a promotion. You investigate the situation and decide that, since you really don’t want to lose this employee, you will cave and give them a promotion. > You have just created a strong incentive for politica…

I work with students and over the pandemic I've generally not asked them to put on their video when on Zoom. I figure -- they are in their dorms and bedrooms, it is their personal space, they've got enough shit going on in their lives -- I don't even really want to put them in the position of having to explain that they don't want to. But it definitely reduces communication bandwidth significantly. There are always s…

We don't use video at all and I for one have gotten used to it and never turn it on now. It all happened one week where everyone just started showing up to scrum with the video off. Me and one other coworker where the last to give it up. Something that probably helps is all the other collaboration tools: git, the wiki, ssh. Also our understanding is more or less "on the same level" with each other so there's a lot less "teaching" and more of "oh look at this" kinds of conversations.

If people can collaborate over IRC and email they can certainly do it over a voice call.

Re: Manager's Handbook (2020)

#32

Post by User23 »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #18
thenerdhead wrote: post #11

I went through half of it. I think it has promise, but not really sure I would call it a handbook. Some things are just strange to me: > A senior employee comes to you with a competitive offer in hand, asking for a promotion. You investigate the situation and decide that, since you really don’t want to lose this employee, you will cave and give them a promotion. > You have just created a strong incentive for politica…

When you’re an employee, it feels like your manager’s job is to keep you happy and give you what you want. When you first get into management, you immediately realize that your job is to serve an entire team in ways that will some times not make individuals happy. You have to focus on doing what’s best for the team, not just giving the loudest team member what they demand. > Hard disagree. People look for more respon…

> When you first get into management, you immediately realize that your job is to serve an entire team in ways that will some times not make individuals happy

Ah, yes, the Amazon school of management.

Re: Manager's Handbook (2020)

#35

Post by FastMonkey »

catach wrote: post #24
Kototama wrote: post #23

Oh no, it has a whole section on enneagram, which is pseudo-science.

They do preface with: "It is not an exact science. It is not there to pigeonhole people or to be an excuse for bad behavior. It is just a useful framework for understanding yourself and others a little better. And the better you understand someone, the better you can work together."

I wouldn't have any issue with this type of stuff if it was just for pure self understanding. It's interesting to have that kind of reflection. However, even if the science were sound, we wouldn't just fall into a single category, we would be a little bit in all of them. We also adapt to our surroundings and change a bit over time.

Unfortunately, the fact is that promotion and hiring decisions are made based on things like this. The people promoting it are usually business and HR people who don't have an understanding of how shakey their underpinning is. They just think "we want a reformer, and this fancy test says that Cam has the highest reformer points out of the applicants we've seen so let's hire them".

Re: Manager's Handbook (2020)

#36

Post by bombcar »

catach wrote: post #24
Kototama wrote: post #23

Oh no, it has a whole section on enneagram, which is pseudo-science.

They do preface with: "It is not an exact science. It is not there to pigeonhole people or to be an excuse for bad behavior. It is just a useful framework for understanding yourself and others a little better. And the better you understand someone, the better you can work together."

Sounds about as pertinent as the “do not put cotton swab in ear canal. never ever clean your ear with cotton swab” and probably about as well obeyed.

Re: Manager's Handbook (2020)

#37

Post by rebeccaskinner »

I really dislike the idea that people should be required to have their cameras on for all meetings. I think for people who rarely see one another in person, it can be good to try to encourage people to be on video occasionally, but when and how often should really be left up to the individual.

As a manager, I make it a point to try to turn my own video on most of the time, but I'd never ask someone to turn their camera on in any particular call. I want people to be able to do their best work. Building a solid team culture means you should see one another from time to time, but it doesn't have to be every call, or even most calls, and there are a lot of people who struggle from time to time to do their best work on camera.

Sometimes people are in a messy room or feel self conscious about their appearance. Sometimes people are just distracted staring at their own image on a call. Some people have to share their workspace with a partner or roommate who might be distracting in the background. Sometimes people are running something compute intensive in the background while taking a call and their computer gets too bogged down trying to encode video while also running whatever more important task it should be doing. Whatever the reason, I want people focusing on the work they are trying to do and if having their camera off lets them focus better, I'm going to encourage them to do that.

Re: Manager's Handbook (2020)

#38

Post by bombcar »

ithkuil wrote: post #17
thenerdhead wrote: post #11

I went through half of it. I think it has promise, but not really sure I would call it a handbook. Some things are just strange to me: > A senior employee comes to you with a competitive offer in hand, asking for a promotion. You investigate the situation and decide that, since you really don’t want to lose this employee, you will cave and give them a promotion. > You have just created a strong incentive for politica…

Every time I quit it was because I wanted to quit and when asked from my employer what would have taken to change my mind I couldn't find anything realistic they could offer me to stay. But that's because in my cases compensation wasn't the main motivation for desiring to leave. I can totally imagine a different scenario where people who are clearly underpaid must follow a different strategy. It all boils down to a)…

I feel “quitting” is like the last few seconds of the NTSB record of a plane crash - technically things haven’t happened yet but the actual problem points are long past.

It’s often hard to identify a proximate cause right before - usually it goes back a long way.

Re: Manager's Handbook (2020)

#39

Post by dtjb »

catach wrote: post #24
Kototama wrote: post #23

Oh no, it has a whole section on enneagram, which is pseudo-science.

They do preface with: "It is not an exact science. It is not there to pigeonhole people or to be an excuse for bad behavior. It is just a useful framework for understanding yourself and others a little better. And the better you understand someone, the better you can work together."

I just took the test from their provided link (eclecticenergies.com) and it is 100% woo. Spiritual chakra energy lifeforce crystals woo.

That site should not be used, at least not directly, by anybody in a professional managerial setting.

Re: Manager's Handbook (2020)

#40

Post by bawolff »

rebeccaskinner wrote: post #37

I really dislike the idea that people should be required to have their cameras on for all meetings. I think for people who rarely see one another in person, it can be good to try to encourage people to be on video occasionally, but when and how often should really be left up to the individual. As a manager, I make it a point to try to turn my own video on most of the time, but I'd never ask someone to turn their came…

Sometimes zoom fatigue is real and being watched all the time is exhausting (somehow more so than real in person meetings)
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