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Manager's Handbook (2020)

themanagershandbook.com

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Re: Manager's Handbook (2020)

#91

Post by microjim »

civilized wrote: post #51
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…

A decent, humane manager. At my company, all the ICs I respect have camera off meetings. Only managers, obnoxious ladder climbers, and outside consultants are constantly pushing face time.

In a general sense yes agreed, but there's a genuine value to seeing peers in meetings that I didn't appreciate until I did more stuff that was in essence presenting stuff for feedback.

For individuals choosing camera on vs. off when participating in meetings, whatever the choice, I bargain more than would admit are making some form of status calculation.

Personally I bias towards on often as it feels more... friendly?

Re: Manager's Handbook (2020)

#92

Post by bigDinosaur »

ccortes wrote: post #90
osigurdson wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 90% of human communication is non-verbal, If true you should be able to communicate effectively without audio. Clearly this is not the case.

You can with text

Parent misspoke and instead should have said 'you should be able to communicate effectively without words'.

Obviously the fact that we're communicating 100% of our information currently using text shows that the 90% figure is extremely misleading. 90% of our understanding of a person's character or something maybe comes from their physicality.

Re: Manager's Handbook (2020)

#93

Post by kkfx »

thesumofall wrote: post #75
osigurdson wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Humans communicate via audio. Actually seeing a person's face doesn't seem to add much to comprehension in my opinion. As an absurd example to illustrate this point, consider a cameras on, mics off meeting to get a sense of what proportion of information is communicated by audio vs video. As a second example, consider a meeting with cameras and audio but with a 1 second delay in audio - this would almost be as bad as…

The studies I have seen say the exact opposite. Non-verbal cues make up most of the info flow: https://online.utpb.edu/about-us/articles/communication/how-... If you feel your meetings don’t benefit from non-verbal cues, consider if you really need these meetings? Maybe it’s just a status call that could have also been solved via an online status tracker?

Sorry for the rude tone, but is useful to get to the point: non-verbal communication works they well in person, we understand others from it. With a webcam it's just a visual overload that distract and disturb.

We have gone through the very same error for the entire IT history: after the Xerox era all tried to mimic the real life in a virtual one, like many GNU/Linux newcomers try to mimic Windows paradigm and some criminals with a keyboard improperly named developers sometimes even try that path. All such moves were big failure. The virtual world have it's rules, not the same of the physical one. We do NEVER try to mimic one in the other but to elicit the maximum profit from any tools.

Working distributed is not "a way to be together but with physical distance", oh we see many consider that, we see even infra designed for that with crappy VDIs hosted somewhere to have "the virtual managed office" around the world, even some in the metaverse to try mimicking real life conferences rooms. See in the past General Magick UIs and you'll understand why that can't work.

WFH is not work in a virtual office, we need a paradigm for it, witch is totally different than the in-person one.

Re: Manager's Handbook (2020)

#94

Post by microjim »

osigurdson wrote: post #80
thesumofall wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The studies I have seen say the exact opposite. Non-verbal cues make up most of the info flow: https://online.utpb.edu/about-us/articles/communication/how-... If you feel your meetings don’t benefit from non-verbal cues, consider if you really need these meetings? Maybe it’s just a status call that could have also been solved via an online status tracker?

The idea that we are communicating largely via body language and facial expressions is so absurd I had to look it up. The person who this is attributed to is Albert Mehrabian. According to wikipedia it is more related to the "liking" of the person who puts forth the same message delivered with various vocal tones with photographs of various facial expressions, etc. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Mehrabian

Pointless to squabble over the idea that there is some fixed 'proportion' so let me offer this -

Body langugage and facial expressions are entire, distinct channels that primarily communicate information around emotion and attitude towards objects of attention. How relevant this information in any given situation is one question.

The impact of those channels not being there, and the ability (let alone willingness) of senders and receivers (read: people in an interaction) to send and interpret that information over another channel is a whole other matter.

Re: Manager's Handbook (2020)

#95

Post by sokoloff »

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…

I agree with you in general, with one difference: there are specific topics in a 1:1 meeting that I’ll ask to have video on or be willing to reschedule.

I’ve done this with people who report to me, with peers, and with people higher in the org chart.

Re: Manager's Handbook (2020)

#96

Post by [deleted] »

thesumofall wrote: post #74
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…

I must admit I’m one of those always-on people and everyone in our team does so. For those speaking I feel it is quite rude to not give them any visual cue on how they are doing: I’m I understood? Are my points appreciated? Do I bore people? Are people even listening? Personally, I think the only good reasons to turn off a camera are either technical issues or if you indeed briefly want to send the message “I am dist…

[deleted]

Re: Manager's Handbook (2020)

#97

Post by ResearchCode »

thesumofall wrote: post #74
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…

I must admit I’m one of those always-on people and everyone in our team does so. For those speaking I feel it is quite rude to not give them any visual cue on how they are doing: I’m I understood? Are my points appreciated? Do I bore people? Are people even listening? Personally, I think the only good reasons to turn off a camera are either technical issues or if you indeed briefly want to send the message “I am dist…

There's nothing rude about non-video calls. They are frequently carried out between heads of state or royalty, that is at the highest level of politeness.

If people are disinterested, you might want to invite less people to your meeting or use email.

Re: Manager's Handbook (2020)

#98

Post by mkl95 »

> With a top-grading interview, you are working through the candidate’s last five positions (in chronological order), asking a set of questions to determine how successful they were. It's important that the hiring manager responsible for the role is the one who conducts this interview.

I've gone through this step countless times and every time I just reword what's already on my LinkedIn profile. If you like what you read there, there really is no reason to have this conversation.

Re: Manager's Handbook (2020)

#99

Post by subpixel »

thesumofall wrote: post #74
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…

I must admit I’m one of those always-on people and everyone in our team does so. For those speaking I feel it is quite rude to not give them any visual cue on how they are doing: I’m I understood? Are my points appreciated? Do I bore people? Are people even listening? Personally, I think the only good reasons to turn off a camera are either technical issues or if you indeed briefly want to send the message “I am dist…

I manage a team of 5 and our meetings are mainly driven by screen sharing.

When I’m sharing my screen I don’t see anyones face. When I’m looking at what someone else is sharing I want to see it full screen.

I’m not really looking at anyone unless we are speaking on a direct call.

Re: Manager's Handbook (2020)

#100

Post by ericb »

blowski wrote: post #81
ericb wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only management sufficiently divorced from reality can forget that "reality has a surprising amount of detail" https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/mckinsey-digital... > suggests that half of all large IT projects—defined as those with initial price tags exceeding $15 million—massively blow their budgets. On average, large IT projects run 45 percent over budget and 7 percent over time, while delivering 56 perc…

If you’re not sure you can deliver something, don’t commit to it. Instead, provide confidence levels, increase confidence by doing the riskiest bits earlier, and give frequent status updates.

> Instead, provide confidence levels, increase confidence by doing the riskiest bits earlier, and give frequent status updates.

Right--you're trying to choose the winning move: not to play. That's not really an option.

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