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Some mistakes I made as a new manager

benkuhn.net

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Re: Some mistakes I made as a new manager

#71

Post by david38 »

SoftTalker wrote: post #62
_adamb wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find the pattern of "How are you feeling about X, 0-10?" followed up by "What would get you to a 10?" very useful. Almost nobody ever says 10 and when they do, when you pressure test it, "So, everything is 100% perfect and you want it to stay the same forever?" it gets revised down appropriately. "What would get you to a 10" is as very constructive way to think about it as well. It's not just complaining, it's arti…

I always feel there is an alterior motive when managers ask me these sorts of questions. Like the GP post, I'm rarely honest; I tell them what I think they want to hear. This has been learned over years where being honest resulted in the manager getting defensive, a lecture about "getting with the program" or at best an attempt to pursuade me to see it their way. Rarely have I ever had critical feedback accepted and…

I am a manager, but when I was an IC, I held your view. I learned that giving even softened feedback resulted in being at best ignored for a week, at worst, becoming a marked man.

I resolved to change this for my team. Ask for feedback broadly, and about projects, not me per say. Peoples end up commenting on the project/ sprint, and they feel safer. Much of what they talk about however, I have power over, so I view it as a comment on me and my execution.

Second thing, never once have I reacted negatively to negative feedback. Not in a team meeting, not in a 1:1.

Third, my boss has 1:1s with all my reports monthly. If I stop accepting negative feedback, my boss will hear about soon enough. I wish every manager had this hanging over their head. As an IC, all my code was reviewed. Managers need to have their performance reviewed frequently as well, not just bi-annually.

The one thing about my method is you have to be careful not to let the team become so free with criticism they just start ranting all the time and increase negativity where it isn’t warranted.

Re: Some mistakes I made as a new manager

#72

Post by pfannkuchen »

ehnto wrote: post #68
KarlTheCool wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel this response. If voicing your opinion is a risk that needs calculating, it's not worth trying. It's sad to see a small team's chat be bullied into a stream of just :eyes: :raising_hands: :party_popper:

I found it difficult when working with American companies, as they can be purified by positivity. A saving grace of software work is the retrospective, those were at least a moment of honesty. While I do appreciate the upbeat attitude, I found it made people hide small issues to not ruin the vibe, and anyone with major concerns with approach risks getting backbenched.

I have also been really confused by this. It reminds me a bit of a clunky, modified, but also less extreme version of face saving in Eastern cultures.

Re: Some mistakes I made as a new manager

#73

Post by btilly »

david38 wrote: post #71
SoftTalker wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I always feel there is an alterior motive when managers ask me these sorts of questions. Like the GP post, I'm rarely honest; I tell them what I think they want to hear. This has been learned over years where being honest resulted in the manager getting defensive, a lecture about "getting with the program" or at best an attempt to pursuade me to see it their way. Rarely have I ever had critical feedback accepted and…

I am a manager, but when I was an IC, I held your view. I learned that giving even softened feedback resulted in being at best ignored for a week, at worst, becoming a marked man. I resolved to change this for my team. Ask for feedback broadly, and about projects, not me per say. Peoples end up commenting on the project/ sprint, and they feel safer. Much of what they talk about however, I have power over, so I view i…

Sincere question. While you're sure you aren't doing what you remember managers doing back when you were an IC, do you actually know that your ICs don't think of you the same way that you used to think about managers?

In my experience the managers who are most convinced that they are doing well who are least likely to take negative feedback well, and are likewise least likely to recognize that they actually just did all the things they think they don't do. It is only the ones who have a lot of self-doubt that I've seen actually do well on this.

And skip level meetings are scary. Because if I have any positive feelings at all about my manager, their manager is the LAST place I want to tell anything negative to. (I only made that mistake once...)

Re: Some mistakes I made as a new manager

#74

Post by doktorhladnjak »

Reading that article really makes me never want to go back to being a manager. It was almost everything I disliked and found stressful about the job. That I don't really understand why others find being a manager appealing is probably the best sign that it's not for me.

Re: Some mistakes I made as a new manager

#76

Post by pcurve »

tschellenbach wrote: post #60

I've been managing teams for 16 years, I think it's actually really beneficial to stay hands on in lead or director roles. After that it's usually not possible given the work load. It improves team alignment, you can evaluate people's work better, understand their issues better and help level them up. Some of the companies that promoted the hands-off style of management, like Twilio are currently really struggling. D…

I was a director with 3 sr. managers reporting into me. They had 4-5 ICs. I found being hands-on pretty much impossible even with fewer than 20 people.

Re: Some mistakes I made as a new manager

#77

Post by pcurve »

DenisM wrote: post #17

The author seems to have a lot on his plate. One way to improve the situation is to delegate more technical leadership work, such as code and design reviews, to principal engineers and rely on them keep you appraised.

I agree. He/she has a ton on plate. He's still acting wearing engineering lead hat, which is understandable if he were a high performing IC. He wants to make sure the quality of the team's output is on par with that of his own.

Re: Some mistakes I made as a new manager

#78

Post by kqr »

_adamb wrote: post #54
steveBK123 wrote: post #46

> I asked people for feedback. I found that if I just asked “do you have any feedback for me?” people often wouldn’t, but if I asked more granular questions—“was that meeting useful?”—I would usually learn a lot from it. This part is good. I think generally as engineers, a manager simply asking "do you have feedback for me" just feels like a trap. I don't know man, there's plenty of things you do that annoy me but li…

I find the pattern of "How are you feeling about X, 0-10?" followed up by "What would get you to a 10?" very useful. Almost nobody ever says 10 and when they do, when you pressure test it, "So, everything is 100% perfect and you want it to stay the same forever?" it gets revised down appropriately. "What would get you to a 10" is as very constructive way to think about it as well. It's not just complaining, it's arti…

A similar idea in a group setting is the fist-to-five idea suggested by Marquet. On the count of three, everyone shows either a closed hand (lowest score) or anything up to five fingers (highest score) and then you can discuss both what would get people to a 5, but it's usually also very instructive to dig into why different people make different assessments. (As long as you don't do it in an adversarial way, of course.)

Re: Some mistakes I made as a new manager

#80

Post by kqr »

steveBK123 wrote: post #46

> I asked people for feedback. I found that if I just asked “do you have any feedback for me?” people often wouldn’t, but if I asked more granular questions—“was that meeting useful?”—I would usually learn a lot from it. This part is good. I think generally as engineers, a manager simply asking "do you have feedback for me" just feels like a trap. I don't know man, there's plenty of things you do that annoy me but li…

> The other side to this is - don't ask for feedback if you don't plan to action any of it.

It's fine to ask for feedback without planning to do anything about it. Balancing the feedback of multiple people means sometimes not every opinion can be accounted for.

Being defensive, on the other hand...

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