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We need motivation (good managers)

ethanalter.com

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Re: We need motivation (good managers)

#21

Post by zwieback »

ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #17

I was a [pretty damn good] manager, for over 25 years. I kept employees for decades, under conditions of significantly less pay and perks, than many other companies. But I also managed a small, high-performing group of mature, experienced C++ programmers, for a corporation that actually believed in retaining talent for years. It was also one of the top imaging companies in the world, and they demanded a lot from us.…

26 years at Nikon! Did you work on NIS Elements? Have come across that a few times, we have a buttload of Nikon scopes.

Re: We need motivation (good managers)

#22

Post by JohnFen »

ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #17

I was a [pretty damn good] manager, for over 25 years. I kept employees for decades, under conditions of significantly less pay and perks, than many other companies. But I also managed a small, high-performing group of mature, experienced C++ programmers, for a corporation that actually believed in retaining talent for years. It was also one of the top imaging companies in the world, and they demanded a lot from us.…

> I kept employees for decades, under conditions of significantly less pay and perks, than many other companies.

You sound like the sort of manager I look for when I'm evaluating a company to work for. As a dev, I value good management more highly than great pay or perks.

Re: We need motivation (good managers)

#23

Post by zwieback »

After 30+ years as an engineer without reports I now spend more time motivating my managers to make them do what I want them to do vs. the other way around. I'll need to invert the advice in this post (if I can figure out what it's trying to say).

Re: We need motivation (good managers)

#24

Post by ChrisMarshallNY »

saagarjha wrote: post #19
ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #17

I was a [pretty damn good] manager, for over 25 years. I kept employees for decades, under conditions of significantly less pay and perks, than many other companies. But I also managed a small, high-performing group of mature, experienced C++ programmers, for a corporation that actually believed in retaining talent for years. It was also one of the top imaging companies in the world, and they demanded a lot from us.…

> I kept employees for decades, under conditions of significantly less pay and perks, than many other companies. I guess you were a good manager for the company, but were you one for your employees?

Yes.

There's a lot more to life than money; an unpopular stance for this crowd.

Re: We need motivation (good managers)

#25

Post by ChrisMarshallNY »

zwieback wrote: post #21
ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #17

I was a [pretty damn good] manager, for over 25 years. I kept employees for decades, under conditions of significantly less pay and perks, than many other companies. But I also managed a small, high-performing group of mature, experienced C++ programmers, for a corporation that actually believed in retaining talent for years. It was also one of the top imaging companies in the world, and they demanded a lot from us.…

26 years at Nikon! Did you work on NIS Elements? Have come across that a few times, we have a buttload of Nikon scopes.

We were software imaging pipeline (and device control/SDKs, early on). We worked on Photo stuff. The scopes were done by Instruments, who worked near us.

Re: We need motivation (good managers)

#26

Post by saagarjha »

ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #24
saagarjha wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I kept employees for decades, under conditions of significantly less pay and perks, than many other companies. I guess you were a good manager for the company, but were you one for your employees?

Yes. There's a lot more to life than money; an unpopular stance for this crowd.

It’s not clear to me whether this is a “I kept wages down” story or “people stayed with the company because they liked me even though they had offers with larger numbers on them”.

Re: We need motivation (good managers)

#27

Post by paulcole »

JohnFen wrote: post #18
paulcole wrote: post #9

Nobody can make someone else motivated. You can put someone in a situation where they can motivate themselves, but you personally can’t make anyone motivated to do anything. If you disagree, think about this: Would you bet your life that if you offered me $1,000,000 to work at Burger King for a year that I’d be motivated to take the offer? What about paying me $1,000,000,000 to sit on a beach for a year? Or maybe jus…

> Nobody can make someone else motivated. This is certainly true. But people can easily demotivate others.

Also false.

Would you bet your life that you could demotivate me and prevent me from sweeping my apartment floors tomorrow morning? What about demotivating me and keeping me from eating dinner tonight?

You can create a situation where I can become demotivated but ultimately I set my own level of motivation.

Re: We need motivation (good managers)

#28

Post by ChrisMarshallNY »

saagarjha wrote: post #26
ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. There's a lot more to life than money; an unpopular stance for this crowd.

It’s not clear to me whether this is a “I kept wages down” story or “people stayed with the company because they liked me even though they had offers with larger numbers on them”.

Whatevs. I won't get into it. I've been called all sorts of evil names, here, because of my experience. I won't bother giving it much bandwidth.

[Edit]

> If you think there's more to life than money, then why are you so proud of underpaying your team members?

HN has a rather ... predictable ... zeitgeist.

Re: We need motivation (good managers)

#29

Post by myhf »

ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #24
saagarjha wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I kept employees for decades, under conditions of significantly less pay and perks, than many other companies. I guess you were a good manager for the company, but were you one for your employees?

Yes. There's a lot more to life than money; an unpopular stance for this crowd.

If you think there's more to life than money, then why are you so proud of underpaying your team members?

Re: We need motivation (good managers)

#30

Post by JohnFen »

paulcole wrote: post #27
JohnFen wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Nobody can make someone else motivated. This is certainly true. But people can easily demotivate others.

Also false. Would you bet your life that you could demotivate me and prevent me from sweeping my apartment floors tomorrow morning? What about demotivating me and keeping me from eating dinner tonight? You can create a situation where I can become demotivated but ultimately I set my own level of motivation.

Maybe I couldn't demotivate you when it comes to your personal stuff, but I bet I could demotivate you in the workplace.

Well, maybe not you -- you might be an exceptional person in this regard -- but the majority of people.

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