How Google Sold Its Engineers on Management • Hacker News Board

Re: How Google Sold Its Engineers on Management

#21

Post by csense » Tue, Nov 19, 2013, 11:15 PM UTC

The study contains "examples and descriptions of best practices...details [that] make overarching principles, such as "empowers the team and does not micromanage," more concrete..."

Their "concrete" example is given by an employee who says, "Early on in my role, [my manager] asked me to pull together a cross-functional team to develop a goal-setting process."

I can't think of anything more illustrative of why engineers to be dismissive of management than strings of abstract buzzwords that conveys little information, such as "Pull together a cross-functional team to develop a goal-setting process."

That's where I stopped reading.

Re: How Google Sold Its Engineers on Management

#22

Post by hkmurakami » Tue, Nov 19, 2013, 11:38 PM UTC

boomzilla wrote: post #8

anoncow wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was a story about Google and sex at the workplace, recently. So we are seeing both positive and negative articles about Google. While Google would like to portray itself as something akin to what Toyota was, naysayers would try to do the opposite.

This is the article on that topic: http://www.slate.com/blogs/business_insider/2013/09/20/sex_a...

accompanying HN discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6420546

Re: How Google Sold Its Engineers on Management

#23

Post by abraxasz » Tue, Nov 19, 2013, 11:49 PM UTC

"And as the company grew, the founders soon realized that managers contributed in many other, important ways—for instance, by communicating strategy, helping employees prioritize projects, facilitating collaboration, supporting career development, and ensuring that processes and systems aligned with company goals"

That's right, but this describes a "support" function. If they were truly filling the roles in the quotes, managers would not be "bosses", but simply "colleagues". A better term than manager would be "facilitator". I don't think anyone would argue that "facilitators" are useless. What engineers tend to disagree with is the notion of "managers" as "bosses", with significantly higher salaries, etc..

Re: How Google Sold Its Engineers on Management

#24

Post by asdfologist » Wed, Nov 20, 2013, 12:03 AM UTC

kevincennis wrote: post #12

> “At first,” he says, “the numbers were not encouraging. Even the low-scoring managers were doing pretty well. How could we find evidence that better management mattered when all managers seemed so similar?” The solution came from applying sophisticated multivariate statistical techniques, which showed that even “the smallest incremental increases in manager quality were quite powerful.” As someone without a strong…

What does "I'm sure it probably is" even mean?

Re: How Google Sold Its Engineers on Management

#25

Post by mjmahone17 » Wed, Nov 20, 2013, 12:18 AM UTC

abraxasz wrote: post #23

"And as the company grew, the founders soon realized that managers contributed in many other, important ways—for instance, by communicating strategy, helping employees prioritize projects, facilitating collaboration, supporting career development, and ensuring that processes and systems aligned with company goals" That's right, but this describes a "support" function. If they were truly filling the roles in the quote…

I'm not sure at Google that managers have significantly higher salaries than all of their reports. Sure, they're expected to have experience, and so are making more than entry-level new grad engineers. But are they making more than individual contributors who have the same level? It's even likely there are managers making less than their direct reports, because one of their reports is considered a top-performing individual contributor.

Re: How Google Sold Its Engineers on Management

#26

Post by ojbyrne » Wed, Nov 20, 2013, 1:18 AM UTC

csense wrote: post #21

The study contains "examples and descriptions of best practices...details [that] make overarching principles, such as "empowers the team and does not micromanage," more concrete..." Their "concrete" example is given by an employee who says, "Early on in my role, [my manager] asked me to pull together a cross-functional team to develop a goal-setting process." I can't think of anything more illustrative of why enginee…

Every profession has jargon. I'd translate that into plain english as "stick a product manager and a designer in the same room with a couple of engineers and make sure that priorities are clearly managed at all times (as opposed to trying to enforce rigid deadlines from above).

Re: How Google Sold Its Engineers on Management

#27

Post by skj » Wed, Nov 20, 2013, 1:26 AM UTC

mjmahone17 wrote: post #25

abraxasz wrote: post #23

"And as the company grew, the founders soon realized that managers contributed in many other, important ways—for instance, by communicating strategy, helping employees prioritize projects, facilitating collaboration, supporting career development, and ensuring that processes and systems aligned with company goals" That's right, but this describes a "support" function. If they were truly filling the roles in the quote…

I'm not sure at Google that managers have significantly higher salaries than all of their reports. Sure, they're expected to have experience, and so are making more than entry-level new grad engineers. But are they making more than individual contributors who have the same level? It's even likely there are managers making less than their direct reports, because one of their reports is considered a top-performing indi…

Most (not all) engineering managers are on the same ladder as their reports. And while it's true that managers generally have a higher tech level on that ladder than non-managers, they do not have a higher salary than other engineers at their tech level.

Re: How Google Sold Its Engineers on Management

#28

Post by fleitz » Wed, Nov 20, 2013, 1:28 AM UTC

DanielBMarkham wrote: post #4

I keep reading these Google stories that appear flawless examples of exceptional thinking and execution. But heck, at some point, the stories just wash over without effect. Do they have no problem employees? Management feudal battles? Studies and organizational change movements that produce nothing appreciative? I understand that Google is basically a giant marketing company ran by engineers who own the web, so I get…

It's a case study of managers by managers for managers, of course everything went well.

It would take an epically shitty manager to not be able to sweep that kind of failure under the rug and not manage to blame some programmers / QA for their failure.

One thing I would recommend though is to spread out their 360-degree annual reviews into a daily 1 degree review which will net Google an additional 5 degrees of review every year.

Re: How Google Sold Its Engineers on Management

#29

Post by LordHumungous » Wed, Nov 20, 2013, 1:39 AM UTC

kevincennis wrote: post #12

> “At first,” he says, “the numbers were not encouraging. Even the low-scoring managers were doing pretty well. How could we find evidence that better management mattered when all managers seemed so similar?” The solution came from applying sophisticated multivariate statistical techniques, which showed that even “the smallest incremental increases in manager quality were quite powerful.” As someone without a strong…

It depends entirely on how the analysis is carried out, and whether they can convincingly explain a causal link between the variable and the effect they are measuring. I'm guessing Google's engineers are smart enough to see through statistical BS, if that's what it is.

Re: How Google Sold Its Engineers on Management

#30

Post by bane » Wed, Nov 20, 2013, 2:35 AM UTC

DanielBMarkham wrote: post #4

I keep reading these Google stories that appear flawless examples of exceptional thinking and execution. But heck, at some point, the stories just wash over without effect. Do they have no problem employees? Management feudal battles? Studies and organizational change movements that produce nothing appreciative? I understand that Google is basically a giant marketing company ran by engineers who own the web, so I get…

> I keep reading these Google stories that appear flawless examples of exceptional thinking and execution.

I also can't help but add that they seem to go the long way round to figuring out what everybody else already knows in the end.

I can't wait till they do this kind of intense analysis on why their social network efforts seem to grind so many people the wrong way and then arrive at the same conclusion that's already been talked to death out in the world at large.