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How Google Sold Its Engineers on Management

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Re: How Google Sold Its Engineers on Management

#31

Post by jwilliams »

My summary of what Google did:

1. Ask what makes a good manager (the behaviors) 2. Correlate this with an outcome (turnover). 3. Move the needle on other managers. 4. See result.

This is a decent enough model, but you're working on the predicate that #1 is actually building a comprehensive model.

These things may be important, but the chance of them being confounded with other variables is high. For example, you'll find that people that floss are healthier. Getting people to floss, however, isn't the solution. It's that people that care enough to floss embody numerous healthy behaviors (and future/intended behaviors).

This is not to detract from what was done, but an exercise like this needs multiple loops to normalize. I'd be interested to compare this approach with just rolling out sound management training that is based on the last 10-20 years of literature.

Re: How Google Sold Its Engineers on Management

#32

Post by nostrademons »

skj wrote: post #27
mjmahone17 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I think I'd heard that there's a pay bump that comes from being a manager (above and beyond what you get for the normal engineering ladder), simply because you have to deal with more hassles and have more responsibility.

Re: How Google Sold Its Engineers on Management

#33

Post by nostrademons »

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…

Managers at Google generally are much more like "facilitators" than "bosses".

Re: How Google Sold Its Engineers on Management

#34

Post by nostrademons »

bane wrote: post #30
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 alre…

Everybody already knows what's wrong with traditional corporations. It's just that Google takes steps to actively fix this.

I think it's ultimately the same with social networking - everybody knows it's not quite there yet, but trying to take concrete steps to produce something that's right is actually really hard. Facebook has been at this for 9 years and people hate them too. Real-world social norms took centuries to evolve.

I'm reminded of this Ira Glass quote:

http://vimeo.com/24715531

It's really easy to pick apart something that obviously isn't working. It's much harder to build something that works better.

Re: How Google Sold Its Engineers on Management

#35

Post by plinkplonk »

nostrademons wrote: post #33
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…

Managers at Google generally are much more like "facilitators" than "bosses".

Facilitators who (on the average) make a lot more money than and have the ability to review/reward/promote/fire etc the people they 'facilitate'. That makes them "bosses" in my book. What distinguishes real 'facilitators' from bosses is that they don't have any power over the people they facilitate.

How are the Google bosses 'more like facilitators' if the power equations are unchanged?

Re: How Google Sold Its Engineers on Management

#36

Post by nostrademons »

plinkplonk wrote: post #35
nostrademons wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Managers at Google generally are much more like "facilitators" than "bosses".

Facilitators who (on the average) make a lot more money than and have the ability to review/reward/promote/fire etc the people they 'facilitate'. That makes them "bosses" in my book. What distinguishes real 'facilitators' from bosses is that they don't have any power over the people they facilitate. How are the Google bosses 'more like facilitators' if the power equations are unchanged?

Does this mean that because I don't care about getting promoted or fired, my manager is not actually my boss? Does it mean that I don't actually (and have never actually) have a "boss"?

(This is a serious question - I think that there is a solid argument that your boss has no power over you if you don't actually care about having a job. But I'm not sure that the majority of HN - most of whom believe you need to have sold a startup to reach that point - would agree with me.)

Re: How Google Sold Its Engineers on Management

#37

Post by plinkplonk »

nostrademons wrote: post #36
plinkplonk wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Facilitators who (on the average) make a lot more money than and have the ability to review/reward/promote/fire etc the people they 'facilitate'. That makes them "bosses" in my book. What distinguishes real 'facilitators' from bosses is that they don't have any power over the people they facilitate. How are the Google bosses 'more like facilitators' if the power equations are unchanged?

Does this mean that because I don't care about getting promoted or fired, my manager is not actually my boss? Does it mean that I don't actually (and have never actually) have a "boss"? (This is a serious question - I think that there is a solid argument that your boss has no power over you if you don't actually care about having a job. But I'm not sure that the majority of HN - most of whom believe you need to have…

well that dodges the point made. If you don't care about what your boss thinks or whether you have a boss or not, you don't have to work at Google where the bosses are "more like facilitators" .

This is like saying "If I am not afraid of torture or starvation and don't fear death, what does it matter if I am in a concentration camp? They have no (real) power over me". This is technically true, but somewhat unimportant in a discussion over whether concentration camps and torture are evil or not, and whether "Arbeit macht frei" is a genuine slogan or hypocrisy.

The point made is that "bosses are facilitators" is a bunch of HRSpeak and has no real meaning, even at Google.At best it is a vague ideal layered over real differences in power and compensation.

Which is fine of course, thats just the way the world is structured these days. In the olden days, I suppose the feudal lords said the same things to the peasants, "we are just here to do the nasty things that you don't want to do. Please ignore our castles and silks and focus on working your fields, we are just facilitating your efforts. We are all the Children of God after all" ;-)

What really makes somebody a boss is that they have power to affect your career and otherwise exert power over you (and a genuine facilitator doesn't -they have to persuade you to act a certain way). You may have a temperament to not care about the effects of such power being exerted over you (you may be indifferent to being promoted or fired for e.g) but then you can be just as happy at any BigCo,and don't have to bother with Google HR blather about 'bosses being facilitators' etc.

That said (and I don't want to drag this too long, so signing off with this response), your attitude is a healthy one to adopt, as long as you have(or are working towards acquiring) the chops to always have choices of jobs etc. I am sure Peter Norvig, Guido Van Rossum etc don't spend bandwidth worrying about the points they score in some arbitrary HR metric. Having or acquiring real power (or choices, which is often the same thing) is always a good strategy.

Re: How Google Sold Its Engineers on Management

#38

Post by judk »

asdfologist wrote: post #24
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?

Bayesian credible interval's min value is greater than 50%

Re: How Google Sold Its Engineers on Management

#39

Post by judk »

plinkplonk wrote: post #35
nostrademons wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Managers at Google generally are much more like "facilitators" than "bosses".

Facilitators who (on the average) make a lot more money than and have the ability to review/reward/promote/fire etc the people they 'facilitate'. That makes them "bosses" in my book. What distinguishes real 'facilitators' from bosses is that they don't have any power over the people they facilitate. How are the Google bosses 'more like facilitators' if the power equations are unchanged?

The relationship you describe is not the Google model.

Managers can be the same or lower level in the seniority system than people they manage.

Re: How Google Sold Its Engineers on Management

#40

Post by judk »

nostrademons wrote: post #32
skj wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I think I'd heard that there's a pay bump that comes from being a manager (above and beyond what you get for the normal engineering ladder), simply because you have to deal with more hassles and have more responsibility.

But they also have less technical responsibility to produce product.
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