I wish there was a way to share this list with a manager without seeming like a dick.
Print and leave on desk.
Once was a time that inter-office mail existed for situations just such as this. Spares you the delivery even.
What are common mistakes that new or inexperienced managers make?
41–50 of 152 posts
Re: What are common mistakes that new or inexperienced managers make?
#42Good managers realize they have to be managers and can't do an effective job of engineering (this is certainly true of a first-level manager with more than a few reports). The best managers I've had have sighed wistfully and wished out loud that they could do engineering, but made a conscious decision not to. The really good managers will be very interested in how you are getting along with your career, and it will o…
I'd go a step further and answer the question "What are some common mistakes new managers make?" with "Accepting a promotion to management".
If you're coming from a technical role, understand that your new job is not to be an engineer. If you're lucky and are good enough at your new job that you have some spare cycles, you might get to guide some architectural discussions
It can be rewarding to help guide a team towards something you could never accomplish alone, but you must resist the temptation to step and do "do things".
Disclaimer -- I moved up to a director-level position and realized within a year that to be good at it I would probably not be able to continue expanding my technical skills, at least not on company time. I moved on to an "individual contributor" role with a company that provides higher level career opportunities that don't involve having direct reports. The minutia of actual line management wasn't bad as long as there was a good team, but I definitely underestimated the people skills, budgeting, planning, and politics that goes along with being a good manager.
Re: What are common mistakes that new or inexperienced managers make?
#43Good managers realize they have to be managers and can't do an effective job of engineering (this is certainly true of a first-level manager with more than a few reports). The best managers I've had have sighed wistfully and wished out loud that they could do engineering, but made a conscious decision not to. The really good managers will be very interested in how you are getting along with your career, and it will o…
I'd go a step further and answer the question "What are some common mistakes new managers make?" with "Accepting a promotion to management". If you're coming from a technical role, understand that your new job is not to be an engineer. If you're lucky and are good enough at your new job that you have some spare cycles, you might get to guide some architectural discussions It can be rewarding to help guide a team towa…
> I moved on to an "individual contributor" role with a company that provides higher level career opportunities that don't involve having direct reports.
Well, that sounds pretty slick. How's it working out? As someone who was just approached by management about a director position, and this being somewhat familiar ground, I'm concerned about the lack of expansion and technical progression as well. Haven't really seen many "no direct reports" situations in my neck of the woods, unfortunately... but it seems like that could be something to aspire for.
Re: What are common mistakes that new or inexperienced managers make?
#44the top answer is really well done, but lacks the gem from the second answer: "One of the major rookie mistakes I have made and see many others make is the assumption that human motivation is tied to economic outcomes" put another way - you might have a personal ambition to have a title like "VP of Engineering" or make $500k a year, but most others don't. so if you project your motivations / world view on those who w…
One of the amazing things I've learned as a manager is how much you can get out of asking people what they want. Many people haven't really thought about it and so you end up going on a fun journey helping them figure it out. Usually, you discover over time that there are a lot of things more important than money. Being the manager that helped them figure out what they really want (and hopefully get closer to it) bui…
this is really good advice.
I learned from a superb mentor Laurie Litwack who was a great program manager at microsoft that you should learn about each of your reports "heart, tree, star".
heart: what do you love? tree: what / where do you want to grow? star: how do you feel rewarded?
especially in an environment where you can juggle awards, this can be really helpful, if someone values a bonus and someone else values titles & public recognition, you can balance them out and make everyone happy. and hit a budget. ideally...
Re: What are common mistakes that new or inexperienced managers make?
#45In other news, Quora doesn't blur out the second answer and ask for you to log in?
Because the submitter added ?share=1 to the link edit: I personally use https://github.com/sindresorhus/quora-unblocker in Chrome to do this for me so I don't have to think about it. I also made https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/quora-share/ to do the same thing in FF.
> Because the submitter added ?share=1 to the link
That was us. Maybe we should make the software do it?
Re: What are common mistakes that new or inexperienced managers make?
#46So at one point I took on a management job, stepping up from a (lead) developer. I felt like the whole thing was kind of a train wreck and I am still slowly analyzing the black box recordings from it. This was my first time having direct reports that were not one or two interns and managing a team of seven other highly intelligent people was quite a chore in itself. What bugged me is that I could never tell if the pr…
I only know your side of the story, so I know this assessment won't be entirely accurate. However, based on what you have written, it sounds like you were a pretty good manager who just got caught between your employees and your bosses. I especially like how you recognize your team members' intelligence, and tried to advocate for them with senior management. You likely made some mistakes along the way, but every manager on earth makes many mistakes.
Sometimes even the greatest skippers can't keep a boat from sinking. It's helpful to consider how you could have made the situation better or worse. But, based on what I've read, you're putting too much blame on your own shoulders. Rather, remember that it took three people for them to replace you.
Re: What are common mistakes that new or inexperienced managers make?
#47So at one point I took on a management job, stepping up from a (lead) developer. I felt like the whole thing was kind of a train wreck and I am still slowly analyzing the black box recordings from it. This was my first time having direct reports that were not one or two interns and managing a team of seven other highly intelligent people was quite a chore in itself. What bugged me is that I could never tell if the pr…
welcome to low/mid-level management. You get squeezed from the top and bottom. Everybody will hate you, so you just try and hit deadlines. It also sounds like a typical story where the larger organization was trying to keep management lean, without realizing that it really did take multiple people to do the job. One place I worked at ground through three managers in 6 months (with 120 people under them) before finall…
How common is 600% turnover in management?
I know turnover in engineering is usually high (if people are moving around every 18 months to 2 years)... but 600%?
Re: What are common mistakes that new or inexperienced managers make?
#48So at one point I took on a management job, stepping up from a (lead) developer. I felt like the whole thing was kind of a train wreck and I am still slowly analyzing the black box recordings from it. This was my first time having direct reports that were not one or two interns and managing a team of seven other highly intelligent people was quite a chore in itself. What bugged me is that I could never tell if the pr…
You had your dev team do data entry. No wonder they resented you.
Wouldn't it be cheaper and better for morale to hire a couple of temps to do the data entry?
Re: What are common mistakes that new or inexperienced managers make?
#49What really always rubbed me up the wrong way was approaching me to come up with the question "OK, how long then?". Because "managers" tend to ask this when neither scope nor current state of the project are visible, and are then getting offended when one points out to them that it's an impossible question. They then usually proceed to ask you to just make something, clearly demonstrating that they don't want to improve the disaster state of the project or care for your opinion in any shape or form, but instead prefer some randomly made up number.
So whenever I hear this question in that very particular tone, I already plan my exit strategy because I know it's going to be a train wreck.
Re: What are common mistakes that new or inexperienced managers make?
#50Those answers are great, but they're also very high level and general.
One of the best pieces of advice, badly paraphrased below, I've heard from a military context.
"Any time you instruct a subordinate, you must be
prepared to deliver the same instruction every single
time they perform that action, and expect it to be
performed in that way until otherwise instructed."
Again, this is an a military context where orders flow downhill, but the same applies in other areas of business. An experienced manager knows where they need to set the boundaries within which their staff operate, with as much autonomy and initiative as possible. An inexperienced manager doesn't understand how to balance this equation.
PS if anyone has a better formulation of the above, please share =D