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What are common mistakes that new or inexperienced managers make?

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Re: What are common mistakes that new or inexperienced managers make?

#91

Post by ddebernardy »

IgorPartola wrote: post #82
robterrell wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even better for morale, if temps truly could not be found, would be to advocate for everyone including the management above you to do the data entry. None of you are there to enter data, after all, so it's not like it's more appropriate for engineers to do it on weekends. The upper management would have maybe more incentive to get the proper temps located. And you go from goat to hero.

As I mentioned in another reply, this particular data entry job involved doing math at about college linear algebra level and writing SQL among other things. We got to this point by relying on one of the founders to do all the data entry. Suddenly three things happened: our system got more complex so the old tools no longer helped, we signed on a lot more customers, and the founder stepped away for a well deserved br…

Stepping in and highlighting the problem before it happens come to mind.

If you anticipated that such complexity was involved in data entry at any point, putting upper management in front of their responsibility might have helped, i.e. "how do you think dev morale will look like if they need to do data entry for weeks just so we can make a few more quick sales?"

Re: What are common mistakes that new or inexperienced managers make?

#92

Post by Natsu »

IgorPartola wrote: post #82
robterrell wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even better for morale, if temps truly could not be found, would be to advocate for everyone including the management above you to do the data entry. None of you are there to enter data, after all, so it's not like it's more appropriate for engineers to do it on weekends. The upper management would have maybe more incentive to get the proper temps located. And you go from goat to hero.

As I mentioned in another reply, this particular data entry job involved doing math at about college linear algebra level and writing SQL among other things. We got to this point by relying on one of the founders to do all the data entry. Suddenly three things happened: our system got more complex so the old tools no longer helped, we signed on a lot more customers, and the founder stepped away for a well deserved br…

Would it really have taken longer to automate it, then feed in the data than to do it by hand?

I ask because I have, when presented with similar tasks, spent the time learning how to do it in WSH (sendkey), doing it, then doing more productive things while the script ran.

Re: What are common mistakes that new or inexperienced managers make?

#93

Post by jsudhams »

IgorPartola wrote: post #27

So 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…

ah ha, i can very well relate to this. While i did not move out of the company i took a individual contributor role after a similar situation. i don't think you could have done anything different because when we are in that position and we manage the show the management thinks it is ok and you can. But when new manager comes on board he can easily put a proposal to the management which will be accepted because there is not a great expectation and new hires typically get a honeymoon period where they can analyze what is required for the optimal performance of the team. I think you will just do fine in large corporates where money is not an issue for projects.

Re: What are common mistakes that new or inexperienced managers make?

#94

Post by NicoJuicy »

IgorPartola wrote: post #27

So 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…

If most of them left after you, you were doing a good job. Employees know when you are with your back against the wall, but because you deliver the news, you also see the reaction (i would realize that some choises are made above you).

Re: What are common mistakes that new or inexperienced managers make?

#95

Post by nitrogen »

IgorPartola wrote: post #66
pjungwir wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the dev team was the fallback for doing data entry for weeks on end Wow, what? It sounds like you were doing the right things, but this is hard to comprehend. Wouldn't temps cost $12/hour for this? No wonder they were angry.

That's the route we went eventually, but inputting geographic data directly into MySQL is not something that temps could handle. We needed the time to create the tools to be able to hire temps. In the meantime cash flow depended on the data being there.

Sounds like the perfect situation for a small business loan to cover the temps' wages.

Re: What are common mistakes that new or inexperienced managers make?

#96

Post by couchand »

incision wrote: post #53
jevanish wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems like a number of newer, growing startups are making sure there are individual contributor paths for growth. What would you like to see as a solution? Also - do you think it's that their overwhelmed, under-trained for the new demands of the role, or something else that causes so many managers to fail?

>'It seems like a number of newer, growing startups are making sure there are individual contributor paths for growth. What would you like to see as a solution?' I think that making available a number of paths for growth is certainly a good thing. I expect there are size limits on such a structure - either for the company as a whole or the extent of the company that gets to experience that track. This is something I'…

Your first bullet point is so well known it's called the "Peter Principle" [0].

EDIT: There's also the corresponding "Dilbert Principle" [1] which states that incompetent employees are promoted intentionally to remove them from the productive flow.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Principle [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dilbert_Principle

Re: What are common mistakes that new or inexperienced managers make?

#97

Post by deathanatos »

blrgeek wrote: post #89
mantrax5 wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you please quote which part you refer to?

Comes up just before Paul does his sandworm trial.

Having not read Dune myself, I was rather hoping you would quote the relevant passage, so that I and those like myself can compare it to the aforementioned military quote, and perhaps derive some insight from it.

Re: What are common mistakes that new or inexperienced managers make?

#98

Post by deathanatos »

> Lowering the bar - Inexperienced managers have low standards, or lower their standards, in an effort to make a hire. Good managers know that they're much better off keeping a high bar and waiting for the right candidate.

I'm facing this argument right now, and it's unclear to me on what my manager's opinion on this is. I'd rather not trade quality. While I agree with the quoted answer, I can't think of a good argument to back it up, and the answer doesn't provide one. Can someone give something more concrete here, especially something more concrete than, "well, a weak hire will cost you more in training / patience / bringing them up to speed / constant mentoring"? (or is that really the argument?)

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