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Some mistakes I made as a new manager

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Re: Some mistakes I made as a new manager

#131

Post by chasd00 »

johndhi wrote: post #35

I'm a new manager and am facing a conundrum over a supposed super star who joined my team but, at least from what I can tell, is far and away the least productive member of my team. Any ideas?

superstars survive on and value their reputation above all else, you can use that to motivate. Review with the team how productivity is measured and the goals the team is striving for. Then, call out someone on the team by name who is doing the most to get the team where it needs to be and give them a reward. It doesn't matter what the reward is, a random sticker will work just fine. Your superstar will see the writing on the wall and step it up so they get the callout and reward next time.

I've seen this at work with a Managing Director and her direct reports. Direct reports to a Managing Director are hyper competitive and cutthroat. Think of them like the velociraptors in Jurassic World, if you can keep them focused and not killing each other or everyone around them they're a very powerful force. This MD would just hand out verbal "gold stars" on an all hands call. The DRs would get noticeably upset when they did not get the "gold star".

Re: Some mistakes I made as a new manager

#132

Post by pcurve »

WastingMyTime89 wrote: post #98
pcurve wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was a director with 3 sr. managers reporting into me. They had 4-5 ICs. I found being hands-on pretty much impossible even with fewer than 20 people.

Honest question, I come from an industrial background where you have Work Package Manager in charge of the work of roughly 10 persons but not their actual manager with all the bureaucracy associated and an actual manager with less than 25 reports don’t exist. Is 4 reports common in the US? How do companies survive with so much management?

It's a fair question. At least speaking from my experience, the figure varied depending on the type of work and the employment classification.

I should also add that 3-4 is number of full time employees, not contractors.

For example, it wasn't unusual to see engineering managers with 20 direct reports as long as most were contractors. They usually had couple of full time employees who were senior or leads.

Re: Some mistakes I made as a new manager

#133

Post by MuffinFlavored »

majormajor wrote: post #26
MuffinFlavored wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So many unnecessary conflicts/dramas can be avoided by simple and honest communication. It's really not that simple in my opinion. The flow of information is "upper management wants this a certain way/at a certain time, I'm just the enforcer, if you don't work to accommodate/comply at a high priority, it's a problem" more often than not.

There are worlds of problems in teams and organizations that have nothing to do with what upper management wants, especially as a company grows. Disputes between two developers on a team, disputes between two teams, disputes between a developer and a team, a bunch of teams dogpiling on another team, etc... The above ones aren't always the same as the "what do you think of me" example for "angsting over asking" but ar…

> Disputes between two developers on a team,

The way I've seen it: you should aim to be the developer avoiding disputes at all cost. If you are responsible for a dispute whatsoever, you're the problem child and will be dealt with (by management)

> disputes between two teams,

At my last job, managers were proxies to teams. Engineers were basically encouraged not to talk to other engineers because it would "distract them from whatever they were working on" and any ask you had for them needed to get approved by their manager/other management anyway.

> disputes between a developer and a team,

Again, teams didn't talk to each other. You tell your manager, they go talk to that team's manager. And that team's manager's main job is to say "no, we have no capacity for that", shielding the team at all costs, unless upper management says something/asks something. All initiatives had to come from above, not below.

> a bunch of teams dogpiling on another team, etc...

You get the idea. Team manager -> team manager

Re: Some mistakes I made as a new manager

#134

Post by WastingMyTime89 »

orthoxerox wrote: post #99
WastingMyTime89 wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honest question, I come from an industrial background where you have Work Package Manager in charge of the work of roughly 10 persons but not their actual manager with all the bureaucracy associated and an actual manager with less than 25 reports don’t exist. Is 4 reports common in the US? How do companies survive with so much management?

I'm not in the US, but 4-5 reports is about the right size for a tech lead that wants to stay hand-on. With 8-10 reports you might struggle to sneak some personal contributions in, and if you have more direct reports than that, then you're a full-time manager by necessity.

Ok, so it's more or less what I'm used to. WPMs are indeed not expected to contribute and a tech lead for a team of 5 is what I would expect.

I was more surprised by the idea that you could both be a tech lead and deal with all the issues surrounding budgeting, hiring, company goals alignment and career development issues I associate with being a manager. It seems to me like that means having a lot of people to train and have to keep in the loop.

Re: Some mistakes I made as a new manager

#135

Post by raxxorraxor »

MauroIksem wrote: post #3

I'm so tired of these humble brag posts.

I share some of your criticism. I don't believe there is the one universal style to management. There aren't even styles that fit certain types of employees. There is making good decisions in the face of problems and being able to communicate with your team. The what is much more important than the how.

Maybe that is just my personality type or whatever, but I often don't see the thr essential wisdom. The post isn't braggy though and it is appreciated that the author shares his ideas.

Re: Some mistakes I made as a new manager

#136

Post by alex_lav »

29athrowaway wrote: post #107
alex_lav wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Being a manager does not mean you are correct by default. It means the company you're working for is giving you the autonomy to decide paths forward for yourself and those that report to you. "Correct" is not binary. > Also, a brief refresher: lying about someone is defamation. If you believe something, is it a lie? If you get fired because your manager _believes_ you're bad at your job, even if you believe you are…

If you are a serious manager, you should be able to articulate your opinion regarding someone's performance in terms of qualifications, experience, role fit, hard skills, soft skills, specific situations, etc. It's not just an intuition, feeling or belief. It's management, not astrology. If you have not met a person and "believe" they have bad performance, that's discrimination. If you make up or mischaracterize situ…

These are just more non sequiturs though. Vague platitudes that avoid actually meaningfully discussing what you're suggesting.

> It's not just an intuition, feeling or belief. It's management, not astrology.

Facts aren't intuition, feeling or belief but their perception _can be_. Being late to work every day for a month _can be_ firable, or not.

> If you have not met a person and "believe" they have bad performance,

If you haven't met a person but have observed their behavior, it's literally not discrimination.

> If you make up or mischaracterize situations as a part of your evaluation, that's defamation.

If you mischaracterize your manager as making things up, that's also defamation, no?

> But that employer operates in a territory where there's legislation, which will often include defamation laws. Your employer cannot do whatever they want.

And as I pointed out in the previous post, this goes bidirectionally (and functionally means nothing).

Re: Some mistakes I made as a new manager

#137

Post by drc500free »

rented_mule wrote: post #45
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #23

> ANGSTING INSTEAD OF ASKING This is a great way of describing one of my biggest peeves in the office: So many unnecessary conflicts/dramas can be avoided by simple and honest communication. There’s a related dysfunction where managers are (wrongly) convinced that they must answer every question in the most positive and upbeat way possible. I had to leave a company once because my manager was frustrated with many peo…

I had to work hard to avoid being the "angsting" type of manager. I care deeply about the people around me and it can feel (to me) like I'm attacking them when saying things that might be challenging. The first time I fired someone, I was completely crushed. But I was lucky to have that go particularly well in the long run. It was clear to me why this person wasn't going to succeed with us. I offered to give advice d…

"Radical Candor" is a great book that is 80% summarized by the following 2x2:

              Care
            Personally
               ^
    Ruinous    |   Radical
    Empathy    |   Candor
  --------------------------> Challenge Directly
  Manipulative |  Obnoxious
  Insincerity  |  Agression
Managers don't want to end up in the bottom right, because no one wants to be an asshole. Everyone remembers the negative impact of assholes, and it's very hard to challenge directly without being a dick. A common management failure (and definitely a personal challenge for me) is avoiding directness instead of building empathy. But I've seen a lot more aggregate damage done by large numbers of managers being stuck in the two left quadrants (ESPECIALLY ruinous empathy) and causing a lack of progress from excess entropy.

Re: Some mistakes I made as a new manager

#138

Post by ncr100 »

steveBK123 wrote: post #46

> I asked people for feedback. I found that if I just asked “do you have any feedback for me?” people often wouldn’t, but if I asked more granular questions—“was that meeting useful?”—I would usually learn a lot from it. This part is good. I think generally as engineers, a manager simply asking "do you have feedback for me" just feels like a trap. I don't know man, there's plenty of things you do that annoy me but li…

The principle also goes hand in hand with opposite-direction feedback.

Instead of "Thanks for the help!" ...

... say "Thanks for stepping in to help diagnose my bug, without being asked. I really benefited from your timely support, and for keeping track of that suspicious Login Field credential validation concern. I lost track of that detail and you held onto it."

Re: Some mistakes I made as a new manager

#139

Post by dilyevsky »

WastingMyTime89 wrote: post #134
orthoxerox wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not in the US, but 4-5 reports is about the right size for a tech lead that wants to stay hand-on. With 8-10 reports you might struggle to sneak some personal contributions in, and if you have more direct reports than that, then you're a full-time manager by necessity.

Ok, so it's more or less what I'm used to. WPMs are indeed not expected to contribute and a tech lead for a team of 5 is what I would expect. I was more surprised by the idea that you could both be a tech lead and deal with all the issues surrounding budgeting, hiring, company goals alignment and career development issues I associate with being a manager. It seems to me like that means having a lot of people to train…

Well I’ve never seen anyone below director (or vp in larger orgs) meaningfully decide anything related to budgeting beyond some stupid team offsite thing. Hiring you can scratch off too right now lol. Company goals again this is vp level, everyone below is just a messenger. And finally most management dont stay long enough to meaningfully participate in career dev unless you mean handing out promos at review time (sounds like that should only take a few weeks a year)

Re: Some mistakes I made as a new manager

#140

Post by 29athrowaway »

alex_lav wrote: post #136
29athrowaway wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you are a serious manager, you should be able to articulate your opinion regarding someone's performance in terms of qualifications, experience, role fit, hard skills, soft skills, specific situations, etc. It's not just an intuition, feeling or belief. It's management, not astrology. If you have not met a person and "believe" they have bad performance, that's discrimination. If you make up or mischaracterize situ…

These are just more non sequiturs though. Vague platitudes that avoid actually meaningfully discussing what you're suggesting. > It's not just an intuition, feeling or belief. It's management, not astrology. Facts aren't intuition, feeling or belief but their perception _can be_. Being late to work every day for a month _can be_ firable, or not. > If you have not met a person and "believe" they have bad performance,…

I say if your manager defames people, sue them personally for defamation.

Personally, so that they personally face the consequences of their misconduct out of their own pocket.

It was not that hard to understand, I am sorry you could not understand this simple thing.

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