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People leave managers, not companies

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Re: People leave managers, not companies

#141

Post by Balgair »

ZenoArrow wrote: post #79

I think this article misses an important point, which is that managers, or at least line managers, are often the messenger for decisions made in upper management. If I think back on the jobs I've had in the past, it's very rare for me to have issues with line managers. However, I had serious doubts about the competency of upper management in multiple companies that I've worked for. In this case, unless upper manageme…

Middle management people are the graphite control rods of a nuclear reactor, they slow down the process enough to be useful and act as sacrificial elements in the power plant.

The Gervais Principle is a great lens with which to look at company hierarchies and all people in any large organization should know about it: https://www.ribbonfarm.com/the-gervais-principle/

"Sociopaths, in their own best interests, knowingly promote over-performing losers into middle-management, groom under-performing losers into sociopaths, and leave the average bare-minimum-effort losers to fend for themselves."(Don't get too attached to the names used, Rao intentionally makes everyone into a miserable cog in the machine)

Re: People leave managers, not companies

#142

Post by dragonwriter »

lazyasciiart wrote: post #136
ZenoArrow wrote: post #79

I think this article misses an important point, which is that managers, or at least line managers, are often the messenger for decisions made in upper management. If I think back on the jobs I've had in the past, it's very rare for me to have issues with line managers. However, I had serious doubts about the competency of upper management in multiple companies that I've worked for. In this case, unless upper manageme…

The article is based on data that includes, among other points, that the individual manager accounts for 70% of the variance in employee engagement, and that 50% of Americans had left their job because of the individual manager. If you want to argue that the individual managers are not important and the bad effects come from higher up, you'd have to show some counter evidence to these points. (I am personally about t…

If the individual manager is bad enough for long enough to make people leave, that in and of itself means there is a supervision problem that extends at least 2-3 levels above that manager.

Re: People leave managers, not companies

#143

Post by AnAnonyCowherd »

dominotw wrote: post #80
ZenoArrow wrote: post #79

I think this article misses an important point, which is that managers, or at least line managers, are often the messenger for decisions made in upper management. If I think back on the jobs I've had in the past, it's very rare for me to have issues with line managers. However, I had serious doubts about the competency of upper management in multiple companies that I've worked for. In this case, unless upper manageme…

I am this exact situation. I love my manager, simply one of the best i've ever worked with. But he is simply is messenger for poor decisions that are made by couple of incompetent people above him. I am not sure what can be done about incompetent people being promoted to position of power where they make horrendous misinformed decisions. Often its too late before the magnitude of their fuckups is visible, usually the…

I wish it were as simple as "incompetence."

There's a director-level IT manager where I work which has made my personal job a hassle for years.

There's a follow-on business process to our main process, which was a terrible mess. I wrote a program in a year and a half which vastly simplified the process. The director is mad, because his team of 10 contractors has been unable to write a successful version for 4 years now. (Hundreds of people use my software every day. There are still no production programs using his.) I even told his team's manager how to fix what's broken about their program, and they wouldn't listen. (And then the director fired that manager.)

He wants to own the process because it's important. He needs it to line his nest. So he finally got moves made to put a sympathetic middle manager in place to force me (and my direct boss) to hand over the program to his team to maintain. As they say, if you can't code it, take it over and act like you wrote it. (And charge internal groups $1000/user/year for the privilege of using it.)

Now my job involves improving another follow-on process that's also horribly broken, even worse than the first. And I just found out at lunch today that the director MADE HIS BONES, fifteen years ago, by IMPLEMENTING the horrible process that makes all these other follow-on processes both necessary and nightmarish.

So my new quote is: "Never attribute to incompetence what can be explained as ruthlessness driven by an inferiority complex."

I'm tired now, so I won't go into how I saw this behavior distort correct outcomes and delay business improvement for personal gain, a long time ago, at another Fortune 250.

Re: People leave managers, not companies

#144

Post by [deleted] »

maxxxxx wrote: post #93
ZenoArrow wrote: post #79

I think this article misses an important point, which is that managers, or at least line managers, are often the messenger for decisions made in upper management. If I think back on the jobs I've had in the past, it's very rare for me to have issues with line managers. However, I had serious doubts about the competency of upper management in multiple companies that I've worked for. In this case, unless upper manageme…

As manager in the middle you often feel helpless. You want to help your people but you have nothing to offer. Can't give raises, no place to promote people, top management doesn't support your initiatives. It's a difficult place to be in.

[deleted]

Re: People leave managers, not companies

#145

Post by ZenoArrow »

lazyasciiart wrote: post #136
ZenoArrow wrote: post #79

I think this article misses an important point, which is that managers, or at least line managers, are often the messenger for decisions made in upper management. If I think back on the jobs I've had in the past, it's very rare for me to have issues with line managers. However, I had serious doubts about the competency of upper management in multiple companies that I've worked for. In this case, unless upper manageme…

The article is based on data that includes, among other points, that the individual manager accounts for 70% of the variance in employee engagement, and that 50% of Americans had left their job because of the individual manager. If you want to argue that the individual managers are not important and the bad effects come from higher up, you'd have to show some counter evidence to these points. (I am personally about t…

> "If you want to argue that the individual managers are not important and the bad effects come from higher up, you'd have to show some counter evidence to these points."

I'm not here to dispute the figures that were shared in the article, I'm suggesting that the interpretation of those figures was off, as it overlooks the aspects of management that are out of the control of the line/middle manager.

Furthermore, I'm not disputing your own reasons for leaving, as I'm not suggesting the competency of line managers can't be the reason people leave their job.

Re: People leave managers, not companies

#146

Post by tk75x »

dagw wrote: post #65
crdoconnor wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>"getting your work done" (which is admittedly a subjective, hard-to-quantify metric) Getting "work done" is fairly easy to recognize - you can tell when bugs are getting fixed and features are being delivered and when they are not. Getting work done to a high standard and delivered at an appropriate speed is, I think, only recognizable by another developer who is as good or better than you. >Personally, I always try…

Getting "work done" is fairly easy to recognize Bob closed 20 tickets this week, and Dave is still working on that one ticket from last week. Who got most work done this week?

Metrics should always be supplemented with communication. If Dave's performance is under question, talk to him and find out his progress on the one ticket he's been working on.

EDIT: realized after posting that multiple people made this point. Just goes to show that it should be common sense.

Re: People leave managers, not companies

#147

Post by rconti »

Funny, I just left a job where new management was installed and promptly lost ~12/30 people in the span of 9 months. Not only was life markedly worse on day 1, it got worse every time another quality coworker or line manager left.

You'd think this would send a signal to someone that a mistake had been made. Nope!

Re: People leave managers, not companies

#148

Post by unabst »

perl4ever wrote: post #38
unabst wrote: post #33

The manager is your interface to management. It's their job to tell you what you need to know and what to do. To an employee, they're the face of the business. But at the end of the day, if it's the people that make up a business, then I'd question if they are not the same thing. I asked a new acquaintance of mine about something bothering me. I asked him, "so, how often do you fire people? How do find the right peop…

Being a manager is about being loyal to the company and not individuals. It pays more precisely because it causes pain to peoples' consciences to put an abstraction above fellow employees. Talking about a CEO catching bullets in their teeth is ridiculously inflated language. Why use such imagery? Because the mission of a typical company does not sufficiently compensate for the guilt produced by putting the organizati…

No.

Putting the organization ahead of individuals isn't what's happening. The individuals ARE the organization.

So if you put yourself ahead of the organization, you're putting everyone else behind you, including your boss. This is a challenge for millennials especially, who are used to always being put first, and having their emotions managed.

A good manager doesn't put themselves before their boss or anyone else. How often do you hear of programmers who enter management to hardly touch code again? A good manager puts the organization first, both above and below their pay grade.

But their performance also depends on the people they manage. If a worker is incompetent, they have every right to be hard on those mistakes. And the worker is fully responsible for setting things right. Work is not homework that gets handed back to you after its graded. It's something needed by someone else that needs it for something important. And nothing is redundant in a tightly run business.

When I think of Melissa Mayers, I think of bullets. Despite whether anyone agrees with "her" moves (which were clearly backed by her counsel), she was doing everything she could to increase market share and rebuild a failing business. She took on all the risk, and becomes target practice for those who despise her failures. When was the last time you were bashed on HN? And she does this so that everyone at Yahoo has a job. She is fighting for YOU.

Regardless of my word choice, to borrow your words, the CEO is a ridiculously inflated position.

Re: People leave managers, not companies

#149

Post by watwut »

Spooky23 wrote: post #133
watwut wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Showing up sometime between 8 and 11 is unreasonable, because it prevents people to come sooner then at 8. It should have been "sometime between 6 and 11" to be proper. Also since people know the guy in your story is not working enough, it should be easy to check on him couple of times and then fire him.

Our practice is that you can pick your own consistent start time between 7-9. You can also do things like compress your week to 4 10 hour days or add an hour to get a day every two weeks. We don't want you in the office after 6 on anything approaching a regular basis. You can vary the time by day, which is common for childcare or other outside demands on your time. If your habit is a 5 hour start window for an 8 hour…

That window works well around here, zero problems. And I don't have to be consistent, I can decide when I come in the morning.

Re: People leave managers, not companies

#150

Post by dominotw »

AnAnonyCowherd wrote: post #143
dominotw wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am this exact situation. I love my manager, simply one of the best i've ever worked with. But he is simply is messenger for poor decisions that are made by couple of incompetent people above him. I am not sure what can be done about incompetent people being promoted to position of power where they make horrendous misinformed decisions. Often its too late before the magnitude of their fuckups is visible, usually the…

I wish it were as simple as "incompetence." There's a director-level IT manager where I work which has made my personal job a hassle for years. There's a follow-on business process to our main process, which was a terrible mess. I wrote a program in a year and a half which vastly simplified the process. The director is mad, because his team of 10 contractors has been unable to write a successful version for 4 years n…

oh my god! I was having a dejavu reading your post. This could have been written by me. I guess this shit is more common than I imagined.

It did teach me a lot of lessons though. Never work for the company, always work for yourself. Accumulate power to make decisions, thinking that writing some kickass code is going get you somewhere is misguided.

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