Why do incompetent managers get promoted? • Hacker News Board

Re: Why do incompetent managers get promoted?

#141

Post by JamesBarney » Sun, Feb 16, 2020, 5:22 AM UTC

perl4ever wrote: post #135

JamesBarney wrote: post #18

> ...I’m not sure if every post will end up being occupied by an incompetent manager, but I do think that when a lot of managers realized they’ve hit their peak or comfort level, they then start to focus on playing politics instead of delivering results to hold on to their position. I have an alternative theory. When you're a single contributor you have total control over your productivity and success, but very littl…

You are, at one point, using "large impact" and "control over success" as though they were obviously not synonyms. But if control is "indistinguishable from noise" then it sounds like control=impact, which means I don't understand your overall point and distinction at all. It seems like it gets all muddled along the way.

By control I mean how much do your actions and ability affect the final outcome. For instance a great chess player will win far more often than slightly worse player. The players have almost complete control over the game. Chance, other players, etc have very little control over the game. But in a hand of poker a very skilled player will only win slightly more often than a worse player, so he exerts far less influence over the outcome of the game.

So I think of being an individual contributor as playing chess for $100 and being a CEO as playing a hand of poker for $100,000.

And to take this analogy further you gain a lot of information about a chess player's skill by whether he wins, but very little from a single hand of poker. Did the poker player lose because he got a band hand or because he's a bad player. There is a similar difference between CEOs versus developers. You can figure out if a developer is any good by seeing how successfully he completes a project or task. But it is very hard to figure out how well a CEO is doing by just looking at his performance.

Re: Why do incompetent managers get promoted?

#142

Post by apple4ever » Mon, Feb 17, 2020, 5:03 AM UTC

inetknght wrote: post #54

derekp7 wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This raises a question in my mind -- do any of these traits actually make the company more successful? Or more generally, are traits that are undesirable to subordinates, yet desirable to higher management, actually good for the company, and are traits that the subordinates value actually detrimental to the company? The reason I ask is that it would seem that natural selection would take over, and if a management sty…

> The reason I ask is that it would seem that natural selection would take over, and if a management style that employees feel good about actually helps the company thrive, then those companies that promote "bad" managers would go out of business and be replaced by ones that promote "good" management style. I would argue that "bad" managers would generally have higher turnover than "good" managers. And I would furthe…

And I’d say that’s because most managers can’t see the opportunity cost of high turnover or low morale.

Re: Why do incompetent managers get promoted?

#143

Post by apple4ever » Mon, Feb 17, 2020, 5:11 AM UTC

btilly wrote: post #56

There are solutions to this problem. My favorite was outlined in https://www.amazon.com/First-Break-All-Rules-Differently/dp/... - namely treat different kinds of jobs as different skillsets and take away the perverse incentive to switch to one you might not be qualified for. Specifically, moving from being an individual contributor to a manager should come with an immediate pay cut . (With opportunities for a pay ra…

That’s a laudable but terrible way to get better managers.

Re: Why do incompetent managers get promoted?

#144

Post by inetknght » Mon, Feb 17, 2020, 7:12 PM UTC

apple4ever wrote: post #142

inetknght wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The reason I ask is that it would seem that natural selection would take over, and if a management style that employees feel good about actually helps the company thrive, then those companies that promote "bad" managers would go out of business and be replaced by ones that promote "good" management style. I would argue that "bad" managers would generally have higher turnover than "good" managers. And I would furthe…

And I’d say that’s because most managers can’t see the opportunity cost of high turnover or low morale.

I agree