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How to give a senior leader feedback without getting fired

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Re: How to give a senior leader feedback without getting fired

#291

Post by Wurdan »

palata wrote: post #243
jayd16 wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So bleak. It's fine to protect yourself but your managers are people too. You _can_ build a report with them and be frank with them. When I manage folks, I much prefer honesty over someone who just bullshits you.

I feel like you took only half of my point. If the manager is good, then there is no reason to bullshit them. But believing that a bad manager will suddenly become good because you as a report taught them with a few carefully-crafted politically-correct statements sounds extremely naive to me. Let me give an example: to a good manager, you could say "I'm under a lot of pressure because I have two many urgent things o…

Crazily oversimplified view of people. Just one thing you’ve missed: in addition to the axis of good/bad there’s an axis of experienced/inexperienced. Managers can be both good and inexperienced, in which case feedback is absolutely necessary to improve their lives and yours.

Re: How to give a senior leader feedback without getting fired

#292

Post by specialist »

MrMcCall wrote: post #135
bambax wrote: post #17

In aviation this is what Crew Resource Management is about, and in particular, how to make sure the monitoring pilot, who may be the least experienced one, can effectively supervise and review the actions of the other. Many crashes were the result of copilots' fear of speaking up. Business life could learn from this. The person in charge is not a king, they're simply the person tasked with making decisions. There is…

That story in Gladwell about the (IIRC) Korean Air having to switch cockpit languages to English in order to escape the intrinsic layers of deference built into the language was hardcore. They were going to get delisted in Canada if they didn't do it. Yeah, better than crashing into a mountain. That cockpit voice recording was really chilling. Gladwell gets a lot of flack, but he's told some interesting stories. And…

He recently did a mea culpa about the tipping point stuff. Glad he did.

I really, really disliked Gladwell. And yet Pushkin (his podcast network) carries some of the best stuff ever (Jill Lepore). And I found I was agreeing with a lot of Gladwell's (and Michael Lewis') overall "punching up" worldview. So I was having trouble reconciliing my two views of him.

As we've seen with Lewis' recent hagiography for that crypto freak: people are just people, they make mistakes, everyone's got blind spots, we don't have to agree on everything to learn from each other.

Re: How to give a senior leader feedback without getting fired

#293

Post by stavros »

palata wrote: post #245
stavros wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree. Superiors are people too, and they make mistakes. I've had subordinates give me feedback (which I followed), and I've given feedback to superiors (which they've followed). Both ways were extremely positive experiences and everyone involved was happier for it.

What kind of feedback was it? My guess is that those were pretty minor things that slightly improved your life. But the fact that it worked hints towards the fact that the managers were already competent, so the reports were already in a pretty good situation. No need for the advice of the featured article for that, right?

The most recent instance, a few days ago, my feedback to the CTO was that, while the org restructuring he proposed was a good idea in principle, the way he did it was terrible, and that he ignored and disrespected his highest performers. I said he hogs all the growth for himself and doesn't let any of his reports grow into more responsibilities, and he's showing that he doesn't respect the people who are integral in the company's functioning. I also told him that there are people who do a ton of work to correct others' mistakes and don't get any credit or recognition for it, and he failed to recognize those.

It kind of made him sad, which wasn't great because he's a nice guy and a competent CTO, but his latest move was catastrophic and he needed to hear it.

> No need for the advice of the featured article for that, right?

I mostly agree with the other commenters here, giving feedback upwards is easier and you don't need to sugarcoat it as much, because you can't fire the person above so they aren't going to be insecure about your feedback. Then again, they are people, and giving constructive feedback gently is better than giving it harshly, so I can't say the article is entirely unnecessary. Maybe partly.

Re: How to give a senior leader feedback without getting fired

#294

Post by Wurdan »

lupire wrote: post #93
kybernetikos wrote: post #14

Most of those examples (not giving enough direction, not training new hires enough, not being clear enough on priorities) are probably not going to be surprises for the person, and if you give feedback that shows you want someone to behave differently without having given some thought about why they aren't already then your feedback talks more about your own lack of experience and empathy than anything else. To give…

I don't think a manager will be impressed by a report saying "I know you can't do your whole job, so let me handle face time with the execs so I can take your job from you."

I would be impressed by one of my reports saying “We’ve worked together to get me ready for the next step in my career, and I think more face time with our execs will help me take that step. Can you help me find opportunities to get it?” This is assuming we’re on the same page about how ready they are to take that step. But if we’re not on the same page, then I’ve already failed in performance reviews and feedback.

Re: How to give a senior leader feedback without getting fired

#295

Post by fhfjfk »

bdangubic wrote: post #251
loup-vaillant wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why would you get fired for giving feedback? Is this just a US thing? Possibly: in many places there they have "at will" employment, where they can basically fire you with little to no severance at any time for any reason. There are limits, but compared to most of Europe that's the gist of it. So yeah, you can be fired just because someone doesn't like you. And giving feedback is a good way to not be liked.

every employment should be at will!! is there a constitutional or birthright to employment at XYZ company? these discussion always look at one side, like “employer can’t fire employee X without paying severance and other junk” but if I started a company and said “if you leave the company you have to pay severance back to the company for leaving” everyone would be up in arms about it…

I live in a US state that has at-will employment.

I once had an owner of a small business threaten to sue me for quitting because it would cause financial harm to the business. And that was with giving 4 weeks notice.

At-will employment laws protect employees that want to quit, not just employers that want to fire.

Re: How to give a senior leader feedback without getting fired

#296

Post by Wurdan »

bdangubic wrote: post #285
loup-vaillant wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> every employment should be at will!! I would agree in an ideal world where salaries are tied to a qualification (a notion a tad more nuanced than just diploma), instead of their job . While there is no (nor should be any) constitutional right to work at any given company, I think people should have an inalienable right to live. Which in practice means food, shelter, and health care at a minimum, regardless of their…

I think this arrangement would be fair if you had to pay back to the company the same amount they have to pay you. to get a notice for some period of time makes sense (both ways) but I can’t see a reason why this is all not equal on both sides.

And I can’t see a reason why it should be equal. Even if you strip the relationship down to its most basic principle, there is asymmetry. One party provides work with the expectation of pay, the other party providess pay with the expectation of work.

But the asymmetries don’t end there. Terminating employment is a far greater threat to the employee than the employer. This creates a power imbalance which could easily be exploited by malicious or incompetent employers. That power imbalance is fundamental to this relationship and is reason enough (in the opinion of many countries) to bolster worker rights.

Re: How to give a senior leader feedback without getting fired

#297

Post by loup-vaillant »

bdangubic wrote: post #285
loup-vaillant wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> every employment should be at will!! I would agree in an ideal world where salaries are tied to a qualification (a notion a tad more nuanced than just diploma), instead of their job . While there is no (nor should be any) constitutional right to work at any given company, I think people should have an inalienable right to live. Which in practice means food, shelter, and health care at a minimum, regardless of their…

I think this arrangement would be fair if you had to pay back to the company the same amount they have to pay you. to get a notice for some period of time makes sense (both ways) but I can’t see a reason why this is all not equal on both sides.

> I can’t see a reason why this is all not equal on both sides.

I can.

Think of what employment is for a second: shareholders (or company owners) own the capital, and the employee gets to follow orders. Structurally, the company pay workers less than their actual value: shareholders gotta hold, and they squeeze the margin out of the employee. The margin may be thin, but it's never meant to be zero (except for non-profits, but they're the exception).

Such a relationship is fundamentally asymmetrical, such an exchange fundamentally unequal. If you want any hope of restoring fairness from this system, termination conditions have to be asymmetrical as well.

Re: How to give a senior leader feedback without getting fired

#298

Post by Tabular-Iceberg »

loup-vaillant wrote: post #244
Tabular-Iceberg wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s fascinating how resistant pretty much every industry is to taking lessons from aviation, considering how much empirical evidence there is compared to almost every other management paradigm, which basically amounts to “just trust me bro”. It particularly shocked me working in shipping where the lessons can be implemented pretty much without modification since it’s all the same work except they move in 2 rather th…

The difference is how measurable the consequences are. In aviation when there's a screw up people die right then and there. People dying is a very hard to game metric, and it provides a very strong incentive. The consequences of bad management in a software project on the other hand are much more nebulous. And nobody died as a direct consequence of some manager being a jerk… oh wait, I'm sure some did (committed suic…

It’s not that. MV Sewol killed 304, many of them schoolchildren. The captain was put away for life, and rightfully so, but it’s not an incentive to do much else.

For some reason only air crashes seem to make any lasting impressions.

Re: How to give a senior leader feedback without getting fired

#299

Post by maxnevermind »

callc wrote: post #288

I’m sick of dealing with managers and bad leaders, and want to get back to coding and building cool stuff. Is there any solution for this? Co-op? Contract work? Consultancy? Union? Flat org structure? Self employment? Start a company with a couple of engineer friends and have flat org, based on trust? I’m guessing only the last two options are promising. I’d appreciate hearing everyone’s stories, as I am genuinely in…

I hope that in the future maybe AI will be to organize people better in larger organizations so people are more focused on doing productive work instead of endlessly aligning on things and the hoard of people doing alignment in large organizations can find a better use of their time.

Re: How to give a senior leader feedback without getting fired

#300

Post by fellowniusmonk »

lijok wrote: post #6

Astonishing. Completely backwards. This article describes how to give feedback to your subordinates, not to your superiors. If your superiors are unable to process no-fluff information, regardless of whether it's feedback or updates, they have no business lording over anyone and will sink whatever function they have oversight of. If you find yourself working under such people, don't bother giving feedback, start poli…

Yes, many "superiors" would be better replaced by AI because they would be better able to process accurate feedback dispationately.

Where have you worked my dude that you have this perspective? After a long and storied career I can safely say you must have a narrow experience and there is nearly endless literature about the need to manage up.

Or maybe you're a bully boss yourself and it's just an empathy disconnect.

Or maybe you've only worked in relatively large corporations? Idk, the thick skinned executive isn't a trope and it isn't a trope for a reason.

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