This idea is based on a premise I don't think is at all obvious: that the person who volunteers for a job is necessarily the best person for a job.
Leave Work Unassigned and See Who Steps Forward
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Re: Leave Work Unassigned and See Who Steps Forward
#32Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 1. If a manager leaves work unassigned and you pick it up, prepare to have a LOT more work dumped on you in the future for no reward. Why do you assume "no reward"? What kind of company/manager wouldn't reward an employee who goes that extra mile?
Most. For most employers, an employee is a cost / benefit thing (see also: capitalism). The more work an employee does for the least amount of money, the better value that employee is to the employer. Relevant to HN, this is common in SV; fixed working hours / contracts (i.e. 40 hr workweeks) - which unions have fought hard for to achieve - are frowned upon, working overtime, evenings, weekends, and odd hours are enc…
At least where I work, there are annual raises where junior managers recommend which of their employees should receive small/medium/large raises; and only giving small raises does not produce any rewards or benefits for the manager.
If someone is doing great work, why wouldn't a manager recommend they get a large raise? They want to retain good performers, after all.
Re: Leave Work Unassigned and See Who Steps Forward
#33I am 100% pro this approach. Of course it won't work for 80% of companies with rigid control and hierarchy but I never had much interest in working for such companies.
Maybe I am too old but I remember days of programming being pure fun and maybe it is not typical but I can choose such jobs even today. If it does not sparkle there is no amount of money that can make me join the team.
Programming was (and is) the thing of passion and joy. If you don't have fun you're holding it the wrong way. Having 'fill the gap' tasks is brilliant way to keep the team engaged the right way. It won't work for sweatshops but why would one work in such company in the first place? Money is no excuse just to be clear in advance.
Unless it is thing of love and passion and fun it is not programming in the first place.
Re: Leave Work Unassigned and See Who Steps Forward
#34This practice can easily be abused or/and cause unintented consequences. For example, once employees know this is a short cut for promotion, they will focus a lot of their energy and attention to find 'the void' and try to fill it, or act like they can fill it, thus neglecting the real work that need to be done. In fact, this could be a cultural issue where everybody tries to act like taking a lead (usually by blanke…
You're highlighting this taken extreme levels where people are able to chop between what they are doing, which what Enron used to do to pretty disastrous effects.
This reads much more about people remaining in their teams, on their projects but not being micromanaged. It should tie nicely into Scrum retrospectives (as an example) where people bring things up versus just staying silent.
It's a really good example that leadership is something that everyone has an opportunity to exercise, not just management, and that in most companies leadership is very rarely exercised merely a job title.
Re: Leave Work Unassigned and See Who Steps Forward
#35Ugg. I'm sorry about being negative but here are some protips: 1. If a manager leaves work unassigned and you pick it up, prepare to have a LOT more work dumped on you in the future for no reward. 2. If you pretend to be a manager with hopes of being made a manager, all that you will accomplish is you are going to end up doing your job AND your bosses job. Your boss will look like a hero to his/her peers. You'll kill…
I personally take on jobs I'm not assigned. But I think believing someone owes you a promotion for working hard is bs. Instead, work on the things you find valuable in whatever way you want it to be.
Tbh though I actually agree with your comment 100% but there is a positive way to spin it
Re: Leave Work Unassigned and See Who Steps Forward
#36Ugg. I'm sorry about being negative but here are some protips: 1. If a manager leaves work unassigned and you pick it up, prepare to have a LOT more work dumped on you in the future for no reward. 2. If you pretend to be a manager with hopes of being made a manager, all that you will accomplish is you are going to end up doing your job AND your bosses job. Your boss will look like a hero to his/her peers. You'll kill…
I personally take on jobs I'm not assigned. But I think believing someone owes you a promotion for working hard is bs. Instead, work on the things you find valuable in whatever way you want it to be. Tbh though I actually agree with your comment 100% but there is a positive way to spin it
I personally take on jobs I'm not assigned.
Instead of or in addition to your normal duties? Or do you find that your normal duties don't fill a normal work week?
Re: Leave Work Unassigned and See Who Steps Forward
#37This practice can easily be abused or/and cause unintented consequences. For example, once employees know this is a short cut for promotion, they will focus a lot of their energy and attention to find 'the void' and try to fill it, or act like they can fill it, thus neglecting the real work that need to be done. In fact, this could be a cultural issue where everybody tries to act like taking a lead (usually by blanke…
You're highlighting this taken extreme levels where people are able to chop between what they are doing, which what Enron used to do to pretty disastrous effects. This reads much more about people remaining in their teams, on their projects but not being micromanaged. It should tie nicely into Scrum retrospectives (as an example) where people bring things up versus just staying silent. It's a really good example that…
Scrum retrospectives will no doubt help to address voids in work flow, product, or technology. However this seldom make one as manager.
In fact, very likely once good programmers done all the work, some jokers (within the team or otherwise) will jump out and grab the credits by sending out emails, then the joker is promoted.
This is the initial stage of what I described in my previous post. Again, you need technical strong managers to see through the mist, but sadly, these managers are rare (at least in my industry).
Re: Leave Work Unassigned and See Who Steps Forward
#38Ugg. I'm sorry about being negative but here are some protips: 1. If a manager leaves work unassigned and you pick it up, prepare to have a LOT more work dumped on you in the future for no reward. 2. If you pretend to be a manager with hopes of being made a manager, all that you will accomplish is you are going to end up doing your job AND your bosses job. Your boss will look like a hero to his/her peers. You'll kill…
If I may, here is some of my protips: - The best route up is hitching your wagon to your bosses wagon. So yes doing some of his work will make him look like a hero, which will get him promoted, and he'll think who is his most valuable / productive underling, which will get you promoted. Hopefully you doing some of his work free's up his time to be more productive in other areas. If your boss is a lazy PHB (Dilbert),…
Great post. Make those above you look great and keep them looking great and you will go far assuming your boss is not a PHB.
Re: Leave Work Unassigned and See Who Steps Forward
#39This practice can easily be abused or/and cause unintented consequences. For example, once employees know this is a short cut for promotion, they will focus a lot of their energy and attention to find 'the void' and try to fill it, or act like they can fill it, thus neglecting the real work that need to be done. In fact, this could be a cultural issue where everybody tries to act like taking a lead (usually by blanke…
I completely agree. Leaving a gap and waiting for someone to fill it is practically the opposite of management.
> ..once employees know this is a short cut for promotion, they will focus a lot of their energy and attention to find 'the void' and try to fill it, or act like they can fill it, thus neglecting the real work that need to be done.
This in particular is really dangerous because it can poison an organisation's culture. For example, imagine Ben decides to focus on managing upwards in an effort to get Adam to promote him. Meanwhile, he neglects his duties, forcing his team-mates to pick up the slack. They start getting annoyed at Ben because he's not pulling his weight.
It's not uncommon, in my experience (and I'm aware that I'm at risk of stereo-typing here), for good, smart, conscientious people in technical roles to focus first on doing the job that they've been assigned and trust that management will recognise and reward them for doing so (and, conversely, punish anyone who slacks off), and that one of those rewards is that they will be considered for any opportunity for promotion that arises. Unfortunately, that doesn't always happen.
If Adam promotes Ben, his old team-mates are going to be really pissed off. From their perspective, Ben's bad behaviour has been rewarded, instead of rectified. Meanwhile, the extra work they've been putting in to make up for that bad behaviour has been completely ignored.
The end result is an unhappy team, They'll resent both Ben and Adam, their productivity will probably drop (because whey the hell should they work their asses off when they're clearly not going to be rewarded for it?), and may well start looking elsewhere for work.
In that scenario, Adam has not done a good job as a manager, and he's definitely not a good leader.
There's nothing wrong with identifying a gap and opening a dialogue about how it can be filled (including asking if anyone's interested in filling it) but if someone moves to plug a gap, that generally means that they're going to leave a gap somewhere else. A good manager needs to make sure that they understand the implications of shifting people around, and explicitly recognise the indirect contribution that Ben's old team-mates are making to fill the gap.
Organisations are about teams, not individuals. It's astounding how many managers fail to grasp that.
Re: Leave Work Unassigned and See Who Steps Forward
#40I think this is one of the arguments for holocracy. The entire purpose of management is to efficiently assign work to individual contributors. Instead of leaving a few work items unassigned, holocracy leaves all the work items unassigned, and then the ones that get done are the ones that are most important to the team. I'm not saying I buy the idea, and in fact that the same arguments against holocracy work against t…
If nobody steps up then it's quite likely that work never needed to get done in the first place. win-win as long as it's a learning experience for all involved. It's definitely a problem if you force a team or a person into a certain pattern and then change the rules without telling. For example you may have punished someone for taking the initiative in the past and now you try to intentionally create a vacuum. In th…
> If nobody steps up then it's quite likely that work never needed to get done in the first place.
Or it's a really grotty compliance issue, requiring tedious reworking of existing code against a deadline imposed by an external authority under threat of penalty.
No-one wants to work on those issues. If you screw it up, the company is fined and you're probably on a shortlist for the next RIF. If you manage to do it right under pressure and stress, the company isn't fined and you're back looking at a list of upcoming work items.
Why take that on as an employee if there's an option to dodge it?