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Coaching engineering managers to take on organizational problems

jeffammons.com

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Re: Coaching engineering managers to take on organizational problems

#41

Post by gerdesj »

meindnoch wrote: post #36
Buttons840 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I only recently learned that bonsai trees are just regular trees. That tree pictured could be transplanted and would grow to be a normal full sized tree, amazing.

They are just regular trees, meticulously crippled over years and years.

Do you have any experience with bonsai? A couple of years ago my wife and I had to have a much loved 50' tall walnut (Juglans - yes Jupiter's knobend) felled in our garden. During its life it had some sort of swing attached and some other nasties. In the end it looks like it got damp on the roots and a bit bored. Honey fungus everywhere.

I do have snags with cruelty and bonsai is not cruel.

If you think bonsai is abusive, then please describe it.

Re: Coaching engineering managers to take on organizational problems

#43

Post by petre »

gerdesj wrote: post #31

I'm not sure what sort of engineer jeffammons2 is but this article has no examples in it, just a load of assertions. However, the bonsai in the picture are the real deal. Those are absolutely priceless. That fir tree wants to create needles that are about three to six inches long. It has been pinched religiously for decades. The moss and lichens on the stone are phenomenal and the stone itself was probably licked for…

It's probably from the bonsai museum in Saitama, Japan. I saw this year's Critérium de Saitama cycling race during Tour de France and they showed this museum at the beginning of the video.

Re: Coaching engineering managers to take on organizational problems

#44

Post by sleight42 »

groby_b wrote: post #6
mansoon wrote: post #3

Don’t ever take on organizational problems. You are working at a company. The company is a sociopath. You have to act accordingly.

"The company" is nothing, except what leadership makes it. As a manager, that includes you. If everybody chooses not to care about org problems? Guess what, that's a manifestation of sociopathic behavior. So, act accordingly.

This person gets it. If everyone is in it solely for themselves, that's sociopathic. Companies function better when lubricated with some compassion.

Re: Coaching engineering managers to take on organizational problems

#45

Post by meindnoch »

gerdesj wrote: post #41
meindnoch wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are just regular trees, meticulously crippled over years and years.

Do you have any experience with bonsai? A couple of years ago my wife and I had to have a much loved 50' tall walnut (Juglans - yes Jupiter's knobend) felled in our garden. During its life it had some sort of swing attached and some other nasties. In the end it looks like it got damp on the roots and a bit bored. Honey fungus everywhere. I do have snags with cruelty and bonsai is not cruel. If you think bonsai is abu…

I didn’t say it was “cruel” or “abusive”. These terms only make sense within an ethical framework, which I consider subjective.

I said bonsai are crippled regular trees. You prune it to an extreme degree to stunt its growth and bend it with wires to contort it into an aesthetically pleasing look. That’s just an objective fact.

Re: Coaching engineering managers to take on organizational problems

#46

Post by lifeisstillgood »

H8crilA wrote: post #38
lifeisstillgood wrote: post #34

Any business is an interconnected system of systems - and Roughly speaking 50 years ago, a "manager" would design / improve those systems, optimise them and get the workers to operate inside the system - via design, training, incentives or shouting. The (capable) managers were rewarded As Software eats the world, more and more workers in the systems are CPUs and GPUs. And the coders are the new managers. More and mor…

History shows the exact opposite. What higher level managers, directors and executives do is politics (the practice of allocation of resources).

But politics (ie negotiations for resources between peers) that occur between whom? With work moving "down" a layer to servers and by implication the non-allocative management of resources down a layer to the coders, there are waaaay too many managers and the allocation of resources (ie allocation of those who are now managers) is a totally different discussion - one should be giving AWS budgets to coders and saying run this division.

Now that sounds a lot like microservices / and or two pizza teams.

And the allocation of resources is much more a financier problem - in short there exists a layer of "managers" who don't manage the actual work being done, and have hierarchical control over something that is a financial non hierarchical problem.

in short managers who don't code are dinosaurs

Edit: to try and build a very simplified model of management

- allocate (scarce) resources to desirable projects [financier]

- organise resources to ensure success of project (engineer / planner)

- improve quality of resources (training, maintenance)

- something something read more Drucker

Once the work sits in software (ie search engine) then it's just coders and servers except when you want to create a new business function. And that is to all intents a VC / financier role.

I mean look at how Drucker refers to managers (bestriding the business world) to how google does (8 rules for "coaching" coders)

Google recognises the chnage I think

Re: Coaching engineering managers to take on organizational problems

#47

Post by gerdesj »

meindnoch wrote: post #45
gerdesj wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have any experience with bonsai? A couple of years ago my wife and I had to have a much loved 50' tall walnut (Juglans - yes Jupiter's knobend) felled in our garden. During its life it had some sort of swing attached and some other nasties. In the end it looks like it got damp on the roots and a bit bored. Honey fungus everywhere. I do have snags with cruelty and bonsai is not cruel. If you think bonsai is abu…

I didn’t say it was “cruel” or “abusive”. These terms only make sense within an ethical framework, which I consider subjective. I said bonsai are crippled regular trees. You prune it to an extreme degree to stunt its growth and bend it with wires to contort it into an aesthetically pleasing look. That’s just an objective fact.

So why did you say "crippled" rather than "pruned" in the first place?

"Crippled" is an adjective that attempts to describe a loss of functionality and it is massively overloaded these days. I won't go further there.

How on earth is wiring and pruning of a small plant causing a loss of functionality? I brutally prune roses and fuschias and many other plants too. They respond by growing enthusiastically and being healthy and vigorous. My bonsai do too.

We can skirt around a debate of minor points of language but you did deploy a pejorative term: "cripple" with possible malice 8)

I'd love to hear about your thoughts on these horrors: https://www.rhs.org.uk/plants/types/trees/training-espalier

Re: Coaching engineering managers to take on organizational problems

#48

Post by mansoon »

groby_b wrote: post #6
mansoon wrote: post #3

Don’t ever take on organizational problems. You are working at a company. The company is a sociopath. You have to act accordingly.

"The company" is nothing, except what leadership makes it. As a manager, that includes you. If everybody chooses not to care about org problems? Guess what, that's a manifestation of sociopathic behavior. So, act accordingly.

Act in accordance with your organizational culture and values. If everyone's out for themselves and you act selflessly, you _will_ get hurt.

Mental health issues are for life. It's not worth the risk.

Re: Coaching engineering managers to take on organizational problems

#49

Post by groby_b »

mansoon wrote: post #48
groby_b wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The company" is nothing, except what leadership makes it. As a manager, that includes you. If everybody chooses not to care about org problems? Guess what, that's a manifestation of sociopathic behavior. So, act accordingly.

Act in accordance with your organizational culture and values. If everyone's out for themselves and you act selflessly, you _will_ get hurt. Mental health issues are for life. It's not worth the risk.

Where do you think values and cultures come from, if they aren't set and reinforced by managers? Yes, there are degrees to this - a frontline manager at FAANG has a lot less power to shape than a VP at a 100 person company. But you have the power to shape, to some extent. And you are the person people on your team will look to for cues.

Which means it's a question how big the gap is. If you can cover it with team-local culture, by all means, straddle it. But trust me, if you completely abandon your values, your mental health won't do well either.

I'd suggest that a severe/unfixable values mismatch should trigger a job search on your part, because acting out values that contradict yours rarely ends well for your health.

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