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Managing People

klinger.io

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Re: Managing People

#51

Post by wreath »

choilive wrote: post #22
wreath wrote: post #13

The author mentions firing people in almost every point. Is firing people in the US so easy that it is a go-to solution to solve these problems?

Yes, most states are "at-will", which means you can be fired for any non-illegal reason at any time, barring any existing contracts.

But is that at the will of your direct boss or there is a process that they have to go through? Like, if for some reason I piss off my manager, they get mad and fire my ass on the spot? How common is this in tech companies?

Re: Managing People

#52

Post by sgt »

xupybd wrote: post #34
choilive wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, most states are "at-will", which means you can be fired for any non-illegal reason at any time, barring any existing contracts.

Wow it's next to impossible here in NZ.

Here in South Africa it's challenging but certainly not impossible. If you provide 3 or so written warnings and set up sessions to try to allow the employee to improve, you may go ahead and dismiss the person. But you can't simply fire at will unless it's gross misconduct or similar.

Re: Managing People

#53

Post by xelxebar »

afdsasdfe wrote: post #39
TameAntelope wrote: post #31

Maybe it’s just the mood I’m in, but I found this list/notes style basically impossible to parse. Why are any of these things true? Credentials alone are not going to get me to blindly accept any of this; maybe some reasoning would help, a few anecdotes, conversations with other experts (or at least quotes) so I can relate this content to other content and start to fit this info in with everything else I already know…

Worked fine for me. The brevity is exactly what I need instead of wading through tons of often unnecessary text. It's all common sense - which too many of my bosses just didn't have - and the summary form help bring them to focus. IMO it's good. YMMV, I appreciate.

Not OP, but "It's all common sense" is exactly the problem, as I see it. Common Sense usually means Big Hairy Ball of Experience-Grounded Implicit Knowledge Wrapped Up Into Pithy Statements, in my experience.

Sure, each point in the article may sound reasonable, but there are also 1000 other bullet points that also make sense. How do you sort out all the "good" Common Sense from the "bad"?

Not to mention that every bullet points also has tons of Gotchas, where it works 80% of the time and enumerating the remaining 20% cases turns into another giant bullet list which must also be internalized as Common Sense to be effectuated well.

Re: Managing People

#54

Post by [deleted] »

jillesvangurp wrote: post #37
wreath wrote: post #13

The author mentions firing people in almost every point. Is firing people in the US so easy that it is a go-to solution to solve these problems?

I've fired some people in an EU setting; and have also been let go myself (layoff round, I never took it personally). It's true that countries outside the US have more legal checks and balances around this topic. But it's not true that it's impossible to fire people. Basically, those checks and balances are mostly for good reasons. And I've noticed that better employers in the US tend to use them as well even if they…

[deleted]

Re: Managing People

#55

Post by sz4kerto »

TameAntelope wrote: post #31

Maybe it’s just the mood I’m in, but I found this list/notes style basically impossible to parse. Why are any of these things true? Credentials alone are not going to get me to blindly accept any of this; maybe some reasoning would help, a few anecdotes, conversations with other experts (or at least quotes) so I can relate this content to other content and start to fit this info in with everything else I already know…

I think almost everything he says is true (based on my own experience with management). The reason this post is good is because it provides very 'quotable' statements. Of course no one will learn how to be a good manager just based on these bulletpoints, but they can serve as a basis of discussion, so for example if you'd like to mentor new managers in your company (and you understand/agree with what the post says) then this can be a good starting point; you pick one quote, e.g. "As a manager, everything is your fault" -- then talk about it at length.

Re: Managing People

#56

Post by skj »

wreath wrote: post #51
choilive wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, most states are "at-will", which means you can be fired for any non-illegal reason at any time, barring any existing contracts.

But is that at the will of your direct boss or there is a process that they have to go through? Like, if for some reason I piss off my manager, they get mad and fire my ass on the spot? How common is this in tech companies?

Pretty uncommon at tech companies, but it's entirely based on the company's policy. The company can fire you at any time (as long as it's not one of several specific bad reasons like racial discrimination), but it's the company that employs you, not your manager. So only the company can fire you.

Generally big tech companies don't give your manager the authority to blindly fire you, but only because that's a decision the company made.

Re: Managing People

#57

Post by wreath »

jillesvangurp wrote: post #37
wreath wrote: post #13

The author mentions firing people in almost every point. Is firing people in the US so easy that it is a go-to solution to solve these problems?

I've fired some people in an EU setting; and have also been let go myself (layoff round, I never took it personally). It's true that countries outside the US have more legal checks and balances around this topic. But it's not true that it's impossible to fire people. Basically, those checks and balances are mostly for good reasons. And I've noticed that better employers in the US tend to use them as well even if they…

Thanks for your detailed input!

I've been around people who were fired in Germany as well, both as what you described in 1) and 2).

2) takes a lot of effort, a lot of people and the negative effect of that person's performance on the rest of the team can be severely damaging too, that I wish we had at-will employment in Germany too sometimes, but it's there for good measures and I'm generally happy with it.

Re: Managing People

#58

Post by wreath »

tjungblut wrote: post #50
wreath wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see he is based in Berlin, Germany (according to his LinkedIn) where it's extremely hard to fire people (especially for reasons he mentioned in the post) once they are past the 6 months probation period. This smells like he is giving advice that he didn't do himself. Firing people is a pain for all parties involved.

You'd be surprised how many folks (many people on bluecard visas) take such severance "offer" without any legal consultation. Many tech immigrants in Germany do not know of their worker rights.

Yes! The difference between how German employees who got laid off deal with the situation compared to bluecard visa holders, is stark, but not surprising.

Re: Managing People

#59

Post by specialist »

Nice writeup. Agreed with all.

Yes and:

> You manage processes; you lead people

> Processes are expectations made explicit

I way I learned it was "Structure + Processes = Outcomes".

By me focusing on S and P, I was able to delegate emotional ownership of O to my team. IMHO, that sense ownership is a "critical success factor". Which you touch on further down your list.

Journey of the Software Professional: The Sociology of Software Development, Luke Hohmann [1996] https://www.amazon.com/Journey-Software-Professional-Sociolo...

The other crucial bit of life advice I got from Luke, which may not be in the book, was:

"Sometimes you have to let people fail. Just have Plan B ready to deal with the aftermath."

But that's a much longer story.

--

Again, nice writeup.

Is it too much to hope that your common sense regard for the process of software development is early evidence that our industry might finally be moving past the Agile cargo cult era? (Hot damn, it's been a lonely, frustrating two decades, remembering how things were before Agile.)

--

PS- I've recently heard (read) the "First Pancake" metaphor for first effort, maybe a dozen times. Another gem I had first heard from Luke, back in the day.

Re: Managing People

#60

Post by andrewingram »

wreath wrote: post #13

The author mentions firing people in almost every point. Is firing people in the US so easy that it is a go-to solution to solve these problems?

IIRC the UK is at-will for the first two years of your employment too. Some startups leverage this to an almost toxic degree.

I had one manager (who then became CTO and is now CEO of another startup) who, by all appearances, treated firing as the only tool in his arsenal for dealing with any personnel problem. I was never on the receiving end, but in a few cases I know for a fact that he lied (or hugely exaggerated) about what the terminated employee had been done. He is the reason I left.

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