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Ask HN: How to deal with incompetent people

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Re: Ask HN: How to deal with incompetent people

#61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I thought that the value that I create will talk more than the nonsense of some people. Nope. Silence is always less noticeable than noise. Evil prevails when good men do nothing. Also, nonsense fluff prevails when good work isn't spoken of. You have a professional duty to make sure nonsense is crowded out by important information. No one is going to do that for you. Follow the rule of three...tell people what you a…

Cannot agree more, this is a life lesson that should be taught in school. Especially in medium/large companies where you got rewards like promotions, bonuses and so on, then your colleagues are competitors. Pretty much like politics, the one over promising and under delivering wins over the quiet one that delivers.

exactly how much to promise is an art form

over promising and under delivering isn't a sustainable model

under promising too much and you won't get the chance to deliver

there's a sweet spot somewhere in there, which can be sometimes tricky to find

Re: Ask HN: How to deal with incompetent people

#62
post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I never tried because we had to work together closely and I didn't want to break the balance. And now I don't know if it make sense since he became my manager.

leave the company. if the company does not promote meritocracy (in a sense that it gives more competent people more responsibility and vice versa), you are destined to become more and more at disadvantage. life is too short to spend it fighting a localized idiot. go build something interesting that will benefit mankind.

Spoiler alert: talking about your work is a big part of meritocracy.

Re: Ask HN: How to deal with incompetent people

#63
Why was it wrong to promote your colleague to manager instead of you?

You did technical work, but your colleague build relationships and manoeuvred politically.

So from what you’re saying, your colleague was a better choice for management than you. Because management isn’t really about having technical skills, even in tech, it’s about building relationships and getting the most out of them while you hold a steady course through corporate politics.

I mean, you didn’t even speak up for your achievements when you felt they were being stolen. And now you can’t come to terms with a new management structure. How do you expect to handle a management meeting?

That’s a little rough, and I am sorry, but technical skills isn’t really useful above technical leads, and those guys/girls rarely have responsibilities outside of technical direction.

I mean, do you even want to spend 60% of your time motivating other people, dealing with their problems, resolving their conflicts and helping them improve? Never writing another line of code? Because the other 40% will be spent in spreadsheets and meetings.

Re: Ask HN: How to deal with incompetent people

#64
I'm going to be a little mean here, but it sounds like you might be the problem.

> I've been doing a lot of work to clean up the debt that was accumulated and, meanwhile, I improved the reliability and the efficiency of the infrastructure. I wrote common components and library to avoid duplication and shared it with wiki pages on how to implement certain things correctly.

Did anyone ask you to do this work? Does it benefit the company in any tangible way? Did you make the product objectively better, or did you fixate on code purity at the cost of work that generates more business value? Sometimes tech debt needs to be addressed for technical reasons, sometimes it's a vanity exercise. If your work doesn't have visibility, maybe that's because no one wanted it done in the first place. Spending time on tech debt, not under the umbrella of tangible benefits, is usually not a productive undertaking. As much as you might loathe working on some hairy piece of code, if you're not changing it for a business reason, you might be making things worse. You might be adding complexity, introducing bugs, hurting performance, or simply going off on a wild goose chase.

> On the other hands, my colleague, is more focus on building relationships and acting like he's the manager even tho he's not. In a couple of circumstances he event tried to give me orders which is not what he supposed to do.

Building relationships is critical. Most of software development is not writing code; it's understanding business problems, gathering requirements, organizing/prioritizing, delegating, getting feedback, etc. Of course you need to produce a product at some point, but doing so effectively requires that at least some team members be engaged with product owners, customers, and other teams. Your colleague sounds like a manager/team lead, and it sounds like he's viewed that way by others.

> In meetings with our manager he brag on stuff that I did sharing it as a "we did", while when he does something alone (which most of the time asks to me as well) he would say "I did".

In a functioning team, almost all tasks should be "we dids" rather than "I dids". It doesn't sound like he's taking credit for your work. He's not saying "I did" in reference to your work; he's saying "we did". Maybe he slips up and says "I did" when talking about his own work. It could be that he is trying to speak in terms of team effort and only says "I did" out of habit for his own work. Or maybe he's an underhanded dick.

> This kind of behaviour was ok at the beginning but since our boss left and he got promoted as manager is not sustainable anymore.

It sounds like he IS a manager. In fact, despite your earlier claim about how it's not his role to give you orders, it sounds like that is in fact his role. It sounds like he is YOUR manager, but you're simply not happy about it.

Maybe your colleague is an asshole who takes credit for your work, brown-noses his way up the food chain, and is less technically competent, but I don't see any of that. What I see is someone who's able to strike a balance between social engagement and technical engagement, with natural leadership abilities, who's able to effectively delegate, and has successfully transitioned into a leadership role.

You have to advocate for yourself. If you don't think your contributions are appreciated, make sure that your contributions are what the company actually wants, and not your own agenda. Make sure people know what you contribute, by building relationships with other leaders in the company. Make your voice heard during planning and review meetings.

If you really are leading a few product teams, then you must have people working under you. Delegate to them, and stop worrying about taking personal credit. When your team does well, you'll look good. And if you start saying "we did" instead of "I did," your team will appreciate it and view you as a humble leader.

Re: Ask HN: How to deal with incompetent people

#65
Let me start by pointing out that, based on your description, your colleague is not incompetent and your colleague technically did not do anything wrong.

Is it wrong to say "we did" for tasks given to your team as whole? No, because after all everything is team's effort. At the same time, it is also not wrong to say "I did" when it is indeed only your effort alone. It's just playing with words for one's own gains.

What is very apparent, however, is your lack of confidence and interpersonal skills. You should talk to your manager (or skip to the next level) to assert the relative contribution between you and your colleague, based on hard evidence (git commit, wiki edit history, interviews with other teammates). Also you should do it as soon as possible after your colleague plays the word game while the manager for both of you still have fresh memory.

But now it might be too late for any of these. Move on to another team or another company.

Re: Ask HN: How to deal with incompetent people

#66
post #10
post #8

I never heard anything about incompetence in your description. Technical debt can build up for myriad reasons not related much to competence. What I would suggest is not to approach this situation as how you can wall off or otherwise attack this person but, instead as a life lesson on the importance of interpersonal relationships and politics. Politics are a fact of life. Humans are social creatures. All things being…

Yes I agree with you, the point is that being technical person doing a technical job I thought that the value that I create will talk more than the nonsense of some people. As I like to act first and share later, but there are people who talk but don't know how to act properly. I can build this skills as you said, true, but in my position now it would be impossible to get a promotion as the available spot has been ta…

I've been reading a book on nonviolent communication[1]. It's been helping me rethink how I approach work conversations and communicate what I want.

Putting it into practice has been tough, but early results have been good. I'm less likely to get angry, and while I still am not necessarily getting what I want all the time, I feel like I'm getting more clarity and direct communication around why not.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nonviolent_Communication

Re: Ask HN: How to deal with incompetent people

#67
Others have said this person is competent and meeting his personal goals: building relationships and successfully evangelizing your department's work. I agree. He's not incompetent. He's just not a technician, and you are.

You have the makings of a fine partnership here, that uses your strengths and his to get things done. Don't forget that complementary talents and work styles are generally good. You are already the go-to guy for tech questions. He can be the go-to guy for relationship questions. SOMEBODY has to answer the questions, "how do we get whatever in the budget?" or "do you know anybody at our customer Initrode?"

But, this person has some things to learn about taking and sharing credit. It's up to you to give him appropriate feedback. Let's say he takes credit for something he personally did not do. Here's what you do:

1. Cool off if you're annoyed.

2. Speak to him in a place where nobody can overhear you.

3. Ask him to listen to everything you have to say without interrupting.

4. Describe, with particulars, the unwanted behavior. "Yesterday, in the team meeting, you said 'WE successfully framised the zumbinator under budget and ahead of schedule.'" (Don't generalize: don't say "you always take credit" or anything like that.)

5. Describe the behavior's effect on you. Speak for yourself only. "When you said 'we,' I was uncomfortable because I know you personally had nothing to do with that project. It sounded to me like you took credit for work you did not do. " (Don't say "the team gets annoyed" or anything like that.)

6. Ask for a change. "In future, please keep in mind that people who work hard on projects deserve credit for them. When you announce an accomplishment, please be careful to give credit to the right people."

7. Say why: "Personal pride in good work done is very important to me. We have a good partnership here. If you give credit to the right people we'll be even better. Thanks for listening."

8. DON'T expect him to immediately smack his forehead and say, "Oh I have been a fool. I'm sorry, I won't do it again." It takes people a while to absorb "constructive" feedback.

Re: Ask HN: How to deal with incompetent people

#68
post #42
post #23

Bluntly? You're letting anger and resentment cloud your judgment. Your colleague is clearly not incompetent. He just has different goals from you. He probably wanted to shift from a technical role to a managerial role, and he succeeded. That's not incompetent! And that's probably because he recognized his talents are better with people than with technology. So be happy for his success, rather than resentful of his pe…

> It seems to me like people skills are a weak spot for you. That's not true as I always hangout with the people in different teams, and, we get along pretty well. I just don't do kiss-ass to my boss and I don't take advantage out of situations. > Find ways to work together We worked together for two years on daily basis. And I overcome a lot of bad behaviours but I can't stand to report to him

If you can't stand to report to him, then you find another job, or at least find another department within your company so you're not under him. And it probably wouldn't hurt to talk about this conflict with other managers you do trust at the company (if you don't trust any of them, the problem almost certainly isn't them).

I've been in your shoes - a peer got promoted to be my manager when our old manager retired. We were okay as peers, but very bad in a hierarchy, and I eventually got fired. I should have just quit instead.

Still, though, I think you're letting resentment blind you. It's easy to be the hero of your own story, and for anyone you're in conflict with to be the villain, but that doesn't mean it's right. We're all unreliable narrators.

Try this exercise. Repeat after me... "I may be wrong. I am often wrong." This is my mantra. Recognize your own fallibility. Try looking at it from the perspective of "What if I'm wrong?" It solves a lot of problems (or leads to the correct solutions). And the more you do it, the easier it is. Consider my earlier point, that what he did isn't incompetence - not if his goal was to get out of technical and into management. And since he's apparently good at those people things, he might well be recognizing where his talents are, doing the right thing for himself and the organization.

Consider also a telling bit of evidence in your response to me - "we worked together for two years on a daily basis". If that's true, is it also true that you did all the work and he unfairly claimed credit? What was he doing, if he wasn't writing code? Is "kiss-ass" a fair assessment, or an resentful interpretation of his useful work? Try to stop being angry long enough to consider that.

Re: Ask HN: How to deal with incompetent people

#69
You're in an office, or the way I like to think of it - a tribe of "professionals". Like all tribes you have people who hunt, gather, tan leather, and make dinner.

The "best" hunter occasionally will bring back a deer, maybe once a week. The stable hunter brings back 15 fish every day; aka they feed the tribe consistently.

People recognize and praise the deer hunter more. Even if they bring back less food, they are visual and there is a celebration when a deer is brought back. Meanwhile the person bringing back fish, well, they feed the tribe, but it's consistent and not flashy.

To your post:

> I've been doing a lot of work to clean up the debt that was accumulated and, meanwhile, I improved the reliability and the efficiency of the infrastructure. I wrote common components and library to avoid duplication and shared it with wiki pages on how to implement certain things correctly.

First, it sounds like you may have done unnecessary optimizations (aka not a "good" job at delivering real business value). I'm not saying that's the case, but always be wary of "delivering" what no one asked for. At the very least, you didn't bring back a deer, you delivered a steady stream of fish. It actually appears like you built a new net, but at the same time catch the same number of fish.

Second, it appears the deer hunter has already been made chief (aka manager), and you're still catching fish. So now it's your job (if you want to stay there) to figure out how to work together. Explain what you'd like to do, and where you'd like to go. As a manager it's his responsibility to work with you to achieve those goals. Move to be the next deer hunter, and learn from the chief on how to get there.

Clearly, they appear to be better at distributing the work and / or self-promoting. Ask them to promote you too, work with them to ensure you're being promoted as well. As a manager, they can only be as successful as their underlings. Use that value you create to benefit both of you. At this point it's not a zero sum game. Both of you can move up the ranks, albeit in different paths.

Looking for a new job is also an option, but in any case. You need to refocus, you were out maneuvered politically -- you lost. However, it doesn't appear your goal was to manage, you thought bringing in the regular solid work would promote you. It doesn't, solid development does nothing, achieving business goals and sharing it is the key.

Keep in mind taking an open source library and distributing it often brings more value to the company than new development. The person who distributes that library is far more likely to get promoted (open source or internally developed - it doesn't matter).

Re: Ask HN: How to deal with incompetent people

#70
post #10
post #8

I never heard anything about incompetence in your description. Technical debt can build up for myriad reasons not related much to competence. What I would suggest is not to approach this situation as how you can wall off or otherwise attack this person but, instead as a life lesson on the importance of interpersonal relationships and politics. Politics are a fact of life. Humans are social creatures. All things being…

Yes I agree with you, the point is that being technical person doing a technical job I thought that the value that I create will talk more than the nonsense of some people. As I like to act first and share later, but there are people who talk but don't know how to act properly. I can build this skills as you said, true, but in my position now it would be impossible to get a promotion as the available spot has been ta…

I thought that the value that I create will talk more than the nonsense of some people

The value you create doesn't talk about you except to people who know you're the one who created it.

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