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A CTO should be technical

blog.southparkcommons.com

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Re: A CTO should be technical

#71

Post by random314 »

warent wrote: post #57
citizenpaul wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was a CTO once. Transparency is not your job. You're job is to keep telling your reports that everything is on track no matter what everything else is just "rumors". If you don't they will start getting anxiety or looking for new jobs instead of pressing on. This could actually be the difference between what makes things fail or succeed. You're job is not to be transparent or honest. Its to make sure everyone stays…

> Transparency is not your job. > You're job is to keep telling your reports that everything is on track no matter what > This will 100% require lying or being non-transparent at some point. I've only been performing roles of director / vp to small/mid size companies so far, so maybe there's some secret CTO sauce I'm still missing. To me this advice seems toxic and destructive. Vent upwards, yes. Manage expectations,…

Exactly what I thought. This is a view of employees as mindless drones whose only function is to make themselves busy. A very toxic management style. The advice that it is ok to be hated dogs the ditch further.

This is also an implicit permission to the employees to lie to the CTO. This is pretty standard narcissistic behavior, where your lies to employees are just doing business, while employees lying to the management is a grave offence that calls for job termination.

Re: A CTO should be technical

#72

Post by random314 »

citizenpaul wrote: post #46
dijit wrote: post #23

I just became a CTO. So, let me bear my thoughts. Since July of this year I've been CTO for a small games company, I've worked in this industry before in a more specialised role but this is much broader scope. I've gone from being responsible for 1 person to 10 which will likely become 50 by the end of next year. I'm terrified. I'm terrified because I feel like I will let my reports down. I'm terrified because a lot…

I was a CTO once. Transparency is not your job. You're job is to keep telling your reports that everything is on track no matter what everything else is just "rumors". If you don't they will start getting anxiety or looking for new jobs instead of pressing on. This could actually be the difference between what makes things fail or succeed. You're job is not to be transparent or honest. Its to make sure everyone stays…

> This will 100% require lying or being non-transparent at some point.

Are you ok with employees and reports reciprocating by lying to you as well.

Re: A CTO should be technical

#73

Post by colechristensen »

citizenpaul wrote: post #46
dijit wrote: post #23

I just became a CTO. So, let me bear my thoughts. Since July of this year I've been CTO for a small games company, I've worked in this industry before in a more specialised role but this is much broader scope. I've gone from being responsible for 1 person to 10 which will likely become 50 by the end of next year. I'm terrified. I'm terrified because I feel like I will let my reports down. I'm terrified because a lot…

I was a CTO once. Transparency is not your job. You're job is to keep telling your reports that everything is on track no matter what everything else is just "rumors". If you don't they will start getting anxiety or looking for new jobs instead of pressing on. This could actually be the difference between what makes things fail or succeed. You're job is not to be transparent or honest. Its to make sure everyone stays…

>You're job is to keep telling your reports that everything is on track no matter what everything else is just "rumors".

When you've been lied to enough you stop believing the lies, a leader who can't be relied on to tell the truth unless it's positive might as well not say anything at all or be there in the first place. Having to doubt and read between the lines for each and every message from leadership is a waste of my time and leads directly to me A) no longer caring and B) not trusting my leadership.

This kind of manipulation only works on stupid or inexperienced people.

There is a big difference between putting a hopeful spin and always fighting for the best outcome and straight up saying everything is fine until there's nothing left but ashes.

Re: A CTO should be technical

#74

Post by NegativeLatency »

capableweb wrote: post #54
citizenpaul wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was a CTO once. Transparency is not your job. You're job is to keep telling your reports that everything is on track no matter what everything else is just "rumors". If you don't they will start getting anxiety or looking for new jobs instead of pressing on. This could actually be the difference between what makes things fail or succeed. You're job is not to be transparent or honest. Its to make sure everyone stays…

> Transparency is not your job. > You're job is to keep telling your reports that everything is on track no matter what > This will 100% require lying or being non-transparent at some point. Following this advice is another way of loosing employees, at least I'd leave a company quickly if the CTO started lying about potential problems not being problems. In the end, depends on the company. Usually the company I've wo…

> I'd leave a company quickly if the CTO started lying about potential problems not being problems

Absolutely. In the case of someone saying a clear problem is not a problem, we have a few cases:

The first, they're lying to me, in that case they're dishonest and I dont want to work there, they're probably just covering it up to make some money and then move on when things fall apart.

The second, they're incompetent and actually don't realize it's a problem, why would I want to work for someone who's bad at their job.

Probably others but I can't think of them

Re: A CTO should be technical

#75

Post by nautilus12 »

Keep blowing this horn. At the end of the day your manager and theirs all the way up to the CTO will still have no clue about the engineering side and you are going to have to make up the difference. It's the sad world we live in.

Re: A CTO should be technical

#78

Post by pvorb »

vasco wrote: post #37
dijit wrote: post #23

I just became a CTO. So, let me bear my thoughts. Since July of this year I've been CTO for a small games company, I've worked in this industry before in a more specialised role but this is much broader scope. I've gone from being responsible for 1 person to 10 which will likely become 50 by the end of next year. I'm terrified. I'm terrified because I feel like I will let my reports down. I'm terrified because a lot…

> but I fear what will replace me if I leave So you'll never retire or die?

That's a bit too extreme, isn't it? The situation simply might change in one way or another.

A skilled replacement might just appear at some point or the parts of the executive level they're fearing the most might leave. I've never seen a company without any changes in management personell over a decade.

Re: A CTO should be technical

#79

Post by RajT88 »

I knew a guy who was a sales executive. He managed to bluff is way into getting hired as CTO, even though he was not technical. Figured he could just bone up on stuff as he went along.

I checked in on him maybe 6-9 months later. CTO no longer mentioned anywhere on his LinkedIn.

A CTO shouldn't necessarily be super technical, but they should understand technology in ways that maybe a regional sales director wouldn't. And don't get me wrong, he was a smart guy in his own way, but just not as smart as he was dead sure that he was.

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