91–100 of 285 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Figuring out "bad management" is really a hard problem. The same problem exists in the government bureaucracies too.
Incredibly hard. If there were some formula and it was really easy to just keep "the good ones", then every company would only have great managers. It's simply not that easy at scale.
I'm going to make the observation that politics in a company is caused by management. The more "politics" you have at a company, the more you pay in a "political tax". Effort which should benefit the company is delayed or made harder as employees have to bob and weave to get through the politics. I do believe if you want real culture change in a company, the best way to do it is to show managers the door, because tha…
Especially at big companies, which kinda resemble small countries. You get "who likes whom", supervisors' pets, weird alliances, power struggles, backstabbing and other toxic stuff.
What management (at any level) is at fault of is failing to actively weed out these behaviours or indeed straight up doing the same thing.
Also, companies often fail to reward silent, but effective and solid people, and instead opt into creating a loud, noisy rockstar culture even if the overall quality suffers. This in turn motivates people to seek other means of being recognized, including workplace politics.
I've seen all of it while being a manager. I hated it with a passion, and fell a victim of it quite a few times myself.
And I agree that people playing workplace politics should either change their behaviour or be let go.
Most managers are human ticket classifiers.
> human ticket classifiers Are there alternatives? I ask this as someone who spends a lot of time doing just this. Your addition of the word "human" gave me hope there is a better/alternative system?
I'm going to make the observation that politics in a company is caused by management. The more "politics" you have at a company, the more you pay in a "political tax". Effort which should benefit the company is delayed or made harder as employees have to bob and weave to get through the politics. I do believe if you want real culture change in a company, the best way to do it is to show managers the door, because tha…
Note the "politics" do not necessarily come from any malicious intention. It's just part of the company dynamics. As more layers are added to a company, visibility decreases. As a result, people have to be more political savvy to defend their misses and get resources, which leads to more politics.
If you do the maths, the average manager receives 250k a year in benefits.
Total # Employee: 1,556,000
Planned # Layoff: 14,000 (or 0.9%)
They respect my time, when I need something they're incredibly helpful, and they care about my career development.
IMO the culling over managers over the past few years is really a way to make sure you don't have someone you can discuss career development, promotion, and pay increases with. I have very honest conversations with my managers about these things regularly. If I had to deal with someone a few layers above I doubt I'd have the same success.
Another 'benefit' for the company in culling managers is that the manager track generally has higher pay at each level. Understandable given it seems to involve more time commitment and dealing with people can be much more tricky than dealing with code. Less options for IC's to transition == lower salary burden. Reduce the number of people on the manager track and you reduce the amount of salary an employee can hope to attain. I've definitely been put off switching from IC to manager because I feel the jobs are less secure over the last few years.
> Amazon has launched a “bureaucracy tipline” ... Sounds like Jassy has gone full Elon. I'm guessing a chainsaw for the next earnings report.
I don't understand the shit 'managers' get on here. I've been in this industry for 15+ years and with one or two rare exceptions every manager has been great. They respect my time, when I need something they're incredibly helpful, and they care about my career development. IMO the culling over managers over the past few years is really a way to make sure you don't have someone you can discuss career development, prom…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Incredibly hard. If there were some formula and it was really easy to just keep "the good ones", then every company would only have great managers. It's simply not that easy at scale.
Ask tech leads who consistently deliver value who's good one and who's not – you'll get pretty accurate picture.