What are common mistakes that new or inexperienced managers make?
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Re: What are common mistakes that new or inexperienced managers make?
#2In other news, Quora doesn't blur out the second answer and ask for you to log in?
Re: What are common mistakes that new or inexperienced managers make?
#3the top answer is really well done, but lacks the gem from the second answer: "One of the major rookie mistakes I have made and see many others make is the assumption that human motivation is tied to economic outcomes"
put another way - you might have a personal ambition to have a title like "VP of Engineering" or make $500k a year, but most others don't. so if you project your motivations / world view on those who work for you, you will have a bad time building a great team with a great culture. knowing what your people value is really important and will help you get the best work from your team.
Re: What are common mistakes that new or inexperienced managers make?
#4In other news, Quora doesn't blur out the second answer and ask for you to log in?
Because the submitter added ?share=1 to the link
edit: I personally use https://github.com/sindresorhus/quora-unblocker in Chrome to do this for me so I don't have to think about it. I also made https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/quora-share/ to do the same thing in FF.
Re: What are common mistakes that new or inexperienced managers make?
#5In other news, Quora doesn't blur out the second answer and ask for you to log in?
[deleted]
Re: What are common mistakes that new or inexperienced managers make?
#6In other news, Quora doesn't blur out the second answer and ask for you to log in?
Because the submitter added ?share=1 to the link edit: I personally use https://github.com/sindresorhus/quora-unblocker in Chrome to do this for me so I don't have to think about it. I also made https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/quora-share/ to do the same thing in FF.
Interesting. Removing the ?share=1 has no effect if you've already visited the site, but opening the plain URI in another browser blurs the answer as usual. It must use cookies.
Re: What are common mistakes that new or inexperienced managers make?
#7My experience is that the more experienced the manager, the more he will remove himself from all conversations, the rookies always talk about themselves.
Re: What are common mistakes that new or inexperienced managers make?
#8the top answer is really well done, but lacks the gem from the second answer: "One of the major rookie mistakes I have made and see many others make is the assumption that human motivation is tied to economic outcomes" put another way - you might have a personal ambition to have a title like "VP of Engineering" or make $500k a year, but most others don't. so if you project your motivations / world view on those who w…
Reminds me of this video, "The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6XAPnuFjJc
Re: What are common mistakes that new or inexperienced managers make?
#9Good managers realize they have to be managers and can't do an effective job of engineering (this is certainly true of a first-level manager with more than a few reports).
The best managers I've had have sighed wistfully and wished out loud that they could do engineering, but made a conscious decision not to. The really good managers will be very interested in how you are getting along with your career, and it will often not come as a surprise to them when it comes time for you to leave ("time to go, grasshopper").
The bad managers were bad for numerous reasons, but many of the worst were micro-managing, getting in the way, having technical arguments, dishing out unreasoned mandates to solve things one way or another, or generally trying to be Boss Engineers without actually being part of the team. Sucked hard. The times I've switched jobs underneath these bozos, I've called it "Firing my boss."
Re: What are common mistakes that new or inexperienced managers make?
#10Problems I found with the top answer:
Performance management: It is highly unlikely as somebody new to the team, and brand new to management, that you can work out who the high performers are and who the under performers are within the first few weeks. If you get it wrong then by making it official and documenting by email you will get the entire teams backs up.
Not explicitly managing resources: Really bad advice. How do you know what is important within the first few weeks? Often you will only have a high level view of what the team does within the first few weeks. Try and do this too quickly and again it can backfire.