[HN Gopher] Principles of Engineering Management ___________________________________________________________________ Principles of Engineering Management Author : im_dario Score : 328 points Date : 2022-04-25 13:52 UTC (9 hours ago) (HTM) web link (acjay.com) (TXT) w3m dump (acjay.com) | osigurdson wrote: | "Distribute problems, not solutions" makes sense. | | Making sure that the problems are the right ones to work on is | pretty important as well. | [deleted] | lifeisstillgood wrote: | We are putting too much into the word "management" | | - supervision (did you turn up on time, are you capable of doing | the basic functions needed) | | - coaching (this team needs someone to do X, but I have two Ys. | One goes or one changes) | | - administration (budgets, projects, scheduling etc). Certainly | the part most at threat from software - looking at you Project | Manahers | | - strategic decision making (yeah that's the part everyone wants | to do because it's the big bucks with years before anyone can | judge you. It is also oddly under threat - not from software but | from voting - my guess is most strategy is going to be voted for | in twenty years. don't like the strategy - binding vote at the | AGM for new Board. would save Elon the effort of buying twitter) | | All four of these (and I am sure MBA text books have better | selections) are wildly different, at different levels of an org | and need different skill sets and people. just thinking we could | ever ask one person to get on with it all is crazy. | travisgriggs wrote: | This resonates with a basic "anti management" feeling I have. I | don't hate managers as people. I often really like them. But I | hate what the title "manager" does to people. Like "domestic | engineers" and "waste engineers" of the past, it's basically | become a title grab for "get paid more money." In particular | for managers, it usually establishes a "the principal said I | can climb higher than you on the jungle gym, and from this | point, I'm to wield authority over how you play on said gym." | They may even protest "how bad it is up here" and "how I'm | suffering for you." | | What I really wish would happen, is that we'd abolish the title | "manager" as overly vague and oft abused, and instead just call | it what it is. | | - Public Relations (go to meetings) | | - Clerk (push papers, manage minutia) | | - Meeting Caller/Planner | | - etc | | Anecdotally, an off the cuff euphemism from my Advanced Fluid | Dynamics Professor in the early 90's still holds too true all | to oft in my experience. He had great rapport with our class of | ~100 students. After one test, the class was collectively | whining about grading to a curve. After humoring us for a bit, | he said something like "Look, you A students, you're going to | go out in industry for a bit, but the lack of idealism is going | to frustrate you, and you'll be back here soon with me. You B | students know what compromise is. When it's good enough. That's | why you're going to make great engineers." And then he turned | to begin his lecture like that was it. And someone yelled out | "wait, what about us C students." "Management" was his terse | reply. | | (Apologies to the venn intersection of managers <-> HN readers | <-> "A" students.) | gkop wrote: | What does engineering leadership mean to you? What factors | make it easier or harder to practice engineering leadership? | | For me, I like having a budget and a staff - it's way easier | to influence my organization with a budget and a staff, than | without. | | I'm saying this only to encourage engineering leaders not to | be afraid of formal management roles. You can make them your | own. You might find what I found. | travisgriggs wrote: | I have worked in the classical management structure a good | chunk of my career. And a couple of times (including mostly | right now), I have worked in something that feels more like | a basketball team with zero or little management. Competent | engineers play the court together and get the job done. I | prefer (greatly) this second model. | deeptote wrote: | This is typical, MBA armchair psychology. | | Here's the real Principals of Engineering Management, according | to pretty much every middle manager, director, and vp I've ever | worked with: | | 1. Be caviling and pedantic, so you can reinforce your position | of petty power. | | 2. Contribute exactly zero code, infrastructure, etc. Basically, | anything that actually provides value to the engineers or the | customers, you don't touch. | | 3. Put at least a couple meetings on the calendar every day of | every engineer that they don't need to be at to remind them you | rule over their time. | | 4. Push nebulous "goals", then have very set goals when it comes | time to promote/give a pay raise an engineer and then insist they | aren't quite there. | | 5. Put engineers on-call instead of hiring support staff, again | to remind the engineer that you own their time, even when they're | not at work. | | 6. Constantly seek updates from engineers, so many in fact that | they can't complete the work on time, then promptly blame the | engineers for not delivering. | | "Managers" are people with business degrees who failed out of | anything technical. Real managers are architects and PMs who | actually understand the product and the technical lift it takes | to actually make things happen. They don't concern themselves | with your comings-and-goings, but whether you can get things done | or not. | brimble wrote: | Ah, software "engineering"--the fastest path to professional- | tier wages coupled with blue-collar or service industry social | standing. | nealabq wrote: | I think it's helpful to consider these points, and try not to | be put off by the bitter tone. | | As an employee you have to consider the workplace culture, and | your manager's attitude towards his/her "resources" | (employees). This is a list of danger signs. You want to be | watch for dysfunctional behaviors like this creeping into your | work environment, and either combat them if you can, or find a | new position. Or, you can accommodate/enable and try to | insulate yourself, which is OK in the short-term, as you work | towards a longer-term solution. | | The culture of the organization and the management chain above | you greatly affects your satisfaction and mental well-being. I | assure you that, although no workplace is perfect, a few are | pretty darn good. And sometimes it's possible to exert | influence. Try not to sink too far into cynicism because there | is a lot of incompetence and selfish self-interest out there. | Use your skills of observation and writing to make things | better, or find a place where that's possible. | | Sorry if this is preachy. | deeptote wrote: | It's not preachy at all! You're more eloquent than I am and | yes, I'm a tad bitter about some of my recent work | experience. | | I'm grateful to report that I'm in an awesome situation now | and my manager and I get along swimmingly. | broast wrote: | As an engineer, I have never worked under a manager who wasn't | previously an engineer. YMMV | higeorge13 wrote: | For some reason they downvote you, but your post has some | truth. I really wish EM wasn't only about people management, | hiring and goals but actual technical leadership. I want my | manager to care for my wellbeing, be empathetic etc. as the | post and common sense suggest, but i prefer he could provide | some technical direction to the team (not let the team leads | figure it out themselves), collaborate closely with product and | leadership, make time for engineering to solve hard problems | and tech debt and not just deliver d2d features and so on. I | would expect EMs coming from IC roles to have this mindset, but | most of the time they are stuck to non technical | responsibilities and i really cannot understand why this role | has become like this. | gkop wrote: | If you have the energy and curiosity to be an EM, please do | give it a try. The industry needs compassionate and highly | technical EMs. | onion2k wrote: | _according to pretty much every middle manager, director, and | vp I 've ever worked with_ | | You might be right and every manager is terrible, but it's | worth noting that the common denominator in all of these | interactions is you. | deeptote wrote: | dboreham wrote: | > Put engineers on-call instead of hiring support staff | | Note that in some jurisdictions (including the USA) this is | problematic from a labor law perspective. | wnolens wrote: | I really wish. But it is the standard. 90% of jobs I see | involve building some online service. On call is as part of | the job as writing code is. | lostcolony wrote: | Everywhere I've worked has had on call rotations. Literally | everywhere. Nowhere have devs been the first line of | support (i.e., not "instead of" per the parent post, but | "as well as"), but they've been in the mix. | | Quite frankly, I wouldn't want to work somewhere that | didn't. I have a huge problem with the idea of "my team | wrote the code, and now isn't responsible for it". I | intentionally optimize against "avoid 2 AM pages", and that | ensures I push for enough testing and such to avoid them. | If it was "someone else's problem", the only pressure I'd | be under is to deliver ASAP, and that's unhealthy. | brianhorakh wrote: | As an introverted high iq nominal eq person with an execution | bias I routinely find companies that are keen to move me into | senior leadership roles. This post reinforces why I want to work | for a good manager but also how I have zero desire to become one. | nolawi89 wrote: | this seems basic to me | [deleted] | thecryptodiver wrote: | This is such a great read! 100% agreed! | havkom wrote: | As an engineering manager myself I concur with all the points. | | Some of them are difficult though, for example: | | "optimize the dual objectives of delivering value to the | organization and giving individuals problems that build their | skillset, impact, satisfaction, ..." | | and | | " Managers with excellent execution skills and deep domain | knowledge must resist the urge to present solutions to their | reports." | | To what extent should one allow suboptimal solutions, failure or | allow employees to do things inefficiently with their "favorite | tech stack" (in cases where it does not add business value) ? | chrsig wrote: | As a non-manager, I find that having a company wide policy for | what tech stacks are supported really helps with that | particular concern. It should be a pretty easy "tap the sign" | sort of thing. And engineers should be able to understand that | technology spread has a very real cost that's hard to quantify. | It also has that cost over time as long as the software they | produce needs to be maintained. | | For things that are much more personal -- allowing suboptimal | solutions for example -- those are teaching moments. You don't | dictate the solution, you educate on the problems that the | chosen solution exhibits and provide resources. Make | requirements clear. There's a decent chance that if they're | presenting a solution that you find suboptimal, then you | haven't communicated the requirements properly. Surface them | and re-scope the project as needed. Be sure to double check | that the things you're finding as suboptimal are actually | important as well. That is, don't be arrogant -- there's plenty | of room for the error to be on you, and that you're assuming | something may be suboptimal. Also consider that the person in | the weeds may have more context than you, and there may be | factors you're not considering. | | Rely on concrete things like tests and metrics to guide those | discussions, so you're not evaluating on subjective matters. | Don't put value judgements on solutions, frame things as | decisions with trade offs. Those trade offs have ramifications | that you can discuss, and together you can navigate to a | workable solution. | | Ultimately remember that even though you could give into the | urge to present solutions, it is not your job. Focus on your | job, and help your reports do theirs. If you don't like that, | get a different job. | dominotw wrote: | > To what extent should one allow suboptimal solutions | | 100% of the time. After all you can't count yourself being | there to 'save the day' every single time, so whats the point | of interfering here and there randomly. | havkom wrote: | I agree (with some reservations, see my other reply to my | post) | havkom wrote: | My approach so far is to be very very allowing --- until any | failure becomes apparent and it can "naturally be discussed" | (or it causes problems with colleagues in the group). | | This can be quite stressful though -- I do not think the people | reporting to me understands how much energy is spent as a | manager negotiating with others in order to give the team and | team members the most space/maneuverability that is possible. | chrsig wrote: | > I do not think the people reporting to me understands how | much energy is spent as a manager negotiating with others in | order to give the team and team members the most | space/maneuverability that is possible | | Speaking from experience as an IC -- managers do an | absolutely terrible job of surfacing what they're working on. | | What are you doing to broadcast your efforts? If you don't | tell them what you're doing, you can't expect them to know if | you don't tell them. | pkaye wrote: | Maybe use your one-on-one to discuss those things. | daok wrote: | I don't think 1-1 is the right time. If you have a team | of 15 people, you would need to repeat the same thing 15 | times. Better to give an update of what you are working | on (as a manager) for the whole team once. | mateo411 wrote: | That's a large team. I don't think it makes sense to have | 15 direct reports. You probably want to split that into 2 | teams so you can feed your team with two pizza boxes. | | If you do have a team that large, then you need to have a | weekly or biweekly meeting with an agenda set beforehand. | You can make announcements and possibly have a rotating | presentation by somebody from the team about what they've | been working on. | | If you are managing this many people, you are managing | people, projects and comms. | Irishsteve wrote: | I've been managing a while and a striking difference between | profitable established companies versus quasi profitable growth | companies is the culture of delivering value. It goes without | saying that you want your reports to thrive at work, and as a | manager you want to build a great atmosphere and culture. | | But what I often miss from posts like this is focusing on the | value the group of individuals is meant to create (maybe it's | implied). | tschellenbach wrote: | Lot of misconceptions here that cause teams to underperform. | | 1. Managing comes first. (Nope, as a manager your are primarily | responsible for ensuring a good outcome. As your title goes from | manager, senior, higher to VP etc this becomes more important. | Lower job titles you get paid to "do the work", higher titles are | about "achieve outcome".) In the current market you'll often run | into team members that don't perform. I see this so often where | leads think that they have to "manage" and not do the work and | the result is them and their team failing 2. Facilitate | wellbeing. That's nice. But your primary responsibility is to A. | Achieve the goal. B. hold people accountable to an acceptable | level of performance | | Give credit, take blame: That's a good one. | | This post is just full of vague language that doesn't hold anyone | accountable. Sucks to be an IC on that team, thinking everything | is going well and eventually end up having whole teams being | fired since your manager didn't set the right pace. | malfist wrote: | If you supplant your team and do the work yourself, you're not | helping the team perform. Nobody is learning lessons and | everyone, including yourself will just be more stressed and | less satisfied with the job. | | If you can't trust your team to do the work, then you shouldn't | be managing those people. Management is about being a force | multiplier, and not the force. | bumby wrote: | I suspect you're right and the article conflates the means | (managing) to the end (achieving an outcome). It's not unlike | the military priority of 1) mission accomplishment and 2) troop | welfare. | | But in fairness, "achieving outcome" is equally vague and it | seems most leaders know they want Outcome X, but falter because | they don't know how to get from their current state to that end | state. | | Can you elaborate on how you'd fill those gaps of "achieve | outcome"? | and-not-drew wrote: | > It's not unlike the military priority of 1) mission | accomplishment and 2) troop welfare. | | I hear what you're saying, but I would be careful taking a | military type model and applying it to a team of software US | engineers mainly because I think the power balance is so | different. | | If I'm in the military and I tell one of my subordinates that | they need to dig trenches in the rain all weekend for the | next 6 weeks, they may bitch and moan, but they've signed a | contract so they're just kind of stuck. If I tell one of the | engineers on my team that they need to work weekends for the | next 6 weeks, they can probably have 3 interviews with other | companies lined up by Monday. | | I agree that achieving results is still priority #1, but the | distance between that and #2 is very different. | seadan83 wrote: | The power balance aspect to me is extremely interesting. On | the one hand, there is a _lot_ of power a manager has: - do | you get the good assignments? - will your performance | review cherry-pick out-of-context a worst sampling of | 'goals' that were created in the last few weeks, or will it | be a glowing report of what you did? | | I think those managers that ask their software engineers to | pound sand are generally going to be bad managers. Notably, | who should you ask advice from, someone that has designed | 10% of the system specs, or the person that designed 90%? | (Guess what, software engineers design about 90% of system | specs!) Citation needed, but the amount of specifications | that engineers have to fill in is quite mind boggling (what | happens to this web page if DB is slow? What happens when a | user clicks this button while this other thing is still | loading, etc..). So while the 90/10 split is an | exaggeration, the point remains, software development is a | highly collaborative activity, particularly with the | engineers. Some have said that a software's engineer main | job is to figure out how to achieve 80% of the benefit, | with 20% of the work. This aspect is missing from the | typical unit-level command and control example, notably the | "commanders" in software really don't know what the hell | they are talking about unless they engage in actual | conversations with the developers and users. | bumby wrote: | This is a perspective that is bandied about quite a bit, | but I don't think it's exactly true (or at least not true | to the extent presumed). Personally, I've only heard it | come from people who have little actual military | experience. | | Leadership capital is a perishable resource in the | military. Junior troops are not dumb and if you treat them | like crap and just use the justification that they signed | the contract, you won't be a very effective leader. If I | leader has to use that type of tactic (or use their rank, | or whatever), it's an indicator they've messed up somewhere | along the way. The power dynamic isn't as cut-and-dry as | most outside the military think. It's not unheard of for | junior troops to get a bad leader fired, and in the | absolute worst cases junior troops can put a poor leader's | lives in danger. The idea that good military leaders would | tell their subordinates to pound sand because they signed a | contract is more of a trope than reality. | | There's a surprising amount of times when the incentives | align for a military subordinate to NOT listen to orders | and leaders have to actually rely on the social capital | they've accumulated by building trusting relationships with | their subordinates. | tchalla wrote: | Many of these, could be principles for life. | ttoinou wrote: | Quite naive. Nothing has been said about what employees need to | follow. It is like, everything they can do is perfect, the | manager is always the one who needs to work on the relationship, | and there are no criteria to select / stop working with employees | (i.e. those rules will work with any team). | drewcoo wrote: | Well it's not called Principles of Engineering Non-Management. | xbar wrote: | It says none of that. At worst, it is incomplete as an | instruction manual, but it's a fine list of starting principles | for thinking about humans doing work. | PragmaticPulp wrote: | I consumed a lot of blog posts like this before becoming a | manager. It feels satisfying to read vague principles like this: | | > Facilitate wellbeing | | > Personal safety, dignity, and wellbeing of every team member | are paramount. Team success is only success if team members feel | good about it. | | But then you become an actual manager and realize that these are | largely just feel-good aphorisms that don't really help navigate | the hard work of being a manager. | | Don't get me wrong: I think "facilitate wellbeing" and similar | tidbits are valid advice. Likewise, a manager who chooses to | _not_ facilitate wellbeing would clearly be in the wrong. But | when you get into management you realize that the hard work isn | 't waking up and deciding to facilitate wellbeing. The hard work | often involves making unpopular decisions, or telling someone | "no" when their pet request wouldn't be in the best interests of | the team, or defusing interpersonal conflict among two team | members who have been feuding for months. | | These feel-good blog posts seem rather vacuous after being in the | trenches of management for several years. Again, not because the | advice is _bad_ or _wrong_ , but because it's just a lot of text | around the basics of being a decent human being. Learning how to | do the hard things about management or how to make unpopular but | necessary decisions is something that you won't learn from the | average blog post or LinkedIn post, largely because these | function more as personal branding pieces than actual advice. | | In my experience, the best management advice comes from talking | to the best managers you know personally. Online, the most | practical management advice comes on smaller forums where people | are either anonymous (and therefore less interested in personal | brand building) or older and accomplished (and therefore not | worried about blowback impacting their career). The type of feel- | good blog posts or LinkedIn blurbs that people associate with | their personal brand don't really add much value after you've | read 5-10 articles saying the exact same aphorisms. | kqr wrote: | > The hard work often involves making unpopular decisions, or | telling someone "no" when their pet request wouldn't be in the | best interests of the team | | I realise I'm just plucking a small point out of a large | comment here, but I'd like to drill down into this one a | little. | | My very limited experience is that teams can generally self- | manage this sort of thing. You tell them what you're trying to | optimise, under what constraints, and lay down some ground | rules for equal and fair participation, and then the team can | make their own tough decisions and tell each other when they're | not acting in the best interest of the team. | | What am I missing? | jseban wrote: | > My very limited experience is that teams can generally | self-manage this sort of thing. | | My experience is that they can absolutely not self-manage | these things, it leads to literally living out lord of the | flies in chaotic and dysfunctional teams, that are full of | infected conflicts and stalled progress. | | On the other hand, what exactly is it that gives you the | impression that decision making is suddenly not needed? And | what makes you believe that a group of people with different | goals and interests, should spontaneously just "get along", | especially when there's money involved? | turdnagel wrote: | It entirely depends on the dynamics of the team. | willturman wrote: | > Again, not because the advice is bad or wrong, but because | it's just a lot of text around the basics of being a decent | human being. | | Judging by the trends observed in the Great Resignation [1] and | the popularity of forums like /r/antiwork, it seems that the | basics of being a decent human being are often being overlooked | by management. | | I took a very different interpretation of what facilitating | wellbeing looks like than you - interpreting facilitating | wellbeing as being flexible when team members need some time to | navigate their personal lives, scheduling project timelines and | scoping work to necessitate productive work while alleviating | burn-out, providing space for people to discuss ideas or | provide feedback in a team setting, allowing for growth or | transition into roles they may find more interesting or | rewarding. Facilitating wellbeing doesn't conflict with making | necessary but perhaps unpopular decisions, or de-prioritizing a | pet project or whatever - it's much more basic than that. | | [1] https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/hr-topics/talent- | acqu... | marcinzm wrote: | >it seems that the basics of being a decent human being are | often being overlooked by management. | | People working in tech companies may not realize how un- | decent a lot of other companies and their management are. | pkaye wrote: | There are a lot of shitty employers and employees around and | the rest are trying to avoid them by different means. | kemiller wrote: | I think this is a result of the persistent flawed way most | companies look at management. The author points at it when he | says that most managers are strong in execution, and that's | true -- it's viewed as the baseline trait for any manager. But | execution and maintaining well-being are fundamentally in | tension, and most of the time, execution wins if a choice is | forced. I think we need to be splitting the role into ones | focused on each of these competencies. This sometimes happens | informally as it is, but making it formal would change the | hiring patterns and maybe lead to better outcomes for everyone. | cjalmeida wrote: | You would be amazed at the number of managers that largely | ignore the "feel-good" part of the job, or even contribute to | the workplace being a crappy place to work. | | Like the author said, actively improving the working | environment when possible earns you "currency" and trust into | making unpopular decisions easier to swallow. | vasco wrote: | This right here is the juice. Generic management advice is like | relationship advice. Be honest, care about the other person, | respect the other person and so on. But anyone that's been in a | relationship knows it's way more about breathing deep twice | when you see the dishes not clean or whatever annoys you than | the rest of it. Obviously you need to try and be honest, but | good outcomes are created first and foremost from adequately | dealing with daily situations in a balanced manner. | | There's no playbook for being a good manager the same way | there's no playbook for being a good partner or a good parent. | The playbook would have to be too generic or too specific and | end up being mostly useless. | | Best you can get is someone who genuinely tries to improve and | listens to you because they seem to care about you. If that | takes the form of "how was your weekend" in the beginning of a | 1-1 or having your back in a compensation review, that all | depends on the situations. | jahbrewski wrote: | Good feedback here. Do you have any example "smaller forums" | that you have found particularly helpful? | superzadeh wrote: | teams at work is a good one: https://bunch.ai/slack-community | hintymad wrote: | Similar feeling. These principles somehow do not help me make | decisions or build mechanisms for my teams. On the other hand, | the principles in the book Turn the Ship Around, the book No | Rules Rule, and Amazon's 14 leadership principles helped me a | lot because they give clear guidelines on how to make trade- | offs. In particular, Turn the Ship Around advocates pursuing | excellence instead of minimizing errors. Netflix advocates | Freedom and Responsibility. Amazon advocates working backwards | (customer obsession) and making two-way door decisions. More | importantly, they prescribe a system to balance trade-offs | especially when there's conflicting choices. For instance, Turn | the Ship Around explores how to make sure everyone delivers yet | the leader can fully delegate responsibilities -- it's not | surprising that it requires a system. | nickff wrote: | I was a bit skeptical of "Turn the Ship Around" because of | its title, and despite all the positive reviews, but it's one | of the best management books I've ever read. It's definitely | worth a read, even if you're not a manager, as it applies to | any team-related activity, and provides a useful toolkit for | improving your team, whether you're the leader or not. | hintymad wrote: | Yeah, the book also passes Taleb's Skin in the Game test: | the author is also the practitioner of what he wrote about. | ttoinou wrote: | Thank you for bringing a different opinion. I feel like the | "Thats the spirit!" crowd liking this kind of blog posts are | employees who don't know what their manager are going through | dealing with them | [deleted] | TameAntelope wrote: | I think "facilitate wellbeing" is more than just a feel-good | aphorism, because it really does help when there's a difficult | decision on your desk, at least for me. | | My instinct is to push hard, let "the most correct" idea win, | and not really give a shit about how it impacts others. All, as | you know, awful, very bad, no good ways of managing. Being | reminded that one of my primary jobs is to "facilitate | wellbeing" helps keep me grounded. | | Let someone take the day off even if there's a deadline | looming, be cool with a later start date than would be perfect, | take that vacation week and really don't plug in, a) for | yourself and b) to show that as acceptable behavior for your | team to do as well. | | None of this is how I, naturally, would behave, and I need to | be reminded and continually work at doing things like that, for | the sake of the health of my team. None of this is theoretical | in my view, I see it as specific and practical advice. | hitekker wrote: | What you're speaking of is "Prioritize Wellbeing" which is a | worthy belief to hold and to remind ourselves as engineering | managers. | | However, the specific word used by the OP is "Facilitate" | which gives managers the leeway to be weak and lazy. A | manager can say "I let my team take PTO a few days each | quarter, I facilitated their well-being!" while they | passively allow their stakeholders to dictate the workload of | their engineers, with zero pushback. In practice, | "Prioritize" basically means conflict and action, | "facilitate" means whatever the manager wants it to mean. | | Going further: most "principles" like the kind the OP wrote | are designed for a manager's self-therapy. Beliefs that | justify decisions the manager has already taken, dressed up | in nice-looking words, the kind of drivel that influencers | peddle on LinkedIn. Whereas real principles that the GP | refers to are meant for self-discipline. Beliefs that call | into question decisions, and force the manager to really | think their next steps through carefully. | TameAntelope wrote: | I just don't see how you can read "facilitate wellbeing" | and be this upset about it, especially given how you feel | about "prioritize wellbeing". | [deleted] | [deleted] | [deleted] | [deleted] | lbriner wrote: | You are right but there is something that has to underpin all | of this advice and that is openness, honesty and balance. | | Openness because you should be able to communicate _why_ | something might not be possible in unambiguous terms; honesty | so people know they can trust you and that you will tell people | the truth and not try and avoid it; and balance because you | will be prepared to go some distance for an employee for the | benefit of the business but this is not unlimited. | | It can be hard to tell someone they are not performing well but | it is much easier with those principles in mind, "I think these | are areas that you are not performing well in, if I can help | you achieve those then please let me know how, otherwise I need | someone who can do this job that you were employed to do". | tootie wrote: | It also seems like 99% of management advice is about how to | manage down. Not topics like how to set expectations with | stakeholders, how to fight for budget, how to get your team | positioned for highly visible work. | photochemsyn wrote: | This sounds pretty good, all these are qualities anyone would | want in their manager if they had a job doing 'the critical path | of execution'. There's few things more frustrating than | continually having to halt in the middle of one task to jump over | to another task because someone's pants are on fire. Sure it | happens, but it should be the exception not the norm. | | However, there's another side to the manager's job that doesn't | seem to be addressed - interfacing upwards with whatever layers | link to owners, founders, the board, shareholders, etc. How does | that exactly work out in practice? Let's say leadership makes | what you think are really stupid decisions with disastrous | longterm consequences (ex: Boeing 737 MAX design process, Google | signing up with China to build Dragonfly, etc.). What do you do? | Pour gasoline on yourself and set yourself on fire in protest, or | roll your eyes in despair and proceed to assign your team to the | task? | 0xbadcafebee wrote: | - Choose and limit your battles | | - Provide data to make an argument | | - Put your concerns in writing | | - Challenge your manager to ask their bosses tough questions | | - Form coalitions with other managers to try to solve problems | together | | - Ask for a skip level (IMHO once a quarter, not just to | address business problems but to maintain good relationships) | | - If your employees are still at risk and upper management does | nothing, threaten to quit | joshbetz wrote: | Be honest with the people who report to you about your | feelings. You don't have to go out of your way to stir up | trouble, but if people come to you with concerns that you | share, it can be very helpful to know that you're not alone | and your manager is on your side. | queuebert wrote: | I like how modern society has created a special caste for | sociopaths and then secondarily created an entire industry around | teaching the sociopaths how to act normal. | Ozzie_osman wrote: | > Optimize work distribution > Managers have a portfolio of work | that the business needs and people with work preferences. | Optimize the dual objectives of delivering value to the | organization and giving individuals problems that build their | skillset, impact, satisfaction, and/or advancement. Performance | is contextual; set people up to shine. | | I find this so important. A good manager has a good mental map of | the business's short-term and long-term goals, and a | corresponding map of each person on the team's short-term and | long-term goals (and strengths/weaknesses) . This map requires | constant updating and refining. The magic happens in finding the | right fit between all of that. | lostcolony wrote: | I'll comment that this is also something that you can partially | delegate to the team. | | A healthy team has a good understanding of one another's | strengths and weaknesses just from working with each other. A | manager should be trying to collect that feedback, as well as | use their own, then work with each member of the team to | determine what opportunities they need, to either demonstrate a | strength, or work on a weakness, and then create space to | socialize those needs. With the team aware of what one another | needs, they're able to all be on the lookout to identify and | highlight those opportunities. | | Once the items the team definitively owns are being optimally | allocated by the team, the manager can look for opportunities | outside of the team's domain. They don't even need to be for | specific individuals, but things that the team would be able to | reasonably help with; then pitching them to the team, the team | can self-organize to determine who it's an opportunity for (and | then further break it down; maybe person A needs the | opportunity to lead a cross team initiative, but person B needs | the opportunity to dive deep into a technical implementation, | style of thing). | heisenbit wrote: | The key job of a manager is to say no. It is not to optimize | the work distribution but to control the scope of the work that | is done. A critical distinction between manager and leader is | the former has more focus managing shape of the playing field | and the rules while the latter is more concerned about pushing | towards results. | | Last but not least management is about gaining, using and | maintaining power. Without it saying no is not possible. | the_arun wrote: | IMHO, we should add "Be Human first, everything else comes | later". | Taylor_OD wrote: | 100%. I've worked for a lot of bad managers and 2 good ones. 1 | of the good ones wasnt a great human but an incredible teacher. | The other was an okay teacher but an incredible human. The | later I'm still in contact with and we've stayed in touch for 5 | plus years. | | A lot of what I'm looking for in a boss is just someone who | kind and understanding. It's shocking how low that is on most | managers agendas. | prmph wrote: | Well, as an engineering team lead for years, and recently | founder of a small gig, increasingly I've been shocked at how | many people (employees, contractors, prospective business | partners or co-founders) just want to take the easy way out, | instead of putting in honest, conscientious, reflective work | and effort, or are just plain incompetent at what they claim | to be good at. | | Every once on a while you come across someone that is | enthusiastic, actually competent, and wants to do things to | the best of their ability (or a reasonable approximation | thereof), but those are few IMHO. | | I mean, I know not all people can be interested in all | things, but if you say you're up for something, be it a job, | project, or partnership, you've got to give it your | reasonable best. | | I think the need to be kind and nice all too often is abused | by their targets. The key is to find a way to be kind and | flexible, but not allowing that to paper over rank | incompetence or a bad attitude. | ttoinou wrote: | It's even worse than what you say sometimes : some people | are actually competent in engineering, but when it comes to | simply remembering basic stuff or communicating about what | they do -- total blackout. Meaning, they just want someone | else to manage every little thing they have to do, remember | the small details. And then they'd complain they don't like | to be micro managed | [deleted] | ttoinou wrote: | Maybe it's not just about the managers but also how do | employees treat the relationship with their managers. i.e. | it's a two way street | skeeter2020 wrote: | It is, but I think it's the manager's job to be the first | to take the emotional risks, and continue to do so even | when they're not immediately reciprocated. | ttoinou wrote: | If the other doesn't know you moved forward, why would | he/she change his behavior ? It looks like the | relationship will continue as it began forever - one | sided. | chrsig wrote: | Well, if you're doing a good job of treating the | person...y'know, as a person, then you can ask them to | change their behavior. And generally they'll be amenable | to reciprocate. | | Also: Why doesn't the other person know you've "moved | forward"? Try communicating that you have. | skeeter2020 wrote: | Agree! As an EM I've felt that the simple act of genuinely | caring about your people can get you a long way. So much of the | day-to-day execution falls into place when you follow your | prime directive, and when you need to do unpleasant things | you've earned the legitimacy and trust handle them. ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2022-04-25 23:00 UTC)