In a high-performing small company, managers aren't necessary. Someone has to be responsible for hiring and firing people, but you can't afford people that don't get what the company's trying to do. If someone has to be managed, they aren't a good fit. If you've never worked at a place like this, or don't believe me, I'd recommend giving it a try.
In a large company, management is essential to the adversarial system. Workers can and should take advantage of the company's inability to tell who is contributing. Here management is essential to creating stress and getting any sort of productive output.
The idea that most managers have something to teach you, are good judges of your flaws, or can give better advice than you would get from a senior peer is ridiculous. These are great traits that you should seek out in a mentor, but to claim the median manager anywhere has them is insane. In practice managers you encounter in the wild offer none of those things.
Promotions, raises, growth, performance reviews etc. is all a psyop to get you to stay for longer and do more work. It's about what you can negotiate, what that promotion would signal to your peers, how much of a flight risk you are. It's never to incentivize good choices concerning how to hone your craft, get rich, or do work you consider meaningful.
> The idea that most managers have something to teach you, are good judges of your flaws, or can give better advice than you would get from a senior peer is ridiculous. These are great traits that you should seek out in a mentor, but to claim the median manager anywhere has them is insane. In practice managers you encounter in the wild offer none of those things
Have you ever had a good manager?
Assuming equally competent people, feedback from a senior peer is likely to not be as good as someone who's full-time job is to be a people manager. Good managers are very aware of the strengths and weaknesses of people in the team. Senior peers do not have to be aware of this and as a result, don't tend to be able to articulate these kind of things. They may be able to give good task-specific feedback, but holistic and personal feedback is difficult.
The median senior is just as poor at giving feedback as the median manager, and management in large companies isn't inherently adversarial. It's very environment dependent.
Yes, I have had managers that I consider to be good. But my definition of good is closer to "the person responsible for hiring and firing me, but otherwise leaves me alone" than the definition provided in the OP.
I have had managers who match the definition of good provided. It's clear these guys had read too many books and listened to too much Tony Robins. Being a dummy for their management-fu is draining, and every interaction gives NPC vibes.
The former got literally 10x more out of me than the later.
There is this bad meme going around that because managers are often technically incompetent, they must make up for it in some other way. There's no law of nature that says that must be the case. You can be lacking in many skills, and slip through the hiring process and into a manager role.
> The median senior is just as poor at giving feedback as the median manager
I didn't say feedback, I said advice. The advice I'm looking for might be how to understand a technology or technique, or how to negotiate a raise. Why would I seek either from someone technically incompetent who has to negotiate against me?
The way you describe managers makes it abundantly clear you have never worked with one that is good, or great [0]. It seems like you think they are actively harmful.
> There is this bad meme going around that because managers are often technically incompetent, they must make up for it in some other way. There's no law of nature that says that must be the case. You can be lacking in many skills, and slip through the hiring process and into a manager role.
I'm not sure why you are so focused on people who are clearly terrible. If they're technically incompetent, managerially incompetent and "slipping through" the hiring process they are obviously not good.
My managers have all been technically competent and brought enormous amounts of value to their teams. Providing structure, facilitating the creation of team processes and rituals, correctly dosing chaos and scope for each team member, shielding the team's focus, etc. They also all encouraged me to look around for other jobs and see what I am worth.
I'm familiar with the ideas in that article (more in the context of Product Management though). You seem to be focused on proving that great people exist, which is obviously true.
I'm more concerned with the average case because that reflects how an organization should be structured. It doesn't matter if there is theoretically a great manager out there, what matters is the distribution seen at the bottom of the hiring funnel.
This is trading one set of problems for another. You want a manager to make one set go away, but now you have to set up a process that identifies good (or great) managers. And unless you can do that, hiring a manager isn't likely to solve your initial problems, or it creates different problems that are worse than the initial set.
If it's true that great managers are huge multipliers, but they are so apparently rare that I've never encountered one (as you suggest), then companies should still avoid hiring for all the roles in that article "* managers" unless they know of a great one through a referral.
> You seem to be focused on proving that great people exist, which is obviously true
I would not know it from the way you talk!
> I'm more concerned with the average case because that reflects how an organization should be structured
Average in an org is very different from population average. The average professional is bad at their job. The average employee in a company can be pretty good.
My perception is that maybe only 20% of people are somewhat competent at their job, and maybe only 1-5% are very competent. Assuming managers are default bad is correct, but also useless because people in every role are default bad.
If you are competent and you care, the solution is to find a company which values that.
Problems that companies in the bottom 80% deal and the associated problems they deal with are utterly uninteresting, because it's like talking about how water is wet.
Yes, hiring people who are incompetent creates issues. Especially in managerial roles. Yes, hiring good people is difficult and creates another problem for the org. Most companies never get past dealing with these problems and they don't really give a shit about them, which is why it's so boring to discuss.
For an individual, the first step towards having a better manager is joining a better company. After you've done that is when the conversation becomes more interesting, because even at better companies not all managers are good or great.
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To me this whole thing very much sounds like the situation described in this article:
"Over just the past two weeks alone, I have talked with several people at different pure feature team companies that have told me, in so many words, that the empowered product teams I describe sound like some mythical and utopian world, which can’t possibly exist in reality.
Yet in these same two weeks, I’ve also spoken to people at strong product companies working in empowered product teams, that have asked me why in the world I would spend so much energy talking about these feature team companies, that they have never seen, and can’t imagine why anyone would want to run their company that way, and further, why anyone would want to work there? When I tell them that not only do they exist, they’re clearly the majority, they think I’m exaggerating."
The fictional company Initech from Office Space is depicted as a blandly oppressive corporate hellscape -- but it's fundamentally more honest than most corporations in the real world, do you know why? Because there's a big banner hanging over the offices that reads "Is this good for the COMPANY?" It's the question that all employees should be asking themselves at all times.
Being able to engage in personal feedback that cultivates fruitful relationships with their reports that make them happier and more productive is a nice-to-have. But ultimately a manager's responsibility is to the business, not their reports -- and sometimes what they need to do is implement whatever measures of process, control, or guidance the business demands and just cull the ones who don't get on board.
> If you've never worked at a place like this, or don't believe me, I'd recommend giving it a try.
+1
> Here management is essential to creating stress and getting any sort of productive output.
I had friends whose company went from "high-performing small" to "large", and the way they described the transition was "we thought adding management was going to be like adding an internal skeleton, a structure that'd help get all the functional parts of the company pulling in the same direction. Instead it turned out to be like an exoskeleton, a carapace that served mostly to constrain and put hard limits on the functional parts of the company."
Another analogy, from the book Blackhawk Down: the Regular Army units ("large company") required full military discipline (TPR reports, planning poker, etc.) just to survive in position. The Special Forces ("high-performing small company") unit didn't bother with hair length or reciprocal salutes, but instead of using the apparatus of the Army Way, they knew how to do things the right way, and so rapidly established a pattern of fire and movement enabling the RA units to break out and rendezvous with the UN rescue team.
Obviously any organisation, at some point during growth (at least under the traditional VC model), has to convert from "high-performing small" to "large". My view of the goal of founders and early employees is to (a) spot when this transition occurs, and (b) have arranged to already be liquid. When the settlers outnumber the pioneers and the range is fenced in, it's time to ride off into the sunset.
100%. The best software company I've worked for had no real managers. You did technically have a "manager" but all they did was gather feedback and give you reviews once a year. Otherwise, they were senior+ engineers that worked on projects just like you did.
On the other hand, I've been at small 20 to 30 person companies with several layers of management. Infact, at one, there were actually more "managers" than individual contributors. It's a big WTF.
There are a lot of business roles where the "manager" is in fact the main "worker" (as in, they have to be involved in EVERYTHING. CC'd on every email. Approval for anything, etc) and they're just given varying groups of personal interns who aren't actually lead or organized into any projects, processes or initiatives but instead just exist to be at the beck and call of the manager.
I'll say it, even tho I'll drown in down votes: Your attitude gives me "walking red flag" vibes. It sounds paranoid and hostile. Why would I want someone with that attitude in my team or as a colleague?
A good manager supports your development, keeps an eye on the big picture (which is quite hard if you're working on the smallest unit of the company, e.g. code), and would also send you home if you work too much. Because time != productivity in general.
A promotion means flight risk? What?
Just a thought: If everyone else sucks, it can be time to look inward.
I don't mind if you think I'm hostile. My understanding of management and it's role in organizations makes me a threat to many people's livelihoods. Maybe yours included. I would oppose hiring new managers, encourage people to choose companies with less management, dispel bad memes and conventional wisdom about what value, if any, management adds. I'm absolutely bad news.
Contrary to your insinuation, everyone does not suck. I've been fortunate enough to work with talented engineers, sales people, VPs, CTOs, CEOs, and founders. I have never come across a talented person who was brought on as a manager. And not one of these talented individuals needed to be managed.
> Maybe yours included
Not really, no. I'm a startup CTO and co-founder and don't consider myself a traditional manager. And, of course, my livelihood isn't endangered by a stranger on the internet ;)
It's not that I disagree, you know. It's the black-and-white smell the comment had. And at least for me it's not much about managing someone, but enabling someone. People are no machines. And most people aren't very good with the long term view in my experience. Be it less interest in what happens in the long run or just an attitude, that's what I noticed.
No, they were spread way too thin to possibly do anything in the featured article. They hired me and could have fired me though. If that's all a manager is, then yes--box checked.
That's an interesting post, especially in the context of being promoted. After being in the industry for many years, I'm just now becoming aware of this stuff, particularly as it relates to the promotion culture and "making impact". Google is famously known for shipping, but not maintaining.
"Managing up" is a useful concept for how to interact with your managers. Post from a few years back that has useful sources: Design Patterns for managing up [0]. Hand in hand goes this Australian Gov't work book for Assertiveness:
> Assertiveness means expressing your point of view in a way that is clear and direct, while still respecting others.
Thank you for sharing these sources with me! I will have a look.
I would not say I am trying to "manage up", but I am definitely trying to be a lot more active in my growth process. In the past I kept waiting for things to happen, and thought my manager would have all the answers. Now, I want to be an active part of that conversation and find the right path.
This is a very good thing to do. Managers have to split their attention multiple ways across multiple people and so they end up neglecting you by default. They're also time poor.
You will actually be helping them if you can package up "asks" in a way so that all they have to do is hit reply on an email, type "approved" and hit send. There's often an asymmetry between the value you get vs. the cost to your manager which you can exploit. For example, where I work they provide financial support for certain forms of further study (e.g. master's degree) in certain domains. If one of my direct reports sent me an email explaining they want to study X and the policy covers them studying X, here are the details etc. etc. I will say "approved" pretty much every time. The money doesn't come out of my budget anyway, so it's free additional remuneration frommy perspective. Heck, even when it is my budget I often don't care because it's not personally coming out of my own pocket, and we lose that money anyway once the next financial year ticks over, so better to spend it while we can. But if they just sit there quietly hoping that I'll one day come to them with an offer for them to do further studies in X, they're going to be waiting forever. I want to give my team members stuff but I've got 50 billion other things to content with so I don't have the time to plan their career for them. The worst are the people who think I'm their mother and they come to me with "I want this thing, now you go figure out how to do it for me." The thing is, I'm lazy: I like to do easy things, and I don't like to do hard things. And that request sounds like a lot of hard work to me. Easier to just say no.
So remember: (1) If you don't ask you don't get, (2) It's almost never my money anyway, and (3) If you make it easy for me to say "yes", I almost certainly will.
If you want to be promoted, every single thing you discuss with your manager should center around that goal.
Any conversations about things going well, feedback, etc should always be framed as "am I getting closer to Senior?".
You really need to understand what the delta between where you currently are and where you are aiming for looks like, and make everything about closing that gap.
Many people do not even pass step 1, which is defining the delta with your manager. This can actually be fairly difficult, because it requires your manager to both understand your current level and have a strong understanding of what Senior looks like so they can explain the areas where you are lacking.
Once you have a delta you need to figure out what success looks like. If I'm currently bad at X, what does being good at X look like? Ideally you should be able to demonstrate and discuss progress between every 1:1. If you can't, your feedback loops are probably too short and it will take you a long time to improve.
I think SMART goals largely don't fit with skill growth, because operating at the next level is about learning new behaviours. They tend to be highly contextual, not specific. They do not tend to be measurable. They do not tend to be things that you can set timelines for, like "I will operate like X in 1mo". It's a holistic change in the way you function. Level matrices are extremely poor representations of the behaviours for each level. They tend to describe the outcomes of the behaviours, rather than the behaviours themselves.
Also, the reason this takes time is exactly because it's about learning new behaviours not following a checklist of things that Seniors do. You need time to make them habitual and build the intuition associated with them.
If you want to be promoted, find a manager who has a track record of getting people promoted and transfer to them, then do the above. Many managers (and to be fair, environments and factors outside of their control) are awful in ways that boggle the mind, and no (sane) amount of effort will help you in that case.
The other method is to quit, if you are actually better than your level but your company fails to acknowledge it for whatever reason.
I don’t think that proper leveling can really be broken down in this way. It is more of an ape brain reputation score within the group.
I think when managers are made to outline a concrete path to the next level, a gradual level inflation may occur at the company. This is because a manager is never going to say “I don’t know” when you ask them this, even if they don’t know, and then they are forced to advocate for you to promo after you satisfy whatever they told you.
If they don’t advocate for you at that point, they end up looking like a terrible manager to you and anyone else you tell your true story to (including their own manager).
If the level inflation is not identified and accounted for, this can lead to a company collapsing via inept leadership from bad internal promotions.
That entirely depends upon whether you are in an environment that takes levelling seriously or not. It is possible to break it down like this if your org and manager are competent [0].
Good managers understand what the shape of each level looks like, and companies that care calibrate levelling across orgs. Your manager advocating for a report who does not meet the bar doesn't work because it requires approval from more than just your manager.
In saying that, I think there is always going to be some title inflation and some level of playing the system. But I have found that people at higher levels do tend to be more competent and embody more behaviours associated with that level, though levels can get fuzzy above senior.
Leveling establishes a social hierarchy. The ape brains of the people on the team don’t care about the ladder. If you mess up the social hierarchy people will be unhappy.
If there is peer input into the grading system, the ape brain social hierarchy judgements are being leaked into the leveling system (in a good way). If someone feels bad about the reviewee being at the new hierarchy spot they aren’t going to support the promo, regardless of what the candidate did. Of course the candidate doing things influences the ape brain judgement so it’s not as if these things are completely disconnected, it’s just not how it looks on the surface.
the management techniques mentioned in the article are all valid but
i'm going to play devils advocate here and say that not getting that promotion isn't necessarily a failure, rather the goal was not realistic.
Don't assume that whether or not you get a promotion is always in your control. Don't assume your performance rating is entirely in your control or even mostly in your control. sometimes you can perform really well and it won't get you anything. and sometimes you can perform mediocre and still get lots of promotions and bonuses.
and why do you really want to get a promotion? if you just want more money, the most effective way to achieve that is to look for another job. doing that, you'll get far larger raises far more quickly.
I did my best at not being promoted. Promotion equals change. I really liked my salary and remote position. Any extra responsibility would require me to do more work. Sure, I'd get paid more but the stress would outweigh the pay.
If you're ever down with not getting a promotion, just know that there are ways to think about it that might be constructive.
This is where I am. I'm remote senior level and got offered principal but 3 days in office which would mean moving cities and WAY more pressure in a department that's had issues. Probably a 50k raise but I'm doing fine as is. I'll keep my sanity.
I think you're mistakenly equating mentoring with managing.
A manger inherently isn't your friend nor on your side, a mentor is.
It's straight up in the name: the goal of a manager is to remove your individuality from the perspective of the person above the manager.
The manager is essentially an abstraction layer if you're looking at it from a software development perspective, so the caller doesn't need to worry about the implementation details.
Your manager can also be your mentor, but the manager can't mentor everyone they're managing. That's just impossible from a time perspective
Great managers will feel natural to work with. You won't have to learn how to work with them because they'll meet you as a person and guide you toward succeeding in your role as needed.
Unfortunately, many managers are not natural managers but have instead learned how to "manage" from books, blogs, podcasts, and trying to imitate people they see as powerful.
My biggest lifehack for dealing with these people is to learn what books and other resources they used to teach themselves management, then study what those books portray as the ideal employee. Your job is now to play the role of that ideal employee and set the stage for the manager to feel like the ideal manager. It takes a bit of restraint and the performance can feel fake at times, but as long as you play the role they want to see and you make it easy for them to play the role they think they should play, you're going to do well in their eyes.
At minimum, I suggest every employee read a couple books like the Manager's Path book linked in the article so it's easier to identify when weak managers are trying to implement things they read from a book. It's like a cheat code to navigating managers who outsource their thinking to books and try to reduce every situation to something they read or heard a podcast about.
In my last case, my manager read a book about all about how managers shouldn't solve problems for their employees, they should only give coaching for employees to solve their own problems. He went full cargo cult on that advice and literally stopped helping us get things done within the company. His only response to any issues we raised would be a long string of leading questions and coaching, but he refused to actually do anything. I fought this for a long time until he mentioned the name of the book, I read it, and I realized that I had to start making him think that he was coaching me to a solution whenever I really needed him to use his position to do his job. It took some mental gymnastics, but after I unlocked his secret I became good at navigating around him to get things done.
I really admire those with the ability to conform themselves to a work place to be successful. I've always been candid, and I am occasionally at odds with management when polite lies are expected. Those I've managed appreciate the sincerity, but I would hardly describe my career as successful.
> whenever I really needed him to use his position to do his job
This is exactly what a large number of managers (and corporate ladders) miss.
Managers (and layers above them) are given organizational authority - not merely to coach people, rate people, calibrate people - but to use the authority to solve problems of organizational type in their domain
As an example, if a project is running behind schedule:
- A poor manager tries to hide the real status and tries to PIP and manage reports on that project out.
- Whereas, a good manager tries to bring people together and understand how the team can handle this together, sometimes with borrowed staffing, sometimes with cut scope, sometimes with negotiation of timelines, sometimes with abandoning the project altogether.
Genius idea, though I feel like you shouldn't have to do that in the first place. Like, I've been criticised by people for editing "their" code without talking to them first (in a shared project that we're all working on). My boss's ideal solution is for me to kowtow to their egos so he doesn't have to deal with it. No thank you. You go and tell them to stop being possessive of code that they don't own; they just happened to write. It's not my job to deal with their issues.
These are good high level points, but personally I found the key one to be much more low level.
An employee saying I'm not following what you want me to do. Sure sometimes an individual is just dumb as rocks, but when I hear anything along those lines my working assumption is that I as manager fundamentally fucked up. Things should fail at execution stage, not at me giving instructions stage.
...employees that just nod and walk away confused on the other hand...that's my textbook definition of failing to "Learning to be managed" because it fundamentally robs me as manager of the opportunity to fix an imminent trainwreck.
In a high-performing small company, managers aren't necessary. Someone has to be responsible for hiring and firing people, but you can't afford people that don't get what the company's trying to do. If someone has to be managed, they aren't a good fit. If you've never worked at a place like this, or don't believe me, I'd recommend giving it a try.
In a large company, management is essential to the adversarial system. Workers can and should take advantage of the company's inability to tell who is contributing. Here management is essential to creating stress and getting any sort of productive output.
The idea that most managers have something to teach you, are good judges of your flaws, or can give better advice than you would get from a senior peer is ridiculous. These are great traits that you should seek out in a mentor, but to claim the median manager anywhere has them is insane. In practice managers you encounter in the wild offer none of those things.
Promotions, raises, growth, performance reviews etc. is all a psyop to get you to stay for longer and do more work. It's about what you can negotiate, what that promotion would signal to your peers, how much of a flight risk you are. It's never to incentivize good choices concerning how to hone your craft, get rich, or do work you consider meaningful.