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> our research showed that quality of leadership received virtually no mention when people described meaningful moments at work, but poor management was the top

by bambax 10y ago

> our research showed that quality of leadership received virtually no mention when people described meaningful moments at work, but poor management was the top destroyer of meaningfulness Spolsky: > Administrators [code name for managers] aren’t supposed to make the hard decisions. They don’t know enough. All those super genius computer scientists that you had to recruit from MIT at great expense are supposed to make the hard decisions. That’s why you’re paying them. Administrators exist to move the furniture around so that the people at the top of the tree can make the hard decisions. http://avc.com/2012/02/the-management-team-guest-post-from-joel-spolsky/ http://avc.com/2012/02/the-management-team-guest-post-from-j...

enraged_camel 10y ago
I follow an imaginary and totally-not-backed-by-science model whereby I view managers as a force multiplier on their teams. The number can be anything between 0 and 10. In this model, a PHB[1] hovers between 0.2 and 0.8 (it depends on how well the team can ignore him/her), whereas the average manager hovers somewhere between 0.8 and 1.2; their effect on their teams is neutral, give or take. Good managers are between 1 and 3 -- they can double or triple their team's output -- whereas excellent managers are 3 and up. Such managers also tend to possess very strong leadership skills. [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pointy-haired_Boss https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pointy-haired_Boss
- bambax 10y ago
  Very instructive. Using your system, as a manager, if you're not above 1 you should work hard to never ever go below 1. That's the point Spolsky is making, I think. It's a fair point and rooted in a lot of evidence, but somewhat limited, because as you say, there can be great managers whose experience and insight multiply their potential.
- avn2109 10y ago
  This is a cool model. Though in principle it seems like the multiplier is unbounded on the top end, even if in practice we rarely find it > 10.
  - brokenmachine 10y ago
    In practice, I've rarely found it over 1.2. And only at 1.2 for short periods of time until the higher-ups are able to reign such out-of-control efficiency in.
- JamesBarney 10y ago
  What types of things can a good manager do that increases an output by triple? That seems incredibly high to me. The little bit of research that's been done looking at how managers increase employee output have found the vast majority of force multiplication comes from training.
  - enraged_camel 10y ago
    Using political capital to shield the team from political BS, remove obstacles and have more resources allocated to the team can make a big difference.
erikb 10y ago
Being a project manager I have to agree. You seem to do your job best when you act as the assistant of the others, not when you treat them like they are your assistants. And as funny as it sounds in contrast to the 'Murican Movie Manager, from that kind of attitude even shy people can gain power. When you work for others well being they are more eager to consider your opinion and follow your guidance as well. (That just because of that second quote making it sound like the manager should be the engineers "bXXch", it's not the case)
- bproctor 10y ago
  I like that attitude very much and I think it can be extended to everyone. As someone who's straddling the line between developer and manager I've sometime found that difficult but try to be as supportive as possible. The project managers where I work all seem to think developers are children that need a babysitter. The lack of respect is infuriating.
  - existencebox 10y ago
    I've definitely felt that sentiment as well. What both backs my "feeling" and hints at the heart of things is in something I've heard said verbatim on multiple occasions: "We need to do X; I don't even need to be an engineer to understand it" where X is a deep engineering topic, e.g. a full re-architect of a relational backed platform as streaming. (Also, "PM work is far more difficult than engineering work" said by a just hired PM to the faces of the 4 senior engineers assigned under him... you can imagine how that went). For the former quote I've found there to be hope, since you can engage the "it's so easy, I see how you can do it" the same way _we_ engage ourselves, making them deconstruct the problem to the end of running them into a common design issue (in my sample it was asking the PM to reason about long-horizon backfill and replay logic); it can even have a positive outcome if you explain it such that the PM gains trust in your insight, and may help to build some of that respect. In the latter, when there is simply as you say a LACK of respect, and not just a... shall we say communication gap? Those are the situations I've seen some of the more painful PM/dev interactions and I have far less helpful advice, unfortunately, since I'll admit that the problem then resonates, as eng loses respect for PMs who don't respect them and etc etc. Sorry for the ramble, this has been a topic I've thought about a lot WRT "implicit problems in scaling a company past a certain size"
devonkim 10y ago
This just sounds like Taylorism is responsible for a lot of disgruntled employees. But most corporations hardly care about unhappy employees outside leadership positions unless it starts to actually impact the stock value somehow. Then comes the superficial means of raising morale and the studies for why people are so disengaged, and the most serious of questions and suggestions are never raised.
RobertDeNiro 10y ago
In the words of Lao Tzu: "A leader is best when people barely know he exists, when his work is done, his aim fulfilled, they will say: we did it ourselves."

by bambax 10y ago

enraged_camel 10y ago

I follow an imaginary and totally-not-backed-by-science model whereby I view managers as a force multiplier on their teams. The number can be anything between 0 and 10. In this model, a PHB[1] hovers between 0.2 and 0.8 (it depends on how well the team can ignore him/her), whereas the average manager hovers somewhere between 0.8 and 1.2; their effect on their teams is neutral, give or take. Good managers are between 1 and 3 -- they can double or triple their team's output -- whereas excellent managers are 3 and up. Such managers also tend to possess very strong leadership skills. [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pointy-haired_Boss https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pointy-haired_Boss

bambax 10y ago
Very instructive. Using your system, as a manager, if you're not above 1 you should work hard to never ever go below 1. That's the point Spolsky is making, I think. It's a fair point and rooted in a lot of evidence, but somewhat limited, because as you say, there can be great managers whose experience and insight multiply their potential.
avn2109 10y ago
This is a cool model. Though in principle it seems like the multiplier is unbounded on the top end, even if in practice we rarely find it > 10.
- brokenmachine 10y ago
  In practice, I've rarely found it over 1.2. And only at 1.2 for short periods of time until the higher-ups are able to reign such out-of-control efficiency in.
JamesBarney 10y ago
What types of things can a good manager do that increases an output by triple? That seems incredibly high to me. The little bit of research that's been done looking at how managers increase employee output have found the vast majority of force multiplication comes from training.
- enraged_camel 10y ago
  Using political capital to shield the team from political BS, remove obstacles and have more resources allocated to the team can make a big difference.

erikb 10y ago

Being a project manager I have to agree. You seem to do your job best when you act as the assistant of the others, not when you treat them like they are your assistants. And as funny as it sounds in contrast to the 'Murican Movie Manager, from that kind of attitude even shy people can gain power. When you work for others well being they are more eager to consider your opinion and follow your guidance as well. (That just because of that second quote making it sound like the manager should be the engineers "bXXch", it's not the case)

bproctor 10y ago
I like that attitude very much and I think it can be extended to everyone. As someone who's straddling the line between developer and manager I've sometime found that difficult but try to be as supportive as possible. The project managers where I work all seem to think developers are children that need a babysitter. The lack of respect is infuriating.
- existencebox 10y ago
  I've definitely felt that sentiment as well. What both backs my "feeling" and hints at the heart of things is in something I've heard said verbatim on multiple occasions: "We need to do X; I don't even need to be an engineer to understand it" where X is a deep engineering topic, e.g. a full re-architect of a relational backed platform as streaming. (Also, "PM work is far more difficult than engineering work" said by a just hired PM to the faces of the 4 senior engineers assigned under him... you can imagine how that went). For the former quote I've found there to be hope, since you can engage the "it's so easy, I see how you can do it" the same way _we_ engage ourselves, making them deconstruct the problem to the end of running them into a common design issue (in my sample it was asking the PM to reason about long-horizon backfill and replay logic); it can even have a positive outcome if you explain it such that the PM gains trust in your insight, and may help to build some of that respect. In the latter, when there is simply as you say a LACK of respect, and not just a... shall we say communication gap? Those are the situations I've seen some of the more painful PM/dev interactions and I have far less helpful advice, unfortunately, since I'll admit that the problem then resonates, as eng loses respect for PMs who don't respect them and etc etc. Sorry for the ramble, this has been a topic I've thought about a lot WRT "implicit problems in scaling a company past a certain size"

devonkim 10y ago

This just sounds like Taylorism is responsible for a lot of disgruntled employees. But most corporations hardly care about unhappy employees outside leadership positions unless it starts to actually impact the stock value somehow. Then comes the superficial means of raising morale and the studies for why people are so disengaged, and the most serious of questions and suggestions are never raised.

RobertDeNiro 10y ago

In the words of Lao Tzu: "A leader is best when people barely know he exists, when his work is done, his aim fulfilled, they will say: we did it ourselves."