5 ms·
Seriously: Why wouldn't everyone manage their manager?
by yazaddaruvala 10y ago
Seriously: Why wouldn't everyone manage their manager?
- wojcech 10y agoWe could make a new word for people who manage each other mutually, coexisteling in their operations without blind hierarchy...we could call it mumanagement
- overcast 10y agoBecause I won't take on the responsibility of someone making twice as much as I do. ;)
- skmurphy 10y agoIt's very hard to succeed if your manager fails.
- yazaddaruvala 10y agoWhat do you care if they get paid more than you? Do you care that they can out bowl you? Do they care that you can out chess them? Life is a marathon, you don't win a marathon by coming first in the race. You win a marathon by beating your last time. Don't misunderstand, I'm always competing with my last paycheck. I always want to be getting paid more. I just don't care about other people's salary and if our responsibilities are lesser/equal/greater. For me its all about optimizing the things I can control. I can control my future paycheck, and I can control how much effort I need to be putting in from week to week. I can't control someone else's salary, and it can't negatively effect me, so why expend the energy thinking about it? Meanwhile: Responsibility != Effort. For me its all about correcting mistakes with the least effort possible (I'm lazy you see). Also, if I'm paid the same, and I input less effort, then I'm technically being paid more :) I would way rather put in the minimal effort required to question and correct (i.e. "manage" as you put it) an error upfront while its an idea, whoever's idea that might have been, rather than to put in the effort to correct the error while shit is hitting the fan. This is just my personal preference. Your milage may vary.
- r_smart 10y agoI love your response, and would only want to add: I only care about how much other people make because it helps inform me in terms of what I can work towards for my own paycheck, and it shows me what the organization values.
- bermanoid 10y agoAs an ex-manager at a very large gaming company, I assure you, your manager doesn't typically make twice what you do unless you're at the very highest levels (the CTO is, of course, going to make quite a bit more than a mid-level engineering manager, esp. if they've gotten a lot of stock and have been around a while) or at a company with some seriously skewed engineering pay grades. I regularly managed people that made 20-30% more than I did. That was usually corrected within a raise-cycle or two, but it was by no means unusual. I don't think I ever had a direct report that was paid less than 75% of what I got, let alone 50%.
- overcast 10y agoI'm still not doing your job for any less than your pay.
- branchless 10y agoFor many it's because their manager is a bit power mad and would rather burn the whole world down than accept they are wrong.
- kafkaesq 10y agoThere actually are managers out there capable of managing themselves. They're not as common as we might like, but trust me, they're out there.
- yazaddaruvala 10y agoBeing good at management, is knowing when you don't need to manage at all.
- kjax 10y agoTo paraphrase the late Andy Grove, it's mostly about understanding your subordinates and selecting the optimal approach.