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In my book, the best managers should work for the team, not the other way around.

cookiecaper 10y ago
Be careful with this. It's usually a sign of a political double-talker. The manager hasn't forgotten who he works for, even if he wishes you would.
- jdbernard 10y ago
  Well, it depends. I've been in healthy situations where this was true. One company in particular where this was mostly true from the very top down. Of course, yes, there are plenty of situations where it is just double-talk.
  - cookiecaper 10y ago
    The manager isn't a good politician if you don't believe his bullshit. If the manager himself is a founder, former programmer, or otherwise both intimately familiar with and committed to the process that actually produces the outcome, he may understand the importance of the work and really be working to ensure his team has what it needs so they can do a good job for the company. He's still working for the company, but he appreciates and understands engineering, and since you're working together for common goals from a common understanding, your interests are aligned. You can almost always expect people to consider their field of expertise the nexus of the company's lifeblood, the critical component that everything will die without. Everything else will be considered tertiary. In the case of most managers, their expertise is schmoozing, and that's going to be their primary focus. To the extent that good engineering jeopardizes schmoozing, you can and should expect the manager to strongly prefer schmoozes.
    - lpr22 10y ago
      Why skip secondary and jump straight to tertiary? I've worked with a lot of really good managers who understand the role their group plays without having to delude themselves into thinking their team or function is primary. I think that's something that's really important regardless of the industry. The most enjoyable jobs I've had have been those where there was good, self-aware management. While bad management is obviously a horrible time all-around, I've also had very bad experiences in the so called flat, self-managed models. For those to work, the greater majority of the team need to actually be self-aware, good (at least self) managers.
      - cookiecaper 10y ago
        I'm not talking about the group or the team. I'm talking about the contribution that each person considers their primary value-add to the company. Every worker will say of their own class of workers "this company would fall apart immediately without us", exposing at least an implied, though it's often explicit, belief that the class of contributions they are personally making are the most valuable. The issue is not "My engineering group is most important". The issue, rather, is "My engineering group, and consequently the company, would cease to exist if I stopped performing my core competency". In the case of managers, this core competency is schmoozing. Thus, when the engineering management must choose between engineers who advocate a better/safer/more effective engineering path and their bosses who advocate not that, they will choose to schmooze and give their bosses good news that generates tingly feelings rather than bad news that generates angry feelings. This is where the manager puts his craft into play. The goal is to manipulate the engineering team into a set of compromises that will allow the manager to generate good feelings for the bosses. Because the manager is not an engineer himself, he doesn't understand the ramifications of these compromises and/or whether it's actually the correct and wise way to proceed. Yet, he will still feel that he has saved the company (and possibly his team's paycheck) for exercising his core competency: manipulating subordinates into taking uncomfortable shortcuts while keeping the bosses satisfied. Middle management is a massive distorter.

Be careful with this. It's usually a sign of a political double-talker. The manager hasn't forgotten who he works for, even if he wishes you would.

jdbernard 10y ago
Well, it depends. I've been in healthy situations where this was true. One company in particular where this was mostly true from the very top down. Of course, yes, there are plenty of situations where it is just double-talk.
- cookiecaper 10y ago
  The manager isn't a good politician if you don't believe his bullshit. If the manager himself is a founder, former programmer, or otherwise both intimately familiar with and committed to the process that actually produces the outcome, he may understand the importance of the work and really be working to ensure his team has what it needs so they can do a good job for the company. He's still working for the company, but he appreciates and understands engineering, and since you're working together for common goals from a common understanding, your interests are aligned. You can almost always expect people to consider their field of expertise the nexus of the company's lifeblood, the critical component that everything will die without. Everything else will be considered tertiary. In the case of most managers, their expertise is schmoozing, and that's going to be their primary focus. To the extent that good engineering jeopardizes schmoozing, you can and should expect the manager to strongly prefer schmoozes.
  - lpr22 10y ago
    Why skip secondary and jump straight to tertiary? I've worked with a lot of really good managers who understand the role their group plays without having to delude themselves into thinking their team or function is primary. I think that's something that's really important regardless of the industry. The most enjoyable jobs I've had have been those where there was good, self-aware management. While bad management is obviously a horrible time all-around, I've also had very bad experiences in the so called flat, self-managed models. For those to work, the greater majority of the team need to actually be self-aware, good (at least self) managers.
    - cookiecaper 10y ago
      I'm not talking about the group or the team. I'm talking about the contribution that each person considers their primary value-add to the company. Every worker will say of their own class of workers "this company would fall apart immediately without us", exposing at least an implied, though it's often explicit, belief that the class of contributions they are personally making are the most valuable. The issue is not "My engineering group is most important". The issue, rather, is "My engineering group, and consequently the company, would cease to exist if I stopped performing my core competency". In the case of managers, this core competency is schmoozing. Thus, when the engineering management must choose between engineers who advocate a better/safer/more effective engineering path and their bosses who advocate not that, they will choose to schmooze and give their bosses good news that generates tingly feelings rather than bad news that generates angry feelings. This is where the manager puts his craft into play. The goal is to manipulate the engineering team into a set of compromises that will allow the manager to generate good feelings for the bosses. Because the manager is not an engineer himself, he doesn't understand the ramifications of these compromises and/or whether it's actually the correct and wise way to proceed. Yet, he will still feel that he has saved the company (and possibly his team's paycheck) for exercising his core competency: manipulating subordinates into taking uncomfortable shortcuts while keeping the bosses satisfied. Middle management is a massive distorter.