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You can be: A: Correct B: Liked by the team C: Both D: Neither correct nor liked Managers are often okay with incorrect employees because they can be train

You can be: A: Correct B: Liked by the team C: Both D: Neither correct nor liked Managers are often okay with incorrect employees because they can be trained easily. (Whether or not management actually trains them, that's another story - but managers like to believe that they could.) Managers are less okay with employees that everyone actively dislikes because it's way harder to train someone on how to get along with people.

iovrthoughtthis 9y ago
Culturally we also percieve people's personalities as fixed and unchanging. Where as many more of us percieve skills / knowledge as trainable.
eadmund 9y ago
Not just managers, but team-mates as well. People generally would rather be complacent than challenged (I'm no different, of course). And when someone is really wrong about something, it gets really old when he is told so over and over. It's kind of like in a marriage. The man keeps on doing something wrong (forgetting to pay the electricity bill, perhaps) and his wife keeps on pointing it out — and, rather than pay the bill on time, he instead gets angry that she's nagging! Persuading people gently, leading them slowly but surely to realising for themselves that they've been terribly wrong, is extremely difficult and requires a high degree of social skills. Sometimes, it's simply not possible: sometimes a team-mate (or worse, team lead) has so much invested in an incorrect decision that he will never change his mind; the one's only choices are to live with the malfunction or leave the team.
- hyeomans 9y ago
  100% agree, through the years I've learned that, as you said, it might be impossible to change and what has helped me is to stand in the shoes of the other person knowing how much they've invested. Related: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunk_cost https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunk_cost
- JustSomeNobody 9y ago
  Sometimes I'm wrong. It's great to have a team that can point out why I was wrong and discuss a fix. But I know that I'm not always wrong, so when a developer is constantly telling me that I am wrong about everything, it's really annoying. Those types of people are only doing that because they have to be the smartest person in the room. Usually, however, they're not. They're just the person who has to be. Everyone else understands that different does not equal wrong.
Spooky23 9y ago
"Liked" isn't the right term IMO. I've worked with plenty of people whom I don't particularly like at a personal level, and would not have a beer with given a choice, yet were able to connect with at a professional level. Honestly, this blog post had a "nails on chalkboard" sound, although it was written by the protagonist from his POV. My guess is that his co-workers would have said that he was a bit of an asshole, and made it clear that he was the "smartest guy" in the room. You can only pull off that bullshit if you are part of the tribe; when you're an outsider, that behavior lights up the organizations' immune response.
- moate 9y ago
  "You can only pull off that bullshit if you are part of the tribe; when you're an outsider, that behavior lights up the organizations' immune response." This, this, one thousand times this! When I first started with my current job, I had lots of free time, a technical background, and a desire to carve a place for myself. So in the first week I went through the whole website and invoiced where I felt there were some easily fixable UI/UX problems that could make things feel better and possibly get us more clients. Sent that list up the chain of command. Nobody cared. Fast forward a year: I've learned the culture, how to work with the people involved, and I'm being shifted to a more hands on role with the product decision making. I've learned how to work in the system, so now I'm able to expand my sphere of influence.

iovrthoughtthis 9y ago

Culturally we also percieve people's personalities as fixed and unchanging. Where as many more of us percieve skills / knowledge as trainable.

eadmund 9y ago

Not just managers, but team-mates as well. People generally would rather be complacent than challenged (I'm no different, of course). And when someone is really wrong about something, it gets really old when he is told so over and over. It's kind of like in a marriage. The man keeps on doing something wrong (forgetting to pay the electricity bill, perhaps) and his wife keeps on pointing it out — and, rather than pay the bill on time, he instead gets angry that she's nagging! Persuading people gently, leading them slowly but surely to realising for themselves that they've been terribly wrong, is extremely difficult and requires a high degree of social skills. Sometimes, it's simply not possible: sometimes a team-mate (or worse, team lead) has so much invested in an incorrect decision that he will never change his mind; the one's only choices are to live with the malfunction or leave the team.

hyeomans 9y ago
100% agree, through the years I've learned that, as you said, it might be impossible to change and what has helped me is to stand in the shoes of the other person knowing how much they've invested. Related: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunk_cost https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunk_cost
JustSomeNobody 9y ago
Sometimes I'm wrong. It's great to have a team that can point out why I was wrong and discuss a fix. But I know that I'm not always wrong, so when a developer is constantly telling me that I am wrong about everything, it's really annoying. Those types of people are only doing that because they have to be the smartest person in the room. Usually, however, they're not. They're just the person who has to be. Everyone else understands that different does not equal wrong.

Spooky23 9y ago

"Liked" isn't the right term IMO. I've worked with plenty of people whom I don't particularly like at a personal level, and would not have a beer with given a choice, yet were able to connect with at a professional level. Honestly, this blog post had a "nails on chalkboard" sound, although it was written by the protagonist from his POV. My guess is that his co-workers would have said that he was a bit of an asshole, and made it clear that he was the "smartest guy" in the room. You can only pull off that bullshit if you are part of the tribe; when you're an outsider, that behavior lights up the organizations' immune response.

moate 9y ago
"You can only pull off that bullshit if you are part of the tribe; when you're an outsider, that behavior lights up the organizations' immune response." This, this, one thousand times this! When I first started with my current job, I had lots of free time, a technical background, and a desire to carve a place for myself. So in the first week I went through the whole website and invoiced where I felt there were some easily fixable UI/UX problems that could make things feel better and possibly get us more clients. Sent that list up the chain of command. Nobody cared. Fast forward a year: I've learned the culture, how to work with the people involved, and I'm being shifted to a more hands on role with the product decision making. I've learned how to work in the system, so now I'm able to expand my sphere of influence.