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I've never seen an employee getting fired "because their manager didn't like them". I've seen plenty of employees getting fired because their manager, who didn

I've never seen an employee getting fired "because their manager didn't like them". I've seen plenty of employees getting fired because their manager, who didn't like them, gave them a bad review. In fact, across companies and even industries, being disliked by your manager is the single most reliable way to get fired. Anyone claiming you can be disliked by your superior yet reliably keep your job - is BSing you. Since this is, essentially, what the spokesman is stating, then I call typical PR BS.

darkerside 8y ago
OTOH your feelings for your reports correlates highly with the quality of work they're putting out
- quasse 8y ago
  That assumes most managers are skilled / engaged enough to correctly judge the quality of work put out by the individuals working under them. My personal experience puts that at about 2/4 as far as previous managers go.
  - darkerside 8y ago
    Sometimes the disconnect is that your idea of quality work is different from your manager's. Although at the end of the day, that's your manager's fault anyway (because keeping that alignment is literally the manager's job).
- dunpeal 8y ago
  Sure, correlates highly, but not perfectly. Some people just don't get along. It's a fact of life. Managers are humans, and they detest working every day with people who rub them the wrong way. Couple that with upper management at Netflix pressuring managers to hit firing quotas, and you can be sure who is chosen to be sacrificed on the altar of that particular metric...
  - halbritt 8y ago
    Further, to that point, any manager that dislikes a report is likely going to have a very difficult time getting quality work out of that report regardless of how talented they may be. Ergo, the report's performance may be suffering, but entirely because they're being poorly managed.
    - dunpeal 8y ago
      Very true. A pattern I've seen when relationship between employee and superior goes south is similar to disfavored step-child: They get less praise for doing well, and more blame for any mistake. This tends to escalate over time, and very often the employee's performance will degrade (since they won't get any credit anyway) which escalates the situation. Often they "patch things up" a few times, but if they really aren't compatible, it's just a tenuous forced balance that will eventually break and plunge the relationship to even deeper depths. Of course in this situation, all performance reviews for the employee are anywhere from slightly to heavily distorted in their disfavor. This will always result in one of them eventually leaving the team, typically the employee.
      - halbritt 8y ago
        It sucks that it’s not commonplace for managers to be accountable to their reports. Google has kinda structured things in this way, at least as far as I can tell from the outside. Managers can’t decide who is hired or fired and performance reviews are done by committee. Seems pretty egalitarian but I’m told that even still, politics becomes an issue.
        toast0 8y ago
        I haven't worked at Google, but from what I've heard, politics becomes an even bigger issue. If you're only worried about your boss (and your boss's boss, presumably), that's like two people to impress. If you're going to get graded by a committee, not only do you have to do good work, you also have to make sure everybody on the committee knows you're doing good work; and you have to fight people on your team to get the opportunities to do visible good works.
- mygo 8y ago
  This is so always the case. Sometimes a business that is not a pure meritocracy may have managers who got the management gig because they’re someone’s relative or from some non-work-related connection. They may be afraid they’ll be exposed for not really being that qualified for their job. If they have a report that produces really high quality work, they may be intimidated and hold off on the praise to avoid placing attention on the report, and on their own self-perceived inadequacies. In addition to holding off on praise when it’s warranted they may also even write the report up for trivial things such as being 1 minute late to work. So the net effect for the report is more negative reviews than would otherwise be, and less positive ones than deserved. Human nature is a hell of a thing.
threatofrain 8y ago
No matter how people perform on any side, It sounds a little draining to work with people you don't like, regardless of the reason of dislike. Some people aren't in control of that so they just suck it up, whereas others get a say over their lives. The question is whether they will find sufficient incentive to prioritize company interests where they differ. One thinks of that when one joins a team with a lead that is a center of social activity outside work, and whether one has the energy to participate. When social dynamics are involved things are always a bit more complicated than the performance which strictly happens at work. If people don't want this, I think it's up to the organization to do this, as opposed to the vigilant wall of an ethic. Presumably the organization doesn't want little cliques, and should structure their incentives properly.
- _m96l 8y ago
  > It sounds a little draining to work with people you don't like, regardless of the reason of dislike. Absolutely! Which is why people do get fired all the time if they rub their managers or the rest of the team in the wrong way. That's why making blanket statements that "all our firings are due to pure performance reasons" is such a blatant lie. I'd like to see the manager who puts up with someone they just personally dislike, for the most mundane reasons, every single day, for months. The article states that upper management also encourages managers to fire employees, which makes this decision just a little easier and more likely.
- TheSpiceIsLife 8y ago
  All we need now is for generally disliked to become a protected class.
  - colejohnson66 8y ago
    Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t that called “right to work”?
    - derekp7 8y ago
      Nope, "right to work" just means that you aren't forced to join the union.
keir-rex 8y ago
Not have I seen it, I've been involved in hiring the person for their next role. There's a lot to be suspicious of but I think most people have been in a position where the personal relationship is beyond reconciliation for no other reason except it's difficult to change well formed opinions.

darkerside 8y ago

OTOH your feelings for your reports correlates highly with the quality of work they're putting out

quasse 8y ago
That assumes most managers are skilled / engaged enough to correctly judge the quality of work put out by the individuals working under them. My personal experience puts that at about 2/4 as far as previous managers go.
- darkerside 8y ago
  Sometimes the disconnect is that your idea of quality work is different from your manager's. Although at the end of the day, that's your manager's fault anyway (because keeping that alignment is literally the manager's job).
dunpeal 8y ago
Sure, correlates highly, but not perfectly. Some people just don't get along. It's a fact of life. Managers are humans, and they detest working every day with people who rub them the wrong way. Couple that with upper management at Netflix pressuring managers to hit firing quotas, and you can be sure who is chosen to be sacrificed on the altar of that particular metric...
- halbritt 8y ago
  Further, to that point, any manager that dislikes a report is likely going to have a very difficult time getting quality work out of that report regardless of how talented they may be. Ergo, the report's performance may be suffering, but entirely because they're being poorly managed.
  - dunpeal 8y ago
    Very true. A pattern I've seen when relationship between employee and superior goes south is similar to disfavored step-child: They get less praise for doing well, and more blame for any mistake. This tends to escalate over time, and very often the employee's performance will degrade (since they won't get any credit anyway) which escalates the situation. Often they "patch things up" a few times, but if they really aren't compatible, it's just a tenuous forced balance that will eventually break and plunge the relationship to even deeper depths. Of course in this situation, all performance reviews for the employee are anywhere from slightly to heavily distorted in their disfavor. This will always result in one of them eventually leaving the team, typically the employee.
    - halbritt 8y ago
      It sucks that it’s not commonplace for managers to be accountable to their reports. Google has kinda structured things in this way, at least as far as I can tell from the outside. Managers can’t decide who is hired or fired and performance reviews are done by committee. Seems pretty egalitarian but I’m told that even still, politics becomes an issue.
      - toast0 8y ago
        I haven't worked at Google, but from what I've heard, politics becomes an even bigger issue. If you're only worried about your boss (and your boss's boss, presumably), that's like two people to impress. If you're going to get graded by a committee, not only do you have to do good work, you also have to make sure everybody on the committee knows you're doing good work; and you have to fight people on your team to get the opportunities to do visible good works.
mygo 8y ago
This is so always the case. Sometimes a business that is not a pure meritocracy may have managers who got the management gig because they’re someone’s relative or from some non-work-related connection. They may be afraid they’ll be exposed for not really being that qualified for their job. If they have a report that produces really high quality work, they may be intimidated and hold off on the praise to avoid placing attention on the report, and on their own self-perceived inadequacies. In addition to holding off on praise when it’s warranted they may also even write the report up for trivial things such as being 1 minute late to work. So the net effect for the report is more negative reviews than would otherwise be, and less positive ones than deserved. Human nature is a hell of a thing.

threatofrain 8y ago

No matter how people perform on any side, It sounds a little draining to work with people you don't like, regardless of the reason of dislike. Some people aren't in control of that so they just suck it up, whereas others get a say over their lives. The question is whether they will find sufficient incentive to prioritize company interests where they differ. One thinks of that when one joins a team with a lead that is a center of social activity outside work, and whether one has the energy to participate. When social dynamics are involved things are always a bit more complicated than the performance which strictly happens at work. If people don't want this, I think it's up to the organization to do this, as opposed to the vigilant wall of an ethic. Presumably the organization doesn't want little cliques, and should structure their incentives properly.

_m96l 8y ago
> It sounds a little draining to work with people you don't like, regardless of the reason of dislike. Absolutely! Which is why people do get fired all the time if they rub their managers or the rest of the team in the wrong way. That's why making blanket statements that "all our firings are due to pure performance reasons" is such a blatant lie. I'd like to see the manager who puts up with someone they just personally dislike, for the most mundane reasons, every single day, for months. The article states that upper management also encourages managers to fire employees, which makes this decision just a little easier and more likely.
TheSpiceIsLife 8y ago
All we need now is for generally disliked to become a protected class.
- colejohnson66 8y ago
  Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t that called “right to work”?
  - derekp7 8y ago
    Nope, "right to work" just means that you aren't forced to join the union.

keir-rex 8y ago

Not have I seen it, I've been involved in hiring the person for their next role. There's a lot to be suspicious of but I think most people have been in a position where the personal relationship is beyond reconciliation for no other reason except it's difficult to change well formed opinions.