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Design Patterns for Managing Up
- tom169 8y agoThank you. Good read.
- motohagiography 8y agoConcise articulation, and valuable. My comment is that this is happy-path advice. Corporate culture has changed to where instead of handling conflict according to principle (e.g. Harvard negotiation project, getting to yes, principled negotiations etc), today people are trained to out-passive each other, and marshal political campaigns to isolate opposition. (salience, political survival, working the ref, etc.) The moment you acknowledge that the person you are dealing with is being disingenuous and manipulative is the moment you have lost. That you can see the mechanism critically signals you do not have power, and that you cannot be trusted to "keep the ball in the air." The typical response to this is, "that's black and white thinking, people have different perspectives and views, which are valuable and legitimate." While that is generally true, different perspectives aren't the problem, nor are they new. It's a minority of people who exploit the agreeableness and civility of others with a small toolkit of negative plays, and who cluster in high-status organizations because they are motivated by proximity to power, but without responsibility itself. The OP articulates valuable patterns for navigating flat organizations in calm seas. A set of patterns that describe when the knives are out would be a helpful follow up.
- PaulHoule 8y agoSometimes when the "knives are out" you can't win or why would you want to?
- maxxxxx 8y agoat least you should try not to lose in that situation
- james_s_tayler 8y agoWell you at least don't want to bring a pillow to a knife fight.
- falcor84 8y agoActually, wouldn't a pillow be a reasonably effective way to deflect a knife?
- james_s_tayler 8y agoI usually think of the metaphor in terms of bringing a knife to a pillow fight as a play on "that's like bringing a knife to a gun fight" in which case my formulation is about having an innocent bit of fun and then someone going way overboard and doing something absolutely inappropriate. I sort of picture it in my head like everyone is having fun and then someone whips out a knife and then everyone starts to get very terrified. I never really considered how a pillow would actually hold up against a knife in a fight. My money would still be on the knife, but I take your point.
- lazyasciiart 8y agoMaybe you just don't want to get stabbed in the back before you get a new job.
- yeahitslikethat 8y agoWe, the bold and productive, have to stand up to that kind of stuff. Else they by attrition.
- sosilkj 8y ago"why would you want to" you want to if you have a mortgage payment each month, or there are people in your life who depend on you for food and clothing.
- dpweb 8y agoUsually the technologist is not even in the room with the business leaders. Your manager or their manager is. You want to be (and be seen as) valuable. You have to depend on your manager to vouch for you. If you have a complete asshole political or whatever manager, you must find another job. Don’t bother swimming against the tide. But its a whole other language that business leaders speak. Different etiquette. At least in F50 companies it may be better in smaller tech companies. If you’re in the room you have to speak their language, not how you would talk w a group of technologists. You have to learn new languages and immersion is good if you can get into enough high level meetings. But, always complete self-confidence, decisiveness, problem solving. If people get aggressive, give it back. Even the CEO. Not disrespectful. Being tough without sounding like an asshole is also a skill. Even just the tone of your voice, so you have to have self control of your emotions. Good to have a healthy retirement account too you won’t be subconsciously so worried about losing your job.
- yeahitslikethat 8y agoNot caring if they fire you but wanting to stay and make life better for your coworkers everyday is the place to be if you can find it.
- erikb 8y agoYes, always make sure to follow all the rules you've read in a book! Then you will be save and feel well. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6kfgXoclrjk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6kfgXoclrjk
- yeahitslikethat 8y agoYou're higher up the food chain than the audience of that article. Just keep doing your job better than they do their job and vent to allies behind closed doors. There's a guy on our team who does #1 one in the article ALL the time. NNP who slows the team by 25% probably. No one knows how to make him stop. Everyone is politely tapping on his fishbowl and it hasn't worked yet for like months.
- hoorayimhelping 8y ago>No one knows how to make him stop. Everyone is politely tapping on his fishbowl and it hasn't worked yet for like months. I was this employee once, but in a slightly different situation. I had a bad habit of responding to things I didn't understand in a way that almost always put people on the defensive. People didn't want to work or interact with me and politely and subtly trying to get me to stop didn't work. This was a problem across jobs, and was a huge blind spot for me. It took a very direct and blunt conversation from my new manager where he flat out told me when I behave this way, I come off like a complete prick and no one wants to work with me for me to even realize what I was doing. It crushed me for a few days, but after some reflection, I realized I was crushed because it was true. This was nearly 7 years ago, and I'll always love and appreciate my manager for having that hard conversation with me. His having the courage to be blunt with me has made me an immeasurably better person. My advice is find someone who is blunt or has the courage to have that hard conversation (my boss was English, and I think being blunt and direct was very natural for him, but he's also very courageous) and tell this person that their behavior is wasting a lot of people's time, and people are starting to get annoyed. Remind them that it's not a big deal now but it can become a big deal, and that in the end, people will remember the improvement and value that, not the original problem. I don't remember the pain of being crushed, I remember my appreciation for my manager who had this hard conversation with me when no one else in the past 3 years would.
- peteradio 8y agoI'm confused. What exactly were you doing?
- sosilkj 8y ago
- drharby 8y agoYou just described working in a tech org of a major IB
- motohagiography 8y agoIndeed, turns out I may also have described "gaslighting," https://www.psychologytoday.com/ca/blog/here-there-and-everywhere/201701/11-warning-signs-gaslighting https://www.psychologytoday.com/ca/blog/here-there-and-every... , which is perhaps why I sound so grouchy. Like a startup whose leadership in effect says, "we just raised way too much money and have no path to market fit, let's just gaslight the talent until they attrition out and we can blame them for the time lost, while hopefully our competitors will establish a market where then the board can find a greater fool to buy us before we have to raise another round." Please, help me be wrong. :)
- Arubis 8y agoI’d recommend the works of Venkatesh Rao: https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2009/10/07/the-gervais-principle-or-the-office-according-to-the-office/ https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2009/10/07/the-gervais-principle-... https://www.ribbonfarm.com/be-slightly-evil/ https://www.ribbonfarm.com/be-slightly-evil/
- andyidsinga 8y agoabsolutely this! Gervais principle is a very valuable (and entertaining) way to decode what is going on in the organization. The one bit of advice I would give to someone trying to use Gervais to understand someone in the organization's motivations : just because they may act according to Gervais doesn't mean they are bad or evil or broken in some way.
- fyjvd90 8y agoThe more seasoned the manager or exec will say at this point that you should always see everyone as having good intentions. It’s of course not true at all, but seems to be one if the mental tools they use to not acknowledge what someone is really doing. I think what it does do in reality is gives the person a way out when they come to their senses without having to admit they went down a selfish dark path. So in that sense it’s practical. Although it can take years with some people too. Personally I just fire them if they report to me or I have sone influence I get them out of the org another way.
- User23 8y agoMy favorite managing up pattern is the Feynman estimation technique. During the Manhattan project he and others were asked to report on what they would be discovering in the next quarter. Since they were doing groundbreaking work nobody had a clue how to answer and this caused the researchers a great deal of stress. Then they realized they could just hold back 3 months worth of results and “estimate” the discoveries they had just made. The end result was that management was very happy with the predictable progress and the scientists were free to do their work unimpeded. Applying this in contemporary corporate America is left as an exercise for the reader.
- davidlinc1 8y agoStrikes me as a method that would work very well in a world before business analytics audits and KPIs.
- User23 8y agoJust need a management consultant to give it a clever name like "superscalar project management" and some powerpoint slides and you're good to go.
- rainlab 8y agoDo you have a source for this (maybe an autobiography or some blog article)? I'd love to read more on the story leading up to him deciding to go with this strategy.
- User23 8y agoI don't recall the exact book. It was one of the collections of anecdotes. Maybe, Surely You're Joking Mr Feynman? Otherwise What Do You Care What Other People Think? or The Pleasure of Finding Things Out.
- dyu 8y agoAlso used in research grant proposals
- 8y ago
- alttab 8y agoAmazon LPs: 1) Customer Obsession 2) Ownership 3) Disagree and Commit 4) Vocally Self-Critical / Earns Trust / Learn and be Curious
- wahjiwah 8y agoThis is good advice
- thesumofall 8y agoI believe the better approach to #1 is to: - say that you’re not sure - articulate an hypothesis of what it might be to the best of your knowledge (it's likely you’re going to be 80% right) - propose to launch an effort / work stream / project to figure it out In many cases managers are just happy with an 80% answer and will reject to waste efforts to dive deeper. Managers can deal with uncertainty and with situations where the 80% answer is wrong. What they typically don’t like is being stalled
- tchaffee 8y ago> articulate an hypothesis of what it might be to the best of your knowledge (it's likely you’re going to be 80% right) Please don't do this. Many managers and clients have a far better bullshit detector than you give them credit for. They might never say it directly to you, but you just lost their respect by trying to guess instead of being honest. When programmers I interview try to bullshit their way through an answer they clearly don't know, it's almost always the end of the interview. Especially because I make it super clear at the beginning that I prefer "I don't know". A solid "I don't know but I do know I can get you an answer or an update in a couple of hours" is the approach that earns my respect every time. And likely you'll be right 100% of the time with that answer.
- rocqua 8y agoHe's not suggesting "Guess and pass it of as true". Instead, the idea is to say "Well, I am not sure. However, If I had to guess, I'd say X" where X is your best guess. You can follow up with "If needed, I could find out for sure in {time-frame}"
- tchaffee 8y agoFair clarification. I don't appreciate that approach either. Just go find out what the problem is and report back. Unless someone specifically asks you to guess, you are just wasting everyone's time. And in a meeting with clients and upper management, that could add up to $$$ thousands per hour. "If I had to guess". You usually don't have to. So don't do it. Just my $0.02. Maybe other managers see it differently. EDIT: I should clarify why this often goes badly. "If I had to guess, it's the filter in the gas line". Now everyone thinks it's a $20 problem, and they appreciate having an expert like you around to help them mentally frame the extent of the problem. When you come back with "actually the entire engine is warped and needs to be replaced", everyone is going to be disappointed. Like it or not, that disappointment is attached to you now. Trust is lost. There is almost nothing ever to be gained from guessing.
- _pmf_ 8y agoI've found "Extreme Ownership" by Jocko Willink good for getting into the mindset of managing up without a nagging / second guessing touch.
- fraggle222 8y agoNot sure if they cover... A typical scenario is that you are in a corporate culture where, for whatever reason your manager does not "manage down", like at all. Meaning that they are not giving you direction and nor are they listening to any needs, direction from you (ok, maybe once per quarter?). Your interactions with them (if you are letting them set the schedule) are very limited. Now that can be great or bad. Typically though these people (by essence of being someone you report to) control more corporate power than you do. They can perhaps authorize work, hire 10s of additional resources, approve muilti million dollar projects, set a budget for next year, etc. So it becomes imperative for you to 'manage up' if you want to achieve more than what you are being fed. Just how to do that, maybe this book covers. Hope so.
- drugme 8y agoA typical scenario is that you are in a corporate culture where, for whatever reason your manager does not "manage down", like at all. Indeed, there's a whole range of dysfunctional (and sometimes simply toxic) managerial behaviors that seem to occur very frequently int the workplace, and for which it'd be nice to see some advice as to how to deal with them. But overall the advice in this particular article seems very superficial.
- Confusion 8y agoI think the abstract pattern here is: own it.
- sunir 8y agoIt is slightly different: lower anxiety. You do that by being reliable, honest, receptive, taking ownership, mitigating risk. But the human dimension is emotional. Your counterparts feel it as anxiety. They will ultimate adjust their internal feelings to you based on how anxious you make them.
- maroonblazer 8y agoI disagree with #4, your manager giving negative feedback. Asking a manager to clarify the feedback shouldn't put that manager on the defensive. If the manager hasn't gone to the trouble of getting those details then they need to be educated on how to deliver negative feedback. Instead of simply saying "I hear you. I will be more mindful of that in the future.", a more productive response would be: "Based on what you've shared it's not clear to me exactly what I did wrong or how I might do things differently in a similar situation in the future. Are there additional details you can share? <if they answer no:> Can you get those details so that I can make this a part of my learning plan?" <if they waffle:> What advice do you have for me for how to better handle this situation in the future?" You've now educated the manager as to what level of detail you need when it comes to feedback. They should know that they can't just toss incoming feedback over the transom. They need to dig into the details and do what it takes to help you grow.
- bicubic 8y agoIs there any similar themed advice for managing same-seniority coworkers handballing their responsibilities? Person A owns task Person A: I don't know much about task, but person B seems like an expert. Person B, please take over task Person B is no more or less qualified at task than person A
- lolptdr 8y agoPerhaps you shouldn't allow handover of such responsibility or tasks. Force Person A to own task but allow Person B to assist Person A. Surely Person A won't mind help Frontera on B.
- b_tterc_p 8y agoPerson B should probably accept but present the trade off. Allow the manager to decide what matters. Confidently state what options are possible within timeframe X
- Joof 8y agoPerson A may legitimately view person B as more qualified. Whether or not this is true.
- sjg007 8y agoThe best thing you can do is work for a good manager. If you have a crappy manager find a way out to get under another manager or otherwise just outlast them.
- yanslookup 8y agoQuestion for the crowd: how to manage up a politically savvy skip manager that routinely trivializes engineering effort? They couch it in sarcasm, something like "oh you can build that in like 2 minutes, it's just an SQL query and 3 lines of python, right?"
- drugme 8y agoFind another job.
- alexk 8y agoI think you would find negotiation practices helpful, e.g. check out the book "Never split the difference" to learn some negotiation techniques and "Elephant in the brain" to understand that this behavior is likely not about technology.
- yanslookup 8y agoIt's not a negotiation in good faith because they are "just joking man!"
- alexk 8y agoAs someone who actually builds things you have more leverage than you think in this or any other conversation with your manager, you need to learn how to use it better.
- wsy 8y agoThis manager wants to make you smaller, so that he can look bigger and exert more power. In my experience, the only way to counter is by also making a strong gesture. For the dialog you sketched, possible responses could be "Then you can surely do it yourself in 2 minutes". Another, more aggressive, option would be to answer "this joke gets old". You need to find your own tone, obviously, which should not be agitated-aggressive, but make clear that he now has an opponent, and you will not be an easy victim for his power games. Obviously, this is a risky approach; only do it if you can afford switching jobs. But in my experience it is less risky than it looks. Bullying persons have a good sense of their opponent's strength, and will rather look for new easy targets than going into a serious fight. If you can talk to your team mates and make this a team stance, this will of course strengthen your position further.
- drugme 8y agoSo, when a decision is made that doesn't make sense to you, here are the steps: 2. Don't disagree; This sounds like a recipe for a toxic work culture where everyone is walking on eggshells and fearful not only of stating their opinions - but in many cases, making simple statements about objective reality.
- zeroxfe 8y agoGreat job taking the comment entirely out of context. The next part of that sentence is "ask about the context and reasons for the change", immediately followed by, "Start with your manager or the main decision maker if you have a prior relationship, and then escalate up the chain of command together (rather than just emailing your thoughts to the CEO)." > making simple statements about objective reality. It is extremely rare that decisions are "objectively" bad -- that was the main point of that section. In fact, the article explicitly says: "Remember there is someone in the chain who thinks this is a good idea; that is why it is being implemented. So, it is worth your time to try to understand the "why" behind this idea"
- drugme 8y agoGreat job taking the comment entirely out of context. I read and understood the full context. I was keeping it short for the sake of simplicity. The basic message they're conveying is, after all: "If you have disagreements, don't express them." It is extremely rare that decisions are "objectively" bad -- that was the main point of that section. I was referring not to the decisions, but to the assertions about reality that are used to justify them.
- sokoloff 8y agoI read the advice vastly more as "don't immediately express your counter-argument; instead, first ask questions and seek to understand how the decision was reached; after that, you're in a more informed position to discuss intelligently the decision and how that intersects with the way you see things". See also Chesterton's Fence: https://www.chesterton.org/taking-a-fence-down/ https://www.chesterton.org/taking-a-fence-down/
- rwallace 8y agoGood article! I agree with most of it. However, 'As a leader, you don't want to tell your team that the reason things are changing is "because _ made me do it." That makes it seem like you have no power, as though you do things just because you are told to. It certainly won't inspire confidence in your team or make them any more likely to embrace the decision.' Are you sure? Do you really want to tell your team "We are painting the building purple because fairies love the color purple and will bring us good luck"? Especially when your team already knows you personally don't believe in fairies? It seems to me "Look, the CEO is firmly committed to the belief in fairies, and has made the policy decision that we are going to paint the building purple. It's up to us to implement that decision," is the least bad thing to say in that situation.
- imhelpingu 8y agoOr instead acting like personal PR is your only contribution to the species, you can just say reasonable things that make sense including things like "I don't know" on a circumstantial basis using your human brain and social instincts.