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I think this highlights the other half of the "asperger's problem." A lot of people have bad managers. Someone with normal social function might simply have the

I think this highlights the other half of the "asperger's problem." A lot of people have bad managers. Someone with normal social function might simply have the soft skills necessary to mitigate their poor management. This does make them a more successful employee in a sense.

arethuza 7y ago
I think I'd go even further than that - most people are bad managers and those who are good managers usually have had a fair amount of coaching and mentoring by other good managers. Edit: I should add training to that, while I wouldn't claim to be a good manager I did have some 1-on-1 training that did make me a less bad manager (being videoed in meetings and my interactions with people analysed).
- BurningFrog 7y ago
  > most people are bad managers A lot of people also have a strong anti manager bias. They're predisposed to hate any manager they have, unless proven otherwise.
  - ergothus 7y ago
    Sure, but how many managers are actually trained to do what they do? There's this strange expectation that everyone somehow knows how to be a good manager, when in truth, most of us know (some of) what a manager is supposed to DO, but have only what we've personally experienced to guide us on HOW to do it. And what we've seen is only a sliver of the process - we've likely only seen the managing of others in public, and the managing of ourselves in private. Ee can, at best, know from experience how to manage someone that is just like ourselves, and have an idea of what to say in public to people not like ourselves, but not what to say to them in private. And that's the best case, assuming we've had good managers (and thus have good examples to draw from). More likely, we've seen tolerable managers, plus plenty of bad ones. To your point, how do we even recognize good management when we've seen it? How do we know what to emulate and what to avoid? We're the parents that say "well my parents beat me and I turned out just fine, so....". Management is a skill (or collection of skills) It's not a skillset that most jobs actually train, nor is it one that they do a good job of recognizing. Most of the jobs people have growing up (and beyond) reward managers that push for short-term gains over such things like "morale" or "communication" - these are the managers that are "successful" for the vast majority of experience. Just look at how many places have techies shift into management as a career development path, but don't do anything to train them or say that people are managed any differently than code. There are plenty of reasons for people to be biased against the person (their manager) that tells them what they don't want to hear (such as "take on this extra work" or "your time off request is denied" or "don't implement your idea"), there's also plenty of reasons to expect that most managers legitimately ARE poor managers.
- siggen 7y ago
  This. I would also like to add that a lot of folks are bad managers because they observed and learned from bad managers.
  - aswanson 7y ago
    My 1st manager was a tool, was pretty degrading with language toward me, etc. I realize now it was partially my fault, and also the guy just coded all day and wasnt necessarily all that bad of a guy, he just was horrible at communication and managing someone coming out of school with minimal real world dev experience.
- numakerg 7y ago
  I also think people underestimate the amount of knowledge and experience it takes to become a good manager (or any other talent for that matter). In discussions I often hear people claim that they could take on a leadership role and succeed simply because they are good in social settings and "have a way with others". I've seen a few of these people try and fail because they didn't think about the other components of management such as conflict resolution, delegation, etc. I've only taken on trivial leadership roles, so my default assumption is that I am not a good manager. For most other skills I can practice and gain proficiency on my own, but with management, trial and error comes at the cost of others' time. I assume there is some training you can take to give you basic skills, but I think real experience has to be gained through a gradual expansion of responsibilities, which requires mentorship and an environment that supports that kind of process.
- dikdikvandik 7y ago
  What do you think makes a good manager vs a bad one?
  - arethuza 7y ago
    To put it one way: "You can either be a shit funnel or a shit umbrella"
- clairity 7y ago
  i would add that managers are coaches, not players, in that their work output is generally not meant to produce product (in the larger sense of work product, not just the company's offering) but rather make the producers themselves better. so one easy way to be (viewed as) a bad manager is to forget that your focus should be people, not product. it is absolutely your job as a manager to ask about and know the motivations and constraints of those you manage, including probing no's like that.
mlyle 7y ago
Another way to view it is that employees with very poor social function create management overhead, both in their interaction with management and their interactions with others in the workplace. Poor management will deal worse with increased overhead, but no matter what it has a cost. Not to mention just the emotional labor involved with your "Would you like to X?" being met with a hard "No." Knowing the employee has autism and being taught some simple mitigation strategies (here, it appears "tell" not "ask" is a large part) has the prospect of partially mitigating a lot of these issues for everyone. edit: edited the phrase in question based on what was actually said.
- KKKKkkkk1 7y ago
  Managing people is the manager's job, not overhead.
  - mlyle 7y ago
    Yes, but there are people who take many times as much management oversight than others. Since a manager tends to be an expensive employee, an employee that takes a disproportionate share of a manager's time is disproportionally expensive compared to his peers.
    - cmiles74 7y ago
      The manager is already being paid to manage people and, as you point out, usually at a higher rate. In my opinion this is simply part of the job. There are some development tasks that take up more of my time then others but they are no less important. Not all tasks cost the same amount of time or money, such is life.
      - mlyle 7y ago
        Sometimes a development task can prove to cost so much that continuing to do it is not worthwhile. Similarly, I've had a team member make the rest of the team considerably less happy and take up most of my time on oversight and trying to fix these problems. There reaches a point, where if it cannot be improved, that you terminate the employee's employment. I look at these cases as personal failures, BTW: always wondering if there was a better way to handle them that could have resulted in the employee being productive, the rest of the team being happy, and me being able to complete other important tasks. But at some point you have to make a decision to move on.
__s 7y ago
It's odd how people on the spectrum supposedly struggle to pick up on unspoken rules to fit in & empathize, meanwhile people not on the spectrum show just as much inability to recognize these context free logical processes in order to empathize with people on the spectrum Put someone not on a spectrum in a society of people on the spectrum, & you'd be labelling the person not on the spectrum as having a mental disorder. Who the hell asks questions they don't want the answers to?
- SolaceQuantum 7y ago
  It's not odd if you interpret the social issues in autism spectrum as partially a difficulty in learning unspoken social rituals taught from a young age. In this case, a human that is well-socialized having difficulty expressing empathy for a human with social difficulties makes total sense- the well-socialized human has not been taught how to be empathetic to another human that does not follow social rituals. It is my understanding that part of autism advocacy is to establish new social rituals among the neurotypical populace that allows the neurotypical human to learn empathy and acceptance for autistic behavior in the way a neurotypical human generally learns- social cues and hierarchy and peer enforcement.
  - __s 7y ago
    This is a good way of looking at it People on the spectrum aren't less empathic, they're lacking rituals which help hide one's lack of empathy
    - optimuspaul 7y ago
      My son is on the spectrum and I've observed that he doesn't have less empathy but he in fact has an overabundance of empathy to the point that it causes him to withdraw and he has learned to ignore his empathy because society is not accepting of how he engages with them. His empathy is not the problem, it is his ability to communicate with others that do not share his sensibilities.
    - munificent 7y ago
ivanhoe 7y ago
There's also a cultural problem with US having this superficial politeness that is expected in communication, where orders are given in the form of "would you please", but are still expected to be followed without a word. I'm not autistic (well AFAIK), so if a manager asks me if I'd take a task and I'm super busy, I'd probably (try to) refuse it too, but I'd do it in a polite, beat around the bush manner, and manager would recognize the situation, and (again super politely) try to push back and we'd come to some agreement. No one would freak out. Problem with Asperger is that they're not very good in this back and forth social dance. In other countries, say in Eastern/South Europe culture of communication is different and manager would simply tell that guy to do the task, with no "would you please", no smiling, just a simple "do that". Not because of being rude, but because there's simply less social rituals in the communication. My (anecdotal) impression is that this "less-polite" environment, while it freaks out many Americans ("people are so direct and rude here!"), is much more friendlier to people with Asperger. I've worked with a few and they were doing just fine, super intelligent, super focused, great fit for IT companies. You just can't expect them to read your mind.
- FakeComments 7y ago
  You can just ask your manager. “Is this more of a priority than X, what I’m doing now?” Thats the advice I’d give to Asperger people: ask a follow up question (or several) that clarifies the situation before making any direct response. There’s several subtler reasons — but the simplest is probably the most appealing: it takes advantage of your ability to explicitly define a situation, and the clarity explicit kinds of thinking bring, but in a way that lets the other person feel in control of that process.
kylecordes 7y ago
A good manager is one who can maintain a decent relationship and get results with the team composed of mere humans. Pretty much all of whom are imperfect in 100 different ways. Some of those ways match the theme of this article and thread, but it doesn't matter. A manager who can only function if everyone in their team is completely typical in every way, should be replaced by someone more qualified and capable.

arethuza 7y ago

I think I'd go even further than that - most people are bad managers and those who are good managers usually have had a fair amount of coaching and mentoring by other good managers. Edit: I should add training to that, while I wouldn't claim to be a good manager I did have some 1-on-1 training that did make me a less bad manager (being videoed in meetings and my interactions with people analysed).

BurningFrog 7y ago
> most people are bad managers A lot of people also have a strong anti manager bias. They're predisposed to hate any manager they have, unless proven otherwise.
- ergothus 7y ago
  Sure, but how many managers are actually trained to do what they do? There's this strange expectation that everyone somehow knows how to be a good manager, when in truth, most of us know (some of) what a manager is supposed to DO, but have only what we've personally experienced to guide us on HOW to do it. And what we've seen is only a sliver of the process - we've likely only seen the managing of others in public, and the managing of ourselves in private. Ee can, at best, know from experience how to manage someone that is just like ourselves, and have an idea of what to say in public to people not like ourselves, but not what to say to them in private. And that's the best case, assuming we've had good managers (and thus have good examples to draw from). More likely, we've seen tolerable managers, plus plenty of bad ones. To your point, how do we even recognize good management when we've seen it? How do we know what to emulate and what to avoid? We're the parents that say "well my parents beat me and I turned out just fine, so....". Management is a skill (or collection of skills) It's not a skillset that most jobs actually train, nor is it one that they do a good job of recognizing. Most of the jobs people have growing up (and beyond) reward managers that push for short-term gains over such things like "morale" or "communication" - these are the managers that are "successful" for the vast majority of experience. Just look at how many places have techies shift into management as a career development path, but don't do anything to train them or say that people are managed any differently than code. There are plenty of reasons for people to be biased against the person (their manager) that tells them what they don't want to hear (such as "take on this extra work" or "your time off request is denied" or "don't implement your idea"), there's also plenty of reasons to expect that most managers legitimately ARE poor managers.
siggen 7y ago
This. I would also like to add that a lot of folks are bad managers because they observed and learned from bad managers.
- aswanson 7y ago
  My 1st manager was a tool, was pretty degrading with language toward me, etc. I realize now it was partially my fault, and also the guy just coded all day and wasnt necessarily all that bad of a guy, he just was horrible at communication and managing someone coming out of school with minimal real world dev experience.
numakerg 7y ago
I also think people underestimate the amount of knowledge and experience it takes to become a good manager (or any other talent for that matter). In discussions I often hear people claim that they could take on a leadership role and succeed simply because they are good in social settings and "have a way with others". I've seen a few of these people try and fail because they didn't think about the other components of management such as conflict resolution, delegation, etc. I've only taken on trivial leadership roles, so my default assumption is that I am not a good manager. For most other skills I can practice and gain proficiency on my own, but with management, trial and error comes at the cost of others' time. I assume there is some training you can take to give you basic skills, but I think real experience has to be gained through a gradual expansion of responsibilities, which requires mentorship and an environment that supports that kind of process.
dikdikvandik 7y ago
What do you think makes a good manager vs a bad one?
- arethuza 7y ago
  To put it one way: "You can either be a shit funnel or a shit umbrella"
clairity 7y ago
i would add that managers are coaches, not players, in that their work output is generally not meant to produce product (in the larger sense of work product, not just the company's offering) but rather make the producers themselves better. so one easy way to be (viewed as) a bad manager is to forget that your focus should be people, not product. it is absolutely your job as a manager to ask about and know the motivations and constraints of those you manage, including probing no's like that.

mlyle 7y ago

Another way to view it is that employees with very poor social function create management overhead, both in their interaction with management and their interactions with others in the workplace. Poor management will deal worse with increased overhead, but no matter what it has a cost. Not to mention just the emotional labor involved with your "Would you like to X?" being met with a hard "No." Knowing the employee has autism and being taught some simple mitigation strategies (here, it appears "tell" not "ask" is a large part) has the prospect of partially mitigating a lot of these issues for everyone. edit: edited the phrase in question based on what was actually said.

KKKKkkkk1 7y ago
Managing people is the manager's job, not overhead.
- mlyle 7y ago
  Yes, but there are people who take many times as much management oversight than others. Since a manager tends to be an expensive employee, an employee that takes a disproportionate share of a manager's time is disproportionally expensive compared to his peers.
  - cmiles74 7y ago
    The manager is already being paid to manage people and, as you point out, usually at a higher rate. In my opinion this is simply part of the job. There are some development tasks that take up more of my time then others but they are no less important. Not all tasks cost the same amount of time or money, such is life.
    - mlyle 7y ago
      Sometimes a development task can prove to cost so much that continuing to do it is not worthwhile. Similarly, I've had a team member make the rest of the team considerably less happy and take up most of my time on oversight and trying to fix these problems. There reaches a point, where if it cannot be improved, that you terminate the employee's employment. I look at these cases as personal failures, BTW: always wondering if there was a better way to handle them that could have resulted in the employee being productive, the rest of the team being happy, and me being able to complete other important tasks. But at some point you have to make a decision to move on.

__s 7y ago

It's odd how people on the spectrum supposedly struggle to pick up on unspoken rules to fit in & empathize, meanwhile people not on the spectrum show just as much inability to recognize these context free logical processes in order to empathize with people on the spectrum Put someone not on a spectrum in a society of people on the spectrum, & you'd be labelling the person not on the spectrum as having a mental disorder. Who the hell asks questions they don't want the answers to?

SolaceQuantum 7y ago
It's not odd if you interpret the social issues in autism spectrum as partially a difficulty in learning unspoken social rituals taught from a young age. In this case, a human that is well-socialized having difficulty expressing empathy for a human with social difficulties makes total sense- the well-socialized human has not been taught how to be empathetic to another human that does not follow social rituals. It is my understanding that part of autism advocacy is to establish new social rituals among the neurotypical populace that allows the neurotypical human to learn empathy and acceptance for autistic behavior in the way a neurotypical human generally learns- social cues and hierarchy and peer enforcement.
- __s 7y ago
  This is a good way of looking at it People on the spectrum aren't less empathic, they're lacking rituals which help hide one's lack of empathy
  - optimuspaul 7y ago
    My son is on the spectrum and I've observed that he doesn't have less empathy but he in fact has an overabundance of empathy to the point that it causes him to withdraw and he has learned to ignore his empathy because society is not accepting of how he engages with them. His empathy is not the problem, it is his ability to communicate with others that do not share his sensibilities.
  - munificent 7y ago

ivanhoe 7y ago

There's also a cultural problem with US having this superficial politeness that is expected in communication, where orders are given in the form of "would you please", but are still expected to be followed without a word. I'm not autistic (well AFAIK), so if a manager asks me if I'd take a task and I'm super busy, I'd probably (try to) refuse it too, but I'd do it in a polite, beat around the bush manner, and manager would recognize the situation, and (again super politely) try to push back and we'd come to some agreement. No one would freak out. Problem with Asperger is that they're not very good in this back and forth social dance. In other countries, say in Eastern/South Europe culture of communication is different and manager would simply tell that guy to do the task, with no "would you please", no smiling, just a simple "do that". Not because of being rude, but because there's simply less social rituals in the communication. My (anecdotal) impression is that this "less-polite" environment, while it freaks out many Americans ("people are so direct and rude here!"), is much more friendlier to people with Asperger. I've worked with a few and they were doing just fine, super intelligent, super focused, great fit for IT companies. You just can't expect them to read your mind.

FakeComments 7y ago
You can just ask your manager. “Is this more of a priority than X, what I’m doing now?” Thats the advice I’d give to Asperger people: ask a follow up question (or several) that clarifies the situation before making any direct response. There’s several subtler reasons — but the simplest is probably the most appealing: it takes advantage of your ability to explicitly define a situation, and the clarity explicit kinds of thinking bring, but in a way that lets the other person feel in control of that process.

kylecordes 7y ago

A good manager is one who can maintain a decent relationship and get results with the team composed of mere humans. Pretty much all of whom are imperfect in 100 different ways. Some of those ways match the theme of this article and thread, but it doesn't matter. A manager who can only function if everyone in their team is completely typical in every way, should be replaced by someone more qualified and capable.