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It’s funny. If an article mentions how much someone in management gets paid, it’s all about how they don’t deserve it, they’re profiting off someone else’s swea

by jm4 7y ago

It’s funny. If an article mentions how much someone in management gets paid, it’s all about how they don’t deserve it, they’re profiting off someone else’s sweat, they’re useless, it’s unfair, etc. Then you see something like a data breach or the Boeing fiasco and management belongs in jail because they didn’t put good processes in place for the engineers.

bsder 7y ago
The problem is that the managers don't have accountability at the same level they are compensated. If you are compensated better than 90% of your workforce, then you should receive better than 90% of the blame every single time something goes wrong. You're that important, no?
- 6700417 7y ago
  Why should blame be tied to compensation? Compensation tends to be tied to perceived impact. The perceived impact of a manager with 10 reports who are all focused and delivering individually is much higher than the impact of a manager with the same number of reports where half the team meets few of their goals. The first manager is ultimately going to be seen as more effective and will get larger bonuses and will be more frequently promoted and ultimately grow the scope of what they own. That they happen to get paid more than individuals reporting to them is entirely appropriate based on their overall impact. That managers sometimes blame the people on their team for the failure of the team is bad management (and worse if the people above them blindly accept that) but I don’t think you can assign all blame to a manager just because they happen to be the manager and certainly not because of their relative pay.
  - mehrdadn 7y ago
    > Why should blame be tied to compensation? Compensation tends to be tied to perceived impact. The perceived impact of a manager with 10 reports who are all focused and delivering individually is much higher than the impact of a manager with the same number of reports where half the team meets few of their goals. Maybe because when those goals involve cutting corners on safety and hundreds of people die as a result, that's one heck of a lot of "impact"?
    - TheOtherHobbes 7y ago
      Apparently "risk" is tied to compensation. And so is talent. So if you have someone telling you they're more talented than you are, and they take bigger risks, and that's why they're paid a lot more than you, why would you not expect them to take more responsibility than everyone else when things go wrong?
    - 6700417 7y ago
      Again, how is that the same as saying that blame should be tied to compensation? Separate out management for a moment. So an engineer who gets paid 50% more than another deserves 50% more blame for a failure? I thought HN was a place where people attempted to form good arguments based on fact, not one where people let emotion rule the day.
      - mehrdadn 7y ago
        > Again, how is that the same as saying that blame should be tied to compensation? Separate out management for a moment. So an engineer who gets paid 50% more than another deserves 50% more blame for a failure? I thought HN was a place where people attempted to form good arguments based on fact, not one where people let emotion rule the day. To entertain the naive pedantry for a second: first, I think a heck of a lot of people would tolerate that 50% scenario more than the status quo, and second, it's not exactly outrageous to suggest the impact you have on a design goes hand-in-hand with how much blame you deserve for it when it breaks (or how much praise you deserve for it when it works). Now, you yourself say compensation should also be tied to impact. Apply the transitive property. You might be surprised what you get. But surely you realize you're making a strawman out of the points people are trying to make? It's not literally the "same thing", it's an approximation meant to get a point across, and it's based on the assumption that you apply some common sense instead of treating it like a mathematical proposition. Like the understanding that you literally can't fire 98.3% of one guy and 1.7% of another, so clearly everyone understands "blame" will get out of sync with compensation; that in itself is obviously not the literal point. And the understanding what people are clearly upset about is the fact that those who are given more responsibility and power over a product (which just so happens to go hand-in-hand with their pay) frequently appear to bear far less blame than those whom they manage and give directions to. Nitpicking on why it should be proportional to the guy's salary is literally missing the gigantic problem the other person is trying to point out.
- jm4 7y ago
  That is so mistaken I’m not sure where to start. I agree there should be accountability, but to say it should be commensurate with compensation is absurd. What happens around here is the engineers are never to blame and it’s always management. Even when it’s specifically an engineering problem it’s the managers’ fault for not preventing the engineers from making a mistake.
  - bsder 7y ago
    > That is so mistaken I’m not sure where to start. Then you disagree with practically every military on the planet. So, you're going to to have to provide at least a little bit of counterexample to support your position. > Even when it’s specifically an engineering problem it’s the managers’ fault for not preventing the engineers from making a mistake. There are VERY few times when engineering results in the failure of the project--Citicorp center, Tacoma Narrows, Therac-25, maybe I'll even give you Three Mile Island (the teletypewriter was producing bad data because it didn't have the capacity and got further behind as time went) ... I'm having to work hard after that but I'm sure I could come up with a few more. This is normally true because engineers almost always add a safety margin just in case something they can't account for goes wrong. By contrast, most of our worst disasters have all been management failures. Chernobyl was a management-driven disaster. Fukushima was a management-driven disaster (spraying water on a core to prevent it melting down was a ferociously stupid management decision). The Navy Pacific fleet collisions are management-driven disasters. The first Johnstown Flood was a management-driven disaster. I can go on and on.
    - bumby 7y ago
      I agree that management is generally to blame but also think many (most?) mishaps have engineering related proximate (and potentially root) causes. For example, I think I remember hearing part of the Fukushima disaster is attributed to the engineering decision to place the diesel pump batteries in an area that could flood. The fact that these engineering risks weren’t adequately managed is why people blame management. I think one reason the original claim is weird is that leadership should own the blame irrespective of their compensation. (E.g., if a manager has $1 salary they aren’t magically off the hook). It’s one of the core tenets of good leadership. I think engineers sometimes are quick to jump on management because of 1) a hindsight bias and 2) because engineers often have a myopic view of risk. For example, a software engineer tends to only focus on software risks, while management must balance software risks, hardware risks, customer risks, labor risks, etc.

by jm4 7y ago

bsder 7y ago

The problem is that the managers don't have accountability at the same level they are compensated. If you are compensated better than 90% of your workforce, then you should receive better than 90% of the blame every single time something goes wrong. You're that important, no?

6700417 7y ago
Why should blame be tied to compensation? Compensation tends to be tied to perceived impact. The perceived impact of a manager with 10 reports who are all focused and delivering individually is much higher than the impact of a manager with the same number of reports where half the team meets few of their goals. The first manager is ultimately going to be seen as more effective and will get larger bonuses and will be more frequently promoted and ultimately grow the scope of what they own. That they happen to get paid more than individuals reporting to them is entirely appropriate based on their overall impact. That managers sometimes blame the people on their team for the failure of the team is bad management (and worse if the people above them blindly accept that) but I don’t think you can assign all blame to a manager just because they happen to be the manager and certainly not because of their relative pay.
- mehrdadn 7y ago
  > Why should blame be tied to compensation? Compensation tends to be tied to perceived impact. The perceived impact of a manager with 10 reports who are all focused and delivering individually is much higher than the impact of a manager with the same number of reports where half the team meets few of their goals. Maybe because when those goals involve cutting corners on safety and hundreds of people die as a result, that's one heck of a lot of "impact"?
  - TheOtherHobbes 7y ago
    Apparently "risk" is tied to compensation. And so is talent. So if you have someone telling you they're more talented than you are, and they take bigger risks, and that's why they're paid a lot more than you, why would you not expect them to take more responsibility than everyone else when things go wrong?
  - 6700417 7y ago
    Again, how is that the same as saying that blame should be tied to compensation? Separate out management for a moment. So an engineer who gets paid 50% more than another deserves 50% more blame for a failure? I thought HN was a place where people attempted to form good arguments based on fact, not one where people let emotion rule the day.
    - mehrdadn 7y ago
      > Again, how is that the same as saying that blame should be tied to compensation? Separate out management for a moment. So an engineer who gets paid 50% more than another deserves 50% more blame for a failure? I thought HN was a place where people attempted to form good arguments based on fact, not one where people let emotion rule the day. To entertain the naive pedantry for a second: first, I think a heck of a lot of people would tolerate that 50% scenario more than the status quo, and second, it's not exactly outrageous to suggest the impact you have on a design goes hand-in-hand with how much blame you deserve for it when it breaks (or how much praise you deserve for it when it works). Now, you yourself say compensation should also be tied to impact. Apply the transitive property. You might be surprised what you get. But surely you realize you're making a strawman out of the points people are trying to make? It's not literally the "same thing", it's an approximation meant to get a point across, and it's based on the assumption that you apply some common sense instead of treating it like a mathematical proposition. Like the understanding that you literally can't fire 98.3% of one guy and 1.7% of another, so clearly everyone understands "blame" will get out of sync with compensation; that in itself is obviously not the literal point. And the understanding what people are clearly upset about is the fact that those who are given more responsibility and power over a product (which just so happens to go hand-in-hand with their pay) frequently appear to bear far less blame than those whom they manage and give directions to. Nitpicking on why it should be proportional to the guy's salary is literally missing the gigantic problem the other person is trying to point out.
jm4 7y ago
That is so mistaken I’m not sure where to start. I agree there should be accountability, but to say it should be commensurate with compensation is absurd. What happens around here is the engineers are never to blame and it’s always management. Even when it’s specifically an engineering problem it’s the managers’ fault for not preventing the engineers from making a mistake.
- bsder 7y ago
  > That is so mistaken I’m not sure where to start. Then you disagree with practically every military on the planet. So, you're going to to have to provide at least a little bit of counterexample to support your position. > Even when it’s specifically an engineering problem it’s the managers’ fault for not preventing the engineers from making a mistake. There are VERY few times when engineering results in the failure of the project--Citicorp center, Tacoma Narrows, Therac-25, maybe I'll even give you Three Mile Island (the teletypewriter was producing bad data because it didn't have the capacity and got further behind as time went) ... I'm having to work hard after that but I'm sure I could come up with a few more. This is normally true because engineers almost always add a safety margin just in case something they can't account for goes wrong. By contrast, most of our worst disasters have all been management failures. Chernobyl was a management-driven disaster. Fukushima was a management-driven disaster (spraying water on a core to prevent it melting down was a ferociously stupid management decision). The Navy Pacific fleet collisions are management-driven disasters. The first Johnstown Flood was a management-driven disaster. I can go on and on.
  - bumby 7y ago
    I agree that management is generally to blame but also think many (most?) mishaps have engineering related proximate (and potentially root) causes. For example, I think I remember hearing part of the Fukushima disaster is attributed to the engineering decision to place the diesel pump batteries in an area that could flood. The fact that these engineering risks weren’t adequately managed is why people blame management. I think one reason the original claim is weird is that leadership should own the blame irrespective of their compensation. (E.g., if a manager has $1 salary they aren’t magically off the hook). It’s one of the core tenets of good leadership. I think engineers sometimes are quick to jump on management because of 1) a hindsight bias and 2) because engineers often have a myopic view of risk. For example, a software engineer tends to only focus on software risks, while management must balance software risks, hardware risks, customer risks, labor risks, etc.