6 ms·

The unspoken truth about managing geeks (2009)

88 points by geophertz 7y ago

loopz 7y ago
Lots of hogwash words. People who don't IT are unable to contribute, don't understand business is now IT, and often sacrifice good for org for selfish gains. People who do IT should contribute every day, need to learn the business domain every day and stop playing victim to random authority of the week.
- francoisdevlin 7y ago
  You just made the author's point about respect...
  - BigBubbleButt 7y ago
    I'd say OP swiftly took the air out of the author's argument, which is that geeks are wonderful to work with once you know how. What OP did was essentially say geeks are better than everyone else and management can fuck off, not exactly making geeks seem like team players.
    - Rury 7y ago
      Not sure, they both seem to be saying the same thing to me. I inferred OP essentially saying: business is IT. They're synonymous - and I'd largely agree with this. All businesses deal with managing information, be it storing financial records, IP info, or transmitting data amongst users or employees. The I in IT is "Information", and all businesses deal with information/data. Anyhow, the article starts out saying management often views geeks as being business challenged, which such a viewpoint is questionable given what IT is. Arguably, geeks are better at business (i.e. information handling and problem solving) than non-geeks. Hence, the point about respect in the article. IT Pro's won't simply respect someone because they're the boss. They respect those who are competent at solving business (IT) problems, regardless of demeanor or hierarchal rank. As so, this bottom-up respect speaks volumes as to success of a team (as the lack of it indicates the leaders are charlatans).
      - BigBubbleButt 7y ago
        I feel like this is a much more subtle way of reframing what OP said. > Arguably, geeks are better at business (i.e. information handling and problem solving) than non-geeks. Do you believe there's something that geeks aren't better at than non-geeks (when it comes to being an employee)? Because OP's point, as I read it, was that geeks are superior and should be running everything and was incredibly dismissive of non-geeks being useful. I agree that respect is earned, not given. But if you just immediately dismiss what someone has to say because they aren't part of your geek tribe, you are beginning the relationship from a hostile standpoint. Why would non-geeks look at this as anything other than geeks being antagonistic? > Anyhow, the article starts out saying management often views geeks as being business challenged, which such a viewpoint is questionable given what IT is. I read the article differently. It was much less about geeks being business challenged and much more about geeks being elitist, such as OP's bellicose comment. If neither side is willing to work with the other side, the fault almost certainly lies with everyone.
        Rury 7y ago
        >I read the article differently. It was much less about geeks being business challenged and much more about geeks being elitist I think the article could have been about anyone being elitist, it just so happens to be about IT teams. Just remove geeks and non-geeks out for a moment. Think the nature of hierarchy in general. A stable hierarchy has the best people as its leaders, which is when society benefits the most and teams work together best. If however, the leaders are charlatans, then more competent underlings will stop respecting or listening to the leaders, and/or may challenge the leaders. Typically life is worse off (for society as a whole) under bad leaders than good leaders. This is why bottom up respect speaks volume to the success of a team. The article speaks a bit on this in the section about respect, and suggests favoring competency as a solution. Anyhow, I don't think OP's point necessarily is at odds with this as the 2nd poster pointed out. OP argues that IT folk act elitist, because perhaps they actually are but find themselves following “random authority figure of the week”, (rather than the best authority). Whether or not that’s true is subject to debate. I’m sure it is in some cases and others not, but I largely agree with the part of his argument about business being largely synonymous with IT. >Do you believe there's something that geeks aren't better at than non-geeks Sure, everyone is flawed. No one is fully aware of everything. As so, some may need help with understanding the scope of things, other people’s viewpoints, and problems. Some may have trouble communicating novel ideas, or solutions, and need help in deploying them. Think people skills. I think this is why technical people say it’s helpful to have a manager who acts as a sounding board.
    - loopz 7y ago
      Thanks for some benefit of the doubt (and karma sacrifice). Of course, when you kick both "sides" on the shinbone, you'll hit a nerve. Though original post was probably too unclear. In my intent, there's nothing wrong with the business "side" (except that there are "sides"!). Though you can't do business today and expect, even demand, to stay ignorant of technology. Staying ignorant is a choice that shouldn't be part of important decisionmaking. Likewise, geeks should go out more, get laid, jk. This is a forever problem, but somehow the organization should make it easy for people to hash things out on a whiteboard together. This need better collaborative environments than what enterpricey corps manage today. They're great at producing hostages though! Article was a bit TL;DR and didn't bring much to the table other than trying to whitewash geeks, as if that's required now? Just a symptom of the above. In my experience, you can generalize the same way for every important function, but ain't a constructive path at all.
- bitwize 7y ago
  If you s/IT/sales/g, you understand how the CEO thinks.
  - loopz 7y ago
    Exactly. Doesn't seem many geeks are able to look very much past the team-bubble though, from the downmodding and general comments, though there were some benefits of the doubt in between. What shouldn't be acceptable anymore is: "This isn't my domain since it's technical [about business critical IT systems]" (and ofc vica versa), yet seems every function is now hell-bent on digging their heels in within "their" part of the dinosaur.
NikolaNovak 7y ago
The point about Respect is something I struggle to appropriately convey and convince my non-technical friends. In any technical team I've been part of, implicitly, respect and competence were far more relevant than organizational authority. Any technically competent person I've met, upon meeting a new lead or manager, will consciously or subconsciously evaluate "Does this person know their stuff?". If yes, they'll work for & with the lead. If not, they'll route around them - most IT Pros are surprisingly skilled at "Upward management".
- looping__lui 7y ago
  I like your comment; I liked the Humility, Respect and Trust Framework from “Debugging Teams” a lot as well. However, what I also found is: geeks don’t care about the value they are creating/not creating all too often. If you are on the “other side of the table tasked to extract value from an engineering/science team” the amount of disrespect that you are facing from geeks is sometimes almost unbearable. As much as I hear things like “education or opinions do not matter - but facts and data and demonstrated competency” this only lasts as long as the people saying it feel it’s a waiver to demonstrate some “tolerance and openness as long as it means they got to do what they want”. What a lot of geeks don’t understand: yes, management also figures out “who is more results and product driven” and will shy away giving the “most impactful tasks” to the condescending folks... A lot of managers would enjoy their work more having a bit more technical expertise; but the same is true - and even more so - for geeks.
  - perl4ever 7y ago
    "geeks don’t care about the value they are creating/not creating all too often." This is a two way street - mostly you don't actually want to hire someone who cares about the business, because they're not as easily exploited. I'm saying, yes, not caring about business value is a negative from one perspective, but culturally organizations have adapted to that and the person best suited to being plugged in to a position is someone who will work tirelessly on whatever you give them without caring one way or the other about the big picture. If they actually are interested in value, then they are going to be demotivated on a doomed or dysfunctional or immoral project.
mips_avatar 7y ago
I strongly agree with the author about the importance of having a mentor/manager who is a great technical sounding board. I need the help understanding what the business direction is, or else I will spend my energy working on a problem that the business doesn’t care about. I want to know that if I figure out an improvement for area X that area X is important enough to merit work. And getting to the end of a project only to discover no one in the business cares about what I did is the most frustrating thing.
- RobRivera 7y ago
  Srrong echo, my 2019 was full of good work that wasn't valued, despite email chains and postings. It's frustrating and detrimental to ones career to have a bsd manager.
dasil003 7y ago
This feels a little dated as I suspect only the most clueless execs today would not recognize the value of well-run IT (whether it be back-office or product), but it serves as a pretty good explanation of the unspoken rules of a culture which white collar management and leadership might not be inclined to understand. Software engineers and IT folks are more akin to craftspeople and blue collar professionals in the sense that their competence directly translates to outcomes, and thus their reputation is based on more concrete observations versus middle managers where it can be pretty hard to attribute either success or failure directly to their actions.
remmargorp64 7y ago
I especially liked this point: "IT pros always and without fail, quietly self-organize around those who make the work easier, while shunning those who make the work harder, independent of the organizational chart."
dang 7y ago
Discussed at the time: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=813368 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=813368
eric234223 7y ago
The relation b/w Respect and competence is correct. I had started on wrong foot with competent people and when they tried to demonstrate their competence, I show off my skills as a competition, but surprisingly it turns out in to mutual self respect and we get along well. I have been on both sides as showing the competence and being challenged and it always amazes me how it always turns in to mutual respect.
GoToRO 7y ago
Not mentioned in the article: most of the time you have to change management, no amount of management training will fix things.

88 points by geophertz 7y ago

Lots of hogwash words. People who don't IT are unable to contribute, don't understand business is now IT, and often sacrifice good for org for selfish gains. People who do IT should contribute every day, need to learn the business domain every day and stop playing victim to random authority of the week.

francoisdevlin 7y ago
You just made the author's point about respect...
- BigBubbleButt 7y ago
  I'd say OP swiftly took the air out of the author's argument, which is that geeks are wonderful to work with once you know how. What OP did was essentially say geeks are better than everyone else and management can fuck off, not exactly making geeks seem like team players.
  - Rury 7y ago
    Not sure, they both seem to be saying the same thing to me. I inferred OP essentially saying: business is IT. They're synonymous - and I'd largely agree with this. All businesses deal with managing information, be it storing financial records, IP info, or transmitting data amongst users or employees. The I in IT is "Information", and all businesses deal with information/data. Anyhow, the article starts out saying management often views geeks as being business challenged, which such a viewpoint is questionable given what IT is. Arguably, geeks are better at business (i.e. information handling and problem solving) than non-geeks. Hence, the point about respect in the article. IT Pro's won't simply respect someone because they're the boss. They respect those who are competent at solving business (IT) problems, regardless of demeanor or hierarchal rank. As so, this bottom-up respect speaks volumes as to success of a team (as the lack of it indicates the leaders are charlatans).
    - BigBubbleButt 7y ago
      I feel like this is a much more subtle way of reframing what OP said. > Arguably, geeks are better at business (i.e. information handling and problem solving) than non-geeks. Do you believe there's something that geeks aren't better at than non-geeks (when it comes to being an employee)? Because OP's point, as I read it, was that geeks are superior and should be running everything and was incredibly dismissive of non-geeks being useful. I agree that respect is earned, not given. But if you just immediately dismiss what someone has to say because they aren't part of your geek tribe, you are beginning the relationship from a hostile standpoint. Why would non-geeks look at this as anything other than geeks being antagonistic? > Anyhow, the article starts out saying management often views geeks as being business challenged, which such a viewpoint is questionable given what IT is. I read the article differently. It was much less about geeks being business challenged and much more about geeks being elitist, such as OP's bellicose comment. If neither side is willing to work with the other side, the fault almost certainly lies with everyone.
      - Rury 7y ago
        >I read the article differently. It was much less about geeks being business challenged and much more about geeks being elitist I think the article could have been about anyone being elitist, it just so happens to be about IT teams. Just remove geeks and non-geeks out for a moment. Think the nature of hierarchy in general. A stable hierarchy has the best people as its leaders, which is when society benefits the most and teams work together best. If however, the leaders are charlatans, then more competent underlings will stop respecting or listening to the leaders, and/or may challenge the leaders. Typically life is worse off (for society as a whole) under bad leaders than good leaders. This is why bottom up respect speaks volume to the success of a team. The article speaks a bit on this in the section about respect, and suggests favoring competency as a solution. Anyhow, I don't think OP's point necessarily is at odds with this as the 2nd poster pointed out. OP argues that IT folk act elitist, because perhaps they actually are but find themselves following “random authority figure of the week”, (rather than the best authority). Whether or not that’s true is subject to debate. I’m sure it is in some cases and others not, but I largely agree with the part of his argument about business being largely synonymous with IT. >Do you believe there's something that geeks aren't better at than non-geeks Sure, everyone is flawed. No one is fully aware of everything. As so, some may need help with understanding the scope of things, other people’s viewpoints, and problems. Some may have trouble communicating novel ideas, or solutions, and need help in deploying them. Think people skills. I think this is why technical people say it’s helpful to have a manager who acts as a sounding board.
  - loopz 7y ago
    Thanks for some benefit of the doubt (and karma sacrifice). Of course, when you kick both "sides" on the shinbone, you'll hit a nerve. Though original post was probably too unclear. In my intent, there's nothing wrong with the business "side" (except that there are "sides"!). Though you can't do business today and expect, even demand, to stay ignorant of technology. Staying ignorant is a choice that shouldn't be part of important decisionmaking. Likewise, geeks should go out more, get laid, jk. This is a forever problem, but somehow the organization should make it easy for people to hash things out on a whiteboard together. This need better collaborative environments than what enterpricey corps manage today. They're great at producing hostages though! Article was a bit TL;DR and didn't bring much to the table other than trying to whitewash geeks, as if that's required now? Just a symptom of the above. In my experience, you can generalize the same way for every important function, but ain't a constructive path at all.
bitwize 7y ago
If you s/IT/sales/g, you understand how the CEO thinks.
- loopz 7y ago
  Exactly. Doesn't seem many geeks are able to look very much past the team-bubble though, from the downmodding and general comments, though there were some benefits of the doubt in between. What shouldn't be acceptable anymore is: "This isn't my domain since it's technical [about business critical IT systems]" (and ofc vica versa), yet seems every function is now hell-bent on digging their heels in within "their" part of the dinosaur.

NikolaNovak 7y ago

The point about Respect is something I struggle to appropriately convey and convince my non-technical friends. In any technical team I've been part of, implicitly, respect and competence were far more relevant than organizational authority. Any technically competent person I've met, upon meeting a new lead or manager, will consciously or subconsciously evaluate "Does this person know their stuff?". If yes, they'll work for & with the lead. If not, they'll route around them - most IT Pros are surprisingly skilled at "Upward management".

looping__lui 7y ago
I like your comment; I liked the Humility, Respect and Trust Framework from “Debugging Teams” a lot as well. However, what I also found is: geeks don’t care about the value they are creating/not creating all too often. If you are on the “other side of the table tasked to extract value from an engineering/science team” the amount of disrespect that you are facing from geeks is sometimes almost unbearable. As much as I hear things like “education or opinions do not matter - but facts and data and demonstrated competency” this only lasts as long as the people saying it feel it’s a waiver to demonstrate some “tolerance and openness as long as it means they got to do what they want”. What a lot of geeks don’t understand: yes, management also figures out “who is more results and product driven” and will shy away giving the “most impactful tasks” to the condescending folks... A lot of managers would enjoy their work more having a bit more technical expertise; but the same is true - and even more so - for geeks.
- perl4ever 7y ago
  "geeks don’t care about the value they are creating/not creating all too often." This is a two way street - mostly you don't actually want to hire someone who cares about the business, because they're not as easily exploited. I'm saying, yes, not caring about business value is a negative from one perspective, but culturally organizations have adapted to that and the person best suited to being plugged in to a position is someone who will work tirelessly on whatever you give them without caring one way or the other about the big picture. If they actually are interested in value, then they are going to be demotivated on a doomed or dysfunctional or immoral project.

mips_avatar 7y ago

I strongly agree with the author about the importance of having a mentor/manager who is a great technical sounding board. I need the help understanding what the business direction is, or else I will spend my energy working on a problem that the business doesn’t care about. I want to know that if I figure out an improvement for area X that area X is important enough to merit work. And getting to the end of a project only to discover no one in the business cares about what I did is the most frustrating thing.

RobRivera 7y ago
Srrong echo, my 2019 was full of good work that wasn't valued, despite email chains and postings. It's frustrating and detrimental to ones career to have a bsd manager.

dasil003 7y ago

This feels a little dated as I suspect only the most clueless execs today would not recognize the value of well-run IT (whether it be back-office or product), but it serves as a pretty good explanation of the unspoken rules of a culture which white collar management and leadership might not be inclined to understand. Software engineers and IT folks are more akin to craftspeople and blue collar professionals in the sense that their competence directly translates to outcomes, and thus their reputation is based on more concrete observations versus middle managers where it can be pretty hard to attribute either success or failure directly to their actions.

remmargorp64 7y ago

I especially liked this point: "IT pros always and without fail, quietly self-organize around those who make the work easier, while shunning those who make the work harder, independent of the organizational chart."

dang 7y ago

Discussed at the time: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=813368 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=813368

eric234223 7y ago

The relation b/w Respect and competence is correct. I had started on wrong foot with competent people and when they tried to demonstrate their competence, I show off my skills as a competition, but surprisingly it turns out in to mutual self respect and we get along well. I have been on both sides as showing the competence and being challenged and it always amazes me how it always turns in to mutual respect.

GoToRO 7y ago

Not mentioned in the article: most of the time you have to change management, no amount of management training will fix things.