5 ms·

Power Bends Light (2019)

126 points by luu 7y ago

petermcneeley 7y ago
"I guess people cared more than ever about having a good relationship with me, so why not join in on the laughter if the joke was clever and harmless? At first, I was repelled — it seemed like a gross display of obsequiousness — even though I knew none of these people would admit (or probably even believe) they had changed their behavior. I realized later it wasn’t really (or, at least, only) about sucking up." This whole part reminds me of this clip from the phantom menace reviews. "People look scared of George. They laugh at his bad jokes." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fIWKMgJs_Gs&feature=youtu.be&t=325 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fIWKMgJs_Gs&feature=youtu.be...
- mirimir 7y ago
  > At first, I was repelled — it seemed like a gross display of obsequiousness ... It always makes me cringe, whether it's about people deferring to others, or to me.
BLKNSLVR 7y ago
As someone who has relatively recently been assigned an increase in power, the angle presented in this article is worthwhile being aware of. I'm naturally a bit of an anti-authoritarian, and don't like ordering people around, and so I can be a bit wishy-washy in assigning work. That's bad leadership / management however, and so I'm working on being more direct despite the inherent discomfort: Power requires commitment to a vision, or else it will be temporary (both the power and the vision), which will not lead to progress. Commitment to a vision requires a level of 'bulldoze the roadblocks' mentality, which comes with a certain level of denial of the realities and complexities associated with those roadblocks (which is often the foundation of my disdain for some figures of power). Get it done! Any progress is better than none. Progress in the wrong direction at least provides education as to the correct direction. I'm sure there are plenty of books written about this.
- thomk 7y ago
  You might want to check out 'The Effective Executive' by Peter Drucker. It sounds like you are in the perfect place in your career to read that book. It's a quick read and a short book. Let me as you a question. A waitress comes over to you at a Diner as says "What can I get for you?". If you tell her, are you 'ordering her around? Maybe try to reframe your perspective a bit on your subordinates. They probably depend on you to give them work to do right? You said something interesting there; your 'bulldoze' comment. Without discounting the fact that there are bulldozers out there, a lot of the time that is more akin to just having confidence that once you hit a roadblock you'll 'figure it out because you always do'. One thing in that Drucker book that always stands out to me is he says something like: You are in charge to make the hard decisions. The easy decisions make themselves.
  - JadeNB 7y ago
    > One thing in that Drucker book that always stands out to me is he says something like: You are in charge to make the hard decisions. The easy decisions make themselves. It sounds like that Perl slogan that I've always liked: making easy things easy, and hard things possible. I've never thought of that as applying to management, but it seems to work there, too.
  - BLKNSLVR 7y ago
    I've heard of Drucker a number of times in the past. I think I'll be doing a mass-book ordering tonight.
- JadeNB 7y ago
  > Any progress is better than none. Progress in the wrong direction at least provides education as to the correct direction. I definitely agree that, if you're going to make 'progress' in the wrong direction, then you might as well learn from it; but I don't think that means that it's better to go in the wrong direction than to stay still.
  - BLKNSLVR 7y ago
    That's from a specific experience I had with bad management, where decisions weren't being made and the responsibility for the decision making kept getting shunted around. In that situation, it would have been better to start in a direction, review the progress and outcomes, then re-align as necessary. It doesn't apply in all scenarios, but it would be rare when an at least somewhat reasoned decision is entirely the wrong direction. I just watched the first episode of Midnight Gospel last night: "It all depends on the circumstances!"
unnouinceput 7y ago
I thought this is about electromagnetic power bending photons, not a rant about corporate power corrupting goals for money (like google quietly giving up on their "don't be evil" motto)
- BLKNSLVR 7y ago
  > corporate power corrupting goals for money You know, that's not it either.
wrs 7y ago
I’ve seen many times someone newly promoted who doesn’t yet realize that in meetings they can no longer just say whatever comes into their head. Whereas before they could throw out some random dumb idea and have it shot down by their peers, now they come back in a few weeks and to their amazement and shock there’s a team implementing their random dumb idea!
- m463 7y ago
  I remember reading a book where someone at apple said "Why can't macos just execute windows .exe files?" Although this person was technically qualified to ask this question, the important point was there was enough power for people to take pause and consider it.
  - phkahler 7y ago
    Why not consider it? How much benefit would it offer? What would it take? Consider these: why cant a rocket be reused? Why cant it just land? Why cant we just invent a new material? "What if we just...?" Can be absurd, but it can be worth confirming that.
    - m463 7y ago
      As a technical person you are thinking about the problem. That's why I love being technical. In a power structure it is more complicated. "Why can't a rocket be reused?" Well, Elon Musk is a technical person with power so not only can it happen, everyone will get behind it. On the other hand, why should my car HAVE to be internet connected if I don't want it? (or have a proper dashboard in front of me instead of the side?)
  - bane 7y ago
    And the answer is https://www.winehq.org/ https://www.winehq.org/ Depending on if you like the answer, millions of man hours for a shaky ability to run windows .exe might cause the question to be reconsidered.
DmitryOlshansky 7y ago
Well, money bends science. So no big deal ;)

126 points by luu 7y ago

"I guess people cared more than ever about having a good relationship with me, so why not join in on the laughter if the joke was clever and harmless? At first, I was repelled — it seemed like a gross display of obsequiousness — even though I knew none of these people would admit (or probably even believe) they had changed their behavior. I realized later it wasn’t really (or, at least, only) about sucking up." This whole part reminds me of this clip from the phantom menace reviews. "People look scared of George. They laugh at his bad jokes." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fIWKMgJs_Gs&feature=youtu.be&t=325 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fIWKMgJs_Gs&feature=youtu.be...

mirimir 7y ago
> At first, I was repelled — it seemed like a gross display of obsequiousness ... It always makes me cringe, whether it's about people deferring to others, or to me.

BLKNSLVR 7y ago

As someone who has relatively recently been assigned an increase in power, the angle presented in this article is worthwhile being aware of. I'm naturally a bit of an anti-authoritarian, and don't like ordering people around, and so I can be a bit wishy-washy in assigning work. That's bad leadership / management however, and so I'm working on being more direct despite the inherent discomfort: Power requires commitment to a vision, or else it will be temporary (both the power and the vision), which will not lead to progress. Commitment to a vision requires a level of 'bulldoze the roadblocks' mentality, which comes with a certain level of denial of the realities and complexities associated with those roadblocks (which is often the foundation of my disdain for some figures of power). Get it done! Any progress is better than none. Progress in the wrong direction at least provides education as to the correct direction. I'm sure there are plenty of books written about this.

thomk 7y ago
You might want to check out 'The Effective Executive' by Peter Drucker. It sounds like you are in the perfect place in your career to read that book. It's a quick read and a short book. Let me as you a question. A waitress comes over to you at a Diner as says "What can I get for you?". If you tell her, are you 'ordering her around? Maybe try to reframe your perspective a bit on your subordinates. They probably depend on you to give them work to do right? You said something interesting there; your 'bulldoze' comment. Without discounting the fact that there are bulldozers out there, a lot of the time that is more akin to just having confidence that once you hit a roadblock you'll 'figure it out because you always do'. One thing in that Drucker book that always stands out to me is he says something like: You are in charge to make the hard decisions. The easy decisions make themselves.
- JadeNB 7y ago
  > One thing in that Drucker book that always stands out to me is he says something like: You are in charge to make the hard decisions. The easy decisions make themselves. It sounds like that Perl slogan that I've always liked: making easy things easy, and hard things possible. I've never thought of that as applying to management, but it seems to work there, too.
- BLKNSLVR 7y ago
  I've heard of Drucker a number of times in the past. I think I'll be doing a mass-book ordering tonight.
JadeNB 7y ago
> Any progress is better than none. Progress in the wrong direction at least provides education as to the correct direction. I definitely agree that, if you're going to make 'progress' in the wrong direction, then you might as well learn from it; but I don't think that means that it's better to go in the wrong direction than to stay still.
- BLKNSLVR 7y ago
  That's from a specific experience I had with bad management, where decisions weren't being made and the responsibility for the decision making kept getting shunted around. In that situation, it would have been better to start in a direction, review the progress and outcomes, then re-align as necessary. It doesn't apply in all scenarios, but it would be rare when an at least somewhat reasoned decision is entirely the wrong direction. I just watched the first episode of Midnight Gospel last night: "It all depends on the circumstances!"

unnouinceput 7y ago

I thought this is about electromagnetic power bending photons, not a rant about corporate power corrupting goals for money (like google quietly giving up on their "don't be evil" motto)

BLKNSLVR 7y ago
> corporate power corrupting goals for money You know, that's not it either.

wrs 7y ago

I’ve seen many times someone newly promoted who doesn’t yet realize that in meetings they can no longer just say whatever comes into their head. Whereas before they could throw out some random dumb idea and have it shot down by their peers, now they come back in a few weeks and to their amazement and shock there’s a team implementing their random dumb idea!

m463 7y ago
I remember reading a book where someone at apple said "Why can't macos just execute windows .exe files?" Although this person was technically qualified to ask this question, the important point was there was enough power for people to take pause and consider it.
- phkahler 7y ago
  Why not consider it? How much benefit would it offer? What would it take? Consider these: why cant a rocket be reused? Why cant it just land? Why cant we just invent a new material? "What if we just...?" Can be absurd, but it can be worth confirming that.
  - m463 7y ago
    As a technical person you are thinking about the problem. That's why I love being technical. In a power structure it is more complicated. "Why can't a rocket be reused?" Well, Elon Musk is a technical person with power so not only can it happen, everyone will get behind it. On the other hand, why should my car HAVE to be internet connected if I don't want it? (or have a proper dashboard in front of me instead of the side?)
- bane 7y ago
  And the answer is https://www.winehq.org/ https://www.winehq.org/ Depending on if you like the answer, millions of man hours for a shaky ability to run windows .exe might cause the question to be reconsidered.

DmitryOlshansky 7y ago

Well, money bends science. So no big deal ;)