6 ms·

What do executives do, anyway? (2019)

73 points by wheresvic4 6y ago

chrisseaton 6y ago
> An executive with 8,000 indirect reports and 2000 hours of work in a year can afford to spend, at most, 15 minutes per year per person in their reporting hierarchy... even if they work on nothing else. That job seems impossible. I don't understand this starting point. The job of an executive is not to micro-manage every transitive report. Who said it was? Where did the author get that idea from? That's why you have a hierarchy.
- glaberficken 6y ago
  That is only the intro paragraph. Author proceeds to formulate a legitimate question "How can anyone make any important decision in a company that large?" and then summarizes a possible answer from a book (High Output Management, by Andy Grove [first published 1989]).
- saiya-jin 6y ago
  Its called middle management, the backbone (or bane) of any bigger comnpany. Guys up there have no clue about average joe the coder/doer/whatever, maybe a vague view on distribution of teams. Anyway if you don't earn cash to the company, you are just a necessary cost (which state is to be evaluated often)
  - outworlder 6y ago
    > Guys up there have no clue about average joe the coder/doer/whatever They also don't have the full picture. They have their own agenda, which is usually taking _more_ managers under them, to inflate their own importance. All the while paying lip service to the overall company strategy. When CEOs get frustrated that the wheels are not turning in the right direction (or fast enough), middle management is usually the reason. Lower management (and leaf) will be trying to implement whatever distorted message filtered through the ranks.
  - JoeAltmaier 6y ago
    Yes. And middle management suffers from "too many degrees of freedom" in their decision making. They're trying to paper over the gap from their teams, to the executive suite. Without contact with the customer nor the board/investors (call it 'reality'), they can have too many solutions because, not enough data. Some respond by retrenching - trying for the biggest budget and the fewest deliverables, so their stats look good. Which is ironically the worst possible outcome for everybody.
- Spooky23 6y ago
  The point is having a guy in a suit directing 8000 people is silly. Use a ship as an example. The crew is there to execute tasks. The cook cooks, the engineers keep the engines running. The Captain is the ultimate authority and is ultimately accountable. He doesn’t peel the potatoes, but the sets the direction for where the ship is going and is responsible for the process of feeding his sailors.
  - chrisseaton 6y ago
    Who is the article arguing against? Who said the leader should be individually directing or peeling potatoes? Nobody said that. It’s like writing an article saying ‘sheep aren’t supposed to live under water’. Yes, but I mean why are you saying this everyone already agrees with this who do you think you’re arguing against.
    - Spooky23 6y ago
      It’s a rhetorical argument. This stuff isn’t easy, which is why millions of people have read about Andy Groves fictional egg sandwich company over 30 years. Every day brilliant people get promoted and become awful executives.
zamfi 6y ago
(2019) Prior discussion here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21088425 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21088425
mmaunder 6y ago
Sounds like a recipe for Denethor in Lord of the Rings. Leadership teams at any level can’t be stewards without opinion or vision or a rationale to support that vision.
draw_down 6y ago
It’s silly to say executives don’t set strategy and make decisions. That is absolutely what they do, come on with this culture stuff. The culture is an emergent property of the people and processes that make up the company, and executives indirectly (sometimes directly) influence who those people are and what those processes look like.
ChuckMcM 6y ago
The biggest challenge when superstar engineers become executives that I've seen is they need to switch from being the person with all the answers to the person with all the questions. Failure to make that switch leads to dysfunctional organizations.
- an_opabinia 6y ago
  Dysfunctional organizations can still make boatloads of money, for a long time, longer than your functional organization can stay solvent. Besides, should some 25 year old Mark Zuckerberg out there - the guy who really is going to take something from zero to billions of dollars - really be asking questions from (checks notes) the 21 year old Ivy League people he's hiring? What the hell answers do you expect to hear? And then when you talk about people with lots of experience, are they going to take any risks? What kind of answer do you expect? "Sorry Mark, but we tried that at Friendster 10 years ago." How useful. I don't really disagree with you. I'm just skeptical of any reductive framing of what executives do, most of all "Andy Grove's book," because that's a meme I've heard a lot. And while no one should ever go around crapping on books, reading is good, Andy Grove isn't going to have anticipated organizational structures like Valve's, a place where a lot of people are extremely happy and effective but where all the management books sort of go out the window.
  - outworlder 6y ago
    > Besides, should some 25 year old Mark Zuckerberg out there > the 21 year old Ivy League people he's hiring 4 years is not such a large delta. It's certainly not sufficient to have all the answers (not even 4 thousand years would). If anything, however brilliant the 25 year old is, they are just barely old enough to have a functioning prefrontal cortex. High level executives are supposed to be making decisions, setting directions and oiling the machine. They aren't supposed to have any answers. "Decisions" is the closest you may get. They are not in the trenches, they by definition know nothing more than the specialized workforce they are hiring. > like Valve's, a place where a lot of people are extremely happy and effective It's also a small place. And Gabe seems to be the sort of guy who asks for and takes lots of feedback. https://www.ign.com/articles/gabe-newell-opens-up-about-valves-past-present-and-unexpected-future-a-ign-first https://www.ign.com/articles/gabe-newell-opens-up-about-valv...
solidasparagus 6y ago
I wouldn't say that's the right way to look at disagree and commit. It's more: I think solution A is better and you think solution B is better and we're going to make sure we communicate why we feel that way, but we both understand that making a suboptimal decision today and running full speed in that direction is better than being unable to make a decision or undermining the execution because someone doesn't agree with the decision.
hitekker 6y ago
The CEO of Dropbox rebutted this post the last time it came up: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21100352 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21100352 My own impression was that the author was trying to justify his lack of leadership by distorting the definition of leadership advanced by Andy Grove.
suyash 6y ago
My favorite part of this blog was the last paragraph where he created important distinction between common courtesies and real values. Nice read.
lisper 6y ago
> At the meeting, the two leads will present the one, correct decision that they have agreed upon. Um... what happens if the two leads can't agree? I've had this happen to me multiple times in my career: I was one of the "two leads". My counterpart was an idiot. Completely uninformed and unwilling to listen to reason, but willing to go to the mat for his own stupid ideas. That left me with only two options: acquiesce despite my firm belief that doing so would not be in the best interests of the organization, or break the algorithm and force the supervisor to make the decision. Of course, I'm sure my counterpart felt exactly the same way about me.
- Judgmentality 6y ago
  > Of course, I'm sure my counterpart felt exactly the same way about me. Something about the symmetry of this is amusing for me.
- exacube 6y ago
  the article goes on to explain that, with a shared authority present, you are required to work it out with the other tech lead amicable. if you do a poor job doing that in front of the authority, presumably the authority will decide, and also scrutinize both of the leads for not being able to cooperate / be successful at their job.
  - lisper 6y ago
    > with a shared authority present, you are required to work it out with the other tech lead amicable No, that's not what the article says. Re-read the quoted passage: > At the meeting, the two leads will present the one, correct decision that they have agreed upon. The decision is made before the meeting, without the executive present. Having the executive mediate the discussion would make a lot of sense, but it would also make the job a lot harder.
    - loopz 6y ago
      This is fiction. In most places highest rank invites for meeting and presents black box decision, but only if there are no remaining risks and queries.
SMAAART 6y ago
1. Managing up 2. Babysitting reports 3. Defending from backstabbing from peers

73 points by wheresvic4 6y ago

> An executive with 8,000 indirect reports and 2000 hours of work in a year can afford to spend, at most, 15 minutes per year per person in their reporting hierarchy... even if they work on nothing else. That job seems impossible. I don't understand this starting point. The job of an executive is not to micro-manage every transitive report. Who said it was? Where did the author get that idea from? That's why you have a hierarchy.

glaberficken 6y ago
That is only the intro paragraph. Author proceeds to formulate a legitimate question "How can anyone make any important decision in a company that large?" and then summarizes a possible answer from a book (High Output Management, by Andy Grove [first published 1989]).
saiya-jin 6y ago
Its called middle management, the backbone (or bane) of any bigger comnpany. Guys up there have no clue about average joe the coder/doer/whatever, maybe a vague view on distribution of teams. Anyway if you don't earn cash to the company, you are just a necessary cost (which state is to be evaluated often)
- outworlder 6y ago
  > Guys up there have no clue about average joe the coder/doer/whatever They also don't have the full picture. They have their own agenda, which is usually taking _more_ managers under them, to inflate their own importance. All the while paying lip service to the overall company strategy. When CEOs get frustrated that the wheels are not turning in the right direction (or fast enough), middle management is usually the reason. Lower management (and leaf) will be trying to implement whatever distorted message filtered through the ranks.
- JoeAltmaier 6y ago
  Yes. And middle management suffers from "too many degrees of freedom" in their decision making. They're trying to paper over the gap from their teams, to the executive suite. Without contact with the customer nor the board/investors (call it 'reality'), they can have too many solutions because, not enough data. Some respond by retrenching - trying for the biggest budget and the fewest deliverables, so their stats look good. Which is ironically the worst possible outcome for everybody.
Spooky23 6y ago
The point is having a guy in a suit directing 8000 people is silly. Use a ship as an example. The crew is there to execute tasks. The cook cooks, the engineers keep the engines running. The Captain is the ultimate authority and is ultimately accountable. He doesn’t peel the potatoes, but the sets the direction for where the ship is going and is responsible for the process of feeding his sailors.
- chrisseaton 6y ago
  Who is the article arguing against? Who said the leader should be individually directing or peeling potatoes? Nobody said that. It’s like writing an article saying ‘sheep aren’t supposed to live under water’. Yes, but I mean why are you saying this everyone already agrees with this who do you think you’re arguing against.
  - Spooky23 6y ago
    It’s a rhetorical argument. This stuff isn’t easy, which is why millions of people have read about Andy Groves fictional egg sandwich company over 30 years. Every day brilliant people get promoted and become awful executives.

zamfi 6y ago

(2019) Prior discussion here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21088425 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21088425

mmaunder 6y ago

Sounds like a recipe for Denethor in Lord of the Rings. Leadership teams at any level can’t be stewards without opinion or vision or a rationale to support that vision.

draw_down 6y ago

It’s silly to say executives don’t set strategy and make decisions. That is absolutely what they do, come on with this culture stuff. The culture is an emergent property of the people and processes that make up the company, and executives indirectly (sometimes directly) influence who those people are and what those processes look like.

ChuckMcM 6y ago

The biggest challenge when superstar engineers become executives that I've seen is they need to switch from being the person with all the answers to the person with all the questions. Failure to make that switch leads to dysfunctional organizations.

an_opabinia 6y ago
Dysfunctional organizations can still make boatloads of money, for a long time, longer than your functional organization can stay solvent. Besides, should some 25 year old Mark Zuckerberg out there - the guy who really is going to take something from zero to billions of dollars - really be asking questions from (checks notes) the 21 year old Ivy League people he's hiring? What the hell answers do you expect to hear? And then when you talk about people with lots of experience, are they going to take any risks? What kind of answer do you expect? "Sorry Mark, but we tried that at Friendster 10 years ago." How useful. I don't really disagree with you. I'm just skeptical of any reductive framing of what executives do, most of all "Andy Grove's book," because that's a meme I've heard a lot. And while no one should ever go around crapping on books, reading is good, Andy Grove isn't going to have anticipated organizational structures like Valve's, a place where a lot of people are extremely happy and effective but where all the management books sort of go out the window.
- outworlder 6y ago
  > Besides, should some 25 year old Mark Zuckerberg out there > the 21 year old Ivy League people he's hiring 4 years is not such a large delta. It's certainly not sufficient to have all the answers (not even 4 thousand years would). If anything, however brilliant the 25 year old is, they are just barely old enough to have a functioning prefrontal cortex. High level executives are supposed to be making decisions, setting directions and oiling the machine. They aren't supposed to have any answers. "Decisions" is the closest you may get. They are not in the trenches, they by definition know nothing more than the specialized workforce they are hiring. > like Valve's, a place where a lot of people are extremely happy and effective It's also a small place. And Gabe seems to be the sort of guy who asks for and takes lots of feedback. https://www.ign.com/articles/gabe-newell-opens-up-about-valves-past-present-and-unexpected-future-a-ign-first https://www.ign.com/articles/gabe-newell-opens-up-about-valv...

solidasparagus 6y ago

I wouldn't say that's the right way to look at disagree and commit. It's more: I think solution A is better and you think solution B is better and we're going to make sure we communicate why we feel that way, but we both understand that making a suboptimal decision today and running full speed in that direction is better than being unable to make a decision or undermining the execution because someone doesn't agree with the decision.

hitekker 6y ago

The CEO of Dropbox rebutted this post the last time it came up: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21100352 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21100352 My own impression was that the author was trying to justify his lack of leadership by distorting the definition of leadership advanced by Andy Grove.

suyash 6y ago

My favorite part of this blog was the last paragraph where he created important distinction between common courtesies and real values. Nice read.

lisper 6y ago

> At the meeting, the two leads will present the one, correct decision that they have agreed upon. Um... what happens if the two leads can't agree? I've had this happen to me multiple times in my career: I was one of the "two leads". My counterpart was an idiot. Completely uninformed and unwilling to listen to reason, but willing to go to the mat for his own stupid ideas. That left me with only two options: acquiesce despite my firm belief that doing so would not be in the best interests of the organization, or break the algorithm and force the supervisor to make the decision. Of course, I'm sure my counterpart felt exactly the same way about me.

Judgmentality 6y ago
> Of course, I'm sure my counterpart felt exactly the same way about me. Something about the symmetry of this is amusing for me.
exacube 6y ago
the article goes on to explain that, with a shared authority present, you are required to work it out with the other tech lead amicable. if you do a poor job doing that in front of the authority, presumably the authority will decide, and also scrutinize both of the leads for not being able to cooperate / be successful at their job.
- lisper 6y ago
  > with a shared authority present, you are required to work it out with the other tech lead amicable No, that's not what the article says. Re-read the quoted passage: > At the meeting, the two leads will present the one, correct decision that they have agreed upon. The decision is made before the meeting, without the executive present. Having the executive mediate the discussion would make a lot of sense, but it would also make the job a lot harder.
  - loopz 6y ago
    This is fiction. In most places highest rank invites for meeting and presents black box decision, but only if there are no remaining risks and queries.

SMAAART 6y ago

1. Managing up 2. Babysitting reports 3. Defending from backstabbing from peers