6 ms·

Care to elaborate?

55555 6y ago
Off the top of my head: No one likes dealing with a boss who lets their emotions overflow into the workplace and takes their personal issues out on their staff. That's just one of many ways therapy can help you be a better manager.
sz4kerto 6y ago
In my experience, most of good management is about figuring out why am I not doing the right thing (as a manager). Knowing what needs to be done is much easier than actually doing it. Example: giving feedback is notoriously hard, even if it's really clear what the issues are. Promotion is also hard (you have to choose who to promote and who to not promote), and most of the time you do know the right choice but you might not be able to call it for personal reasons. So yes, if you happen to manage people, spend a LOT of effort on self-reflection. Go to a coach, therapist, go to courses where they let you practice and where you get feedback. Whatever works for you, just keep investing. Also, don't worry if the coach, course, therapist is imperfect.
- user5994461 6y ago
  >>> Promotion is also hard (you have to choose who to promote and who to not promote) Promotion is hard because as a manager you don't have the power to promote. There's HR on top of the organization deciding every year that there's no budget for raises and no slots for promotions. When you're finally allowed to promote someone for real, after many years of tenure, the 10% raise is pale compared to what they could get by joining a new company.
  - Xylakant 6y ago
    Promotion is hard even in my small little 10 people org where I’m in a position to just at whim promote someone. Money is always limited, and any promotion (or even non-promotion) is a statement about relative (financial) value. People sometimes confuse that with actual human value and feel mistreated. Even talking about money is hard for many folks - how do we balance wages, how do we distribute profits, invest, save for bad times, ... People are not trained for this, money is often something people don’t talk about. So some of the promotion dance may be more complicated in larger orgs, but it’s still hard in other orgs since it’s a value judgement on merits earned and as with all value judgements, there’s no absolutely correct and mathematically defensible formula.
    - user5994461 6y ago
      Raises/promotions can be easy, you pay what you have to in order to retain the employee... as long as there is the money to do so AND as long as the company wants to retain said employee. It's 90% about what they could get somewhere else in the city and a bit whether they are willing to leave and capable to (it's actually quite difficult to get a job ^^). You should have a pretty good idea of the what's available in the area after a while. As you noticed, everybody think they deserve more. Ironically everybody is wrong, because the fact that they work here for this amount is proof that it's enough (for now), if they could get paid more they'd be paid more (whether here or somewhere else). The key is to ignore people because people are always dissatisfied. Big companies set a fixed pay band and reply to everything with "there's no budget for a raise" because it's the nice easy way to do that.
      - Xylakant 6y ago
        We distribute 80% of the companies profits among the employees, so by definition we pretty much always pay as much as we can. That still leaves the discussion open of how wages and promotions get balanced among the team. And even if the decision is “everyone gets the same share more”, some people feel like they should be getting more than the rest. And those people sometimes even feel rejected if you tell them that there’s not more money in the pool and if they want or need more, they need to go look elsewhere. Or they stick around and are silently disgruntled until at some point they explode, despite having had a voice and a vote in the matter (and actual agency in raising the profits, hence everyone’s wage).
- jariel 6y ago
  The most manipulative, ineffective, selfish boss I ever had was a really nice, likeable guy. Promotion is 'hard' because there are very few spots to be promoted int to, it's a narrow pyramid, and people generally want to 'increase responsibility and salary' when that isn't consistent with the reality of the situation. Feedback is hard because people tend to take it personally. The entire piece is misguided in the sense that, although toxic managers do exist, it's generally far more complicated. Different situations, different people, different levels of expectations, differing levels of legitimate authority, emotions vs. outcomes etc.. Some people perceive 'loudness' to be problematic, some people don't care (see: inside of a hockey locker room). Usually focusing on material things, outcomes etc. matter, the rest is not that important. Personally, I try to have a huge latitude for tolerance of different types and don't care that much otherwise frankly. Truly diabolical patterns of behaviour like back-stabbing, not taking ownership of failure - this kind of stuff is quite bothersome - and those behaviours can come in 'nice happy bosses'.
- HappyDreamer 6y ago
  > Also, don't worry if the coach, course, therapist is imperfect Why not worry about that? Because one will still pick up enough useful things, for it to be worthwhile? And if changing to a different therapist or coach, that one will probably also be imperfect? (Assuming the therapist / coach isn't really bad of course.)

Care to elaborate?

Off the top of my head: No one likes dealing with a boss who lets their emotions overflow into the workplace and takes their personal issues out on their staff. That's just one of many ways therapy can help you be a better manager.

sz4kerto 6y ago

In my experience, most of good management is about figuring out why am I not doing the right thing (as a manager). Knowing what needs to be done is much easier than actually doing it. Example: giving feedback is notoriously hard, even if it's really clear what the issues are. Promotion is also hard (you have to choose who to promote and who to not promote), and most of the time you do know the right choice but you might not be able to call it for personal reasons. So yes, if you happen to manage people, spend a LOT of effort on self-reflection. Go to a coach, therapist, go to courses where they let you practice and where you get feedback. Whatever works for you, just keep investing. Also, don't worry if the coach, course, therapist is imperfect.

user5994461 6y ago
>>> Promotion is also hard (you have to choose who to promote and who to not promote) Promotion is hard because as a manager you don't have the power to promote. There's HR on top of the organization deciding every year that there's no budget for raises and no slots for promotions. When you're finally allowed to promote someone for real, after many years of tenure, the 10% raise is pale compared to what they could get by joining a new company.
- Xylakant 6y ago
  Promotion is hard even in my small little 10 people org where I’m in a position to just at whim promote someone. Money is always limited, and any promotion (or even non-promotion) is a statement about relative (financial) value. People sometimes confuse that with actual human value and feel mistreated. Even talking about money is hard for many folks - how do we balance wages, how do we distribute profits, invest, save for bad times, ... People are not trained for this, money is often something people don’t talk about. So some of the promotion dance may be more complicated in larger orgs, but it’s still hard in other orgs since it’s a value judgement on merits earned and as with all value judgements, there’s no absolutely correct and mathematically defensible formula.
  - user5994461 6y ago
    Raises/promotions can be easy, you pay what you have to in order to retain the employee... as long as there is the money to do so AND as long as the company wants to retain said employee. It's 90% about what they could get somewhere else in the city and a bit whether they are willing to leave and capable to (it's actually quite difficult to get a job ^^). You should have a pretty good idea of the what's available in the area after a while. As you noticed, everybody think they deserve more. Ironically everybody is wrong, because the fact that they work here for this amount is proof that it's enough (for now), if they could get paid more they'd be paid more (whether here or somewhere else). The key is to ignore people because people are always dissatisfied. Big companies set a fixed pay band and reply to everything with "there's no budget for a raise" because it's the nice easy way to do that.
    - Xylakant 6y ago
      We distribute 80% of the companies profits among the employees, so by definition we pretty much always pay as much as we can. That still leaves the discussion open of how wages and promotions get balanced among the team. And even if the decision is “everyone gets the same share more”, some people feel like they should be getting more than the rest. And those people sometimes even feel rejected if you tell them that there’s not more money in the pool and if they want or need more, they need to go look elsewhere. Or they stick around and are silently disgruntled until at some point they explode, despite having had a voice and a vote in the matter (and actual agency in raising the profits, hence everyone’s wage).
jariel 6y ago
The most manipulative, ineffective, selfish boss I ever had was a really nice, likeable guy. Promotion is 'hard' because there are very few spots to be promoted int to, it's a narrow pyramid, and people generally want to 'increase responsibility and salary' when that isn't consistent with the reality of the situation. Feedback is hard because people tend to take it personally. The entire piece is misguided in the sense that, although toxic managers do exist, it's generally far more complicated. Different situations, different people, different levels of expectations, differing levels of legitimate authority, emotions vs. outcomes etc.. Some people perceive 'loudness' to be problematic, some people don't care (see: inside of a hockey locker room). Usually focusing on material things, outcomes etc. matter, the rest is not that important. Personally, I try to have a huge latitude for tolerance of different types and don't care that much otherwise frankly. Truly diabolical patterns of behaviour like back-stabbing, not taking ownership of failure - this kind of stuff is quite bothersome - and those behaviours can come in 'nice happy bosses'.
HappyDreamer 6y ago
> Also, don't worry if the coach, course, therapist is imperfect Why not worry about that? Because one will still pick up enough useful things, for it to be worthwhile? And if changing to a different therapist or coach, that one will probably also be imperfect? (Assuming the therapist / coach isn't really bad of course.)