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> ...it really comes down to forming a co-sympathetic relationship... Trust? Young me was told that trust was crucial to effective management, high performanc

> ...it really comes down to forming a co-sympathetic relationship... Trust? Young me was told that trust was crucial to effective management, high performance teams. Ok. How to do that? What does that look or feel like? I've had exactly one trustful peer relationship. People used to joke that we acted like a married couple. We have no idea why we just clicked. We accomplished so much, worked so hard, had so much fun. Sadly, once you experience authentic trust, any thing short of that just feels like a waste of time. I've trusted maybe 2 of my many bosses. You'd have to ask my direct reports if any of them trusted me. I hope some would say "yes". -- Older me reflecting back on all this stuff... I had hoped life would be more win-win, a la Robert Wright's book Nonzero. But it was mostly transactional relationships, power dynamics, zero sum games (win-lose), so much energy wasted on guarding my boundaries, and then getting exploited whenever I didn't. Basically, it all sucks.

rawgabbit 5y ago
My experience is the same. As a young engineer I got things to work on time and with minimal issues. My reward for being good at my job is to be loaded up with work from my boss and by my peers and even by those who were outside of my team. When I refused because I said I have my priorities. I was called out for not being a team player. I once even had a come to Jesus meeting by someone who was not my boss for refusing to work on his emergency ticket. This tech lead who was on another team was later forced to apologize to me. Essentially there are two classes of people. Those who want to master their craft and develop their skills. And those who think their job is boss around others and that other people exist to make their life easier. I have noticed this sense of entitlement is especially common among younger engineers who think I owe it to them to mentor them. Hmm. I don’t owe you anything.
sdwr 5y ago
Could you say more about that trustful relationship? How did it start, did you have similar backgrounds, was it work-focused or get into personal stuff? Signs to look for/ aim towards for people who aspire to meaningful, trusting relationships.
- rawgabbit 5y ago
  Not the parent. I have noticed there are two kinds of trust relationships. The first is pure office politics. You have long term creditability, therefore everyone knows not to try their manipulative tactics on you, engage with you professionally, and therefore you have a trust relationship. This is akin to being a made man. The second kind of trust relationship I have encountered are with very religious devout people who believe they are doing God’s will to help others and with people who have sense of humor that builds people up not take them down. They don’t take themselves too seriously and just want do a good job and get along with everyone.
- specialist 5y ago
  I'll try to be brief. Mid-90s. Mid-sized company. Very engineering driven. Founder President was unteachable, largely absent, prone to drive-by management (disruption). VP of Sales was a complete dink ("All I want is free, perfect, done yesterday. Is that too much to ask?"). "Visionary" VP of Engineering with goal of being Director or better at Microsoft, most of his time building a fiefdom, protected his power by encouraging infighting. Tech Support was very powerful and in open rebellion. I got things done. Mostly by being a bulldozer. Not popular. Eventually promoted to Engineering Manager over a suite of products. I was very interested in empowerment, process, execution, shipping products customers wanted. Major influences were Luke Hohmann, Deming, Eli Goldratt, and so on. I had a crazy notion: instead of engineering dominance, model team after quality circles (a la Ford Motors) and the US Constitution's balance of powers. So initially, Marketing role would own scope and price, Engineering would own cost and schedule, Quality Assurance would own releases. Eventually expanded to include Sales, Tech Support, Docs & I18N. Through pure luck I got paired with a skilled Marketing person, who also had domain expertise, first time doing software. She wanted to learn "software" and I wanted to learn "marketing". So we taught each other, mostly by example and answering questions. Empowering QA assurance was a lot more troubled. Wonderful person, we got along very well. But she struggled to balance my way of doing things with how her peers (and their teams) were doing SQA. In a nutshell, I wanted her to be in charge, whereas her peers were stuck in Kem Kaner's mentality of victimhood and self-disempowerment. For example, I insisted we have our own test lab, she balked when her peers insisted on a shared lab run by the test group. In other words, I wanted a product & team focused org chart, and the rest of the company wanted to keep functional silos. [Per the E-Myth's advice, I served the role until I could hire someone. So I did my own thing. Think "The Joel Test" and Code Complete, back when that stuff was controversial. The lightest weight ticket tracking system. Automated builds and testing. Front loading as much work as possible (eg always have a shippable product instead of Big Bang integration at the end). I say to show I took SQA very seriously and walked the talk.] -- So the way that it played out, my Marketing Manager and I were on the same page. Meaning she could speak on behalf of both of us. She could make decisions without my input. She was savvy enough to know when I'd want to be in the loop. And vice-versa. In turn I went to trade shows, met with dealers and customers, and interacted with Marketing and Sales (in her absence) as her ambassador. We prepped each other, took notes, then debriefed. I didn't have that relationship with my QA Manager, much as we tried. And we tried. Despite a great personal relationship, work wise we just ground gears. When I switched to another team, to bring another troubled product back from the dead, my team was eager for my replacement, who was "nice" and very well liked. New guy promptly disempowered everyone, threw away all of the team's processes (eg speed triage), became the sole gatekeeper (aka control freak), morale tanked, releases stalled. About 3 months later my former SQA manager took me to lunch, told me she finally grokked what I was trying to do, and that she'd rather work her ass off shipping product with an asshole like me than be a drone working for a nice guy. Bittersweet. As for the people who worked for me, my job was to protect them, do whatever it takes to help them succeed. Most did great. Some excelled. Others were total time sinks, causing endless heart ache. Like I said previously, you'd have to ask them if any of them trusted me. The managers I trusted treated me the same way. Just tell me what needs to be done, remove any blockers, help me stay on track. That's happened only 2 or 3 times. Everyone else needed constant upward managing, or worse.

rawgabbit 5y ago

My experience is the same. As a young engineer I got things to work on time and with minimal issues. My reward for being good at my job is to be loaded up with work from my boss and by my peers and even by those who were outside of my team. When I refused because I said I have my priorities. I was called out for not being a team player. I once even had a come to Jesus meeting by someone who was not my boss for refusing to work on his emergency ticket. This tech lead who was on another team was later forced to apologize to me. Essentially there are two classes of people. Those who want to master their craft and develop their skills. And those who think their job is boss around others and that other people exist to make their life easier. I have noticed this sense of entitlement is especially common among younger engineers who think I owe it to them to mentor them. Hmm. I don’t owe you anything.

sdwr 5y ago

Could you say more about that trustful relationship? How did it start, did you have similar backgrounds, was it work-focused or get into personal stuff? Signs to look for/ aim towards for people who aspire to meaningful, trusting relationships.

rawgabbit 5y ago
Not the parent. I have noticed there are two kinds of trust relationships. The first is pure office politics. You have long term creditability, therefore everyone knows not to try their manipulative tactics on you, engage with you professionally, and therefore you have a trust relationship. This is akin to being a made man. The second kind of trust relationship I have encountered are with very religious devout people who believe they are doing God’s will to help others and with people who have sense of humor that builds people up not take them down. They don’t take themselves too seriously and just want do a good job and get along with everyone.
specialist 5y ago
I'll try to be brief. Mid-90s. Mid-sized company. Very engineering driven. Founder President was unteachable, largely absent, prone to drive-by management (disruption). VP of Sales was a complete dink ("All I want is free, perfect, done yesterday. Is that too much to ask?"). "Visionary" VP of Engineering with goal of being Director or better at Microsoft, most of his time building a fiefdom, protected his power by encouraging infighting. Tech Support was very powerful and in open rebellion. I got things done. Mostly by being a bulldozer. Not popular. Eventually promoted to Engineering Manager over a suite of products. I was very interested in empowerment, process, execution, shipping products customers wanted. Major influences were Luke Hohmann, Deming, Eli Goldratt, and so on. I had a crazy notion: instead of engineering dominance, model team after quality circles (a la Ford Motors) and the US Constitution's balance of powers. So initially, Marketing role would own scope and price, Engineering would own cost and schedule, Quality Assurance would own releases. Eventually expanded to include Sales, Tech Support, Docs & I18N. Through pure luck I got paired with a skilled Marketing person, who also had domain expertise, first time doing software. She wanted to learn "software" and I wanted to learn "marketing". So we taught each other, mostly by example and answering questions. Empowering QA assurance was a lot more troubled. Wonderful person, we got along very well. But she struggled to balance my way of doing things with how her peers (and their teams) were doing SQA. In a nutshell, I wanted her to be in charge, whereas her peers were stuck in Kem Kaner's mentality of victimhood and self-disempowerment. For example, I insisted we have our own test lab, she balked when her peers insisted on a shared lab run by the test group. In other words, I wanted a product & team focused org chart, and the rest of the company wanted to keep functional silos. [Per the E-Myth's advice, I served the role until I could hire someone. So I did my own thing. Think "The Joel Test" and Code Complete, back when that stuff was controversial. The lightest weight ticket tracking system. Automated builds and testing. Front loading as much work as possible (eg always have a shippable product instead of Big Bang integration at the end). I say to show I took SQA very seriously and walked the talk.] -- So the way that it played out, my Marketing Manager and I were on the same page. Meaning she could speak on behalf of both of us. She could make decisions without my input. She was savvy enough to know when I'd want to be in the loop. And vice-versa. In turn I went to trade shows, met with dealers and customers, and interacted with Marketing and Sales (in her absence) as her ambassador. We prepped each other, took notes, then debriefed. I didn't have that relationship with my QA Manager, much as we tried. And we tried. Despite a great personal relationship, work wise we just ground gears. When I switched to another team, to bring another troubled product back from the dead, my team was eager for my replacement, who was "nice" and very well liked. New guy promptly disempowered everyone, threw away all of the team's processes (eg speed triage), became the sole gatekeeper (aka control freak), morale tanked, releases stalled. About 3 months later my former SQA manager took me to lunch, told me she finally grokked what I was trying to do, and that she'd rather work her ass off shipping product with an asshole like me than be a drone working for a nice guy. Bittersweet. As for the people who worked for me, my job was to protect them, do whatever it takes to help them succeed. Most did great. Some excelled. Others were total time sinks, causing endless heart ache. Like I said previously, you'd have to ask them if any of them trusted me. The managers I trusted treated me the same way. Just tell me what needs to be done, remove any blockers, help me stay on track. That's happened only 2 or 3 times. Everyone else needed constant upward managing, or worse.