8 ms·

You are underestimating how effective a "management" technique is demonstrating that you can shoot underperforming minions. A lot of that "management" was simp

You are underestimating how effective a "management" technique is demonstrating that you can shoot underperforming minions. A lot of that "management" was simply terrorizing people to do your bidding. So, no, he most likely wasn't a good manager the same way a bank robber isn't showing "good interpersonal skills" because he was able to convince all patrons to sit by the wall and employees to open the vault.

PeterisP 5y ago
No, this is demonstrably false by contrasting this with all the many (most?) totalitarian "managers" who had the same abilities to terrorize people but were rather ineffective despite that. There can be an obvious difference between the personal abilities of two people in a similar role, even if that role is evil.
lazypenguin 5y ago
I would also say not to underestimate the effort required to be in the position where you are making the threats rather than on the receiving end. A rise to that position also includes effectively managing your rivals into oblivion.
- lmilcin 5y ago
  Of course. I assume it was honest, full time job. And a lot of overtime, possibly. He had to be good at something to get so far. I am just arguing that it is difficult to call it "management".
- dragonwriter 5y ago
  > I would also say not to underestimate the effort required to be in the position where you are making the threats rather than on the receiving end That requires skill, but often more sales than management.
- A4ET8a8uTh0 5y ago
  I am willing to agree. That is one of the reasons I sometimes feel people do not treat Putin seriously enough. The guy rose through ranks of US equivalent of CIA. You do not get there purely by luck. You do need skills including management.
  - drran 5y ago
    Or a sister by mother in Germany...
  - spaetzleesser 5y ago
    I would rate Putin as extremely intelligent. What he has achieved is pretty impressive and he has held his position for a very long time. . You don’t have to like him but you have to accept that he is very good at what he does.
    - drran 5y ago
      Yeah, it looks like he will succeed at demolishing of the Jail of Nations.
      - thriftwy 5y ago
        Comments like yours, where you threaten the demolishing of their homeland when talking to people, is what make people cling to ones like Putin.
        drran 5y ago
        The cycle is complete. The Doom is inevitable. USSR collapsed in 70 years. RF is about 2x smaller, so it should collapse in 35 years -> 2026.
    - hnaccount_rng 5y ago
      Is he though? Yeah he is definitely intelligent and surely ruthless. However: there is a reason he’s still in power. There is no one, in the world, to be able to guarantee his and his family’s safety once he leaves power. At the moment he’s all-powerful, but wouldn’t you rather have the option to retire?
nine_k 5y ago
This is true, but only partly. Say, copious killings did not help the Big Jump in China, or the Pol Pot regime in Cambodia, to achieve any impressive breakthroughs.
- picsao 5y ago
  The big leap was a disaster in all relevant metrics but propaganda.
dragonwriter 5y ago
> You are underestimating how effective a "management" technique is demonstrating that you can shoot underperforming minions. It's not a great regular management technique, but its a great image management technique in the narrow sense that it effectively leverages survivorship bias (for both individuals and records) to favor the future positive perception of your management technique.
DoreenMichele 5y ago
You are underestimating how effective a "management" technique is demonstrating that you can shoot underperforming minions. I am somewhat skeptical of this take. I think if heaping abuse and threats of worse on people worked magic, there would be no homeless people in the US. Threats only work if the capacity is there -- or almost there -- and it's feasible to extract X with sufficient pressure. But you still can't get blood from a turnip.
- 1123581321 5y ago
  The threat must be legible and have a credible threat of authoritative judgment so steps can be taken to predictably avoid the consequence. It's not at all clear to a homeless person what steps they should take to reduce suffering in their life. (I'm aware I'm replying to a homeless or formerly homeless person. And it needn't be said, but I'm not saying that an effective threat is moral.)
  - DoreenMichele 5y ago
    Or the steps to reduce suffering are clear to them. You just don't like the conclusion they drew and don't approve. There is insufficient affordable housing in the US. We build apartments designed for a nuclear family and expect young single people to get roommates and split the rent and then you see questions on the internet about "How do I deal with this roommate from hell?" and we make horror movies about it like Single White Female and continue to not offer housing options suitable for living alone on a budget. Since WW2, we've torn down about a million SROs. We now think of SROs as housing for homeless people when it used to be normal market rate housing for single people. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_room_occupancy https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_room_occupancy Some people are homeless because they left abusive situations. They decided "I would rather sleep outside than continue to put up with this." But the narrative most people accept is that homeless people are all addicts and crazies and this somehow means it's a personal problem, they aren't trying hard enough, they would rather be high than in shelter. Addiction is a hard problem to solve no matter your social class. We don't act like "Wealthy rock stars with a drug habit must be wealthy because they take so many drugs." but we conclude that there is a cause and effect relationship between drug use and homelessness. It's basically prejudice talking. People on the street tend to be square pegs who have trouble finding a slot that fits them. We've actively eliminated a lot of those oddly shaped slots and then act like "You just don't want to make your life work." Homeless people aren't necessarily any more or less virtuous or hard working or whatever than anyone else. The fabric of their life came unraveled and they don't know how to readily weave it back together and then the world tells them "The beatings shall continue until morale improves."
zaphirplane 5y ago
Developing and motivating people is just 1 aspect of a manager’s role, there are many other hats like project manager, vision, drive incentivising Arguably not many managers have it I have no idea if those people were great manager or great despots there maybe a relation with how hard working they were
d0mine 5y ago
Fear may be harmful for creative work. At the very least it is not obvious whether threatening to fire/firing say 10% of under-performers would improve productivity for complex tasks. There can be other ways to make people productive e.g., "psychological safety" https://rework.withgoogle.com/blog/five-keys-to-a-successful-google-team/ https://rework.withgoogle.com/blog/five-keys-to-a-successful...
- igorkraw 5y ago
  I couldn't find any hard research on this but the sentiment seems to be that stack ranking at Microsoft was part of their stagnation before their revitalisation by the new CEO
catlikesshrimp 5y ago
Nope. Daniel Ortega and Nicolas Maduro, in their countries in Latin America, today, can put any one in prison within hours for no reason besides a capture order. And they can do it in bulk. They can kill, but they don't need to. Not high profile victims, at least. Their countries are and will remain poor because they are idiots beyond what is necessary to stay in power. They aren't good administrators.
gattilorenz 5y ago
> You are underestimating how effective a "management" technique is demonstrating that you can shoot underperforming minions. > A lot of that "management" was simply terrorizing people to do your bidding. As others are pointing out, but spelled differently: there's a difference between having people do what you want, and becoming successful. Many CEOs are able to get the workers do whatever, and the company will fail exactly because of that. It takes skill and knowledge to know where to lead.

PeterisP 5y ago

No, this is demonstrably false by contrasting this with all the many (most?) totalitarian "managers" who had the same abilities to terrorize people but were rather ineffective despite that. There can be an obvious difference between the personal abilities of two people in a similar role, even if that role is evil.

lazypenguin 5y ago

I would also say not to underestimate the effort required to be in the position where you are making the threats rather than on the receiving end. A rise to that position also includes effectively managing your rivals into oblivion.

lmilcin 5y ago
Of course. I assume it was honest, full time job. And a lot of overtime, possibly. He had to be good at something to get so far. I am just arguing that it is difficult to call it "management".
dragonwriter 5y ago
> I would also say not to underestimate the effort required to be in the position where you are making the threats rather than on the receiving end That requires skill, but often more sales than management.
A4ET8a8uTh0 5y ago
I am willing to agree. That is one of the reasons I sometimes feel people do not treat Putin seriously enough. The guy rose through ranks of US equivalent of CIA. You do not get there purely by luck. You do need skills including management.
- drran 5y ago
  Or a sister by mother in Germany...
- spaetzleesser 5y ago
  I would rate Putin as extremely intelligent. What he has achieved is pretty impressive and he has held his position for a very long time. . You don’t have to like him but you have to accept that he is very good at what he does.
  - drran 5y ago
    Yeah, it looks like he will succeed at demolishing of the Jail of Nations.
    - thriftwy 5y ago
      Comments like yours, where you threaten the demolishing of their homeland when talking to people, is what make people cling to ones like Putin.
      - drran 5y ago
        The cycle is complete. The Doom is inevitable. USSR collapsed in 70 years. RF is about 2x smaller, so it should collapse in 35 years -> 2026.
  - hnaccount_rng 5y ago
    Is he though? Yeah he is definitely intelligent and surely ruthless. However: there is a reason he’s still in power. There is no one, in the world, to be able to guarantee his and his family’s safety once he leaves power. At the moment he’s all-powerful, but wouldn’t you rather have the option to retire?

nine_k 5y ago

This is true, but only partly. Say, copious killings did not help the Big Jump in China, or the Pol Pot regime in Cambodia, to achieve any impressive breakthroughs.

picsao 5y ago
The big leap was a disaster in all relevant metrics but propaganda.

dragonwriter 5y ago

> You are underestimating how effective a "management" technique is demonstrating that you can shoot underperforming minions. It's not a great regular management technique, but its a great image management technique in the narrow sense that it effectively leverages survivorship bias (for both individuals and records) to favor the future positive perception of your management technique.

DoreenMichele 5y ago

You are underestimating how effective a "management" technique is demonstrating that you can shoot underperforming minions. I am somewhat skeptical of this take. I think if heaping abuse and threats of worse on people worked magic, there would be no homeless people in the US. Threats only work if the capacity is there -- or almost there -- and it's feasible to extract X with sufficient pressure. But you still can't get blood from a turnip.

1123581321 5y ago
The threat must be legible and have a credible threat of authoritative judgment so steps can be taken to predictably avoid the consequence. It's not at all clear to a homeless person what steps they should take to reduce suffering in their life. (I'm aware I'm replying to a homeless or formerly homeless person. And it needn't be said, but I'm not saying that an effective threat is moral.)
- DoreenMichele 5y ago
  Or the steps to reduce suffering are clear to them. You just don't like the conclusion they drew and don't approve. There is insufficient affordable housing in the US. We build apartments designed for a nuclear family and expect young single people to get roommates and split the rent and then you see questions on the internet about "How do I deal with this roommate from hell?" and we make horror movies about it like Single White Female and continue to not offer housing options suitable for living alone on a budget. Since WW2, we've torn down about a million SROs. We now think of SROs as housing for homeless people when it used to be normal market rate housing for single people. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_room_occupancy https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_room_occupancy Some people are homeless because they left abusive situations. They decided "I would rather sleep outside than continue to put up with this." But the narrative most people accept is that homeless people are all addicts and crazies and this somehow means it's a personal problem, they aren't trying hard enough, they would rather be high than in shelter. Addiction is a hard problem to solve no matter your social class. We don't act like "Wealthy rock stars with a drug habit must be wealthy because they take so many drugs." but we conclude that there is a cause and effect relationship between drug use and homelessness. It's basically prejudice talking. People on the street tend to be square pegs who have trouble finding a slot that fits them. We've actively eliminated a lot of those oddly shaped slots and then act like "You just don't want to make your life work." Homeless people aren't necessarily any more or less virtuous or hard working or whatever than anyone else. The fabric of their life came unraveled and they don't know how to readily weave it back together and then the world tells them "The beatings shall continue until morale improves."

zaphirplane 5y ago

Developing and motivating people is just 1 aspect of a manager’s role, there are many other hats like project manager, vision, drive incentivising Arguably not many managers have it I have no idea if those people were great manager or great despots there maybe a relation with how hard working they were

d0mine 5y ago

Fear may be harmful for creative work. At the very least it is not obvious whether threatening to fire/firing say 10% of under-performers would improve productivity for complex tasks. There can be other ways to make people productive e.g., "psychological safety" https://rework.withgoogle.com/blog/five-keys-to-a-successful-google-team/ https://rework.withgoogle.com/blog/five-keys-to-a-successful...

igorkraw 5y ago
I couldn't find any hard research on this but the sentiment seems to be that stack ranking at Microsoft was part of their stagnation before their revitalisation by the new CEO

catlikesshrimp 5y ago

Nope. Daniel Ortega and Nicolas Maduro, in their countries in Latin America, today, can put any one in prison within hours for no reason besides a capture order. And they can do it in bulk. They can kill, but they don't need to. Not high profile victims, at least. Their countries are and will remain poor because they are idiots beyond what is necessary to stay in power. They aren't good administrators.

gattilorenz 5y ago

> You are underestimating how effective a "management" technique is demonstrating that you can shoot underperforming minions. > A lot of that "management" was simply terrorizing people to do your bidding. As others are pointing out, but spelled differently: there's a difference between having people do what you want, and becoming successful. Many CEOs are able to get the workers do whatever, and the company will fail exactly because of that. It takes skill and knowledge to know where to lead.