4 ms·

It’s hard. At least for me, this is the hardest classes of employees to manager—-it’s much easier to get rid of somebody who is clearly failing or reward and f

by _n_b_ 5y ago

It’s hard. At least for me, this is the hardest classes of employees to manager—-it’s much easier to get rid of somebody who is clearly failing or reward and further develop a high performer. When I say uneven, I’m thinking of somebody who either: (a) is excellent at certain key aspects of their jobs but clearly below expectations in others to the point that it’s an issue, or (b) somebody who performs well but doesn’t always put in enough effort. In both cases, it’s subjective and difficult to determine that it’s to the point where intervention is required, because that’s usually an uncomfortable conversation. Often, you’re the first manager ever telling the person that they need to improve—-even if you’re not the first person to think there’s an issue. Typically, the other person will think you’re an asshole. As another commenter said, they may recognize later on that you were right but normally in the near term, you’ll have strained the relationship. (That’s why managers avoid those conversations. Sometimes it’s cowardice, sometimes it’s deciding that the juice isn’t worth the squeeze today.) As for how to work on improvement, that always has to be case-by-case considering the issue and the personality. Sometimes the “stop doing that” conversation is enough. Sometimes coaching or mentoring or development experiences can help. If those don’t work, can you shift responsibilities around or find a different role that is a better fit? Normally you try to gently do those things anyway before you have the direct conversation, and then hope the direct conversation provides some motivation/insight to take it more seriously. If you’re on the receiving end of that conversation, I guess my advice would be to try to critically self-reflect and see if you can understand where your manager is coming from. If you can, then you’ve both got a common place to start from towards improvement. If you can’t, or you think they’re just being unreasonable about expectations, then it is probably time to move on or hope they move on quickly.

giantg2 5y ago
Thanks. Basically I'm told that some stories I complete quickly while others drag out. I'm on a team that works with multiple systems (10ish), multiple languages, multiple stacks/architectures, and am expected to be full stack. The "improvements" I've been told to make is to document why stories are slow - mostly context switching from prod support, context switching from my role as ASC, and of course just being slow when working with a system or language that I haven't worked on in a while. So my perspective based on the feedback is, this isn't a performance issue (if it was it would be under communication instead of speed). It solely addresses visibility of the switching. I have requested consistent work, like being full stack in a single stack. The whole point of specialization of labor is to increase speed and quality, yet it seems this management tenent is wholly missed by my organization. You want consistent speed? Give me consistent work. The best part is I got a 4.5% pay cut, yet they say they want to retain me. All while the company is talking about across the board increases (which I won't be eligible for) and having trouble filling roles that typically stay open for 6 months. Which is it - do I suck, or do you want to keep me?
- toomuchtodo 5y ago
  Time to find a better role at a new org.
- deltaonefour 5y ago
  I can assure you that much of underperformance is a perception and miscommunication issue. If the employee is motivated and not stupid then if he's underperforming it's because objectives were not communicated or the manager failed to realize that the assignment was impossible not to underperform due to missing some challenging detail. Many managers don't realize this. Even managers that have a ton of experience, all they do is fire or have harsh conversations with people who "underperform." The truth of the matter is a good manager is rare. 1 out of 10 literally and it's not an experience issue. A good manager is one who is highly highly unbiased and people are generally not like this. The person you replied to is not a good manager. Based on his reply he is actually below average. Basically for these managers good employees are those that can predict what the manager wants and how he thinks. If the person is able to guess and predict what his manager wants on a consistent basis, then objectives are more clear to this employee and as a result he can achieve them. These people are then perceived as "good employees". Due note that a good manager makes objectives for each task unambiguous and crystal clear. A bad manager leaves a lot of room to fuzzy concepts like "quality of work" because he himself isn't clear about what he wants. I have seen it many times. Employees who are basically geniuses fired because the manager wasn't able to realize how smart the person was. Instead the manager left the employee with vague instructions and expected him to just "get it." The manager didn't know that the employee is an expert in infrastructure and deployed him on writing algorithms... This is an unwise and inefficient deployment of resources. It is the managers job to determine what each of his employees like and what they are exceptional at and deploy resources accordingly. It is also the managers job to understand in detail the nature of the assignment given to an employee so tasks can be handed out efficiently. Bad managers tend to throw random people at random tasks without fully understanding the task or the person. In these cases there is an element of luck involved. How hard the task is versus if the person assigned to the task is suited for that task. An employee who handles the task well or is able to temper the expectations of the manager through communication is perceived as "good." These managers are easily recognizable. I will tell you how to identify them. They perceive the world as employees who are "underperformers" and those who are not. The person you replied to put the world in 3 tiers lol. The world is very nuanced and it is impossible to divide people into three buckets like this. He is the quintessential example of "bad manager."

by _n_b_ 5y ago

giantg2 5y ago

Thanks. Basically I'm told that some stories I complete quickly while others drag out. I'm on a team that works with multiple systems (10ish), multiple languages, multiple stacks/architectures, and am expected to be full stack. The "improvements" I've been told to make is to document why stories are slow - mostly context switching from prod support, context switching from my role as ASC, and of course just being slow when working with a system or language that I haven't worked on in a while. So my perspective based on the feedback is, this isn't a performance issue (if it was it would be under communication instead of speed). It solely addresses visibility of the switching. I have requested consistent work, like being full stack in a single stack. The whole point of specialization of labor is to increase speed and quality, yet it seems this management tenent is wholly missed by my organization. You want consistent speed? Give me consistent work. The best part is I got a 4.5% pay cut, yet they say they want to retain me. All while the company is talking about across the board increases (which I won't be eligible for) and having trouble filling roles that typically stay open for 6 months. Which is it - do I suck, or do you want to keep me?

toomuchtodo 5y ago
Time to find a better role at a new org.
deltaonefour 5y ago
I can assure you that much of underperformance is a perception and miscommunication issue. If the employee is motivated and not stupid then if he's underperforming it's because objectives were not communicated or the manager failed to realize that the assignment was impossible not to underperform due to missing some challenging detail. Many managers don't realize this. Even managers that have a ton of experience, all they do is fire or have harsh conversations with people who "underperform." The truth of the matter is a good manager is rare. 1 out of 10 literally and it's not an experience issue. A good manager is one who is highly highly unbiased and people are generally not like this. The person you replied to is not a good manager. Based on his reply he is actually below average. Basically for these managers good employees are those that can predict what the manager wants and how he thinks. If the person is able to guess and predict what his manager wants on a consistent basis, then objectives are more clear to this employee and as a result he can achieve them. These people are then perceived as "good employees". Due note that a good manager makes objectives for each task unambiguous and crystal clear. A bad manager leaves a lot of room to fuzzy concepts like "quality of work" because he himself isn't clear about what he wants. I have seen it many times. Employees who are basically geniuses fired because the manager wasn't able to realize how smart the person was. Instead the manager left the employee with vague instructions and expected him to just "get it." The manager didn't know that the employee is an expert in infrastructure and deployed him on writing algorithms... This is an unwise and inefficient deployment of resources. It is the managers job to determine what each of his employees like and what they are exceptional at and deploy resources accordingly. It is also the managers job to understand in detail the nature of the assignment given to an employee so tasks can be handed out efficiently. Bad managers tend to throw random people at random tasks without fully understanding the task or the person. In these cases there is an element of luck involved. How hard the task is versus if the person assigned to the task is suited for that task. An employee who handles the task well or is able to temper the expectations of the manager through communication is perceived as "good." These managers are easily recognizable. I will tell you how to identify them. They perceive the world as employees who are "underperformers" and those who are not. The person you replied to put the world in 3 tiers lol. The world is very nuanced and it is impossible to divide people into three buckets like this. He is the quintessential example of "bad manager."