15 ms·

Hard to work with

366 points by jger15 5y ago

muskmusk 5y ago
Interesting! I was not aware that this was so common.
koof 5y ago
My first leadership lesson looked like this: as a junior engineer I had an abysmal quarter or two. My manager asked me what was going on. After I gave them an assessment of the situation, they said that they believed me and went to bat for me. Because of that manager's trust and belief in me even in the face of irrefutable evidence that I was doing poorly, I immediately became fiercely loyal to that manager and the organization, and I wanted to work harder for them. I'm no 10x engineer, but any time I get frustrated with someone else's poor output, I think about this.
- orzig 5y ago
  Seniority matters here - of course a junior is going to have weaknesses, and a poor fit could easily result in two abysmal quarters. But I believe seniority comes with a responsibility to proactively raise any higher level issues blocking performance, and move on if they can't be fixed.
- jollybean 5y ago
  That's an important lesson, but as devs mature they probably shouldn't react like that. Ideally you want to be able to keep your head on straight and obviously it's easier to work harder for someone who 'believes in you' ... but that's a bit emotive. Just do a good job, be professional, expect the same knowing you're not always going to get it and that's that. Instead of someone 'going to bat' you really want someone who's just communicating and helping you create the outcomes necessary.
  - quercusa 5y ago
    Maybe they don't need to go to bat for you; maybe they just don't jump on the chance to throw you under the bus.
  - chrisseaton 5y ago
    > Just do a good job Easy as that, huh? I think the comment was about what to do when you aren't able to 'just' do a good job for whatever reason, which could happen to anyone. They posted about how to handle a problem and your response was 'just don't have problems'.
    - simulate-me 5y ago
      I don’t think GP was saying “just don’t have problems.” Rather, they were saying that as an experienced professional, having someone believe in you shouldn’t be the determining factor in whether or not you do a good job. You should believe in yourself and your experience.
      - XorNot 5y ago
        "As an practioner of IT, the domain of pure logic, I don't have emotions like other people" There's a reason this profession has the issues it does because the most drama heavy people are always those who think they're perfectly rational automatons.
        simulate-me 5y ago
        This is more about building sufficient experience in something rather than being perfectly rational. For instance, think of the color green. You know green when you see it. Why? Because of the numerous experiences you’ve had that have reinforced your knowledge of the color green. Such reinforcement applies to all your other experiences as well, including engineering. After some time, you should know whether or not you’re a good engineer without external validation.
- PragmaticPulp 5y ago
  This is a fantastic example because your manager did essentially the opposite of what this author would have wanted. The author wants managers to have no tolerance for people who perform poorly, moving to do something to get the poor performers off the teams of the high performers. Yet that's short-sighted. Teams and expertise are built over time. It may not be ideal for people like the author of this article who believe themselves to be high performers who shouldn't have to ever put up with low performers. However, the real high performers are the ones who can accept that no team is perfect and nobody starts out as a superstar. They make the effort to work with people, mentor, and lead by example.
  - nunez 5y ago
    It is much easier to think "we should fire that person" instead of "how can we improve this person."
    - convolvatron 5y ago
      you have to do both. seriously do your best to help them improve. but if they are causing problems for other people, you have to give up after some time and get them out of the way
      - vanillax 5y ago
        this.
      - PragmaticPulp 5y ago
        > but if they are causing problems for other people, This is the crux of the issue: The definition of "causing problems for other people" isn't as well defined as it may seem. Someone who is constantly driving the team further apart than together, struggling to work with other members of the team, and being openly dismissive of others would fit the definition of "causing problems for other people". From another perspective, it would also fit the definition of the "hard to work with" person in this article. That's the point: Even when someone is falling behind, as an employee you must find a way to at least try to work with them and lead by example.
- jddil 5y ago
  I remember the loyalty I felt as a junior engineer to that first manager that actually showed empathy and helped me. I stayed in that role longer than I should have and cost myself a lot of growth and money by not switching jobs every 2 to 3 years like I do now.
  - wetpaws 5y ago
    Loyalty to your the manager and loyalty to yourself are not mutually exclusive things.
    - jddil 5y ago
      True. And I do think it taught me a valuable lesson that needed to be learned so I wouldn't say it was a bad thing all together staying longer, just expensive.
  - koof 5y ago
    Totally get that. I want more money and growth too, but this taught me I need a good boss.
    - jddil 5y ago
      And honestly if the whole company was like your manager an argument could be made you still made the right choice. Just wanted to share my experience :)
  - xupybd 5y ago
    Switching every two years? I just start to get going 1 year in. That's when I've learned enough to start having instincts for what is going on. How do companies survive with that sort of turn over?
    - dijit 5y ago
      > How do companies survive with that sort of turn over? Unsure, but it's a conscious and calculated decision not to pay market rate for current employees. I don't like it, but it's the case that if you're not moving every couple of years then your wage will deflate compared to peers, and I've never worked anywhere that gave more than a 2% pay increase (and that's with good performance) without a promotion.
- trinovantes 5y ago
  As the saying goes: We judge ourselves by our intentions and others by their behavior You were quite fortunate to have a manager that believed in you and it's good that you're paying it forward
  - mooreds 5y ago
    > We judge ourselves by our intentions and others by their behavior This is so true! If only we were consistent and picked one or the other all the time! The world would be a better place.
- mooreds 5y ago
  > I immediately became fiercely loyal to that manager and the organization, and I wanted to work harder for them. Did you improve? Did you provide the results needed by the organization? Did you work better (not simply harder)? Forgive me if this seems like an overly familiar set of questions, I'm not quite sure how else to frame them. It's great to be loyal; it helps both parties make long term investments, engenders trust, and ensures stability. But loyalty to a bad manager is no good. Similarly, loyalty to a report who is over their head and continues to be unable to improve at the speed needed is not good. Source: I have both been over my head and had reports in over their head.
  - edmundsauto 5y ago
    Regardless of the outcome, I believe this trust is a necessary precondition for someone to turn it around. So this relationship doesn’t guarantee success, but lacking it does guarantee failure.
    - mooreds 5y ago
      Agreed you need to have trust for it to work out. Unfortunately, sometimes you can trust and it still doesn't work out. It took me a long time to realize I wasn't a great fit for every job. Now I try to lean into my strengths and acknowledge my weaknesses. For instance, please never hire me for my design sense (see my personal blog at https://www.mooreds.com/wordpress/ https://www.mooreds.com/wordpress/ for proof of that). It's really hard to acknowledge weaknesses, especially when employment/$$$ are at stake. But it is important to do so.
  - koof 5y ago
    I think if my meeting with my manager went another way I think I might have spent more time looking for an escape route rather than focusing on the tasks at hand. Someone who thinks they're going to be fired can sometimes cause a self-fulfilling prophecy.
    - mooreds 5y ago
      Thanks for the reply, totally get that the manager averted a self fulfilling prophecy of losing a valued employee. Did you end up succeeding at the job because of the trust offered by your manager?
- wanderingmind 5y ago
  The problem is someone else pulled your weight as well for those two quarters and probably got burned and bitter. As a pure numbers game, its worse for an organisation to have a top performing employee going sour than letting go of an under performing employee.
- worldsayshi 5y ago
  One possible take from this is that having faith in your subordinates builds loyalty and loyalty is the currency of advancing in an organisation. At some point that might also mean giving leeway to those that might not deserve it to start in the game yourself.
draw_down 5y ago
Exactly the kind of politics that is so uninteresting and draining working in companies like this. And all of this on top of the actual job itself. It just isn’t worth it.
- dominotw 5y ago
  >It just isn’t worth it. whats the alternative. consulting?
  - anyfoo 5y ago
    Yeah. Unless the alternative is "retire", aren't you just replacing one brand of bullshit with another, potentially worse brand (entirely dependent on the person, I guess)?
    - jackthetab 5y ago
      Possibly, but you're equating "contractor" == "employee" when in reality you have more options. 1. No one said you _had_ to do that job for that client. You don't have that flexibility as an employee. 2. Don't feel like putting up with all the bullshit? Keep raising your rates until a) it's worth your while (I personally can put up with a lot of BS for $400/hour) or b) until they decide you're too expensive and let you go. This is not an option when dealing with your employer. 3. Having downtime as a consultant in between clients is seen as normal. Between employers, it can be a death knell. Knowing, and willingly to execute, these options gives you a completely different perspective than being an employee. Which means you handle the situtations differently (better?).
  - nunez 5y ago
    nope unless you're solo and work gigs.
  - PeterisP 5y ago
    So much of consulting is effectively digging in dysfunctional organizations and circumventing their people problems.. For example, coordinating between team A and team B, because they are unable to (or refuse to) communicate effectively; or submitting a convincing report to management with data/conclusions/proposal that some team in their company effectively had already a year ago, but were unable to get the management to implement the proposals because they cost a lot of money and they wouldn't believe their own people unless outside consultants said that this really needs to be done. And of course there's sales. And pre-sales, and post-sales followup that's effectively sales for the next, much bigger projects... No, consulting is definitely not a way to escape politics.
mindvirus 5y ago
This is really good advice. It also forces you to figure out what you want exactly. For example, someone might get frustrated by poor performance (real or imagined) of a peer, but what they're really looking for is a promotion and they see the peer as an obstacle to that. Figuring out the positive outcome you want (promotion, successful project, etc) and then working with management on that is a good tactic.
civilized 5y ago
Can someone explain the first VPE example? I just don't understand what it's talking about.
- aidenn0 5y ago
  There are 2 obvious candidates for VPE; one candidate gets it as an interim role. The CEO refuses to make it permanent because the other candidate throws a tantrum. When the iterim VPE points out the immaturity of the other candidate, it's used as evidence that the interim VPE doesn't have sufficient "people skills" to be VPE
  - civilized 5y ago
    Wow. Okay. I was leaning toward something like that but I felt like I must be taking crazy pills! What a weird corporate culture!
    - aidenn0 5y ago
      There are lots of people who never want to get between two people arguing. Some of these people become managers or executives.
    - jameshush 5y ago
      More common than you think. I’ve seen it happen more often than not when a startup grows quickly and the original “CTO” doesn’t want to manage people, so they hire an outside manager. CEO doesn’t want the original CTO to lose face, so there’s a bit of an awkward period while the new manager on boards. Not an ideal situation but life isn’t always ideal, definitely a surmountable situation though.
      - travisjungroth 5y ago
        I’d now take it as a red flag if a founder holds the CTO title but doesn’t do the job. Shows the individual and org is too precious with ego for no reason. You get to be an IC, have insane autonomy, 100x the equity of a normal IC and still have the title of Founder. If you can’t give up three letters to help the business, doesn’t look good.
legerdemain 5y ago
This is called reading the room and realizing that you're the fall guy. If you're unhappy with being the fall guy, you're violating your manager's expectations of you and thus, pretty literally, hard to work with. And the solutions are, obviously, you either magically make something out of nothing and upend the pro/con balance in your favor, or you leave what is obviously a disadvantageous position. If you're interviewing for some role and the hiring manager mentions that they need you to tame some chronic problem, run! There's a good chance that the problem is chronic because internal incentives are sustaining its existence.
- lmeyerov 5y ago
  I enjoyed the post as there are invariably problems; seniority is learning how to solve more of it. Soft skills side becomes more important the higher you go and the bigger things get. The article is just one of many ways to manage up -- in this case, excitement. You can always leave, but that's the difference between consultants and leaders. That's totally fine, but should at least be aware the tradeoff is being made. Being able to manage & lead isn't easy!
- draw_down 5y ago
PragmaticPulp 5y ago
> What I’ve found effective in these cases is to lead with constructive energy directed towards a positive outcome. Even if you can’t get your peer’s performance addressed directly, you can often overcome your peer’s bad performance by generating excitement in the direction you want to go. Enough excitement will give the resolution avoidant manager a way to solve their problem without actually engaging with the situation that they’re unwilling to address. The author arrives at a valuable conclusion in a somewhat roundabout way: The real solution to most problems, including low performing peers, is to step up and lead with a positive example. Years ago I would have agreed that the authors' dismissal of "hard to work with" is unfair and inaccurate. None of us wants to believe that we are the one who is hard to work with. Everybody else is wrong! I'm not the problem, it's my coworkers who aren't doing exactly what I want them to do! Yet as a manager, I've learned that the realities of hiring and managing people are very different than my overly idealistic standards when I was a junior IC. In retrospect, my ideas that it was my manager's job to ruthlessly punish or remove anyone I didn't feel was performing up to par or that I shouldn't be forced to navigate difficult social situations were unreasonable. > It’s a truism that you always want to hire folks with very high standards, but I’ve seen a staggering number of folks fail in an organization primarily because they want to hold others to a higher standard than their organization’s management is willing to enforce. Having high aspirations for yourself is great. Helping raise the bar through leading by example and mentoring your peers is great. Running to your manager every time you feel dissatisfied with someone else's performance and arriving with only complaints is, however, not great. No team is perfect. Hiring is hard. Nobody starts out as a superstar. People learn and grow at different rates. If you want to contribute, lead by example and help people out when they fall behind. As a manager I'm actually well aware of who's delivering and who's struggling, but we don't fire people the second they fall behind. We also notice who's helping the team reach the next level and who's simply in it for themselves. If your only solution to every problem is to run to your manager and demand that they do something because a peer didn't do exactly what you wanted or expected, I'm first going to ask what you did to help move the situation forward on your own. The first question is usually "How did it go when you talked to them about?" The first answer of the difficult to work with people is "Well... I didn't talk to them about it".
- deckard1 5y ago
encoderer 5y ago
I remain continuously impressed with everything Will is writing on the blog lately.
softwaredoug 5y ago
Overworking makes me think of falling into a hero/rescuer mode of the karpman drama triangle[1]. Basically the idea is you can really disempower others if you constantly do the work yourself to rescue them from their own mistakes. And the other person can take the role of victim in the relationship, in need of rescuing instead of being responsible the consequences themselves. Or persecutor - blaming and casting out against others. 1 - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karpman_drama_triangle https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karpman_drama_triangle
- kwyjibo1230 5y ago
  Interesting wiki article, very insightful! As a manager myself, I think it's very important to be aware of whether you are playing the "rescuer" and perpetuating dysfunction, or acting as a "coach" and helping others to actually change and learn.
  - dilyevsky 5y ago
    Don’t fool yourself - most managers would fall into Persecutor camp not the Rescuer ime.
    - afarrell 5y ago
      It is incredibly easy and ego-inflationary for people playing the persecutor role to see themselves as rescuers.
      - kwyjibo1230 5y ago
        Definitely tracks with the human tendency to judge yourself by intentions, and others by actions
    - kwyjibo1230 5y ago
      The wiki covers that scenario. The rescuer uses their role to say they "tried" and then justify negative feelings to the victim. Essentially becoming the persecutor
cosmiccatnap 5y ago
One of the hardest things for me is walking away from a solution I know is right. It's hard to realize that you will have to deal with a less than ideal solution because of internal politics but at the end of the day it's not worth it. Go home to your family and work on projects you enjoy and when work makes you write slop give it to em just as sloppy as they want it. Hopefully you work at a company where you don't know what in talking about but many of you in sure know exactly what solution you went to bat for and the various irrational reasons it never got built and to those of you out there I sympathize.
alecbz 5y ago
I feel like it’s a little bit of a flag in the latter section that they’re taking it for granted that someone is “just underperforming” and that it’s obviously not some other issue. Like idk, I do buy that managers might sometimes taper over what are “really” performance issues as if they’re relational, but I feel like you should spend some time addressing the seemingly obvious possibility of “are your managers right and this is a relationship issue”?
- alecbz 5y ago
  Reading some of the comments is making me double-down on this. A lot of it reads like “yes, finally, someone who understands that the problem isn’t me, it’s everybody else”. Again, a lot of this stuff is subtle and I hesitate to paint with too broad a brush, but the real flag for me is not having the awareness to be like “look I know how this sounds but I really do think I was in the right”.
  - beckingz 5y ago
    If one person you meet is an asshole, that is unfortunate. If every person you meet is an asshole, you may be the asshole.
the_arun 5y ago
Managing humans is complex. Sometimes, bias & other unconscious traits derail our thinking. We can have good practices like go with data, forgive once & give everyone another chance etc., But there is no clear formula to make it perfect.
voidhorse 5y ago
A lot of organizational problems all reduce to ego. The second you have someone on your team that isn’t empathetic or humble, it tends to lead to major problems. I’d take someone that’s not that good at their job but has a lot of humility and is willing to learn over arrogant masters (arrogance is the sign of a false master) pretty much any day. The single exception is probably cases where stuff really does just need to happen and happen quickly without mistakes, but ideally you’re managing projects in such a way that you’re not in that situation to begin with (though of course it can happen).
- sudofail 5y ago
  I've seen this many times and completely agree. Nearly every issue that I've had managing teams that hasn't easily resolved with communication has come down to ego. I'd go so far as to say that weeding out ego during the hiring process is the most effective thing you can do.
  - caffeine 5y ago
    This sounds like you are exactly the manager the article is about: who will not identify poor performance for what it is, and reframes it as an ego/communication/other character problem (usually on the part of the high performer). This leads to a highly-agreeable, low-performance team.
    - Daishiman 5y ago
      A team of high-performance individuals with low agreeableness does not constitute a high-performance _team_.
      - caffeine 5y ago
        It is possible to be disagreeable in a constructive way, combined with a “disagree-and-commit” attitude where the team’s success is the priority. However, I agree with you that it is also possible for a bunch of high performing individuals to have toxic personalities and to form a totally dysfunctional team.
andrewmutz 5y ago
One thing that this article doesn't discuss is that performance is rarely something objective, and is unfortunately very subjective at times. I've managed many smart people and it is common for Person A to complain about Person B's performance and to be wrong about it. Another situation is that if a manager's only evidence of a performance problem is the word of another teammate, it's hard to distinguish between performance problems and collaboration problems.
- diamondage 5y ago
  Any tips on the best way to discern the truth?
  - gwbas1c 5y ago
    Ask the complainer to show some documentation. Examples: If the underperformer is a developer, the complainer should be able to pull up examples of bad pull requests. Another way would be for the manager and complainer to plan to look at the next pull request together; or for the team to suddenly decide to pick a few pull requests to review in meetings. If the underperformer was a support person, the complainer should be able to show emails, tickets, ect, where mistakes are made. --- Do you have reasonable documented processes, and train newcomers in these? (IE, information to collect when interacting with customers, coding style guides, ect.) Audit the underperformer (and a few others) to see how close they are to the processes. If they diverge, hold an open discussion with the team (all stakeholders) about how reasonable the processes are. Assuming they are all reasonable, now you have your evidence.
ICodeSometimes 5y ago
I've found it much easier to "vote with your feet" when it comes to faulty leaders rather than attempt to work around them or risk being labeled "difficult to work with" as from my experience it seems to be related to the manager's ego (assuming your not a dongus and are flagging valid things when necessary). Within any large company, an internal move is fairly simple stuff and an external move will always be more lucrative in terms of compensation.
- ArcMex 5y ago
  I agree. Don't stay at a job with bad management. It's not worth it.
- codingdave 5y ago
  I can work around one bad manager. It is when you get 2 or 3 stacked vertically over each other that you know things are not only never going to change, but that top level leader has tanked all other departments underneath them, and it is time to move somewhere else. I used to not worry about higher level leadership in large companies because I thought I was too low level to really be impacted by them. I no longer think that way, and I look into as much of the leadership as I can before accepting a role.
- tvanantwerp 5y ago
  I was at a place for many years where the CEO was quite bad. He had few skills, both technical and interpersonal. So many people in the organization had strategies for dealing with him, distracting him away from important work. I was always disgusted by the wasted efforts of the entire organization finding ways to route around this CEO, and leaving was one of the best things I ever did.
password4321 5y ago
Is this in response to this discussion: How to work with me https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30841486 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30841486
icelancer 5y ago
Article rings very true. "It’s a truism that you always want to hire folks with very high standards, but I’ve seen a staggering number of folks fail in an organization primarily because they want to hold others to a higher standard than their organization’s management is willing to enforce." Happened to me in one of my positions in the last ten years. Never was able to sum it up exactly this well.
mathattack 5y ago
I’ve had poor performing peers. Then I had enough situations where direct reports (through human bias or lack of context) were wrongly convinced that their peers were holding them back. First I realized that perhaps I had misjudged my own peers. Then I started focusing on providing more context and cognitive bias (behavioral economics) training to my teams. It’s too easy to just think your boss isn’t holding someone accountable.
- sdoering 5y ago
  I have seen both. I worked in environments that are conflict averse. One example: There was an infrastructure team with one person just not doing their work. At the end for nearly three years This led to good people from the team leaving as the additional work of these "slackers" had to be done by someone. Neither the direct team lead, nor the manager above them, nor HR after learning from the reasons for people leaving through exit talks did anything. And I also saw situations that was framed as similar, but the situation was very different once the context became known. There was a person seemingly slacking. And objectively that was true. Not visible was the fact that this person was bullied by a coworker, was mentally abused. They tried their best to still deliver, but were just not able and sabotaged as well. Solving this solution was a mess for the people involved. Basically it isn't always as it seems. But also that there sometimes are people slacking.
llamajams 5y ago
I see a lot of good answers here, about leading by example and such and I've been in many instances where that's worked. But I'm in a new pickle.these days , I have a team with two duds...like absolutely no performance. I used to think they were willfully gaming the system but after a few frank conversations I feel like they live in a alternate dimension. Person A , senior by experience and pay grade couldn't sharpen a pencil if u gave him an electric sharpener and you could tell person B to meet you in the caf for lunch and he'd get on a bus and call you from butchers. I have no idea how these people.got where they are... We work on somewhat safety critical systems in a hot industry so you would expect some level of competence. But Nada. They feel....entitled to payment but feel no obligation to deliver anything. Have no sense of work ethic, workmanship, quality, barely communicates, no sense of teamwork. I'm at my wits end. I complained but that only turned into to more work for me to manufacture work they are willing or able to do and the tracking the progress. I gave up on that pretty quick. Talked to both of em 1-1 and learned a lot and reviewed some horrendous code and decided that it was better to have them not do anything. Pulled them both off deliverables and gave them meaningless tasks. This is all while the team is chugging away. Just today we have a pitch coming up and I had given A the task of making the deck, mind you not the content...just the .PPTX file and chasing people to get it done , and he managed to pick some god awful pos theme, so I told him "hey you know this theme isn't very presentable" ...and he told me to change it if I didn't like it. And to B I gave a wild goose chase. I could have either of them touch the code before the release. HR and management didn't like this...they want me go give em real work...so they can mess it all up...because the rest of us can always undo it...
- pas 5y ago
  if you are responsible for something (and accept that responsibility, and sincerely try to be accountable for it) but you don't have actual control over it, then you're on a ship with a hyperdrive to burnout town.
- wanderingmind 5y ago
  The people who hired them and refusing to fire them are a bigger problem to your organisation than those two people.
activitypea 5y ago
I'm struggling with this exact thing at work, but the problem is that I'm terrible at "generating excitement" for my direction. I treat all my coworkers as peers, with full respect and compassion and without telling them what to do. Whenever I try to gently nudge them in my direction, I get a heap of pushback. If it's not clear, I'm also terrible at persuasion and influencing people, so I don't really know how to fix this situation. I like my company and my boss, but my brain is screaming "CHANGE YOUR ORGANIZATION OR CHANGE YOUR ORGANIZATION" 24/7. Any suggestions?
- v-erne 5y ago
  Disclaimer: Unfortunately I believe that engaging others is always a case of emotional intelligence and communication skills. There is no amount of rational arguments that can bring them on Your side if they do not feel that You are right. With emphasis on feel - we all are highly irrational creatures and almost all decisions are emotional. If You do not understand what kind of feelings Your communications (both verbal and written) generates in Your team mates than You will never be highly effective with convincing anyone to bring on any kind of change. Having said that, can You describe what kind of direction You are talking about? What type of change do You want to see and why do You thing there is pushback?
  - activitypea 5y ago
    I'll try to do it without doxxing myself too much. The team is criminally prone to overengineering. Feels like they read GoF and Uncle Bob's stuff, stopped there and concluded that engineering is a solved problem, with no tradeoffs involved. They're writing 2003-style Java in a language that's not particularly conducive to OOP (Javascript). Any time I solve something by writing a plain old function, my MRs are brigaded with kind suggestions that have an undertone of condescension. "Do you think this would be better solved by implementing the [Strategy pattern]?", "This hashmap seems a little out of place, have you considered adding some encapsulation here?" etc. The signal to noise ratio in the codebase is woeful and finding out how anything works requires a JetBrains IDE and spelunking gear. I don't mind that, I love brownfield projects. The problem is that we keep moving in this direction and that I'm being forced, or at least firmly suggested, to keep producing more "brown". The lead agrees that the codebase could be improved, but believes the churn (a couple of longstanding members with a revolving door of people) is on par with the rest of the industry and since the company is happy with us why fix what isn't broken. The team lead also don't code pretty much at all, so it's hard for them to perceive it as a priority. And the company is happy with us because the specific work we're doing is incredibly valuable -- we could be doing half as good. and still blow every other team out of the water because of the intrinsic value of our work. As long as our production doesn't go down every other day, we're the starchildren :\
Joeri 5y ago
The main character is trying to do their job effectively, but can’t due to the low performance of a peer. They escalate to the appropriate manager to address the issue, but that manager transforms the performance issue into a relationship issue: it’s not that the peer isn’t performing, it’s just that the two of you don’t like each other. It is quite hard to find the line between performance issue and relationship issue. I ran into this myself when I had a new manager who wanted to institute policies that to the tech leads seemed nonsense, and I chose to not do what they asked. They took it as a performance issue to the +1 but the +1 turned it into a relationship issue and this was the right call. The problem is that by that time we were both so set in our view that the other was obstructing the way forward that we couldn’t find a middle, and eventually it came down to a hard choice which I “won” by pushing them out of the company. In hindsight I could have made more of an effort to build a personal rapport and get on good enough terms to find a middle ground.
- cbozeman 5y ago
  > I chose to not do what they asked. I'm shocked this manager didn't have you fired. I would never tolerate someone doing what they want instead of what I instructed them to do. When the leader says follow, you don't choose a different path, even if the leader is wrong. Eventually, if they genuinely are incorrect, they'll be dismissed due to poor decisions and performance. I tell you this as an older person because you won't be able to push out everyone. You'll make this mistake with someone, somewhere, in another company, and they'll fuck you six ways from Sunday for it. I had to learn this lesson the hard way. I lost one of most enjoyable jobs I ever had by doing not only what I wanted to do, but what I knew was correct. I was even proven correct, but I ignored my boss and in doing so sealed my fate. You're definitely correct to have put "won" in quotes, because what actually happened was you got lucky.
  - AitchEmArsey 5y ago
    The other side of this coin is that if you are are forced into actions which you "know" are wrong and just accept it, then maybe the job is already dead for you anyway. By fighting back you are testing a number of stress points, like the conflict-avoidance of your management and the belligerence of the person you know to be "wrong". The important part is having the maturity to understand the consequences of being mistaken yourself, and being able to decide whether the fight is worth having even if it is going to have drastic results. In other words, is this a hill worth dying on?
ralphael 5y ago
"Success is finding a path forward among the options that actually exist." ..just so simple and elegant, particularly given the rise in hindsight and purely principle focussed cultures, that are developing in tech.
- wnolens 5y ago
  Yeah this sentence hit me. If I really think about it (or frame it as such), A LOT of my stress in work AND life is from wishing that non-existent paths existed.
evancoop 5y ago
This is how companies plateau and become stagnant. The issues described do not spur action (e.g. "these two just need to collaborate better"), they fester, and eventually, a non-trivial number of internal teams are "captured." They won't burn the company down, the under-performing individual is not likely to do anything to warrant actually being moved/fired, and so, the status quo remains...and spreads. And then we wonder why large companies simply cannot innovate or execute on broader change initiatives?
- Zeebrommer 5y ago
  Makes me think of the Peter principle. Pretty depressing conclusion though: a large company is bound to be an environment with many distractions by underperformers. Any way out?
  - bar_de 5y ago
    Found your own company, be successful and start experiencing the same growth decline pattern. Maybe it's a cycle to stop expanding human groups in excess?
    - rewgs 5y ago
      It's just entropy, honestly. Growth = complexity/debt/escalating coordination cost. Success = complacency/greed. Like a cancer, the fruits of growth and success eventually burn the house down. It's just the way of things, apparently. I try hard to not worry about it too much and instead side-step it as best I can.
jf22 5y ago
I can totally relate with this article. Peers have not delivered and disappointed me this past year. When even a hint of my disappointment leaks out it's immediately met with suggestions for more relationship building or communications process changes. No, just no, people didn't do what they said you were going to do. I have genuine affection for some of these people. Somehow "I love you, but you didn't execute" is perceived as hostile and heated. I also agree with the the authors sentiment about how to fix and I've also learned it's better to steer peers towards constructive ends in a positive way, than confront or express displeasure about performance.
ilaksh 5y ago
This is one of the reasons I am glad I don't have a family to support and can work for myself. For me that tends to result in not having a lot of money, but it also means there is usually no one to hold a project back other than myself. Except the clients themselves sometimes. But overall much less stress with smaller projects on my own. If I had other people to support then I would probably be dealing with whatever job I could keep that really paid the bills, regardless of what idiot peers or bosses I had to deal with.
PaulHoule 5y ago
It might be another century before society as a whole is ready to confront "toxic conscientiousness". For now it is addressed at a last resort through acqui-hires, the bankruptcy court, etc.
gwbas1c 5y ago
I've had a few situations treated as "interpersonal conflict." It's always happened right before a lousy manager was pushed out / fired. In hindsight, IMO a way to handle this situation is to have a 1-1 with the underperformer, and clearly explain your expectations. Bring notes. Don't be afraid to "explain common sense." You might need to have repeat meetings every 2-3 weeks. Give periodic summaries to your supervisor, occasional summaries to your +1. Reiterate that this isn't an interpersonal conflict situation, but that the other person truly isn't doing their part of the job. If you're generally happy with your job, wait out the situation. Otherwise, this might be the que that it's time to seek greener pastures. Furthermore: When someone isn't pulling their weight, it will show with other people. Feel out your other teammates to see what they think of the other person. If they aren't happy, make sure that they express that to their manager and +1. Remember: All companies make bad hires from time-to-time; and good management is hard. It's okay to tolerate a few management mistakes when, overall you're happy with your job.
- pas 5y ago
  is there any article/book/blog about this +1 system?
  - gwbas1c 5y ago
    The +1 is the boss's boss
  - gwbas1c 5y ago
    2'nd reply: That's a good idea, maybe I'll blog about it someday. Although it's not exactly what you're looking for, "The E-Myth Revisited" might help you understand some of the thinking that's needed for dealing with underperformers: https://www.amazon.com/Myth-Revisited-Small-Businesses-About-ebook/dp/B000RO9VJK/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1648772284&sr=8-1 https://www.amazon.com/Myth-Revisited-Small-Businesses-About... The book is targeted to someone running a small business that needs to hire in order to grow. Think of a restaurant, RV rental business, flower shop. The mantra is to write down how you do everything, and then train everyone. If "how you do your job" changes, then you need to update the process and re-train everyone. This is what I meant by "clearly explain your expectations" and "Don't be afraid to 'explain common sense.'" You're giving the underperformer a chance to improve, working on your "interpersonal conflict" issues, and building a set of objectives expectations that can be used to measure performance. (In my case, the underperformer quit the day after I explained all of my expectations; and the replacement that was hired was AWESOME.)
ck425 5y ago
This part stuck out me: "It’s a truism that you always want to hire folks with very high standards, but I’ve seen a staggering number of folks fail in an organization primarily because they want to hold others to a higher standard than their organization’s management is willing to enforce" Throughout the article the author talks about underperformers but whose standards are they underperforming by? The company/management's or the authors? If the "underperformers" are in fact performing adequately by management's standards, just not by the author's then it is in fact a relationship problem because it's the author forcing their view of performance on others. If they want to have higher standards for themselves fair enough, but other people didn't sign up or agree to those standards. You can encourage them to do so but it's completely unreasonable to expect them to meet your standards (rather than the companies) and then complain to their manager when they don't. I'm not saying this is the case in all of these situations. But author openly states they're a workaholic who has higher standards for those around them than the organization does. And that's very much a problem of their own creation, not a problem caused by those around them.
- mjmahone17 5y ago
  I read it more as there being a mismatch in promises: the managers promised that their teams are held to high standards, and promised that they expect high competence from their reports. If going in you believe your definition of high competence is aligned with your managers’, and then discover your manager actually meant “destroys more value than they create” as “highly competent”, I think it’s reasonable to place the blame for the misunderstanding with the manager. It’s true this isn’t necessarily the value-destroying person’s fault, but it is the fault of the manager in avoiding dealing with the fact that they have a report who hurts their team. However as the article points out, once you realize this dynamic you can use your energy to work around the problem rather than spend effort that goes to /dev/null.
rattray 5y ago
Hello This is a great post; it hit home and I expect it'll come to mind many times in the future for me. It highlights an interesting problem very well. Will, if you’re listening, there are two follow-up posts that I’d love to see – how (and how long) to execute the “be positive and generate excitement” strategy as the main character, and how this problem can affect companies and what leaders should do about it. My experience is that if the EM tried to draft a better product roadmap than the PM had made, it would dramatically worsen the relationship (for example). Being "extra positive" while "leading by example" can come across as being a fake, competitive show-off who doesn't know how to lead by uplifting (especially for someone who is more talented than some of their peers). Not saying the advice is bad necessarily, just that it can be really hard to do well (or that perhaps I don't understand it), and I'd like more advice on the execution. Even still, if one did this really well, it would mean good things for the main character's career at the company - no question. Stay positive, stay in your lane, do the best you can with the people around you, don't rock the boat, be inspirational - there's no question that'll help you thrive within a company (based on my observations, but counter to the intuition of a young programmer). However, sometimes this goes from a few isolated problems to a growing culture of mediocrity that punishes pursuit of excellence, and it can be harmful for talented people to stay in those environments for long, as it saps them of their passion for quality that is both hugely valuable in the right context and drives meaning and purpose in their life’s work. How long should the main character stay in a context where good ideas lose out to bad ideas, and mediocrity rules? Of course, allowing mediocrity to flourish is probably very bad for a company, especially when it pushes the best people down (and ultimately out). This post didn’t touch on how (and why) leaders should handle the avoidant managers in question, and I’d love to see one that does – getting the very best out of one's organization is one of the most important jobs of a leader. Needless to say, I'd love pointers to extant pieces that address these questions!
- pas 5y ago
  > the EM tried to draft a better product roadmap than the PM had made, it would dramatically worsen the relationship (for example). Absolutely. But "to lead by example" the EM could ask the PM to sit down and improve the existing one until it's acceptable for the team (or for the EM). But let's look at the exact scenario that the blog post mentions: > Both are pushed to “collaborate better” but the team’s impact remains poor How are they measuring team impact? Why is it important? Again, leading by example, if impact is important for the EM, then they should find a job where they have that. Our world is changing fast, most people have a status quo bias, tech sector are even crazier, putting all of that together it's no surprise that almost everybody in tech is not exactly where they would like to be. Dealing with this discrepancy is hard (and even that's quite the understatement), but the only true ways are internal change (acceptance, eg. changing with the environment) or taking action. (See also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acceptance_and_commitment_therapy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acceptance_and_commitment_ther...) > can come across as being a fake It's very important to find the environment where you can be authentic. Including being a beginner, doing something that you're not 100% sure of. (IT/tech is again an extreme outlier in this regard, because it's full of people with self-esteem & confidence issues. Needless to say these issues can manifest in different ways, and both kinds are of course bad: impostor syndrome and the arrogant know-it-all.) > How long should the main character stay in a context where good ideas lose out to bad ideas, and mediocrity rules? It depends. If the main character finds passion outside work (let's say side business, family, whatever) and can just treat work like a means to many ends, then it doesn't really matter. If they cannot, because they want their work to be meaningful, impactful, they want to have professional pride in their work, etc... then they usually need to move :)
camgunz 5y ago
Something feels odd about this article, like the examples don't really make the point or the framing is off or something. I guess I would try and rephrase as "you want to work way X and your manager wants you to work way Y." I think you have three basic options: say yes, say yes with reservations, say no and quit/get a different manager. There are all kinds of culs-de sac this odd formulation leads us down: who's right, is this a subjective relationship problem or an objective performance/personality problem, etc. I guess I would add that, if you're a manager and something like this happens to your team members, try and take care of everyone? There isn't always a solution that does that, but the article outright says only the team member pushing for higher performance should lump it. It feels better to make everyone lump it equally haha.

366 points by jger15 5y ago

Interesting! I was not aware that this was so common.

koof 5y ago

My first leadership lesson looked like this: as a junior engineer I had an abysmal quarter or two. My manager asked me what was going on. After I gave them an assessment of the situation, they said that they believed me and went to bat for me. Because of that manager's trust and belief in me even in the face of irrefutable evidence that I was doing poorly, I immediately became fiercely loyal to that manager and the organization, and I wanted to work harder for them. I'm no 10x engineer, but any time I get frustrated with someone else's poor output, I think about this.

orzig 5y ago
Seniority matters here - of course a junior is going to have weaknesses, and a poor fit could easily result in two abysmal quarters. But I believe seniority comes with a responsibility to proactively raise any higher level issues blocking performance, and move on if they can't be fixed.
jollybean 5y ago
That's an important lesson, but as devs mature they probably shouldn't react like that. Ideally you want to be able to keep your head on straight and obviously it's easier to work harder for someone who 'believes in you' ... but that's a bit emotive. Just do a good job, be professional, expect the same knowing you're not always going to get it and that's that. Instead of someone 'going to bat' you really want someone who's just communicating and helping you create the outcomes necessary.
- quercusa 5y ago
  Maybe they don't need to go to bat for you; maybe they just don't jump on the chance to throw you under the bus.
- chrisseaton 5y ago
  > Just do a good job Easy as that, huh? I think the comment was about what to do when you aren't able to 'just' do a good job for whatever reason, which could happen to anyone. They posted about how to handle a problem and your response was 'just don't have problems'.
  - simulate-me 5y ago
    I don’t think GP was saying “just don’t have problems.” Rather, they were saying that as an experienced professional, having someone believe in you shouldn’t be the determining factor in whether or not you do a good job. You should believe in yourself and your experience.
    - XorNot 5y ago
      "As an practioner of IT, the domain of pure logic, I don't have emotions like other people" There's a reason this profession has the issues it does because the most drama heavy people are always those who think they're perfectly rational automatons.
      - simulate-me 5y ago
        This is more about building sufficient experience in something rather than being perfectly rational. For instance, think of the color green. You know green when you see it. Why? Because of the numerous experiences you’ve had that have reinforced your knowledge of the color green. Such reinforcement applies to all your other experiences as well, including engineering. After some time, you should know whether or not you’re a good engineer without external validation.
PragmaticPulp 5y ago
This is a fantastic example because your manager did essentially the opposite of what this author would have wanted. The author wants managers to have no tolerance for people who perform poorly, moving to do something to get the poor performers off the teams of the high performers. Yet that's short-sighted. Teams and expertise are built over time. It may not be ideal for people like the author of this article who believe themselves to be high performers who shouldn't have to ever put up with low performers. However, the real high performers are the ones who can accept that no team is perfect and nobody starts out as a superstar. They make the effort to work with people, mentor, and lead by example.
- nunez 5y ago
  It is much easier to think "we should fire that person" instead of "how can we improve this person."
  - convolvatron 5y ago
    you have to do both. seriously do your best to help them improve. but if they are causing problems for other people, you have to give up after some time and get them out of the way
    - vanillax 5y ago
      this.
    - PragmaticPulp 5y ago
      > but if they are causing problems for other people, This is the crux of the issue: The definition of "causing problems for other people" isn't as well defined as it may seem. Someone who is constantly driving the team further apart than together, struggling to work with other members of the team, and being openly dismissive of others would fit the definition of "causing problems for other people". From another perspective, it would also fit the definition of the "hard to work with" person in this article. That's the point: Even when someone is falling behind, as an employee you must find a way to at least try to work with them and lead by example.
jddil 5y ago
I remember the loyalty I felt as a junior engineer to that first manager that actually showed empathy and helped me. I stayed in that role longer than I should have and cost myself a lot of growth and money by not switching jobs every 2 to 3 years like I do now.
- wetpaws 5y ago
  Loyalty to your the manager and loyalty to yourself are not mutually exclusive things.
  - jddil 5y ago
    True. And I do think it taught me a valuable lesson that needed to be learned so I wouldn't say it was a bad thing all together staying longer, just expensive.
- koof 5y ago
  Totally get that. I want more money and growth too, but this taught me I need a good boss.
  - jddil 5y ago
    And honestly if the whole company was like your manager an argument could be made you still made the right choice. Just wanted to share my experience :)
- xupybd 5y ago
  Switching every two years? I just start to get going 1 year in. That's when I've learned enough to start having instincts for what is going on. How do companies survive with that sort of turn over?
  - dijit 5y ago
    > How do companies survive with that sort of turn over? Unsure, but it's a conscious and calculated decision not to pay market rate for current employees. I don't like it, but it's the case that if you're not moving every couple of years then your wage will deflate compared to peers, and I've never worked anywhere that gave more than a 2% pay increase (and that's with good performance) without a promotion.
trinovantes 5y ago
As the saying goes: We judge ourselves by our intentions and others by their behavior You were quite fortunate to have a manager that believed in you and it's good that you're paying it forward
- mooreds 5y ago
  > We judge ourselves by our intentions and others by their behavior This is so true! If only we were consistent and picked one or the other all the time! The world would be a better place.
mooreds 5y ago
> I immediately became fiercely loyal to that manager and the organization, and I wanted to work harder for them. Did you improve? Did you provide the results needed by the organization? Did you work better (not simply harder)? Forgive me if this seems like an overly familiar set of questions, I'm not quite sure how else to frame them. It's great to be loyal; it helps both parties make long term investments, engenders trust, and ensures stability. But loyalty to a bad manager is no good. Similarly, loyalty to a report who is over their head and continues to be unable to improve at the speed needed is not good. Source: I have both been over my head and had reports in over their head.
- edmundsauto 5y ago
  Regardless of the outcome, I believe this trust is a necessary precondition for someone to turn it around. So this relationship doesn’t guarantee success, but lacking it does guarantee failure.
  - mooreds 5y ago
    Agreed you need to have trust for it to work out. Unfortunately, sometimes you can trust and it still doesn't work out. It took me a long time to realize I wasn't a great fit for every job. Now I try to lean into my strengths and acknowledge my weaknesses. For instance, please never hire me for my design sense (see my personal blog at https://www.mooreds.com/wordpress/ https://www.mooreds.com/wordpress/ for proof of that). It's really hard to acknowledge weaknesses, especially when employment/$$$ are at stake. But it is important to do so.
- koof 5y ago
  I think if my meeting with my manager went another way I think I might have spent more time looking for an escape route rather than focusing on the tasks at hand. Someone who thinks they're going to be fired can sometimes cause a self-fulfilling prophecy.
  - mooreds 5y ago
    Thanks for the reply, totally get that the manager averted a self fulfilling prophecy of losing a valued employee. Did you end up succeeding at the job because of the trust offered by your manager?
wanderingmind 5y ago
The problem is someone else pulled your weight as well for those two quarters and probably got burned and bitter. As a pure numbers game, its worse for an organisation to have a top performing employee going sour than letting go of an under performing employee.
worldsayshi 5y ago
One possible take from this is that having faith in your subordinates builds loyalty and loyalty is the currency of advancing in an organisation. At some point that might also mean giving leeway to those that might not deserve it to start in the game yourself.

draw_down 5y ago

Exactly the kind of politics that is so uninteresting and draining working in companies like this. And all of this on top of the actual job itself. It just isn’t worth it.

dominotw 5y ago
>It just isn’t worth it. whats the alternative. consulting?
- anyfoo 5y ago
  Yeah. Unless the alternative is "retire", aren't you just replacing one brand of bullshit with another, potentially worse brand (entirely dependent on the person, I guess)?
  - jackthetab 5y ago
    Possibly, but you're equating "contractor" == "employee" when in reality you have more options. 1. No one said you _had_ to do that job for that client. You don't have that flexibility as an employee. 2. Don't feel like putting up with all the bullshit? Keep raising your rates until a) it's worth your while (I personally can put up with a lot of BS for $400/hour) or b) until they decide you're too expensive and let you go. This is not an option when dealing with your employer. 3. Having downtime as a consultant in between clients is seen as normal. Between employers, it can be a death knell. Knowing, and willingly to execute, these options gives you a completely different perspective than being an employee. Which means you handle the situtations differently (better?).
- nunez 5y ago
  nope unless you're solo and work gigs.
- PeterisP 5y ago
  So much of consulting is effectively digging in dysfunctional organizations and circumventing their people problems.. For example, coordinating between team A and team B, because they are unable to (or refuse to) communicate effectively; or submitting a convincing report to management with data/conclusions/proposal that some team in their company effectively had already a year ago, but were unable to get the management to implement the proposals because they cost a lot of money and they wouldn't believe their own people unless outside consultants said that this really needs to be done. And of course there's sales. And pre-sales, and post-sales followup that's effectively sales for the next, much bigger projects... No, consulting is definitely not a way to escape politics.

mindvirus 5y ago

This is really good advice. It also forces you to figure out what you want exactly. For example, someone might get frustrated by poor performance (real or imagined) of a peer, but what they're really looking for is a promotion and they see the peer as an obstacle to that. Figuring out the positive outcome you want (promotion, successful project, etc) and then working with management on that is a good tactic.

civilized 5y ago

Can someone explain the first VPE example? I just don't understand what it's talking about.

aidenn0 5y ago
There are 2 obvious candidates for VPE; one candidate gets it as an interim role. The CEO refuses to make it permanent because the other candidate throws a tantrum. When the iterim VPE points out the immaturity of the other candidate, it's used as evidence that the interim VPE doesn't have sufficient "people skills" to be VPE
- civilized 5y ago
  Wow. Okay. I was leaning toward something like that but I felt like I must be taking crazy pills! What a weird corporate culture!
  - aidenn0 5y ago
    There are lots of people who never want to get between two people arguing. Some of these people become managers or executives.
  - jameshush 5y ago
    More common than you think. I’ve seen it happen more often than not when a startup grows quickly and the original “CTO” doesn’t want to manage people, so they hire an outside manager. CEO doesn’t want the original CTO to lose face, so there’s a bit of an awkward period while the new manager on boards. Not an ideal situation but life isn’t always ideal, definitely a surmountable situation though.
    - travisjungroth 5y ago
      I’d now take it as a red flag if a founder holds the CTO title but doesn’t do the job. Shows the individual and org is too precious with ego for no reason. You get to be an IC, have insane autonomy, 100x the equity of a normal IC and still have the title of Founder. If you can’t give up three letters to help the business, doesn’t look good.

legerdemain 5y ago

This is called reading the room and realizing that you're the fall guy. If you're unhappy with being the fall guy, you're violating your manager's expectations of you and thus, pretty literally, hard to work with. And the solutions are, obviously, you either magically make something out of nothing and upend the pro/con balance in your favor, or you leave what is obviously a disadvantageous position. If you're interviewing for some role and the hiring manager mentions that they need you to tame some chronic problem, run! There's a good chance that the problem is chronic because internal incentives are sustaining its existence.

lmeyerov 5y ago
I enjoyed the post as there are invariably problems; seniority is learning how to solve more of it. Soft skills side becomes more important the higher you go and the bigger things get. The article is just one of many ways to manage up -- in this case, excitement. You can always leave, but that's the difference between consultants and leaders. That's totally fine, but should at least be aware the tradeoff is being made. Being able to manage & lead isn't easy!
draw_down 5y ago

PragmaticPulp 5y ago

> What I’ve found effective in these cases is to lead with constructive energy directed towards a positive outcome. Even if you can’t get your peer’s performance addressed directly, you can often overcome your peer’s bad performance by generating excitement in the direction you want to go. Enough excitement will give the resolution avoidant manager a way to solve their problem without actually engaging with the situation that they’re unwilling to address. The author arrives at a valuable conclusion in a somewhat roundabout way: The real solution to most problems, including low performing peers, is to step up and lead with a positive example. Years ago I would have agreed that the authors' dismissal of "hard to work with" is unfair and inaccurate. None of us wants to believe that we are the one who is hard to work with. Everybody else is wrong! I'm not the problem, it's my coworkers who aren't doing exactly what I want them to do! Yet as a manager, I've learned that the realities of hiring and managing people are very different than my overly idealistic standards when I was a junior IC. In retrospect, my ideas that it was my manager's job to ruthlessly punish or remove anyone I didn't feel was performing up to par or that I shouldn't be forced to navigate difficult social situations were unreasonable. > It’s a truism that you always want to hire folks with very high standards, but I’ve seen a staggering number of folks fail in an organization primarily because they want to hold others to a higher standard than their organization’s management is willing to enforce. Having high aspirations for yourself is great. Helping raise the bar through leading by example and mentoring your peers is great. Running to your manager every time you feel dissatisfied with someone else's performance and arriving with only complaints is, however, not great. No team is perfect. Hiring is hard. Nobody starts out as a superstar. People learn and grow at different rates. If you want to contribute, lead by example and help people out when they fall behind. As a manager I'm actually well aware of who's delivering and who's struggling, but we don't fire people the second they fall behind. We also notice who's helping the team reach the next level and who's simply in it for themselves. If your only solution to every problem is to run to your manager and demand that they do something because a peer didn't do exactly what you wanted or expected, I'm first going to ask what you did to help move the situation forward on your own. The first question is usually "How did it go when you talked to them about?" The first answer of the difficult to work with people is "Well... I didn't talk to them about it".

deckard1 5y ago

encoderer 5y ago

I remain continuously impressed with everything Will is writing on the blog lately.

softwaredoug 5y ago

Overworking makes me think of falling into a hero/rescuer mode of the karpman drama triangle[1]. Basically the idea is you can really disempower others if you constantly do the work yourself to rescue them from their own mistakes. And the other person can take the role of victim in the relationship, in need of rescuing instead of being responsible the consequences themselves. Or persecutor - blaming and casting out against others. 1 - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karpman_drama_triangle https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karpman_drama_triangle

kwyjibo1230 5y ago
Interesting wiki article, very insightful! As a manager myself, I think it's very important to be aware of whether you are playing the "rescuer" and perpetuating dysfunction, or acting as a "coach" and helping others to actually change and learn.
- dilyevsky 5y ago
  Don’t fool yourself - most managers would fall into Persecutor camp not the Rescuer ime.
  - afarrell 5y ago
    It is incredibly easy and ego-inflationary for people playing the persecutor role to see themselves as rescuers.
    - kwyjibo1230 5y ago
      Definitely tracks with the human tendency to judge yourself by intentions, and others by actions
  - kwyjibo1230 5y ago
    The wiki covers that scenario. The rescuer uses their role to say they "tried" and then justify negative feelings to the victim. Essentially becoming the persecutor

cosmiccatnap 5y ago

One of the hardest things for me is walking away from a solution I know is right. It's hard to realize that you will have to deal with a less than ideal solution because of internal politics but at the end of the day it's not worth it. Go home to your family and work on projects you enjoy and when work makes you write slop give it to em just as sloppy as they want it. Hopefully you work at a company where you don't know what in talking about but many of you in sure know exactly what solution you went to bat for and the various irrational reasons it never got built and to those of you out there I sympathize.

alecbz 5y ago

I feel like it’s a little bit of a flag in the latter section that they’re taking it for granted that someone is “just underperforming” and that it’s obviously not some other issue. Like idk, I do buy that managers might sometimes taper over what are “really” performance issues as if they’re relational, but I feel like you should spend some time addressing the seemingly obvious possibility of “are your managers right and this is a relationship issue”?

alecbz 5y ago
Reading some of the comments is making me double-down on this. A lot of it reads like “yes, finally, someone who understands that the problem isn’t me, it’s everybody else”. Again, a lot of this stuff is subtle and I hesitate to paint with too broad a brush, but the real flag for me is not having the awareness to be like “look I know how this sounds but I really do think I was in the right”.
- beckingz 5y ago
  If one person you meet is an asshole, that is unfortunate. If every person you meet is an asshole, you may be the asshole.

the_arun 5y ago

Managing humans is complex. Sometimes, bias & other unconscious traits derail our thinking. We can have good practices like go with data, forgive once & give everyone another chance etc., But there is no clear formula to make it perfect.

voidhorse 5y ago

A lot of organizational problems all reduce to ego. The second you have someone on your team that isn’t empathetic or humble, it tends to lead to major problems. I’d take someone that’s not that good at their job but has a lot of humility and is willing to learn over arrogant masters (arrogance is the sign of a false master) pretty much any day. The single exception is probably cases where stuff really does just need to happen and happen quickly without mistakes, but ideally you’re managing projects in such a way that you’re not in that situation to begin with (though of course it can happen).

sudofail 5y ago
I've seen this many times and completely agree. Nearly every issue that I've had managing teams that hasn't easily resolved with communication has come down to ego. I'd go so far as to say that weeding out ego during the hiring process is the most effective thing you can do.
- caffeine 5y ago
  This sounds like you are exactly the manager the article is about: who will not identify poor performance for what it is, and reframes it as an ego/communication/other character problem (usually on the part of the high performer). This leads to a highly-agreeable, low-performance team.
  - Daishiman 5y ago
    A team of high-performance individuals with low agreeableness does not constitute a high-performance _team_.
    - caffeine 5y ago
      It is possible to be disagreeable in a constructive way, combined with a “disagree-and-commit” attitude where the team’s success is the priority. However, I agree with you that it is also possible for a bunch of high performing individuals to have toxic personalities and to form a totally dysfunctional team.

andrewmutz 5y ago

One thing that this article doesn't discuss is that performance is rarely something objective, and is unfortunately very subjective at times. I've managed many smart people and it is common for Person A to complain about Person B's performance and to be wrong about it. Another situation is that if a manager's only evidence of a performance problem is the word of another teammate, it's hard to distinguish between performance problems and collaboration problems.

diamondage 5y ago
Any tips on the best way to discern the truth?
- gwbas1c 5y ago
  Ask the complainer to show some documentation. Examples: If the underperformer is a developer, the complainer should be able to pull up examples of bad pull requests. Another way would be for the manager and complainer to plan to look at the next pull request together; or for the team to suddenly decide to pick a few pull requests to review in meetings. If the underperformer was a support person, the complainer should be able to show emails, tickets, ect, where mistakes are made. --- Do you have reasonable documented processes, and train newcomers in these? (IE, information to collect when interacting with customers, coding style guides, ect.) Audit the underperformer (and a few others) to see how close they are to the processes. If they diverge, hold an open discussion with the team (all stakeholders) about how reasonable the processes are. Assuming they are all reasonable, now you have your evidence.

ICodeSometimes 5y ago

I've found it much easier to "vote with your feet" when it comes to faulty leaders rather than attempt to work around them or risk being labeled "difficult to work with" as from my experience it seems to be related to the manager's ego (assuming your not a dongus and are flagging valid things when necessary). Within any large company, an internal move is fairly simple stuff and an external move will always be more lucrative in terms of compensation.

ArcMex 5y ago
I agree. Don't stay at a job with bad management. It's not worth it.
codingdave 5y ago
I can work around one bad manager. It is when you get 2 or 3 stacked vertically over each other that you know things are not only never going to change, but that top level leader has tanked all other departments underneath them, and it is time to move somewhere else. I used to not worry about higher level leadership in large companies because I thought I was too low level to really be impacted by them. I no longer think that way, and I look into as much of the leadership as I can before accepting a role.
tvanantwerp 5y ago
I was at a place for many years where the CEO was quite bad. He had few skills, both technical and interpersonal. So many people in the organization had strategies for dealing with him, distracting him away from important work. I was always disgusted by the wasted efforts of the entire organization finding ways to route around this CEO, and leaving was one of the best things I ever did.

password4321 5y ago

Is this in response to this discussion: How to work with me https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30841486 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30841486

icelancer 5y ago

Article rings very true. "It’s a truism that you always want to hire folks with very high standards, but I’ve seen a staggering number of folks fail in an organization primarily because they want to hold others to a higher standard than their organization’s management is willing to enforce." Happened to me in one of my positions in the last ten years. Never was able to sum it up exactly this well.

mathattack 5y ago

I’ve had poor performing peers. Then I had enough situations where direct reports (through human bias or lack of context) were wrongly convinced that their peers were holding them back. First I realized that perhaps I had misjudged my own peers. Then I started focusing on providing more context and cognitive bias (behavioral economics) training to my teams. It’s too easy to just think your boss isn’t holding someone accountable.

sdoering 5y ago
I have seen both. I worked in environments that are conflict averse. One example: There was an infrastructure team with one person just not doing their work. At the end for nearly three years This led to good people from the team leaving as the additional work of these "slackers" had to be done by someone. Neither the direct team lead, nor the manager above them, nor HR after learning from the reasons for people leaving through exit talks did anything. And I also saw situations that was framed as similar, but the situation was very different once the context became known. There was a person seemingly slacking. And objectively that was true. Not visible was the fact that this person was bullied by a coworker, was mentally abused. They tried their best to still deliver, but were just not able and sabotaged as well. Solving this solution was a mess for the people involved. Basically it isn't always as it seems. But also that there sometimes are people slacking.

llamajams 5y ago

I see a lot of good answers here, about leading by example and such and I've been in many instances where that's worked. But I'm in a new pickle.these days , I have a team with two duds...like absolutely no performance. I used to think they were willfully gaming the system but after a few frank conversations I feel like they live in a alternate dimension. Person A , senior by experience and pay grade couldn't sharpen a pencil if u gave him an electric sharpener and you could tell person B to meet you in the caf for lunch and he'd get on a bus and call you from butchers. I have no idea how these people.got where they are... We work on somewhat safety critical systems in a hot industry so you would expect some level of competence. But Nada. They feel....entitled to payment but feel no obligation to deliver anything. Have no sense of work ethic, workmanship, quality, barely communicates, no sense of teamwork. I'm at my wits end. I complained but that only turned into to more work for me to manufacture work they are willing or able to do and the tracking the progress. I gave up on that pretty quick. Talked to both of em 1-1 and learned a lot and reviewed some horrendous code and decided that it was better to have them not do anything. Pulled them both off deliverables and gave them meaningless tasks. This is all while the team is chugging away. Just today we have a pitch coming up and I had given A the task of making the deck, mind you not the content...just the .PPTX file and chasing people to get it done , and he managed to pick some god awful pos theme, so I told him "hey you know this theme isn't very presentable" ...and he told me to change it if I didn't like it. And to B I gave a wild goose chase. I could have either of them touch the code before the release. HR and management didn't like this...they want me go give em real work...so they can mess it all up...because the rest of us can always undo it...

pas 5y ago
if you are responsible for something (and accept that responsibility, and sincerely try to be accountable for it) but you don't have actual control over it, then you're on a ship with a hyperdrive to burnout town.
wanderingmind 5y ago
The people who hired them and refusing to fire them are a bigger problem to your organisation than those two people.

activitypea 5y ago

I'm struggling with this exact thing at work, but the problem is that I'm terrible at "generating excitement" for my direction. I treat all my coworkers as peers, with full respect and compassion and without telling them what to do. Whenever I try to gently nudge them in my direction, I get a heap of pushback. If it's not clear, I'm also terrible at persuasion and influencing people, so I don't really know how to fix this situation. I like my company and my boss, but my brain is screaming "CHANGE YOUR ORGANIZATION OR CHANGE YOUR ORGANIZATION" 24/7. Any suggestions?

v-erne 5y ago
Disclaimer: Unfortunately I believe that engaging others is always a case of emotional intelligence and communication skills. There is no amount of rational arguments that can bring them on Your side if they do not feel that You are right. With emphasis on feel - we all are highly irrational creatures and almost all decisions are emotional. If You do not understand what kind of feelings Your communications (both verbal and written) generates in Your team mates than You will never be highly effective with convincing anyone to bring on any kind of change. Having said that, can You describe what kind of direction You are talking about? What type of change do You want to see and why do You thing there is pushback?
- activitypea 5y ago
  I'll try to do it without doxxing myself too much. The team is criminally prone to overengineering. Feels like they read GoF and Uncle Bob's stuff, stopped there and concluded that engineering is a solved problem, with no tradeoffs involved. They're writing 2003-style Java in a language that's not particularly conducive to OOP (Javascript). Any time I solve something by writing a plain old function, my MRs are brigaded with kind suggestions that have an undertone of condescension. "Do you think this would be better solved by implementing the [Strategy pattern]?", "This hashmap seems a little out of place, have you considered adding some encapsulation here?" etc. The signal to noise ratio in the codebase is woeful and finding out how anything works requires a JetBrains IDE and spelunking gear. I don't mind that, I love brownfield projects. The problem is that we keep moving in this direction and that I'm being forced, or at least firmly suggested, to keep producing more "brown". The lead agrees that the codebase could be improved, but believes the churn (a couple of longstanding members with a revolving door of people) is on par with the rest of the industry and since the company is happy with us why fix what isn't broken. The team lead also don't code pretty much at all, so it's hard for them to perceive it as a priority. And the company is happy with us because the specific work we're doing is incredibly valuable -- we could be doing half as good. and still blow every other team out of the water because of the intrinsic value of our work. As long as our production doesn't go down every other day, we're the starchildren :\

Joeri 5y ago

The main character is trying to do their job effectively, but can’t due to the low performance of a peer. They escalate to the appropriate manager to address the issue, but that manager transforms the performance issue into a relationship issue: it’s not that the peer isn’t performing, it’s just that the two of you don’t like each other. It is quite hard to find the line between performance issue and relationship issue. I ran into this myself when I had a new manager who wanted to institute policies that to the tech leads seemed nonsense, and I chose to not do what they asked. They took it as a performance issue to the +1 but the +1 turned it into a relationship issue and this was the right call. The problem is that by that time we were both so set in our view that the other was obstructing the way forward that we couldn’t find a middle, and eventually it came down to a hard choice which I “won” by pushing them out of the company. In hindsight I could have made more of an effort to build a personal rapport and get on good enough terms to find a middle ground.

cbozeman 5y ago
> I chose to not do what they asked. I'm shocked this manager didn't have you fired. I would never tolerate someone doing what they want instead of what I instructed them to do. When the leader says follow, you don't choose a different path, even if the leader is wrong. Eventually, if they genuinely are incorrect, they'll be dismissed due to poor decisions and performance. I tell you this as an older person because you won't be able to push out everyone. You'll make this mistake with someone, somewhere, in another company, and they'll fuck you six ways from Sunday for it. I had to learn this lesson the hard way. I lost one of most enjoyable jobs I ever had by doing not only what I wanted to do, but what I knew was correct. I was even proven correct, but I ignored my boss and in doing so sealed my fate. You're definitely correct to have put "won" in quotes, because what actually happened was you got lucky.
- AitchEmArsey 5y ago
  The other side of this coin is that if you are are forced into actions which you "know" are wrong and just accept it, then maybe the job is already dead for you anyway. By fighting back you are testing a number of stress points, like the conflict-avoidance of your management and the belligerence of the person you know to be "wrong". The important part is having the maturity to understand the consequences of being mistaken yourself, and being able to decide whether the fight is worth having even if it is going to have drastic results. In other words, is this a hill worth dying on?

ralphael 5y ago

"Success is finding a path forward among the options that actually exist." ..just so simple and elegant, particularly given the rise in hindsight and purely principle focussed cultures, that are developing in tech.

wnolens 5y ago
Yeah this sentence hit me. If I really think about it (or frame it as such), A LOT of my stress in work AND life is from wishing that non-existent paths existed.

evancoop 5y ago

This is how companies plateau and become stagnant. The issues described do not spur action (e.g. "these two just need to collaborate better"), they fester, and eventually, a non-trivial number of internal teams are "captured." They won't burn the company down, the under-performing individual is not likely to do anything to warrant actually being moved/fired, and so, the status quo remains...and spreads. And then we wonder why large companies simply cannot innovate or execute on broader change initiatives?

Zeebrommer 5y ago
Makes me think of the Peter principle. Pretty depressing conclusion though: a large company is bound to be an environment with many distractions by underperformers. Any way out?
- bar_de 5y ago
  Found your own company, be successful and start experiencing the same growth decline pattern. Maybe it's a cycle to stop expanding human groups in excess?
  - rewgs 5y ago
    It's just entropy, honestly. Growth = complexity/debt/escalating coordination cost. Success = complacency/greed. Like a cancer, the fruits of growth and success eventually burn the house down. It's just the way of things, apparently. I try hard to not worry about it too much and instead side-step it as best I can.

jf22 5y ago

I can totally relate with this article. Peers have not delivered and disappointed me this past year. When even a hint of my disappointment leaks out it's immediately met with suggestions for more relationship building or communications process changes. No, just no, people didn't do what they said you were going to do. I have genuine affection for some of these people. Somehow "I love you, but you didn't execute" is perceived as hostile and heated. I also agree with the the authors sentiment about how to fix and I've also learned it's better to steer peers towards constructive ends in a positive way, than confront or express displeasure about performance.

ilaksh 5y ago

This is one of the reasons I am glad I don't have a family to support and can work for myself. For me that tends to result in not having a lot of money, but it also means there is usually no one to hold a project back other than myself. Except the clients themselves sometimes. But overall much less stress with smaller projects on my own. If I had other people to support then I would probably be dealing with whatever job I could keep that really paid the bills, regardless of what idiot peers or bosses I had to deal with.

PaulHoule 5y ago

It might be another century before society as a whole is ready to confront "toxic conscientiousness". For now it is addressed at a last resort through acqui-hires, the bankruptcy court, etc.

gwbas1c 5y ago

I've had a few situations treated as "interpersonal conflict." It's always happened right before a lousy manager was pushed out / fired. In hindsight, IMO a way to handle this situation is to have a 1-1 with the underperformer, and clearly explain your expectations. Bring notes. Don't be afraid to "explain common sense." You might need to have repeat meetings every 2-3 weeks. Give periodic summaries to your supervisor, occasional summaries to your +1. Reiterate that this isn't an interpersonal conflict situation, but that the other person truly isn't doing their part of the job. If you're generally happy with your job, wait out the situation. Otherwise, this might be the que that it's time to seek greener pastures. Furthermore: When someone isn't pulling their weight, it will show with other people. Feel out your other teammates to see what they think of the other person. If they aren't happy, make sure that they express that to their manager and +1. Remember: All companies make bad hires from time-to-time; and good management is hard. It's okay to tolerate a few management mistakes when, overall you're happy with your job.

pas 5y ago
is there any article/book/blog about this +1 system?
- gwbas1c 5y ago
  The +1 is the boss's boss
- gwbas1c 5y ago
  2'nd reply: That's a good idea, maybe I'll blog about it someday. Although it's not exactly what you're looking for, "The E-Myth Revisited" might help you understand some of the thinking that's needed for dealing with underperformers: https://www.amazon.com/Myth-Revisited-Small-Businesses-About-ebook/dp/B000RO9VJK/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1648772284&sr=8-1 https://www.amazon.com/Myth-Revisited-Small-Businesses-About... The book is targeted to someone running a small business that needs to hire in order to grow. Think of a restaurant, RV rental business, flower shop. The mantra is to write down how you do everything, and then train everyone. If "how you do your job" changes, then you need to update the process and re-train everyone. This is what I meant by "clearly explain your expectations" and "Don't be afraid to 'explain common sense.'" You're giving the underperformer a chance to improve, working on your "interpersonal conflict" issues, and building a set of objectives expectations that can be used to measure performance. (In my case, the underperformer quit the day after I explained all of my expectations; and the replacement that was hired was AWESOME.)

ck425 5y ago

This part stuck out me: "It’s a truism that you always want to hire folks with very high standards, but I’ve seen a staggering number of folks fail in an organization primarily because they want to hold others to a higher standard than their organization’s management is willing to enforce" Throughout the article the author talks about underperformers but whose standards are they underperforming by? The company/management's or the authors? If the "underperformers" are in fact performing adequately by management's standards, just not by the author's then it is in fact a relationship problem because it's the author forcing their view of performance on others. If they want to have higher standards for themselves fair enough, but other people didn't sign up or agree to those standards. You can encourage them to do so but it's completely unreasonable to expect them to meet your standards (rather than the companies) and then complain to their manager when they don't. I'm not saying this is the case in all of these situations. But author openly states they're a workaholic who has higher standards for those around them than the organization does. And that's very much a problem of their own creation, not a problem caused by those around them.

mjmahone17 5y ago
I read it more as there being a mismatch in promises: the managers promised that their teams are held to high standards, and promised that they expect high competence from their reports. If going in you believe your definition of high competence is aligned with your managers’, and then discover your manager actually meant “destroys more value than they create” as “highly competent”, I think it’s reasonable to place the blame for the misunderstanding with the manager. It’s true this isn’t necessarily the value-destroying person’s fault, but it is the fault of the manager in avoiding dealing with the fact that they have a report who hurts their team. However as the article points out, once you realize this dynamic you can use your energy to work around the problem rather than spend effort that goes to /dev/null.

rattray 5y ago

Hello This is a great post; it hit home and I expect it'll come to mind many times in the future for me. It highlights an interesting problem very well. Will, if you’re listening, there are two follow-up posts that I’d love to see – how (and how long) to execute the “be positive and generate excitement” strategy as the main character, and how this problem can affect companies and what leaders should do about it. My experience is that if the EM tried to draft a better product roadmap than the PM had made, it would dramatically worsen the relationship (for example). Being "extra positive" while "leading by example" can come across as being a fake, competitive show-off who doesn't know how to lead by uplifting (especially for someone who is more talented than some of their peers). Not saying the advice is bad necessarily, just that it can be really hard to do well (or that perhaps I don't understand it), and I'd like more advice on the execution. Even still, if one did this really well, it would mean good things for the main character's career at the company - no question. Stay positive, stay in your lane, do the best you can with the people around you, don't rock the boat, be inspirational - there's no question that'll help you thrive within a company (based on my observations, but counter to the intuition of a young programmer). However, sometimes this goes from a few isolated problems to a growing culture of mediocrity that punishes pursuit of excellence, and it can be harmful for talented people to stay in those environments for long, as it saps them of their passion for quality that is both hugely valuable in the right context and drives meaning and purpose in their life’s work. How long should the main character stay in a context where good ideas lose out to bad ideas, and mediocrity rules? Of course, allowing mediocrity to flourish is probably very bad for a company, especially when it pushes the best people down (and ultimately out). This post didn’t touch on how (and why) leaders should handle the avoidant managers in question, and I’d love to see one that does – getting the very best out of one's organization is one of the most important jobs of a leader. Needless to say, I'd love pointers to extant pieces that address these questions!

pas 5y ago
> the EM tried to draft a better product roadmap than the PM had made, it would dramatically worsen the relationship (for example). Absolutely. But "to lead by example" the EM could ask the PM to sit down and improve the existing one until it's acceptable for the team (or for the EM). But let's look at the exact scenario that the blog post mentions: > Both are pushed to “collaborate better” but the team’s impact remains poor How are they measuring team impact? Why is it important? Again, leading by example, if impact is important for the EM, then they should find a job where they have that. Our world is changing fast, most people have a status quo bias, tech sector are even crazier, putting all of that together it's no surprise that almost everybody in tech is not exactly where they would like to be. Dealing with this discrepancy is hard (and even that's quite the understatement), but the only true ways are internal change (acceptance, eg. changing with the environment) or taking action. (See also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acceptance_and_commitment_therapy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acceptance_and_commitment_ther...) > can come across as being a fake It's very important to find the environment where you can be authentic. Including being a beginner, doing something that you're not 100% sure of. (IT/tech is again an extreme outlier in this regard, because it's full of people with self-esteem & confidence issues. Needless to say these issues can manifest in different ways, and both kinds are of course bad: impostor syndrome and the arrogant know-it-all.) > How long should the main character stay in a context where good ideas lose out to bad ideas, and mediocrity rules? It depends. If the main character finds passion outside work (let's say side business, family, whatever) and can just treat work like a means to many ends, then it doesn't really matter. If they cannot, because they want their work to be meaningful, impactful, they want to have professional pride in their work, etc... then they usually need to move :)

camgunz 5y ago

Something feels odd about this article, like the examples don't really make the point or the framing is off or something. I guess I would try and rephrase as "you want to work way X and your manager wants you to work way Y." I think you have three basic options: say yes, say yes with reservations, say no and quit/get a different manager. There are all kinds of culs-de sac this odd formulation leads us down: who's right, is this a subjective relationship problem or an objective performance/personality problem, etc. I guess I would add that, if you're a manager and something like this happens to your team members, try and take care of everyone? There isn't always a solution that does that, but the article outright says only the team member pushing for higher performance should lump it. It feels better to make everyone lump it equally haha.