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> Business and management work is... not nearly as complex. But the people doing that work have the same highly complex brains as you do. They can handle the sa
by PragmaticPulp 4y ago
> Business and management work is... not nearly as complex. But the people doing that work have the same highly complex brains as you do. They can handle the same deep complexity as you. So with all this extra mental space, they add layers and layers of complexity to seemingly simple business processes. This complexity builds the moat protecting their turf from others. It creates the irreplaceability that you get for free.
This is one of those fictions that engineers love to believe about management because it imbues a sense of superiority. Who doesn't like feeling like their job is better or more important than others'?
Having been an IC, middle manager, upper manager, and back to IC a few times, I can tell you this is a false notion. Business and management are different problems, but they're not necessarily "easier". As an engineer-minded person by nature, I honestly found the technical problems easier to handle than a lot of the management problems I had to deal with. Managing a computer program is generally easier than managing people. People are hard.
- topkai22 4y agoThere is “complex” and there is “hard” and they aren’t necessarily the same thing. A good strategy is rarely complex and often very straightforward, but consistently executing to it is hard. A technical problem may be complex, but it might be easy to actually implement against and especially easy to make sure it stays implemented. Many management and business problems fall into the “straightforward to understand but hard” category. The apparent “unnecessary”complexity around these problems is sometimes self important fluff, by far, far more often it represents individual or organizational learning about what is actually necessary to solve these “simple, but hard” problems.
- dougmwne 4y agoI agree that people are hard, but they are hard specifically because of what I said, they need to protect their turf and conquer new turf. Management problems are difficult because of politics, and at the root of politics is self and tribe interest. Having management meetings be a bit impenetrable is a symptom of politics.
- edmundsauto 4y agoI disagree and think you have a cynical take. The root of politics is resource distribution. Because this is complex, humans do a job that is a mix of self-interest, Compromise, and (hopefully) some vision. When it works, we don’t even see it. When it fails, we do what our brains love to do: over extrapolate incidents to patterns and lock it into our confirmation bias.
- dougmwne 4y agoGiven the current state of the governance of the US, maybe you can forgive some cynicism.
- octokatt 4y agoThe trick is that not all of the complexity is protective politics -- some of the complexity is carefully created diplomatic language to keep together a coalition of cranky managers who managed to agree on _this very specific version of The Plan_. And unless you're savvy, it's difficult to tell which part is which, thus the problem OP is having.
- beckingz 4y agoComputers are hard, but do precisely what they are instructed to do even (unless actually defective). Correctly translating what you want to instructions the computer understands is hard and complex. Humans are hard, and cannot be forced to do anything no matter the instructions. Individuals may be coerced or motivated or bargained with in specific ways. Correctly translating what you want to instructions the human understands is also hard and complex.
- Tabular-Iceberg 4y agoThe real answer is probably somewhere in the middle. Using ubiquitous language from DDD would be a godsend to bridge the gap of understanding between tech and business, but every single time I’ve pitched it to the business side they have absolutely balked, which makes me suspicious of their motives.