4 ms·
My experience is that the higher you go, the less rules and objectivity exists. You get paid more because you have to navigate this. An e.g. Developer just has
by lbriner 4y ago
My experience is that the higher you go, the less rules and objectivity exists. You get paid more because you have to navigate this. An e.g. Developer just has to work on the backlog, there might be technical challenges but the requirement is obvious.
Once you get to Exec level, do we hire more to produce more work? Close a department because it's losing money now (but might not in the future)? Do we stick with our current market that we have most of or go after a new one that is untapped but less familiar.
All of this with the situation/world/people changing all the time. People can call it a shit show but the truth is that it's hard. It's hard to put relative values on things to help make decisions. Ultimately, it usually takes a step of faith and the ability to execute well to increase your chances of making your decision work. You also need to balance the need to stick with something and make it work with accepting it was a bad idea and canning it.
I suspect in the very large corporations, it probably gets very surreal because 10 levels of management make the execs completely disconnected from reality so they can make it look like they are making decisions without really knowing what is going on (and most of those might never happen because they take too long to fall down the soil pipe!).
- matwood 4y agoComputers are easy compared to people.
- P5fRxh5kUvp2th 4y agoSome companies are clearly run better than others, this is mostly apologist nonsense. What really goes on is that the goals of executives is different from that of people who actually do things, and paradoxically, the ones who actually do things tend to be valued the least.
- ROTMetro 4y agoBut that is a failure of middle management. Middle management's main job is to get the ones who actually do things the tools they need. That includes roadmaps that make sense, etc. That also includes showing upper management the value of the opinions of the ones who actually do things. Upper management is not the advocate for opinions, they are the decision makers who base decisions on what they have been fed. Middle managers are the advocates for the opinions of their people.
- P5fRxh5kUvp2th 4y agoEven if you assume that's true, whose job is it to ensure "middle management" is doing the right thing?
- mateo411 4y agoUpper Management
- guitarbill 4y ago> An e.g. Developer just has to work on the backlog, there might be technical challenges but the requirement is obvious. Ha, if only this were true.
- __derek__ 4y agoIronically, TFA highlights this as a common anti-pattern: > Don’t stop the deep-dives. Sometimes executives get confused (or are too afraid) to step on toes and so avoid getting into the weeds. It’s seen as a waste of time or somehow not practical to spend the exec team’s time discussion “lower level” things. But where there are critical initiatives (see John’s point about points of leverage) I think you should get into as much detail as you can. The more execs gloss over details (e.g., technical challenges, requirements), the less valuable (maybe even more dangerous) their plans become.