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I have a genuine question about what to do when one finds oneself in this type of position and one is surrounded by people who seemingly do give a damn (and one

by dcow 4y ago

I have a genuine question about what to do when one finds oneself in this type of position and one is surrounded by people who seemingly do give a damn (and one isn't compelled to just give up and leave). In my experience, the software industry, in it’s aggressive desire to be egalitarian, has an authority problem. I have encountered the “I told you so one year ago but we just had to learn the hard way didn't we” situation more times than it seems efficient. I am not unaware that I may be selectively remembering things and I’m not so prideful to ignore that I’ve also made calls that turn out to need adjusting down the road… but it baffles me why people put in positions of power and leadership are so often ignored almost on the whim of some well meaning but misguided other party. Certainly Carmack has the industry respect to be taken seriously. Why wasn’t he?

xyzelement 4y ago
I want to write about this topic in more depth, but in a nutshell I found that the more innovative and valuable your idea is, the harder it is to sell (because it's very value comes from the fact that it's a distance from bow people are thinking today) People are busy and attention is scarce so knowing how to genuinely push and sell your idea in such environments is a rare ability and one that needs curation. You'll find that people who rise are ones who can do this.
- SoftTalker 4y ago
  You also have to be ruthless as required and not take no for an answer. Sometimes you have to run people over and leave the bodies in the ditch to get stuff done.
  - JW_00000 4y ago
    And two years later, your idea fails and your boss says: > A good fraction of the things I complain about eventually turn my way after a year or two passes and evidence piles up, but I have never been able to kill stupid things before they cause damage, or set a direction and have a team actually stick to it. So serious point: if everyone is ruthless and tries to push their own ideas through, how can a manager know who is right and which direction to follow?
- doctor_eval 4y ago
  It doesn’t even have to be innovative in a global sense. Just making suggestions that are outside the experience of the people you need to convince can become futile. Egotistical people with power are more than happy to ignore maths and rationality. I don’t know why. It never works out for them and it brings everyone else down. It’s very frustrating.
johnnyanmac 4y ago
If you want the boring answer: Money and clout. The slightly less boring answer: some people don't necessarily have the audience's best interests at heart. Sometimes not even the company's best interests. To use a slightly less heinous example than some of the obviously malicious backstabbing: maybe you do know that Idea B is more efficient, but Idea A was yours, and it looks great on a resume to say that you achitected Idea A, that is being used in production (even if it made the company less money and the product worse off). You're gonna leave the company in 3 years anyway, so why care about some efficiency? Why even care if 6 years down the line someone else comes in and cleans up the code and ends up using Idea B in the end? You got your value out of it. Slghtly less boring answer 2: people aren't perfect. And attach to the smallest fixations. So they fight not because the idea is bad but because their goal is to spite that particular person. You just need to be more discrete about it than back in grade school. This example was a person, but it can be extended to a group, a company, even an idealogy as a whole. Be it in zealous defense or in spite of, it has a similar effect on productivity.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
dpkirchner 4y ago
> Certainly Carmack has the industry respect to be taken seriously. Why wasn’t he? I wonder if his schedule played some part. He worked there for one day a week. I could see it being really difficult to understand his vision if you have to wait 7 days to ask a follow-up*, for example. And it's gotta be close to impossible to move the needle on existing culture if you're barely around. * and while you wait there are plenty of other people around to ask instead
- lazilyloaded 4y ago
  He only moved into the part-time role in the past few years. Before then he was the legit CTO of the company.

by dcow 4y ago

xyzelement 4y ago

I want to write about this topic in more depth, but in a nutshell I found that the more innovative and valuable your idea is, the harder it is to sell (because it's very value comes from the fact that it's a distance from bow people are thinking today) People are busy and attention is scarce so knowing how to genuinely push and sell your idea in such environments is a rare ability and one that needs curation. You'll find that people who rise are ones who can do this.

SoftTalker 4y ago
You also have to be ruthless as required and not take no for an answer. Sometimes you have to run people over and leave the bodies in the ditch to get stuff done.
- JW_00000 4y ago
  And two years later, your idea fails and your boss says: > A good fraction of the things I complain about eventually turn my way after a year or two passes and evidence piles up, but I have never been able to kill stupid things before they cause damage, or set a direction and have a team actually stick to it. So serious point: if everyone is ruthless and tries to push their own ideas through, how can a manager know who is right and which direction to follow?
doctor_eval 4y ago
It doesn’t even have to be innovative in a global sense. Just making suggestions that are outside the experience of the people you need to convince can become futile. Egotistical people with power are more than happy to ignore maths and rationality. I don’t know why. It never works out for them and it brings everyone else down. It’s very frustrating.

johnnyanmac 4y ago

If you want the boring answer: Money and clout. The slightly less boring answer: some people don't necessarily have the audience's best interests at heart. Sometimes not even the company's best interests. To use a slightly less heinous example than some of the obviously malicious backstabbing: maybe you do know that Idea B is more efficient, but Idea A was yours, and it looks great on a resume to say that you achitected Idea A, that is being used in production (even if it made the company less money and the product worse off). You're gonna leave the company in 3 years anyway, so why care about some efficiency? Why even care if 6 years down the line someone else comes in and cleans up the code and ends up using Idea B in the end? You got your value out of it. Slghtly less boring answer 2: people aren't perfect. And attach to the smallest fixations. So they fight not because the idea is bad but because their goal is to spite that particular person. You just need to be more discrete about it than back in grade school. This example was a person, but it can be extended to a group, a company, even an idealogy as a whole. Be it in zealous defense or in spite of, it has a similar effect on productivity.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

dpkirchner 4y ago

> Certainly Carmack has the industry respect to be taken seriously. Why wasn’t he? I wonder if his schedule played some part. He worked there for one day a week. I could see it being really difficult to understand his vision if you have to wait 7 days to ask a follow-up*, for example. And it's gotta be close to impossible to move the needle on existing culture if you're barely around. * and while you wait there are plenty of other people around to ask instead

lazilyloaded 4y ago
He only moved into the part-time role in the past few years. Before then he was the legit CTO of the company.