4 ms·

Sure, totally agree that not all management is good management, but it does exist for a reason (and often that reason will always be unappreciated by those bein

by RC_ITR 4y ago

Sure, totally agree that not all management is good management, but it does exist for a reason (and often that reason will always be unappreciated by those being managed).

civilized 4y ago
The function of management exists for a reason, but the question is who should do it. Many knowledge workers are self-managing and the "oversight" provided by the managerial class is superfluous at best. In the past 6 years of my working career, a manager has meaningfully intervened in my work exactly once, and the outcome was weeks of time wasted. Manager-originated assignments have tended to be of inferior quality and impact to the ones I generate myself. I have not done a manager-assigned task for the company for 3 years, and I have not done a worthwhile management-assigned task for 6 years. My personal example is probably extreme, but what I bet is not extreme is the lack of accountability. There was never a time where my choices were recognized as superior to the managerial choices, no matter how many times this was proven true. Instead, managers seemingly just lost interest in assigning me work and let me figure it out myself, which frees me to be one of the objectively most productive people in the organization.
- SpeedilyDamage 4y ago
  > In the past 6 years of my working career, a manager has meaningfully intervened in my work exactly once, and the outcome was weeks of time wasted. 6 weeks of wasted work is much better than 12 weeks of wasted work. And how exactly did you know what work to do in the first place?
  - civilized 4y ago
    > 6 weeks of wasted work is much better than 12 weeks of wasted work If he had wasted 6 weeks less than would have otherwise been wasted, I would have given him credit for saving 6 weeks rather than blame for wasting 6 weeks, which is what actually happened. According to everyone involved, including reportedly the manager himself, though he wouldn't say it to my face. > And how exactly did you know what work to do in the first place? I'm a data scientist who helps people across the company with analytics. They make measurably better business decisions than they would have without me. Relationships, continuous service on existing products, and word of mouth generate more work. Basically I run my own analytics consultancy inside the company.
    - Spooky23 4y ago
      What manager or director decided to fund & hire a data scientist with a charter to function as an internal consultant? Or did you hire yourself or co-found the company? A lot of managers are paper pushers instead of leaders. Their usefulness varies depending on circumstances.
      - juhanima 4y ago
        Maybe no manager or director at all? Sometimes things happen in an organization in a self-organizing manner. Like people finding out who is able to help them with their problems and the word getting around. It is actually my experience that the organizations which are able to organically evolve like this are the most effective ones.
        civilized 4y ago
        Honestly, the best thing about my company is that the managers mostly don't get in the way of this organic process if the people involved have demonstrated they know what they're doing.
- ZephyrBlu 4y ago
  > Many knowledge workers are self-managing and the "oversight" provided by the managerial class is superfluous at best My manager tends to have a lot more context on my wider team and things in the pipeline than I do. You can only self-manage in the context you know.
- IMTDb 4y ago
  > Many knowledge workers are self-managing Based on my experience; many knowledge workers think they are self-managing because they are able to set objectives for themselves and reach those. But the lack on context means that those objectives are only loosely aligned with the direction of the underlying organisation as a whole. Often times, this is because the general direction of the organisation itself is hard to define and/or poorly understood. When that's the case, it can be tempting to look at very "dry" numbers to measure ones contribution (My piece of code generates XYZ dollar-amount, it's the highest of the company, so I must be one of the objectively most productive people in the organization). This is one way to contribute, but in those situation the most critical (and thus most productive/valuable) undertaking is to clarify the direction. This can be extremely hard to do, requires immense amount of work and often times the "right choice" is virtually impossible to define. Thus, the output of the people working on that absolutely essential task is blurry, at best. When it's done correctly tho, it yields impressive results. A clear direction is set, people somehow know and understand it and you can quite literally let them figure out their work for themselves and get that often surpass what you could have hoped to get if you were involved. And like many things, doing it harder than it looks. And when it's done very well, it seems easy and effortless.
  - civilized 4y ago
    I welcome Promethean geniuses of leadership to come and transform our company's direction. In the meantime, my work is self-managed.
  - Aeolun 4y ago
    > But the lack on context means that those objectives are only loosely aligned with the direction of the underlying organisation as a whole I feel like this is a failure of the organization, rather than of those managed. I’m perfectly capable of prioritizing things correctly if given proper context, but chances are very real that I’ll still pay more attention to what is important 5 years down the line, rather than what will make manager X look good this month.
    - laserlight 4y ago
- jjav 4y ago
  > The function of management exists for a reason, but the question is who should do it. Many knowledge workers are self-managing and the "oversight" provided by the managerial class is superfluous at best. I know it feels like you can be self-managing, but you can't (outside of a tiny startup). For a long time I felt that way. After all, I know the product code inside out better than anyone. I can see what needs to be done both short and long term. I can lay out the road to get there and execute on it very well. What else is needed? What's needed is alignment with all the other parts of the company. Marketing, sales, infosec, project management, executive wishes, etc. Who is doing that? Oh, I can do it. And I can. But by the time I'm done, I'm left with like 30 minutes a week to write code. So I can't actually do both full-time.
mumblemumble 4y ago
I think that some of the lessons from the book Essence of Decision might be relevant. A challenge I've seen in management-heavy organizations is that the many layers of management largely function to make good management impossible. The many layers of command between ICs and the source of many decisions means that the people responsible for relaying information up the chain of command are incentivized to put their own spin on information as they relay it, in part in order to help secure their own positions within the hierarchy. The other side of that coin is that the many layers of communication between senior decisionmakers and what's actually happening on the ground mean that the information they get is often of insufficient fidelity to support accurate decisionmaking.
naasking 4y ago
I suspect it exists because the person above them just wants one person to yell at and doesn't want to learn the names of everyone below them. The manager isn't a genius and the employees aren't morons. The business objectives could be explained to those employees and they could coordinate with each other to fulfill them without necessitating a conductor. Deep hierarchies are archaic holdovers from military organizational thinking.

by RC_ITR 4y ago

Sure, totally agree that not all management is good management, but it does exist for a reason (and often that reason will always be unappreciated by those being managed).

civilized 4y ago

The function of management exists for a reason, but the question is who should do it. Many knowledge workers are self-managing and the "oversight" provided by the managerial class is superfluous at best. In the past 6 years of my working career, a manager has meaningfully intervened in my work exactly once, and the outcome was weeks of time wasted. Manager-originated assignments have tended to be of inferior quality and impact to the ones I generate myself. I have not done a manager-assigned task for the company for 3 years, and I have not done a worthwhile management-assigned task for 6 years. My personal example is probably extreme, but what I bet is not extreme is the lack of accountability. There was never a time where my choices were recognized as superior to the managerial choices, no matter how many times this was proven true. Instead, managers seemingly just lost interest in assigning me work and let me figure it out myself, which frees me to be one of the objectively most productive people in the organization.

SpeedilyDamage 4y ago
> In the past 6 years of my working career, a manager has meaningfully intervened in my work exactly once, and the outcome was weeks of time wasted. 6 weeks of wasted work is much better than 12 weeks of wasted work. And how exactly did you know what work to do in the first place?
- civilized 4y ago
  > 6 weeks of wasted work is much better than 12 weeks of wasted work If he had wasted 6 weeks less than would have otherwise been wasted, I would have given him credit for saving 6 weeks rather than blame for wasting 6 weeks, which is what actually happened. According to everyone involved, including reportedly the manager himself, though he wouldn't say it to my face. > And how exactly did you know what work to do in the first place? I'm a data scientist who helps people across the company with analytics. They make measurably better business decisions than they would have without me. Relationships, continuous service on existing products, and word of mouth generate more work. Basically I run my own analytics consultancy inside the company.
  - Spooky23 4y ago
    What manager or director decided to fund & hire a data scientist with a charter to function as an internal consultant? Or did you hire yourself or co-found the company? A lot of managers are paper pushers instead of leaders. Their usefulness varies depending on circumstances.
    - juhanima 4y ago
      Maybe no manager or director at all? Sometimes things happen in an organization in a self-organizing manner. Like people finding out who is able to help them with their problems and the word getting around. It is actually my experience that the organizations which are able to organically evolve like this are the most effective ones.
      - civilized 4y ago
        Honestly, the best thing about my company is that the managers mostly don't get in the way of this organic process if the people involved have demonstrated they know what they're doing.
ZephyrBlu 4y ago
> Many knowledge workers are self-managing and the "oversight" provided by the managerial class is superfluous at best My manager tends to have a lot more context on my wider team and things in the pipeline than I do. You can only self-manage in the context you know.
IMTDb 4y ago
> Many knowledge workers are self-managing Based on my experience; many knowledge workers think they are self-managing because they are able to set objectives for themselves and reach those. But the lack on context means that those objectives are only loosely aligned with the direction of the underlying organisation as a whole. Often times, this is because the general direction of the organisation itself is hard to define and/or poorly understood. When that's the case, it can be tempting to look at very "dry" numbers to measure ones contribution (My piece of code generates XYZ dollar-amount, it's the highest of the company, so I must be one of the objectively most productive people in the organization). This is one way to contribute, but in those situation the most critical (and thus most productive/valuable) undertaking is to clarify the direction. This can be extremely hard to do, requires immense amount of work and often times the "right choice" is virtually impossible to define. Thus, the output of the people working on that absolutely essential task is blurry, at best. When it's done correctly tho, it yields impressive results. A clear direction is set, people somehow know and understand it and you can quite literally let them figure out their work for themselves and get that often surpass what you could have hoped to get if you were involved. And like many things, doing it harder than it looks. And when it's done very well, it seems easy and effortless.
- civilized 4y ago
  I welcome Promethean geniuses of leadership to come and transform our company's direction. In the meantime, my work is self-managed.
- Aeolun 4y ago
  > But the lack on context means that those objectives are only loosely aligned with the direction of the underlying organisation as a whole I feel like this is a failure of the organization, rather than of those managed. I’m perfectly capable of prioritizing things correctly if given proper context, but chances are very real that I’ll still pay more attention to what is important 5 years down the line, rather than what will make manager X look good this month.
  - laserlight 4y ago
jjav 4y ago
> The function of management exists for a reason, but the question is who should do it. Many knowledge workers are self-managing and the "oversight" provided by the managerial class is superfluous at best. I know it feels like you can be self-managing, but you can't (outside of a tiny startup). For a long time I felt that way. After all, I know the product code inside out better than anyone. I can see what needs to be done both short and long term. I can lay out the road to get there and execute on it very well. What else is needed? What's needed is alignment with all the other parts of the company. Marketing, sales, infosec, project management, executive wishes, etc. Who is doing that? Oh, I can do it. And I can. But by the time I'm done, I'm left with like 30 minutes a week to write code. So I can't actually do both full-time.

mumblemumble 4y ago

I think that some of the lessons from the book Essence of Decision might be relevant. A challenge I've seen in management-heavy organizations is that the many layers of management largely function to make good management impossible. The many layers of command between ICs and the source of many decisions means that the people responsible for relaying information up the chain of command are incentivized to put their own spin on information as they relay it, in part in order to help secure their own positions within the hierarchy. The other side of that coin is that the many layers of communication between senior decisionmakers and what's actually happening on the ground mean that the information they get is often of insufficient fidelity to support accurate decisionmaking.

naasking 4y ago

I suspect it exists because the person above them just wants one person to yell at and doesn't want to learn the names of everyone below them. The manager isn't a genius and the employees aren't morons. The business objectives could be explained to those employees and they could coordinate with each other to fulfill them without necessitating a conductor. Deep hierarchies are archaic holdovers from military organizational thinking.