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How did it happen that the vast majority of “professional managers” don’t read anything about how to be good managers, and basically have no qualifications othe

How did it happen that the vast majority of “professional managers” don’t read anything about how to be good managers, and basically have no qualifications other than “well, somebody promoted me to management before, probably for political reasons, and I have this authoritative sounding voice..”

BlargMcLarg 3y ago
People, as a collective, fail to learn from research or history and like to use their authority and charisma as a stand-in for logic and proof. It isn't just the managers doing this. Anyone who isn't in a position of authority but has knowledge of the state-of-the-art, research on it, etc. can tell when someone in that position is pushing their ideals over actually having done research or doing logic beyond a bunch of unquantifiable 'what if' arguments. It takes 5 minutes of online research to dismantle their arguments. But it still happens regardless, even in CS and SD where myths are pushed as absolute truths.
- TheOtherHobbes 3y ago
  Most corporate hierarchies exist to create status and power, not to enhance effectiveness and productivity. "My team always give 110%" is better than "I treat my people like adults with lives of their own", even if it gets much poorer results.
- ChrisMarshallNY 3y ago
  > where myths are pushed as absolute truths. My favorite myth is the one that I hear surprisingly often, from educated and intelligent people. I hear it, because I ask them why they bias for only young people; even in senior management, architectural, and mentoring roles. They explain that young folks can do the impossible, because they haven't been told that it's impossible. It's a really compelling myth, reinforced by founders of successful unicorns, sharing it as their "secret sauce," as opposed to obsessive work, intelligence, and an enormous dollop of good luck and timing. I call it the "Don't Look Down" Fallacy. When Wile E. Coyote runs off the edge of a cliff, he stays up, until he looks down. If you don't allow anyone into the team that yells "Look down!", then you can fly.
  - ethanbond 3y ago
    Eh, I think you’re reading into it too much. The reality is that organizations accrue a set of both tested and untested beliefs. A lot of untested beliefs (i.e. someone told me X will turn out badly so I will just avoid doing X) are useful heuristics to avoid relearning expensive lessons, but some untested beliefs are just wrong. Circumstances have changed or they were never right in the first place and need to be tested again. New people (and especially young people, but not necessarily) are good at doing that — sometimes deliberately and sometimes by accident.
    - ChrisMarshallNY 3y ago
      > but some untested beliefs are just wrong. Absolutely. I didn't mention people that tell you to stay away from the edge. In many cases, timidity (often a reaction to past trauma) can be debilitating. I remember when I was interviewing at startups, and Every. Single. One. -Every one, described themselves as "unicorns." The harsh reality is that, for every unicorn, prancing around the tech industry, there's a charnel pit, filled with the corpses of 10,000 goats and jackasses, with horns glued to their foreheads. Not all timidity is bad, and, sometimes, ignoring warnings can be quite fatal.
sokoloff 3y ago
Probably the same reasons that the vast majority of software engineers don’t read anything about how to be good engineers, the majority of welders don’t read anything about welding, the majority of baristas don’t read anything about coffee making, and the majority of people working in fields with continuing education requirements hit the legal minimum on the nose. Plenty of people will learn only that which they perceive to be required and no more. People managers don’t seem to be an outlier here.
FactoryReboot 3y ago
I’m an engineering manager. I enjoy reading about how to be a better manager. I’d probably still agree with your statement though. They also definitely don’t teach us how to manage.
public_defender 3y ago
My take on this is that nobody sees themself as being responsible for developing or cultivating a "manager" as such. Company culture is usually something like "we build widgets, not managers. Let's focus on making everyone the best widget builder possible." Take my field as an example. The executive public defender absolutely does manage managers: her direct reports are supervising attorneys or bureau chiefs or whatever. But she sees her job as managing public defenders. For that reason, training for public defender managers is usually legal training and subject-matter-specific leadership training. For example, we get a lot of training time on how to support lawyers through burnout. It is almost unheard of that we would get training on abstract or generalist management practices. Executives see it as off-mission and managers think it's a waste of time. This problem is exacerbated by being a correct strategy at a certain (small) organizational scale, but the paradigm falls out of alignment as the organization grows. It's hard to build an intentional culture of management in an already-existing organization.

BlargMcLarg 3y ago

People, as a collective, fail to learn from research or history and like to use their authority and charisma as a stand-in for logic and proof. It isn't just the managers doing this. Anyone who isn't in a position of authority but has knowledge of the state-of-the-art, research on it, etc. can tell when someone in that position is pushing their ideals over actually having done research or doing logic beyond a bunch of unquantifiable 'what if' arguments. It takes 5 minutes of online research to dismantle their arguments. But it still happens regardless, even in CS and SD where myths are pushed as absolute truths.

TheOtherHobbes 3y ago
Most corporate hierarchies exist to create status and power, not to enhance effectiveness and productivity. "My team always give 110%" is better than "I treat my people like adults with lives of their own", even if it gets much poorer results.
ChrisMarshallNY 3y ago
> where myths are pushed as absolute truths. My favorite myth is the one that I hear surprisingly often, from educated and intelligent people. I hear it, because I ask them why they bias for only young people; even in senior management, architectural, and mentoring roles. They explain that young folks can do the impossible, because they haven't been told that it's impossible. It's a really compelling myth, reinforced by founders of successful unicorns, sharing it as their "secret sauce," as opposed to obsessive work, intelligence, and an enormous dollop of good luck and timing. I call it the "Don't Look Down" Fallacy. When Wile E. Coyote runs off the edge of a cliff, he stays up, until he looks down. If you don't allow anyone into the team that yells "Look down!", then you can fly.
- ethanbond 3y ago
  Eh, I think you’re reading into it too much. The reality is that organizations accrue a set of both tested and untested beliefs. A lot of untested beliefs (i.e. someone told me X will turn out badly so I will just avoid doing X) are useful heuristics to avoid relearning expensive lessons, but some untested beliefs are just wrong. Circumstances have changed or they were never right in the first place and need to be tested again. New people (and especially young people, but not necessarily) are good at doing that — sometimes deliberately and sometimes by accident.
  - ChrisMarshallNY 3y ago
    > but some untested beliefs are just wrong. Absolutely. I didn't mention people that tell you to stay away from the edge. In many cases, timidity (often a reaction to past trauma) can be debilitating. I remember when I was interviewing at startups, and Every. Single. One. -Every one, described themselves as "unicorns." The harsh reality is that, for every unicorn, prancing around the tech industry, there's a charnel pit, filled with the corpses of 10,000 goats and jackasses, with horns glued to their foreheads. Not all timidity is bad, and, sometimes, ignoring warnings can be quite fatal.

sokoloff 3y ago

Probably the same reasons that the vast majority of software engineers don’t read anything about how to be good engineers, the majority of welders don’t read anything about welding, the majority of baristas don’t read anything about coffee making, and the majority of people working in fields with continuing education requirements hit the legal minimum on the nose. Plenty of people will learn only that which they perceive to be required and no more. People managers don’t seem to be an outlier here.

FactoryReboot 3y ago

I’m an engineering manager. I enjoy reading about how to be a better manager. I’d probably still agree with your statement though. They also definitely don’t teach us how to manage.

public_defender 3y ago

My take on this is that nobody sees themself as being responsible for developing or cultivating a "manager" as such. Company culture is usually something like "we build widgets, not managers. Let's focus on making everyone the best widget builder possible." Take my field as an example. The executive public defender absolutely does manage managers: her direct reports are supervising attorneys or bureau chiefs or whatever. But she sees her job as managing public defenders. For that reason, training for public defender managers is usually legal training and subject-matter-specific leadership training. For example, we get a lot of training time on how to support lawyers through burnout. It is almost unheard of that we would get training on abstract or generalist management practices. Executives see it as off-mission and managers think it's a waste of time. This problem is exacerbated by being a correct strategy at a certain (small) organizational scale, but the paradigm falls out of alignment as the organization grows. It's hard to build an intentional culture of management in an already-existing organization.