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This seems like the sort of communication style that would immediately have me label someone as a liability. It presents the communication as if it's saving so
by ysavir 2y ago
This seems like the sort of communication style that would immediately have me label someone as a liability.
It presents the communication as if it's saving someone time. In practice, it's a communication style that tells the manager that they need to always keep on top of whatever the employee is doing or else that employee might be taking unwanted action(s). The article treats it as a notification, but even with the best intentions and the best understandings, notifications have a habit of getting lost in a noise of signals. A lack of response does not indicate consent. It could, but it could also very well indicate that the message hasn't been received.
It might be fine if the problem was something the employee and manager previously talked about and this is simply moving forward with a solution, but it's a terrible way to introduce a problem that the other party hasn't even considered. It's a selfish take, and the antithesis of teamwork.
Feels like the sort of thing someone might have seen one of the mythical 10x, Rockstar engineers do. The sort of engineer that's always on top of their game, churning out feature after feature, knows what to do, and has enough respect from and mutual understanding with management that they're given the leeway to self-manage. And the someone, seeing this, decided that the same can apply to themselves, without understanding why that rockstar engineer gets that treatment, or how to go about earning it for themselves in the firstplace.
- bentt 2y agoAs with everything it's about the relationship. If you do this 3 times in a row and receive "stop, please don't" then obviously you're off in some regard. If you do it 3 times in a row and get praise, then keep going. The liability person is someone that is told no, then figures out how to do most of it anyway. Then looks for a yes. Then the next task same thing. No responsiveness to feedback. So, it's really not about the method described as much as the working relationship. It seems like a fine thing to try in a high-trust environment where people are busy.
- mooreds 2y agoThat's a great point. There needs to be trust between the person doing this and the boss. That trust is earned. You also need to pick the right scope of problems--not too big. If you are one month into a new job and use this technique, but the problem you are trying to solve is deep rooted and you don't understand it, you'll burn effort and credibility. It also makes sense to respond to feedback from your manager, as you suggest above. Some managers may hate this (see other comments, including one that would fire anyone using this technique). In fact, you could even explicitly ask how a manager wants to weigh in on decisions that you feel are in your purview but that they might have feedback on. (Drawing out a manager's readme, as it were.)
- pigbearpig 2y agoAgree, if someone did this to me and I didn't know them, I would find it presumptuous and annoying. If I had worked with them and had trust and I knew they were doing it out of respect for my time, then that's a different story.