5 ms·
IME the gap in management between ICs is accountability. It's easy to say you are sorry, or say things won't happen again but good management, and what I strive
by selecsosi 1y ago
IME the gap in management between ICs is accountability. It's easy to say you are sorry, or say things won't happen again but good management, and what I strive to do is hold myself accountable.
To me, that means
1. To identify the issue that occurred (especially when you caused it), and much more importantly, 2. Put systems into place that prevent it from happening again.
Employees can feel very clearly when a manager lacks accountability and as part of mid and especially high level management (if your goal is actually improving both output and quality of people's lives) to not just say you did something wrong, but actually put your skin in the game ensuring what happened will not happen again (usually it means being better at saying no or aggressively managing prioritization rather than heaping additional tasks on people).
- datadrivenangel 1y agoGood systems thinking combined with an actual desire/incentive to continuously improve is a combo that results in good management.
- MrDarcy 1y agoAlso why neurodiverse people often make exceptional managers. The neurology often results in good systems thinking. The diversity results in lifelong disciplined improvement of social interactions.
- bluGill 1y agoMostly I agree with 2, but be careful not to get so many systems that nothing can get done anymore. Finding that balance is hard.
- n4r9 1y agoThat, and be careful to avoid a "box-ticking" culture where people rely on systems over independent thought. Also a hard balance.
- euroderf 1y agoMere "box-ticking" in the form of checklists have been shown to greatly cut deaths in clinical/hospital settings. This may or may not apply to your systems.
- ducttapecrown 1y agoDoctors would implement self-healing and abolish checklists if they could! Be glad if you don't need a checklist.
- bluGill 1y agoThe right boxes to check are good. However you have to be careful. A doctor who spends 15 minutes checking boxes before treating a heart attack just killed someone... That doesn't mean the doctor cannot check boxes, just that they need to be break early to treat things. (even here checkboxes will be good - there are things with the same symptoms as a heart attack where heart attack treatment is the worst thing possible - those have a high death rate because they are so rare doctors don't check for them until too late to treat correctly)
- trip-zip 1y agoSame with pilots. Checklists are the only reason I ever feel safe to takeoff
- thunfischbrot 1y agoAccording to Atul Gawande that‘s not strictly true as stated. It‘s not the box-ticking itself, it‘s several factors including the decisions about what the list should contain and adjusting the dynamics of the operating team to actually see results.
- moonlet 1y agoThe thing that makes someone trustworthy is taking accountability for your own self and actions, but having boundaries such that you don’t take accountability for the selves and actions of others. That’s basically all I want to see from a manager, a direct report, or a peer.
- brailsafe 1y ago> Put systems into place that prevent it from happening again In addition to what you said overall, I think bad managers can have all sorts of qualities, but imo the worst ones correct for mistakes to protect themselves or people's impressions of them, leaning highly neurotic, and can't deal with conflict well, so they put in arbitrary systems in order to indirectly deal with any one-off grievance or mistake. Bad managers won't evaluate or re-evaluate the systems they put in place because they put them there to protect their ego. "Surely this employee is underperforming because I don't like how they're performing and we have a system for that!" They struggle to adapt to their new job because to delegate sufficiently they need to be able to trust, and let that manifest as other people doing the tasks they might have once done without their hands in the pie directly. They might assume that part of the reason they got the job was because they're great communicators, and never consider that actually that it's just that nobody ever told them they have some growing to do.
- a3w 1y agoWill a manager that acknowledges his/her/their mistakes get promoted as frequently, as if when downplaying them?
- ducttapecrown 1y agoDepends on if the managers above them are accountable or not. Accountability is the opposite of corruption and both need to come from the top.
- biomcgary 1y agoTrue, in traditional corporate structures. I'm interested in how accountability flows in cooperative structures like Mondragon. (Accountability still flows down through those at the top, as far as I can tell, but there is an aspect of bottom up accountability too.)
- Loughla 1y agoMy experience is that managers who acknowledge their mistakes are worse at office politics, so they will reach their peak sooner and lower than those that do not admit fault. but that's anectdata, so grain of salt and all.
- selecsosi 1y agoIt hasn't unlocked a magical promotion track for me, but it has engendered support and respect from my teams that has allowed us to produce delivery exceeding what we thought we could because there was true buy in from the business around the definition of exceptional circumstances. I'm not personally engineering my career in leadership around moving up, but building teams of people that can do exceptional things tends to be the driving factor that allows me to continue up the track.
- zahrc 1y agoThere is unfortunately no formula for it, apart from, play the game that senior management wants to be played. I’d say, stick to your guns and find a job that supports your morales, not the other way around.
- 1y ago
- bsoles 1y ago> Put systems into place that prevent it from happening again. Also called wishful thinking... Often such measures do definitely not work. There is even an internet law named for this: "When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure".
- selecsosi 1y agoThis is why you have to have skin in the game, and a backbone to say no to executives when it compromises delivery if there isn't escalated mediation. Said another way, I don't say no a lot, I put prioritization up front and tell them that we are sacrificing other deliver items. That is a decision that an exec can work with, mediate between teams, and builds mutual respect for senior leadership as you don't break promises you've already made, unless there is mutual agreement from the business.
- novok 1y agoPutting systems in place is organizational scar tissue. Be very, very careful with scar tissue.
- aswanson 1y agoA chief source of management missteps I've seen is not talking to people and just making consequential decisions because they think a jira board gives them insight.