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How about approaching managers in the same way we always like companies to approach developers, i.e., hire good ones and empower them do their job in the best w

How about approaching managers in the same way we always like companies to approach developers, i.e., hire good ones and empower them do their job in the best way they know how? Using a system that is enforced from the top down is a perfect way to guarantee you'll only get the kind of below mediocre managers we love to bitch about. All of these systems are based on the assumption that companies can't trust the people they hire to delegate responsibility to. They're basically methods of maintaining a toxic environment instead of dealing with the root causes. And it's a self-fulfilling prophecy, because it attracts the wrong people. What good manager you ever worked for would want to function in that kind of a system?

Metrop0218 13y ago
You need something more quantifiable than that when you're running a giant organization... Your approach would absolutely work in a startup of 20 people or less, but try that in the 10,000+ man Operating Systems Division at Microsoft and you'll run into some crazy logistics problems.
- JoeAltmaier 13y ago
  hiring/firing/raises can be done in small groups by their managers. What's crazy about that?
  - hyperpape 13y ago
    Managers squabble over the best developers. They fight to transfer their worst developers to each other, and don't let talented developers go work on other projects that interest them. Every group gets the same number of raises, regardless of their performance, or effective developers in poor groups get nothing. Stack ranking sounds like a shitty system, without a doubt. But I don't think you can have a well grounded opinion until you think about the issues it's trying to address.
    - humanrebar 13y ago
      Let managers release under-performing developers to "the bench", where they can be picked up by teams that need some new blood. People on the bench are cheaper to "hire" than people from outside, so managers have an incentive to prefer picking them up. Managers don't "let" developers do anything. They have to actually have leadership skills (or enough budget) to keep their good engineers around by choice. Effective developers on poor teams find more attractive offers. Sometimes this will involve bonuses or raises. Sometimes this will involve more influence over product direction. Obviously some sort of ground rules are needed (significant others on different teams, no kickbacks).
    - yuhong 13y ago
      I think this kind of problem is what open allocation is supposed to solve.
jellicle 13y ago
Managers have a bias to like and want to keep "their" employees, because they know them, because they are friends with them. Even if Steve is objectively a poor performer, you know him; you met his wife; you saw pictures of his kids. He's a nice guy. If you fire him, you either don't get a replacement (bad) or you have to interview 20 people to find a replacement (also bad). It's hard to hire - what if you choose poorly the first time and have to do it yet again? Easier to keep Steve. Corporate problem: figure out a way to get rid of some of the Steves without making life too difficult for everyone else. Go!
- bowlofpetunias 13y ago
  You've just described not one, but two bad managers. Steve's manager, who doesn't have what it takes to make the hard decisions and is to lazy to do job interviews, and the manager of Steve's manager, who won't let him get a replacement if he fires Steve, but is perfectly willing to keep paying for Steve. Now you can defend Steve's manager because he's nice to Steve, but if I had a dime for every employee who's pissed at their manager for not ditching the underperformer that's dragging the team down I would be rich. Steve's manager is a textbook Bad Manager(TM). Now most of us agree that no amount of process and system can compensate for bad software developers, and that although process can help, everything stands or falls with the quality of the developers. Why don't we apply the same logic to management? Or do we simply assume manager == incompetent?
  - noir_lord 13y ago
    but if I had a dime for every employee who's pissed at their manager for not ditching the underperformer that's dragging the team down I would be rich. I've worked places where every person would swear a different person was that person. This stuff is hard, We've had corporations in the modern form for nearly a 100 years and we still havent reached a general solution which implies either everyone is an idiot or this is just a messy problem :).
    - jacques_chester 13y ago
      Slackers, psychopaths etc are analogically parasites and predators. Billions of years of biological evolution and thousands of years of social evolution have not found a stable solution to this problem. I think we need to chalk this up as a Red Queen problem and stop wishing for the One True Solution.

Metrop0218 13y ago

You need something more quantifiable than that when you're running a giant organization... Your approach would absolutely work in a startup of 20 people or less, but try that in the 10,000+ man Operating Systems Division at Microsoft and you'll run into some crazy logistics problems.

JoeAltmaier 13y ago
hiring/firing/raises can be done in small groups by their managers. What's crazy about that?
- hyperpape 13y ago
  Managers squabble over the best developers. They fight to transfer their worst developers to each other, and don't let talented developers go work on other projects that interest them. Every group gets the same number of raises, regardless of their performance, or effective developers in poor groups get nothing. Stack ranking sounds like a shitty system, without a doubt. But I don't think you can have a well grounded opinion until you think about the issues it's trying to address.
  - humanrebar 13y ago
    Let managers release under-performing developers to "the bench", where they can be picked up by teams that need some new blood. People on the bench are cheaper to "hire" than people from outside, so managers have an incentive to prefer picking them up. Managers don't "let" developers do anything. They have to actually have leadership skills (or enough budget) to keep their good engineers around by choice. Effective developers on poor teams find more attractive offers. Sometimes this will involve bonuses or raises. Sometimes this will involve more influence over product direction. Obviously some sort of ground rules are needed (significant others on different teams, no kickbacks).
  - yuhong 13y ago
    I think this kind of problem is what open allocation is supposed to solve.

jellicle 13y ago

Managers have a bias to like and want to keep "their" employees, because they know them, because they are friends with them. Even if Steve is objectively a poor performer, you know him; you met his wife; you saw pictures of his kids. He's a nice guy. If you fire him, you either don't get a replacement (bad) or you have to interview 20 people to find a replacement (also bad). It's hard to hire - what if you choose poorly the first time and have to do it yet again? Easier to keep Steve. Corporate problem: figure out a way to get rid of some of the Steves without making life too difficult for everyone else. Go!

bowlofpetunias 13y ago
You've just described not one, but two bad managers. Steve's manager, who doesn't have what it takes to make the hard decisions and is to lazy to do job interviews, and the manager of Steve's manager, who won't let him get a replacement if he fires Steve, but is perfectly willing to keep paying for Steve. Now you can defend Steve's manager because he's nice to Steve, but if I had a dime for every employee who's pissed at their manager for not ditching the underperformer that's dragging the team down I would be rich. Steve's manager is a textbook Bad Manager(TM). Now most of us agree that no amount of process and system can compensate for bad software developers, and that although process can help, everything stands or falls with the quality of the developers. Why don't we apply the same logic to management? Or do we simply assume manager == incompetent?
- noir_lord 13y ago
  but if I had a dime for every employee who's pissed at their manager for not ditching the underperformer that's dragging the team down I would be rich. I've worked places where every person would swear a different person was that person. This stuff is hard, We've had corporations in the modern form for nearly a 100 years and we still havent reached a general solution which implies either everyone is an idiot or this is just a messy problem :).
  - jacques_chester 13y ago
    Slackers, psychopaths etc are analogically parasites and predators. Billions of years of biological evolution and thousands of years of social evolution have not found a stable solution to this problem. I think we need to chalk this up as a Red Queen problem and stop wishing for the One True Solution.