3 ms·

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 interv

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.
jellicle 13y ago
You call someone a bad manager because they are friends with their subordinates? So you'd only hire psychopaths? That seems fraught with peril. To be more explicit: calling a human a bad manager for liking people is like calling a tree a bad tree for growing toward the sun. Humans are designed by evolution to like each other. The only humans that don't have this bias are broken ones. So I refuse to consider someone a bad manager for not wanting to fire Steve. Good managers still don't want to fire Steve, and in fact if you had a manager who was 100% willing to fire Steve, that person would be a terrible manager in every other way. So the question remains: you have a bunch of good managers, who nevertheless show a bias toward retaining people that the corporation might want to get rid of. Design a process to overcome that bias without making life miserable for everyone... go.
- tsotha 13y ago
  >You call someone a bad manager because they are friends with their subordinates? Part of being a manager is separating your personal feelings from your professional obligations. You may think the world of Steve as a person, and you may not want to fire him, but if he can't do his job as a manager you need to let him go. And if you can't do that you shouldn't be in management.
- jacques_chester 13y ago
  In the context of management, "good" doesn't mean the same thing as "nice" or "friend". Management isn't a popularity contest.
- jfb 13y ago
  One thing that people often don't realize is that firing someone is miserable for the person doing the firing. That's a powerful disincentive to follow through, even if intellectually you know that the person needs to go. This is even worse when your friendly with the employee. This means that the most humane managers, the people you want to work for, can also find it harder to do their job than the sociopaths. I don't know how to square this circle. I'm not sure it can be done.
syllogism 13y ago
Ah but when you're dealing with humans instead of machines, having _less_ power is often a strategic advantage!

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.

jellicle 13y ago

You call someone a bad manager because they are friends with their subordinates? So you'd only hire psychopaths? That seems fraught with peril. To be more explicit: calling a human a bad manager for liking people is like calling a tree a bad tree for growing toward the sun. Humans are designed by evolution to like each other. The only humans that don't have this bias are broken ones. So I refuse to consider someone a bad manager for not wanting to fire Steve. Good managers still don't want to fire Steve, and in fact if you had a manager who was 100% willing to fire Steve, that person would be a terrible manager in every other way. So the question remains: you have a bunch of good managers, who nevertheless show a bias toward retaining people that the corporation might want to get rid of. Design a process to overcome that bias without making life miserable for everyone... go.

tsotha 13y ago
>You call someone a bad manager because they are friends with their subordinates? Part of being a manager is separating your personal feelings from your professional obligations. You may think the world of Steve as a person, and you may not want to fire him, but if he can't do his job as a manager you need to let him go. And if you can't do that you shouldn't be in management.
jacques_chester 13y ago
In the context of management, "good" doesn't mean the same thing as "nice" or "friend". Management isn't a popularity contest.
jfb 13y ago
One thing that people often don't realize is that firing someone is miserable for the person doing the firing. That's a powerful disincentive to follow through, even if intellectually you know that the person needs to go. This is even worse when your friendly with the employee. This means that the most humane managers, the people you want to work for, can also find it harder to do their job than the sociopaths. I don't know how to square this circle. I'm not sure it can be done.

syllogism 13y ago

Ah but when you're dealing with humans instead of machines, having _less_ power is often a strategic advantage!