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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 ex

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.

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.