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This is an interesting post, and I really like it. Thanks for writing it all down for us. A mostly off-topic anecdote: this makes me think of my first job, as
by ap22213 13y ago
This is an interesting post, and I really like it. Thanks for writing it all down for us.
A mostly off-topic anecdote: this makes me think of my first job, as an intern. I was working for a senior tech manager, and I remember this moment clearly. I had only been working for the company for a few weeks. We were in his office, and he received a phone call. He was on the phone for a while, and I could hear him committing to some things. After he got off the phone he explained the call to me and explained his approach to working in the corporation.
The person who had called him was a peer from another manager. The person had asked him to help with another project that they were working on. I could hear on the call that he verbally agreed to whatever it was that they were asking. He was quite agreeable. However, he told me afterward, that he had no intention of following through. He pointed to an org chart on the wall. There were several people on the chart highlighted. He proceeded to explain the rules: I would have two people that I must impress: my boss's boss, and my boss's boss's boss. To everyone else, I must be amiable and agreeable but to never actually do work. I must present myself well and to say interesting things in meetings. But, my work should be directed at helping those two people achieve their career goals while being as visible as possible in the process.
I thought this was clearly a cynical way of living. However, it was quite successful for this guy. I stayed on with the company for several years after I graduated. During that time, my mentor had been promoted to VP and then general manager. With his help I was promoted to his old position.
I don't think that these types of people are all that rare, unfortunately.
In the end, I had way too much 'moral fiber' to continue on that path. Taking his sociopathic approach always grated internal to me - it just felt wrong. I didn't have enough motivation for success to quell the feeling. I ended up abandoning management (even though I thought myself a fairly effective manager and leader), and going back to be a 'loser' at the bottom.
Luckily for me, the tech world has grown enough in the time since that demand for our loser jobs is really high. I am now able to do fun things, develop projects, feel good about the work that I do, and in the end actually make a really good living. However, most people aren't in such a situation. They must play this absurd game to get ahead.
- d23 13y ago> I thought this was clearly a cynical way of living. However, it was quite successful for this guy. I stayed on with the company for several years after I graduated. During that time, my mentor had been promoted to VP and then general manager. With his help I was promoted to his old position. Maybe I'm misunderstanding what you're saying here, but I don't see it as being all that bad. Sometimes when I go to meetings I don't know what the overall "strategy" is of my boss. I don't want to stay things that might fuck up his plans, so if a client is asking me whether we are doing X and we should be doing X, I don't immediately say "no that's a bad idea" even if I think so, because I know the value of presenting a unified front. Behind the scenes I can tell my boss that I don't think doing X is a good idea, but ultimately people tend to be wishy-washy and showing a lack of confidence or a lack of cohesion with your team is a bad thing in and of itself.
- patentoftheday 13y agowhat he got working is not a bad thing. In fact that is how people in a chain of command should act. Impressing your chain of command means, achieving what they want done quickly and efficiently which inturn means what the company's big plan needed your team to achieve. You might not know the big plans of the company's heads, but as long as you get done what are asked to do you can't go bad. Say the task other team who asked for help got for him might be of a lesser priority for the company (if it was a higher priority it would have came through his chain of command that he help these folks) he would be screwing up the company plans if he decided to help because of his misguided attempt to "help" the overall company. His only bad thing was not helping other IF he has some free time. that might have helped him reach the GM role even faster, instead of just looking good infront of other teams they would have talked about him good too.
- mathattack 13y agoA lot of this depends on the type of organization. Some organizations are very top-down, with corporate metrics and P&L flowing down a hierarchy. In firms like this, the approach your boss mentioned works very well. As long as everyone is working to make things happen up their management chain, the organization survives. The nice thing is people tend to have control over what they're accountable for. The down side is teamwork is not incentivised. Some organizations are very much about cross-organizational teamwork. The bosses have very broad spans of control, and they expect their underlings to work things out between each other. These cultures promote teamwork. The downside is accountability sometimes gets lost. What's interesting is both types of firms sound similar from the outside. Everyone talks about the importance of teamwork. Once you get inside, or see how they work, you realize it's not always that way. A couple examples... In general banks generally support the "As long as you hit your # and you make your boss look good, you're ok" mindset. Some firms (Goldman Sachs - like them or not) do find a way to cooperate, and bring the entire breadth of the firm to their customers. Others are much more of a "Every desk for themselves" mindset. Some consulting firms tend to be good about bringing the best experts from around the world to solve problems. (McKinsey for example, again like them or not) Others are very local office driven, with everyone worrying about their own P&Ls.